Bringing cake to office as harmful as passive smoking, says chair of Food Standards Agency

Bringing cake into the office is as harmful as passive smoking, the chair of the UK's food watchdog has suggested.

Professor Susan Jebb, the Food Standards Agency chairwoman, said workers should think twice before bringing unhealthy treats into the workplace which might tempt colleagues.

She told The Times: "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 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 added: "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.

"We still don't feel like that about food."

The Food Standards Agency stressed that her views were made in a personal capacity and did not reflect FSA policy or the view of its board.

Prof Jebb, a professor of diet and population health at the University of Oxford, said she was also frustrated by delays in introducing a television watershed for junk food advertising.

She said the advertisements are "undermining people's free will" and insisted restrictions were "not about the nanny state".

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Prof Jebb added: "Advertising means that the businesses with the most money have the biggest influence on people's behaviour. That's not fair.

"At the moment we allow advertising for commercial gain with no health controls on it whatsoever and we've ended up with a complete market failure because what you get advertised is chocolate and not cauliflower."

But a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said "personal choice should be baked into" the government's approach to obesity.

"We want to encourage healthy lifestyles and are taking action to tackle obesity, which has cost the NHS £6bn annually.

"However, the way to deal with this issue is not to stop people from occasionally bringing in treats for their co-workers."

Mr Sunak's press secretary added that he is "very partial to a piece of cake" and mostly enjoys carrot and red velvet cake.

A quarter of British adults are obese - a figure that has doubled in the past 30 years.

Steve Barclay, the health secretary, last month delayed plans set out by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister to end "buy one get one free" deals on unhealthy food and ban junk food advertising on television before 9pm.

Mr Barclay pushed implementation to 2025, which will be after the next election.