Dr. Cliodhna Foley-Nolan:

I do not know who told the Chairman that tea was good or coffee was bad or whatever and that comes down to the important issue of being given information from reliable sources. It is a tangential issue to that which we are discussing but reliable sources tend to be less dramatic, vociferous and perhaps attractive in the short term such as the Government and dietician sources. Currently, people who have done brief nutritional courses comment on this, that and the other, often based on their personal experience or on non-science. There are also researchers who might do a very good piece of research and have a finding but we do not base guidelines on one piece of research. There will always be debate but things have not changed as much as the headlines, particularly in the tabloids might suggest, and if we ate what our grannies ate, we would be doing pretty well. I appreciate the perception but that is the reality.

Weight is not the only indicator of health. We are talking about weight and height so some people are taller and bigger than others, so weight is not the only indicator. However, weight in excess of the standard is related to poor health and non-communicable disease such as diabetes and cancer is the problem for our society rather than infections and so on. We are talking about the role of weight at a population level, where at an individual level one must look at the whole picture of the person.