The head of the UK’s top food regulator has claimed that bringing cake into work is just as unhealthy as “passive smoking.”
Susan Jebb, the chairman of the British Food Standards Agency, made the claims during an interview with The Times on Tuesday. Jebb, who is a member of the newspaper’s Health Commission, argued that temptation wrought by cake at work is causing people to make unhealthy choices.
“We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment,” Jebb said. “If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, okay I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”
Despite noting that smoking and eating cake are not exactly the same, Jebb, who was speaking in a personal capacity and not in her role as FSA chief, claimed that the comparison could be made because passive smoking inflicted harm on other people, and “exactly the same is true of food.”
“With smoking, after a very long time, we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment,” Jebb added. “But we still don’t feel like that about food.”
In the name of all that is holy, please make it stop. https://t.co/hXHnrna9DX pic.twitter.com/EcCphKMRGo
— Christopher Snowdon 🇺🇦 (@cjsnowdon) January 17, 2023
According to statistics, 63.7% of the UK population is overweight, and 29.5% of them are obese, while in the United States, 67.9% are overweight, and 37.3% obese. With the current figures as such, Jebb said that the “culture” around treating obesity needed to change.
Along with not bringing cake into work, Jebb argued in favour of restrictions on the advertising of unhealthy foods, claiming that the adverts were “undermining people’s free will,” and that restricting them was not some sort of “nanny state” move by the government.
“Advertising means that the businesses with the most money have the biggest influence on people’s behaviour. That’s not fair,” she added. At the moment we allow advertising for commercial gain with no health controls on it whatsoever and we’ve ended up with a complete market failure because what you get advertised is chocolate and not cauliflower.”
Reaction on social media was one of dismissal, with Jebb being referred to as an “interfering 20-stone busybody” and a “fun-suck.”
@foodgov can kiss my backside. Right little bunch of fun-sucks. Bugger of Professor Susan Jebb.
Bringing the cakes in the office tomorrow🙂— Pocket Rocket (@RocketEvilyn) January 18, 2023
Woke of The Day – "Professor Susan Jebb, the head of the UK’s top food watchdog, has compared bringing cake into the office to passive smoking, and advised employees against it"
That's the birthday Krispy Kreme's under threat.
What a load of absolute bollox.
— Steve Burnley (@steveburnley) January 18, 2023
Susan Jebb. Interfering 20-stone busybody with no willpower!
— Albags 🇬🇧🇺🇦 (@albags_2002) January 18, 2023
Robert Colville, the Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, put the blame for Jebb’s remarks on a failure of the communication of public health policy in general, as policies that are “aimed at a specific chunk of society… has to be presented as though it’s universal,” because “the people doing the nannying… don’t want to seem like they’re saying they’re ‘better’ than others.”
I bet you if I went into the offices of the Food Standards Agency, it would be full of middle-class policy experts who cycle into work and get organic veg boxes delivered.
— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) January 18, 2023
So we get a whole category of public health advice, and policies, that is actually aimed at a specific chunk of society, albeit often quite a large one, but has to be presented as though it's universal – hence, 'cake in the office is like passive smoking'.
— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) January 18, 2023