A British food watchdog chief has suggested workers should avoid bringing sugary foods such as cakes into the workplace, to avoid compromising colleagues who really shouldn’t eating junk food for the good of their own health.
Professor Susan Jebb, chairwoman of Britain’s Food Standards Agency, said it was an individual’s choice to eat sweet treats, but people could help one another in a “supportive environment“.
Speaking to The Times: “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time, and we undervalue the impact of the environment.
“If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.
“With smoking, after a very long time we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment.
“We still don’t feel like that about food.”
Professor Jebb told the newspaper that she restrictions on advertising junk food were “not about the nanny state” but would instead tackle what she described as a “complete market failure” where sweet goods take precedence over vegetables.
She added: “The businesses with the most money have the biggest influence on people’s behaviour. That’s not fair… we’ve ended up with a complete market failure, because what you get advertised is chocolate and not cauliflower.”
Successive governments have failed to introduce a long-promised ban on pre-watershed TV advertising for junk food, with Rishi Sunak’s new administration announcing in December that the anti-obesity measure will not come into force until 2025, the Press Association reported.
