Britain to launch new campaign to tackle obesity, overweight

LONDON -- Public Health England (PHE) gave details Thursday of a new campaign it plans to launch early in 2018 to tackle overweight and obesity in Britain, currently number six in the world for overweight people.

PHE has trailed advance details following speculation in some British media that health chiefs were aiming to cut daily calorie levels in British diets.

The British government dietary recommendations on how many calories the population should consume in a day to maintain a healthy weight have not changed, said PHE. Women should still aim to consume 2,000 calories a day from food and drink, men should aim for 2,500.

The new campaign, due to launch in the spring of 2018, aims to help people be more aware of and reduce how many calories they consume from the 3 main meals of the day, in particular when eating on the go. There will be a simple rule of thumb to help them do this: 400:600:600 - people should aim for 400 calories from breakfast and 600 each from lunch and dinner.

PHE said over recent days coverage in the national media has incorrectly suggested PHE is changing the guidelines on how many calories people should consume in a day.

"The rule of thumb is based on 20 percent of daily energy and nutrients coming from breakfast and 30 percent from both lunch and dinner. All other snacks and drink consumed between meals should make up the difference," said PHE.

Their spokeswoman said: "We are absolutely not telling the public what to do but giving them the facts. One of these is that two thirds of us are overweight or obese and this is largely to do with eating too much. As we are the sixth most overweight nation on the planet, we believe it is a sensible thing to do."