Amid the myriad of deeply unimpressive characters in prominent positions across politics, business, and society, it’s easy to forget that many leaders are actually quite good at what they do.
Take James Timpson, chief executive of services company Timpson, for instance. It has successfully carved out a niche (almost literally, since it specialises in pop-up units within larger retailers) providing unspectacular but useful services including dry cleaning, key cutting, reheeling shoes, and phone repairs.
It has also pioneered efforts to rehabilitate offenders by employing ex-prisoners. Recognising that, Timpson was appointed UK prisons minister under Keir Starmer, a role he held for two years.
Last month, Timpson demonstrated another string to his bow when he posted on X about weight loss. “You can tell Ozempic and Mounjaro are popular,” he wrote. “We have seen a 680 per cent increase in the number of free holes in customers’ belts we’ve been doing this year.” This was expert-level communication; belt notches are more immediate than an amount of weight lost. This is a specific insight that you wouldn’t get elsewhere, and now we know Timpson offers this free service.
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Of course, an increase in belt alterations isn’t concrete evidence about the efficacy of weight management drugs, much less about their social consequences. But it did get me thinking about how we communicate about weight, particularly as a new report commissioned by the European pharmaceutical trade body EFPIA suggests that high BMIs (body mass index) could cost the Republic €3.2 billion annually. Obesity is a significant public health issue here; the Department of Health estimates that 56 per cent of us are living with overweight or obesity.
The department is developing a successor to the national obesity policy and action plan. The previous plan’s most obvious achievement was the sugar-sweetened drinks tax, especially because it drew attention to how much sugar many of us were actually drinking rather than eating.
Some of its other measures, such as mandatory labelling, were more difficult to implement, not least because their planned implementation coincided with the pandemic. Yet behavioural science shows us that the same principle that made the sugar tax effective – the surprise when food labelling shows how many calories could be hiding in a particular product – can be a powerful tool in reducing obesity.
This approach is most useful when applied to ostensibly healthy options that contain large amounts of saturated fat, sugar, or both; prepared salads slathered in dressing, granola, and smoothies are some of the worst offenders. It’s less useful at dissuading us from eating things that we don’t expect to be healthy. In those cases, it seems that we have already made our peace with its nutritional value and so are not surprised to learn that it is high in calories.
[ Science: What you should knowOpens in new window ]
Other countries have struggled with how to inform people while at the same time encouraging healthier choices. In the Netherlands this summer I was struck by the Nutri-Score labelling on many products, including paprika crisps that were rated C on a scale from A to E. Needless to say, I wanted to eat crisps and no amount of nutritional information was likely to affect that decision. But I couldn’t help but wonder what if sliced potatoes deep-fried in oil and then doused in salt and flavourings could be a mid-ranking option a food would have to do to end up in the two lower tiers. Deep-frying in lard, perhaps.
I was even more bemused when I saw that frozen chips were rated an A. This, it turns out, was because foods are rated as sold; uncooked chips are essentially sticks of peeled potato. Foods are also generally rated per 100g or 100ml, so before a recent revision to the rating algorithm this meant that olive oil, which packs close to 1,000 calories in 100g, tended to be rated D.
The revised algorithm – which gives most olive oils a B rating – is being rolled out on a voluntary basis in France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It has received fierce opposition in Italy and Greece, where it is seen as penalising the traditional Mediterranean diet, particularly olives and cheese, which are generally rated C or D. This shows the difficulty in using an algorithm to grade individual foods, rather than a diet, as healthy.
And of course it’s possible to lose weight while eating unhealthily, as professor of nutrition Mark Haub demonstrated in 2010 by shedding 12kg in two months while eating a calorie-controlled diet based on Twinkies.
Displaying nutritional information and communicating it effectively are not quite the same thing. But if the new obesity policy needs any tips, James Timpson might be able to offer some.
- Stuart Mathieson is research manager with InterTradeIreland
