Former Fat Families host Steve Miller says lockdown is to blame for a surge in child obesity in Britain.
It comes following a report suggesting tens of thousands more children are growing up obese, costing the UK an eye-watering £8.7bn.
Rates of obesity shot up by 45 per cent during 2020-21 among four to five-year-olds, while it increased 21 per cent among 10 to 11-year-olds, according to a report in The Telegraph.
The increases were seen amid school closures and repeated lockdowns.
Steve Miller blames lockdown for child obesity
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According to Miller, lockdown was detrimental for the health of young children.
“This Government did not do a cost benefit analysis when they thought about all the terrible stuff they did for our kids during lockdown”, he told GB News.]
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“The result of it is, we have put a lot of our kids potentially on death row.
“The report today says that more kids are at risk long term of diabetes, stroke and some cancers.
“I thought lockdown for our kids was horrendous. It suffocated their lives, it suffocated their learning, it suffocated their freedom.”
The broadcaster went on to admit that he holds “sympathy” for parents who were forced to deal with full time care of their children in many cases.
Steve Miller is a long term campaigner on the issue
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Steve Miller joined Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner to discuss the matter
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“These poor kids were left at home with their parents, where they developed these bad habits of eating lots of junk food”, he said.
“I do have a degree of sympathy for the parents in terms of how difficult that must have been.
“Lockdown was a disaster for children.”
Speaking to Bev Turner and Andrew Pierce, Miller went on to address what can be done in the future to clamp down on obesity in society.
He says Britain should be following Japan’s example in delivering a “blunt” message that being overweight “isn’t right”.
“We need to stop normalising obesity”, he said.
“We need to start talking about the dangers of fat more openly. We need to stop screaming the words ‘fat shaming’ every time someone uses the word ‘fat’.
“And parents do need to take more responsibility. Too many parents are not taking responsibility for their children and they allow them to eat too much junk food.
“By doing that, they are putting them on death row.”
