Boris Johnson backs calls for 'summer of weight loss' amid anti-obesity drive

Prime minister says he has lost more than a stone

The PM says he has managed to lose weight (Getty)

Boris Johnson has suggested Britons should lose weight this summer as the NHS prepares for a possible second wave of Covid-19 later this year.

“Losing weight is, frankly, one of the ways that you can reduce your own risks,” the prime minister said.

He added that he was “not normally a believer in annoying ... type of politics”.

But he had himself lost weight since being admitted to intensive care with coronavirus, he said.

As he encouraged other people to shed the pounds, he said: “I’m on the way, I’ve lost about a stone and a bit.

“Primarily by eating less, but also by a lot of exercise.”

Ministers are expected to unveil plans to curb the UK’s obesity problem shortly.

Proposals under consideration include a ban on junk food adverts before the 9pm watershed, reports suggest.

Tam Fry, the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said Mr Johnson’s time in hospital had focused public attention on the issue.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think his experience in St Thomas’s Hospital was a real game-changer, and I believe that this was the reason why he has suddenly become so involved in curing obesity.

“Because he knows full well that his weight was a great problem when they were coming to treat him.”

Care minister Helen Whately warned obesity is “one of the greatest if not the greatest health challenge we face as a country”.

She told BBC Breakfast that with half of adults overweight and one in five children leaving primary school obese the country faced a “whole host of health challenges”.

“Very particularly with Covid you’re at greater risk of getting Covid, greater risk of complications, greater risk – very sadly – of dying from Covid, if you are overweight,” she added.