It's not the Nanny State we're worried about here

We’d use a much stronger word to describe what is being insisted upon here. Perhaps those words more usually associated with jackboots and spiffy uniforms:

England heads for obesity disaster as minister frets about nanny state

The power that is being demanded is:

Until action is taken to curb the attraction and availability of ultra-processed food and foods high in fat, sugar and salt “their most serious by-product – namely obesity – will continue to rise”, he says.

The insistence is that they must be able to determine what you will be allowed to eat. A certain Blair got this right nearing a century ago:

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots.

The modern panic is entirely confected:

Obesity is a devastating public health problem harming millions of people in the UK that will never be resolved by tips on what to eat and what to avoid. Two in three adults are overweight or obese and the problem costs £100bn a year.

The £100 billion simply is not true.

In England, two in five children are leaving primary school overweight

Nor’s that true as Chris Snowdon has been valiantly pointing out these years.

But the insistences are becoming ever more shrieking all the same. How much more “Tutto nello Stato” is it possible to get than that government determines what you may eat?

There really are people out there who gain a pleasure from ordering other people around, defining what may be done, insisting upon the rules that must be obeyed. The trick of a liberal society is to have them running the bridge clubs not the government. A trick we’re clearly failing to perform currently. Perhaps we should get better at it?