Is the war on obesity also a war on children?

One of the many obesity-related questions which remains unanswered is, perhaps, the biggest question of all: what do we do about it? The reason that this is a difficult question is not just that anti-obesity programmes tend not to work, it is also because all social policies designed to affect lots of people inevitably have unintended consequences. In other words, the good intentions of those who want to fight a ‘war on obesity’ may often be cold comfort for people, especially children, who are the target of intervention. The devil, as ever, will be in the detail. So, as the ‘war on obesity’ gathers momentum, it behoves at least some of us to ask how children are being affected by this new war and how are they likely to be affected in the future. This article is an early dispatch from the war on obesity’s emerging front lines.