- Celebrity chef has called on London mayor to ban junk food adverts on the Tube
- He says methods that have got through to the middle class won’t help the poor
- Oliver cited the fact that poor children are twice as likely to be obese as the rich
- But a campaigner has branded his ‘patronising’ remarks borderline offensive
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has claimed obese poor people eat ‘c***’ because they think in a ‘different gear’.
The campaigner branded lectures about healthy food middle-class and said such methods will not help the disadvantaged.
He wants London mayor Sadiq Khan to ban junk food advertisements on the Underground but rubbished claims he wanted a ‘nanny state’.
Jamie Oliver’s remarks that poor and obese people think in a different gear were branded borderline offensive
Oliver told The Times that the unfit and impoverished should not be regarded as lacking willpower.
Addressing the fact that poor children are doubly at risk of obesity as their rich counterparts, Oliver said the government should not assume healthy-eating advice that worked on the middle classes would penetrate the working class.
‘What you see is parents who aren’t even thinking about five fruit and veg a day, they’re thinking about enough food for the day,’ he said.
‘Willpower is a very unique personal thing . . . We can’t judge our equivalent of logic on theirs because they’re in a different gear, almost in a different country.’
He said people were naturally inclined to buy poor-quality food if its is discounted and raised concerns that some consumers were only able to buy and eat ‘c***’.
The celebrity chef said it was natural for poor people to opt for poor-quality food if it was the cheapest available
Lifestyle economics head at the Institute of Economic Affairs Christopher Snowdon said ‘the anti-obesity crusade is largely a patronising upper middle-class reform movement’.
He accused celebrity chefs of being attracted to healthy eating movements because of the ‘food snobbery involved’, adding it bordered on offensive to claim the disadvantaged have no willpower.
Oliver was speaking at the launch of an anti-obesity report compiled by the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.