The government’s latest sugar tax has sparked fierce debate about whether hiking up the price of unhealthy foods is a fair or effective way to tackle obesity. 

But one thing those at loggerheads would probably all agree on is that recent figures on obesity and diabetes are alarming. 

In the year leading into the pandemic, over one million people in the UK were admitted to hospital for obesity-related treatments, the highest number on record. The number of people living with obesity in England has almost doubled in the past 20 years to over 13 million.Â