Recently the House of Commons saw the Third Reading of the Wellness Gym and Wellbeing Programme Bill - B1488. As stated by its long title, this bill’s purpose is to “Introduce state-ran gym facilities, and initiate the introduction of a gym programme designed to promote social and emotional wellbeing as its primary motivating factor.” While it may seem very hard to find fault in such legislation, as the saying goes “the path to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Such good intentions can be found in the opening speech provided to Hansard. Quoting here directly from Hansard

Not only the cost of living crisis justifies removing barriers for physical exercise however, since the United Kingdom is going through something that has been often described as an „obesity crisis“: up to 68% of all British citizens are either considered to be either clinically overweight or obese. According to the CDC, the main factors contributing to obesity are nutrition and a lack of physical activity. We already established that about ⅔ of Brits also exercise on a regular basis, but the remaining 33% can be assumed to make up a significant amount among the British adults that are considered clinically obese or overweight.

Now while it is true this has been described as an “obesity crisis” or an “obesity epidemic” by some, it does mean such a crisis exists simply as a result of a belief. In fact, there is a widespread awareness that a crisis does not exist.

Furthermore, one of the issues regarding the reasoning behind this bill is the way it flattens the context regarding obesity. While it may be true that 68% of British citizens are either overweight or obese, conflating the two groups together is not beneficial when discussing health outcomes. A 2005 study, Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity, challenges the belief that being overweight results in heightened health risk factors. Rather than finding out that being overweight shows an increased health risk factor over a normal weight category and obese an increased factor over overweight, the study finds that being overweight is healthier than being a normal weight. Furthermore, it shows an increased risk of mortality for those underweight, while still being less than the factor for those in the obese category. In the year 2000, we find that 111,909 excess deaths were associated with obesity. And of those, 73.33% were associated with those at a ≥35 BMI. In contrast, those at overweight, that is at a BMI of 25 to <30, there was a reduction of 86,094 excess deaths compared to the normal weight category.

Briefly looking at specifically England, we find that 25.9% of adults are obese and 37.9% are overweight but not obese. While one could have concerns about 25.9% of adults, one must admit that 25.9% sounds a lot less scary and less of a supposed “crisis” than the intimidating number of 68%. Rather than being a daunting number, it should be shown that 37.9% of British citizens are at less of a risk of morality than the 32.2% who are either underweight or at a normal weight category.

One must also draw back to Hansard and look at the claim that the “the main factors contributing to obesity are nutrition and a lack of physical activity.” It may be true that the most controllable factors are nutrition and physical activity. However, that does not mean they are the main factors. Paul F. Campos, author of The Obesity Myth, suggests that

the widely accepted evidence that genetic differences account for 50 to 80 percent of the variation in fatness within a population.

While this bill purports to not blame overweight or obese people for their size and rather provide them with non-judgmental and accessible to populations which may be left behind, such as disabled individuals, it still creates a positive-negative framework which blames individuals for factors outside their control. Where the thrust behind such a policy is simultaneously saying it supports #BodyPositivity while also putting all the responsibility on the individual.

I do not begrudge the authors of this bill on the provisions of the proposed bill. If passed, I do believe that it can do a lot of good, especially for minority populations. However, one must also analyse why such narratives behind the bill exists. Discrimination and bias against size is prevalent in our society, however we should not allow it to affect policy making and legislation.

This is part 1 of a multi-part series regarding obesity and weight

Siobhan Tierney is a freelance journalist. She can be found on twitter at @siobhantierney