Nanny tells you....

The Food Standards Agency (FSA), not to be confused with the Financial services Authority (FSA), is intending to order manufacturers of chocolates and snacks to produce their products in smaller sizes. This is in an effort to reduce calorie and fat intake among children, in the fight against obesity.

So, for instance, 49 gramme chocolate bars must also be produced in 40 gramme size, and 58 gramme bars will be reduced in size to 50 gramme. Fizzy drinks of 330 ml must be reduced to 250 ml.

There will be protests. Re-tooling and production costs will rise. It is likely that prices will not fall by the same amount, thus contributing to inflation., and if prices do fall will some children eat two bars instead of one? Many of us are concerned that a non-elected body is trying to decide our patterns of consumption by fiat. They have not done this with equally dangerous products for adults, - alcohol for instance, but merely attached a high tax, or warning.

There are alternatives - taxation for instance. I am surprised that a cash-starved government has not already thought of this one.

Or why not attach traffic light or other messages of disparagement and discouragement? Have they given up on education, of parents or children, with lurid pictures of diseased teeth or fat children unable to run?