This Week in the Decline of the British Empire: Passive Overeating?

Remember how passive smoke inhalation (second-hand smoke) kills billions each year? Me neither. But while the exact effects are in dispute, there's no denying that the theory behind the delivery system is sound: someone smoking near you exhales smoke and you inhale it.

Does the same thing work for eating? Well, obviously not. I mean, what kind of...

The journal carries four new research papers by academics in the UK, US and Australia on what is termed "the global obesity pandemic", charting its causes, implications, likely progression and the ways it could be reversed...

Swinburn's paper comes up with a clear primary culprit: a powerful global food industry "which is producing more processed, affordable, and effectively-marketed food than ever before".

He said an "increased supply of cheap, palatable, energy-dense foods", coupled with better distribution and marketing, had led to "passive overconsumption".

The nanny-statism going on in the UK right now makes the American version look like child neglect. British politicians and social scientists need to sit down, light up, and have a good long listen to The Wall.

(Guardian link via NRO)