Daniel Hannan: Prejudice against fat people is a snobbery of the Left

The underlying motive for this tradition, though now often dressed up in quasi-medical language, is as much aesthetic as sanitary.

Mark Tovey: The true cost of obesity is less than half the £6 billion that the Government claims

The relief that obese people afford public services by dying early is almost never acknowledged in the health economics literature.

Maggie Throup: The Government’s childhood obesity plan is a missed opportunity

It doesn’t read like a strategy at all, and I’m doubtful that it will achieve anything.

Nicola Blackwood: Our new obesity strategy isn’t nanny state, it’s a sensible plan to make children healthier

This is about encouraging industry to reduce sugar content, improve school sport and empower parents, not abolish individual responsibility.

Luke Stubbs: The soft drinks tax is all fizz and no substance

Now that Osborne has gone, so too should this un-conservative levy.

Don’t deny the fat their fair share of the blame

Blame is an essential part of individual responsibility. Absolving overweight citizens of their agency enables poor behaviour – and mandates disabling legislation.

Chris Snowdon: Forcing us to be healthy costs the Government money

By compelling us to extend our lives, the public health lobby is priming the real time bomb beneath the NHS: our ageing population.

A welfare system that buys drink for alcoholics, drugs for addicts and sweets for the obese is cruel, not compassionate

It is obscene that people have been left in limbo and handed cash rather than given help for their problems.

Graeme Archer: Fat chance

There is only one way to lose weight, and I’ll reveal the secret to you.

Why should public health force us to maximise our lifespans?

Public health builds mechanisms for limitless state interference in our lives but with no clear case for why living longer justifies overriding personal freedom.

Julia Manning & Matt James: How to slim down the Fat Man of Europe

The Coalition’s Responsibility Deal needs to be transformed into a legislative framework which is phased in over the next five to ten years.

Should Red Ed have gone for a sugar tax instead?

The NHS is threatened by obesity, not mansions.

Cllr Chris Whitehouse: Four ways to help reduce obesity

It’s time that Ministers stopped talking about obesity and started instead using the public health levers that remain under their control to deliver action and results.

There is nothing inevitable about the obesity epidemic

America – world famous for its adipose adults and chubby children – appears to have turned a corner in respect to its youngest citizens

Henry Hill: Alliance councillors attacked in their home quit politics

Also: Welsh patients told to ‘gain weight’ to receive anti-obesity surgery; and NI deadlock on benefit reform.