Layla was brilliant on Any Questions on Friday night. You can listen to the whole thing here. The bit I especially appreciated was when she spoke very frankly about her own experience when answering a question about obesity.

11 year old Olivia Metcalfe asked:

Given the the amount of media coverage relating to childhood obesity has had little or no effect on the problem, what would be the panel’s favourite option – taxation, legislation or education and why?

Layla said that as a former teacher, she’d be very proud of any of her students who came up with a question like that and then made a revelation.

You will be unsurprised to hear that I think education’s top of that list. But I will also reveal something very personal about myself. I was an obese child for most of my childhood and well into my twenties and  ended up having a bariatric operation and lost pretty much half my body weight…

…I think there are elements of this that are genetic and I will say that the largest reason why for me that this was a problem was more about mental health and wellbeing and confidence and feeling good about yourself. It wasn’t necessarily a lack of opportunity of all of those things but the point I’m trying to make is that it was a much more complex, much more personal issue than I think sometimes the debate about this has become. We’ve kind of got to the point where we say oh, just eat less, exercise more and that will solve the problem.

The fact is that there are lots and lots of different reasons why people are obese. Lots of them are out of their control and I do think that there are some things that society can help with. So I do think that things like the Sugar Tax are helpful. I don’t think we should be advertising junk food to children at all. I think there is a wider question about why we are advertising to children at all about anything.  But I do think a large part of it is that we need to look at ourselves wider in society. It’s not going to just from government that this is going to work, it needs to be a much broader issue and crucially I do think we need to bring wellbeing back into schools and make time get to know children and know them as people and help them not just about this but in all sorts of issues to help them become healthy adults and I was very lucky to have that opportunity.

I think Layla’s perspective is crucial. I have spent much of my life struggling with my weight. Many of you will already know that I lost seven stones a couple of years ago. I’ve found a bit of it in the intervening period but I’m trying to keep it under control.  have never managed to do is to lose weight when my mental health or self image has not been good. Confidence and wellbeing have always been crucial for me.  Shaming people is very likely to have the opposite effect.