Taking cake to the office ‘as bad as passive smoking': food watchdog chief

UK food watchdog chief warns bringing cake into work is harmful to colleagues’ health and compares the impact with being in a smoky pub.

Bringing cake into the office is as dangerous as passive smoking according to a UK expert.

Taking cake into the office is as harmful as passive smoking and encourages people to overeat, according to the UK’s top food watchdog.

Professor Susan Jebb, chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, told The Times of London that passive smoking inflicted harm on others “and exactly the same is true of food.”

In a society where two thirds of adults are now classified as overweight, Professor Jebb said willpower alone was not enough to avoid over eating when people were constantly plied by food and food advertising.

Speaking of her personal experience, she said: “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment.

“If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”

She acknowledged that comparing cake with cigarettes was not quite like with like – people can’t inhale cake crumbs unwittingly. However she insisted the damage caused by both scenarios were very similar.

“With smoking, after a very long time, we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment. But we still don’t feel like that about food,” she said.

Obesity rates are similar in Australia. According to the latest statistics, 67 per cent of adults over the age of 18 are overweight or obese, while the same is true of 25 per cent of children and adolescents aged five to 17.