HOW THESE GUYS HATE ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THEIR EVER-INCREASING LIFESPANS

Fast foods, processed snacks and sugary drinks can cause as much ill health as cigarettes, and should be taxed like tobacco and banned from schools and public institutions, obesity experts say. In the strongest call yet for governments to regulate the powerful food industry, Paul Zimmet, professor of diabetes at Monash University, has joined Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity TaskForce in London, to demand tough economic policies to control the availability of low-quality foods packed with fat, salt and sugar.

In an article published today, they say it is time to acknowledge the failure of policies of promoting exercise and healthy eating to control Australia's rapidly expanding waistline. "This epidemic is guaranteed to continue unless we accept that the decades-long reliance on health promotion and intense media coverage of obesity have had virtually no effect," they write in The Medical Journal of Australia. They advocate strict physical activity rules for school students, a ban on all heavily processed fast foods and snacks from public schools and hospitals, unambiguous colour-coded labels to denote nutritional quality, taxation for unhealthy products balanced with subsidies for fresh foods, and prohibition of all food marketing aimed at children.

With these measures in place, the obesity crisis could move into reverse within just one year, the doctors say. At least one in four children is now overweight and at risk of health problems, while the figure is higher for adults. Professor Zimmet says despite the Federal Government's continuing refusal to restrict television advertising to children, a positive move was a $500 million commitment from the Council of Australian Governments for health promotion and disease prevention, which would fund anti-obesity initiatives.

The federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, said the Government would not consider taxing processed foods. "It is unrealistic to expect Government to supervise every meal time. In the end, individuals are responsible for what goes into their mouths," he said. Dick Wells, the chief executive of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, declined to comment on the doctors' ideas.

Jeff Richardson, foundation director of the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University, said there was a strong case for forceful intervention through the tax system. Food marketing was so manipulative that a central free-market principal - that people would act in their own best interests - no longer applied in relation to food consumption.

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