“We know that being just a bit overweight reduces your life expectancy by about three years, and being morbidly obese reduces it by 10 years,” says Wiseman.
“But we also know that people who are overweight or obese require social care support earlier, so are less likely to reach retirement age without having a life-limiting illness. And that obviously has a knock-on effect in terms of economic activity.”
Henry Dimbleby, former government health adviser and founder of the Leon chain, told The Telegraph earlier this year that tackling obesity would be key to fixing the country’s stagnant productivity.
“We’ve got a situation where 2.8m people are out of work for four major conditions: muscular skeletal problems, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and mental health, three of which are directly caused by food,” he said.
Labour has vowed to improve the nation’s health since taking power, but the historic precedent is poor. Every government since 1992 has pledged to reduce obesity to no avail, with rates rising steadily for the last three decades.
Dr Zaher Toumi, a specialist obesity doctor who treats patients in Newcastle and Sunderland, says the desire to be seen as making progress on the critical issue can get in the way of addressing its true complexity.
“It is the ‘easy’ way for people, researchers [and] government agencies to try to simplify obesity by attributing it to ‘simple’ issues like poverty, junk food outlets, etc,” says Dr Toumi.
“Individual dieting isn’t working,” adds Lauren Bowes Byatt, deputy director of healthy life at Nesta, an agency that backs health-focused initiatives.
“It’s unlikely that in the time that obesity has doubled that our willpower got a bit worse.”
Bowes Byatt, who grew up in Newcastle, says being “bombarded with advertising and local takeaways” was common. Deprivation also plays a role.
“We did research in our most deprived community in Gateshead, where we embedded a researcher with a community project for a year to work alongside the families on that estate and understand the issues for them,” says Wiseman.
“What they were saying was, ‘we don’t want our kids to be fat like us, but we’re worried about our kids going to bed hungry’.
“It’s easier to buy a big bag of chips and have kids filled up so that they don’t go to bed hungry than worrying about the nutritional content.”
Problems were only exacerbated by the pandemic and lockdowns, she says, with swathes of people laid off or placed on furlough, depriving them of daily activity and social interaction.
“When the easiest thing for you to feed your kids is something that comes out of the deep fat fryer that is beige, processed, high in fat, salt and sugar, that’s not equitable, that’s not fair, and you don’t get that in high-income areas,” adds Lake.
It is likely Newcastle and Gateshead will not be the last cities to implement bans like this. Sadiq Khan launched his own clampdown on junk food in 2017, while Lake says she is aware of numerous other local authorities considering similar planning shake-ups.