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24 January 2008 / Jennifer James
Issue: 7305 / Categories: Opinion , Public , Human rights , Community care
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The obesity time bomb

Health

The Insider has followed with interest the recent news stories about the state of the nation’s waistlines. We are apparently on the way to becoming the fat man of Europe and considering that would put us ahead of countries like France and Italy, where the natives have a reputation for enjoying their food and drink—and have food and drink worth enjoying—or the Germans, who basically eat animal fat washed down with carbohydrates in an alcohol suspension, that is saying something.

 

The law as a profession does tend to attract its fair share of corpulent practitioners, to say nothing of those who join the profession all svelte and lithe and end up after a few short years of dinners in the Inn—or à deux with the hottie who fixes the photocopier—and several seasons of binge drinking that would put Robert Newton to shame, resembling nothing so much as the Goodyear Blimp. Indeed, I have sat at table in Middle Temple alongside at least one barrister of such heroic proportions

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Fresh proposals to criminalise ‘nudification’ apps, prioritise cyberflashing and non-consensual intimate images, and even ban under-16s from social media have reignited debate over whether the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is fit for purpose. Writing in NLJ this week, Alexander Brown, head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alexandra Webster, managing associate, Simmons & Simmons, caution against reactive law-making that could undermine the Act’s ‘risk-based and outcomes-focused’ design
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