Professor Tim Spector, the geneticist, microbiome expert and co-founder of the personalised nutrition company Zoe, finds the thought of Britain trying to jab its way out of an obesity crisis deeply disturbing.
Putting millions of people on weight-loss injections is a “horribly flawed” plan, he says, that would do little to lift people out of the junk food trap that is making them sick in the first place.
“It’s the ultimate in cynical reductionism,” he says. “It’s a ‘let them eat cake’ moment, really. Let the poor people eat Ozempic and we’ll just keep giving them food that makes them obese and mentally unwell. That just seems morally wrong.”
Instead of pinning the country’s future hopes on Ozempic, Spector is calling for Sir Keir Starmer’s new government to “be brave” and take on the companies that, he argues, are selling British people food that is killing them. “To deal with the problem of obesity and not the cause seems very reckless because you’re just producing more and more future customers of this weight-loss drug.”
The 65-year-old, a professor of epidemiology at King’s College London, was born into a medical family and started out as a hospital doctor before moving into genetic research. During the past decade he has pivoted his career to become arguably the UK’s leading public figure in nutrition.
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Spector has led the crusade against ultra-processed foods, turning the gut microbiome from a niche scientific research area into a mainstream health slogan. Through his Zoe app, podcast and bestselling books, millions of people receive Spector’s brand of nutrition advice, which revolves around the doctrine of eating 30 different plants a week.
He may have a cult-like following among the health-conscious middle classes — who will happily pay £300 for an initial Zoe testing kit — but Spector is aware that on a national level he is fighting a losing battle. Two in three adults are obese or overweight, in a crisis that is costing Britain an estimated £98 billion a year.
• I was given a powerful weight-loss jab prescription — with few checks
Spector is adamant that good nutrition should not be the preserve of those who can afford it: he is calling for politicians to introduce radical policies to overhaul a food system that has left the UK the “sick man of Europe”. As a start, he wants a ban on junk food advertising, an expansion of the sugar tax and measures to treat ultra-processed foods like tobacco.
What would his message be to Starmer and the new health secretary Wes Streeting? “This is a big moment and I think history will look back at any government that failed to act,” he says. “I think Labour could achieve an enormous amount if they really wanted to. They could dramatically change this country’s health and wealth.” To do so, however, the party must be prepared to “upset a few people and the big food companies”.
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Labour has promised to ban junk food adverts to children but has shied away from committing to implementing tougher regulations on the industry. Spector is exasperated over the lack of political ambition on obesity. “I’ve not seen anything in any of the election manifestos that takes into account the full scale of the current disaster.”
Obesity is driving a tide of chronic illness including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression, which is threatening to bankrupt the NHS. Nearly three million workers are signed off with long-term health problems.
“We have a lack of workers and a crumbling system and an overloaded health service. And we’re just doing nothing about it,” Spector says. “Politicians are constantly on about other issues, which are pretty trivial in comparison — the number of boats crossing the Channel or something. It’s totally out of proportion compared with the number of people dying every day or becoming disabled or mentally ill because of diet-related illness.”
Food policy, he argues, is fundamental to every key problem facing Britain — from the NHS to economic growth to immigration. “You can’t get efficiency in the workplace if everyone’s sick. If their mental health is suffering, and you have diabetes and obesity and arthritis and heart disease, that workforce is never going to be efficient. Immigration is needed to fill these spare slots in the workforce. But if we get people back to work, we wouldn’t need as much foreign labour.”
Meanwhile the billions of pounds spent on obesity-related diseases each year swallows up a huge chunk of the NHS budget. “The only people benefiting are the big food companies that are making an estimated £30 billion a year profit from our inaction.”
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If Spector has one guiding dietary principle, it is that ultra-processed foods are “clearly dangerous for health”. These products include most breakfast cereals, takeaway burgers, biscuits, sweets and packaged ready meals. Ultra-processed foods can be broadly defined as those that would be impossible to make in a home kitchen. They are usually packed with additives and make up 55 per cent of the typical British diet.
Research has linked ultra-processed foods to 32 harmful outcomes including death, depression and diabetes. Spector believes this is largely because of their impact on the microbiome — a community of trillions of bacteria living in the gut that helps to control the immune system and plays a crucial role in mental health.
Spector is furious with the Conservative government for failing to act on this research. Ministers should “start treating ultra-processed food like cigarettes”, he says, and put health warnings on packaging. The professor wants the UK to follow the lead of countries including France, Canada and Brazil, which have issued guidelines urging citizens to cut down on ultra-processed foods.
“The UK is standing alone — as one of the few countries that prides itself on preventive medicine — by refusing to say that these things are likely to be harmful for health. They’re dragging their feet as long as possible.”
• Fake Ozempic weight-loss injection could be deadly, warns WHO
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The issue of ultra-processed foods is controversial. Some scientists argue that Spector, along with colleagues such as Chris van Tulleken, the author of the bestselling book Ultra-Processed People, have demonised staple food items without sufficient evidence.
