The National Health Service is spending £1.7billion a year treating illnesses connected with obesity, according to media reports this week.
It is claimed that a new National Audit Office report, as yet unpublished, has found that 20 per cent of English women and 17 per cent of men are obese, and that money spent on treating conditions associated with excess weight, including diabetes and heart disease, exceeds that spent on diseases related to smoking. The NAO declined to comment on the detail of its report, which it said would be published next year.