School playing fields have continued to be flogged off under Labour despite its vigorous opposition to the practice under the Tories. And "flexible" working practices place huge pressure on those parents trying to find the time for regular freshly cooked meals to be eaten Piers Mostyn Childhood obesity in Britain has risen dramatically under New Labour. A department of health report published in August showed a rise of almost 10 per cent since 1995. On present trends 20% of children (around one million) will be hit by 2010.
These are the worst statistics in Europe, with many countries (including France) showing less than half Britain's rate. With a range of serious medical implications for the obese and overweightincluding a greater susceptibility to diabetes - a generation of young people is being condemned to a lifetime of ill
Although Tony Blair has made tackling the problem a priority in his departing policy vision for Britain's future, the issue has been forced upon him following celebrity cook Jamie Oliver's TV campaign against the outrageously poor quality of school dinners.
Blair may be motivated by may be more than a concern for Labour's electoral base on this occasion. Growing obesity levels are posing a direct threat to army recruitment. So many potential soldiers are by families together. overweight that the military is having to relax its criteria and extend training - at a time of severe shortages in the armed forces and military overstretch in Afghanistan and
There was a similar panic over poor nutrition among the teenage working class recruits to the British army at the time of the Boer war 100 years ago. This engendered a crisis of confidence at a time of inter-imperialist competition in the run up to World War One. Mothers were blamed, but played a role in germinating the welfare state.
Three and a half decades ago, Tory education minister Margaret Thatcher abolished free school milk for all school children. Over two decades ago Tories scrapped the legal requirement of a minimum nutritional standard for school meals.
Only now - nine years into a Labour government - has Blair finally been forced to reinstitute some element of mandatory nutritional standards, despite placing the blame squarely on parents' shoulders.
School meals have for some time been largely "outsourced", often as part of privatisation or private finance initiative packages. meals provision is often locked into contracts as long as 25 years. So the government has been forced to pump hundreds of extra millions into the service.
Meanwhile guidelines from the government health watchdog (NICE) on tackling the problem medically - recommend anti-obesity drugs and stomach-stapling for children.
A Downing Street policy review talks of a new "contract" between citizen and state; setting out what individuals must do in return for their entitlement to NHS, education and other state service provision. patient who is overweight may be denied medical servIces, nor that government responsibility for the issue is being focussed by Blair on "raising awareness of the importance of healthy lifestyle".
This ignores the universally acknowledged direct correlation between poverty and public health, in particular between obesity and economic deprivation.
It is not, as public health minister Caroline Flint suggests, largely a "complex, cultural problem requiring 21st century solutions"
Its growth is directly proportional to that of neo-liberal capitalist economics - hence its particular prevalence in the USA and Britain.
One of the less publicised NICE proposals was that schools address the provision of recreational spaces. School playing fields have continued
be flogged off under Labour despite its vigorous opposition to the practice under the Tories.
And "flexible" working practices - in particular Britain's long working hours - championed by Blair, combine with an acute housing shortage to place huge pressure on those trying to find the time and space for regular freshly cooked meals eaten by families together.
Lack of money, pressure of time and rising prices expose have been so weak that Children's Commissioner, Sir Albert Aynsley-Green has been forced to denounce them, saying "children have been sold out yet again to the interests of profit".
Consumers' organisation Which has accused leading food companies of glaring inconsistencies between their official policies and a reality of "viral marketing", involving the internet, emails and text messages, designed through underhand tactics to "go behind parents' backs".
The government's response is designed to blame the most vulnerable - working class children - whilst treating only the symptoms.
Only a radical transformation of the manufacture and distribution of food which involves taking it out of the hands of the profit-making conglomerates and placing it under the control of the community, can begin to reverse this disturbing trend.
A plethora of measures: publicly financed and accountable local schools, providing free and universal school meals, the revitalisation of public spaces and playgrounds, investment in public transport and the ending the closure of local swimming pools and recreational centres would go a long way making preventative health a meaningful term.
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Piers Mostyn