Spector has little time for this criticism. He compares the debate over ultra-processed food to the to-ing and fro-ing in the 1990s over whether passive smoking is harmful, arguing that the “precautionary principle” must be applied to protect the public.
When it comes to his diet, Spector cannot be accused of hypocrisy. In person, he is slim, super fit and extremely tanned. Like his close friend Michael Mosley, who died last month, he closely follows his own health advice. Spector recently gave up milk to try to improve his gut health (he now only eats fermented dairy products such as kefir and yoghurt).
Spector gets most riled up over the “dangerous” way food companies advertise unhealthy foods, particularly to children. “It’s up to us, as a society, to stop companies who will willingly lie to the consumer about their food being ‘healthy’. How are parents meant to walk into a shop and know what’s good for their family and what isn’t when they’re being fooled by false advertising on nearly every product they pick up?”
Another “easy” policy, he says, would be to extend the sugar tax that was introduced by the Conservative chancellor George Osborne. It only applies to fizzy drinks but could be widened to milkshakes and fruit juices. Spector also finds it maddening that public institutions including hospitals, schools and prisons serve so much ultra-processed food. He wants them to set an example by “encouraging whole foods, real foods that increase plants and fibre. So more is produced by local farmers and less by vast factories.”
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Every government since 1992 has identified obesity as a major problem, but since then obesity rates have doubled. In total there have been 14 major anti-obesity strategies during the past three decades, all containing hundreds of policies. The latest iteration came in 2020, when Boris Johnson had a Damascene conversion to the cause after nearly dying of Covid-19, which he blamed on his weight. But like other obesity strategies, the former prime minister’s agenda quickly fell by the wayside. Policies, including the national food strategy drawn up by the restaurateur Henry Dimbleby, were watered down or scrapped by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak after opposition from the food industry and an outcry over “nanny-statism”.
Given all these false dawns, Spector admits that he has lost faith in politicians of all shades. One solution, he says, would be to take health “out of the political game” and have it run by an independent cross-party group with a long-term focus. “A bit like when the Bank of England went independent. I would make improving the diet a cornerstone of health policy.”
The political debate over obesity has been upended by the arrival of weight-loss injections. Since last year Wegovy, known as Ozempic for the treatment of diabetes, has been available on the NHS to treat obesity.
Some in Whitehall have suggested that the medication can get millions of people back to work, trimming the nation’s waistlines and the benefits bill.
But the idea they represent a silver bullet is increasingly being thrown into doubt. For some patients, side-effects are intolerable and dangerous: this week, a Harvard study was published suggesting the drug can cause a rare eye disease that leads to sudden blindness. Spector warns that relying on appetite-suppressing drugs without addressing the underlying causes of obesity is a dangerous route.
“I’m not against the drug. I think we have so many obese individuals in this country that we desperately need it, but as the only future policy it’s horribly flawed,” he says. He would still “absolutely” recommend weight-loss drugs to a patient who was severely obese. Indeed, taking Ozempic could provide a key window of opportunity for people to reset their attitude to food. “This is going to be part of the future whether we like it or not. I think it’s a perfect moment for these people — when their hunger signals are turned off [by the drugs] — to be retrained to eat in a healthy way, rather than just have less of the same junk food.”
One consequence of weight-loss drugs has been the demise of traditional slimming clubs, which “never really worked”, Spector says wryly. This year the share price of WeightWatchers plummeted after Oprah Winfrey — one of many celebrity Ozempic converts — quit the board.
Spector has long argued that calorie counting is “complete nonsense” and a waste of time. As he sees it, the only long-term solution is to radically improve the quality of food on our plates, something that will be possible only through government intervention. If that happens, Spector dreams of a future in which, much like WeightWatchers now, Ozempic will become obsolete.
“All you’re doing with this drug is reducing hunger. You’re not improving food choices. Ultra-processed food is designed to increase hunger. Wouldn’t it be better to just give people food that doesn’t artificially increase hunger so they wouldn’t need the drugs?”
Timothy David Spector
Curriculum vitae
Born July 14, 1958, in north London.
Education University College School, London; the Medical College of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Career After qualifying as a doctor he trained as a consultant rheumatologist at St Thomas’ Hospital; moved into academic research in 1993 and co-founded the UK Twins registry of 11,000 twins at King’s College London, where he was appointed professor of genetic epidemiology; co-founded the company Zoe Nutrition in 2017.
Family Lives in London with his wife, Veronique Bataille, a consultant dermatologist. They have two children.
Quick fire
Kefir or kombucha? Kefir for breakfast, kombucha for fun
McDonald’s or Burger King? Neither. Itsu if I had to go to a high street chain
Harry Kane or Andy Murray? Harry Kane
Podcasts or radio? Podcasts (naturally the Zoe Science & Nutrition podcast)
Trump or Biden? Neither
Red wine or white wine? Red wine, it’s packed full of polyphenols
Taylor Swift or Coldplay? Coldplay
Walking or weightlifting? Walking, it’s much more sociable
