Last fall, the United Kingdom’s outgoing Chief Medical Officer, Sally Davies, published a report on childhood obesity. Among her proposals for “bold action” were measures to “allow children to grow up free from marketing signals and incentives to consume unhealthy food and drinks,” including the suggestion that the government “prohibit eating and drinking on urban public transport, except fresh water, breastfeeding and for medical conditions.” Such intrusiveness into everyday life, and its tenuous justification—that adults must not set a bad example for children by, say, snacking on the go—made the announcement a watershed in the growing British habit of taxing, banning, and tut-tutting an ever-longer list of perfectly ordinary activities.
In 2016, the government announced a nationwide tax on sugary soft drinks. London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has banned junk-food advertising on public transport in the capital. (Even an ad for organic grocery delivery raised objections because the food pictured included jam, butter, and bacon.) In one of her last acts as prime minister last summer, Theresa May published a paper suggesting higher taxes on milkshakes and a ban on energy-drink purchases by children, and setting a goal for a smoke-free Britain by 2030—surely a target that cannot be met without prohibition. This comes on top of extensive sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. The U.K. ranked fourth on 2019’s Nanny State Index, a listing of the “worst places in the EU to eat, drink, smoke and vape,” compiled by Epicenter, a think tank.
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