Minister slams Jamie Oliver’s approach to healthy eating

Health secretary Andrew Lansley has said TV chef Jamie Oliver’s approach to tackling health issues such as obesity and smoking will not work and instead has said people need to take responsibility for their own health.

Mr Lansley has said it is time to stop nagging people to lead healthier lives as he believes this to be a counterproductive procedure which undermines the results the government are trying to achieve.

Jamie Oliver has said the remarks of the health secretary were inaccurate and an insult to all dinner ladies and parents who have worked hard.

“I’m not encouraged by the news that the new health minister has summed up 8 years of hard work in a few lines for the sake of a headline. Any problems that we’ve been having in school meals is more often than not down to continuing lack of funds for training of school catering staff.” said Oliver.

President of the UK Faculty of Public Health, Professor Alan Maryon-Davis has said the health secretary’s comments regarding Jamie Oliver’s campaign were unfair.

“I find it deeply distressing. I think what Jamie Oliver did was excellent. The whole thing managed to improve school meals and pushed the government into investing more money into them.

“Of course, we could probably do a little less nagging, but you still need to nudge people. It is about creating the right environment so healthy choices are easier to take as well as encouraging them to change their behaviour.”

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Healthy Eating, Maintaining a healthy weight, Malnutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.