I am a type 2 diabetic.

I overcome some embarrassment about my weight to say that I have lost over 30 kilos during the past 30 years.

Most importantly I have kept it off.

But self-evidently, I still need to lose more weight.

My diabetic control has been very difficult and required major lifestyle changes.

But they were not enough.

So, in the last four months I have been assisted in improving my diabetic control, and reducing my weight by a further few kilos, with the help of the Eli Lilly drug Mounjaro.

Since being diagnosed with diabetes in 1994, I have always had great support from Saint Thomas’s Hospital.

They advised me a few years ago that the typical type 2 diabetic like me in their 50s and 60s can be expected to put on an average of between 1 and 2 kilos every year.

Over a decade, or two decades, the gain of 20 – 40 kilos is likely to have catastrophic health consequences requiring significant and costly medical intervention.

So, for many people struggling with their weight and diabetic control, these new injections give great hope.

But we should not see any of the different injections becoming available as a silver bullet to achieve weight loss.

We should recognise first that they are helpful in improving diabetic control, which can be very difficult as your pancreas becomes less and less effective at producing insulin, and your sugar levels rise.

The associated weight loss with them is also helpful, but such treatment is far from being appropriate as a first resort, and some people struggle with unpleasant side effects from them.

What we should never accept is the approach towards obesity or diabetes which says little more than “pull your socks up, make yourself eat much less, but eat more fat.

This is an approach which will only lead to the obesity crisis in many of the more affluent countries becoming even greater.

It will result in great damage to the health of their populations, their health systems, and their economies.

The British Dietetic Association says that fat plays an important part in our diet and that people need a small amount of it.

But it has warned against a high intake of saturated fats, often found in processed foods, and which is associated with weight gain making diabetic control harder, causing joint problems, and causing some cancers.

The questions for us to discuss should be about how to take strong steps to help prevent people from becoming obese in the first place.

and how to help them to achieve and maintain healthier lifestyles, help them to manage their diets better, and adopt more healthy lifestyles including regular exercise.

As the excellent report from the Select Committee on Obesity, which was chaired by my Noble Friend Baroness Walmsley, suggested last week, we need a broad range of measures to tackle the obesity crisis.

I would begin with healthy, nutritious, and free school meals and stopping the proliferation of fried chicken, and burger shops in close proximity to schools.

We need, as the Select Committee says, to reduce the prevalence of marketing and advertising of unhealthy ultra processed foods, especially to children.

We need also to promote health education and physical activity in schools, and after school.

Poverty must also be recognised as a significant factor in many people having unhealthy diets and suffering health inequalities.

Poor parents struggle to provide healthy diets for their families.

Healthier foods are more than twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy foods.

One of the most important poverty relieving measures would be to scrap the two-child limit for Universal Credit or Tax Credits and I am very disappointed that this was not in yesterday’s budget.

In conclusion, we need to follow medical advice and look at evidence over time about the use of injections assisting diabetic control and weight loss.

We can’t simply let people think that they can just resort to expensive weekly injections provided by the state.

But nor can the state ignore the tremendous costs of obesity and diabetes, the resulting damage to people’s lives, and to society as a whole.

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