In recent years, countless playing fields have been sold off, competitive sports have been frowned upon as being non-PC, well over a quarter of schools have lost kitchens and skilled cooks, school meals have had to operate on one of the tightest budgets in the Western world – as are hospitals and care homes – so is it any wonder that obesity is a rising problem?

Because of a lack of funding, schools and hospitals have to choose the cheapest foods, which are usually high in carbohydrate and nutritionally unbalanced; because schools have fewer playing fields and because the lack of competitive games has led to more passive activities, young people are not getting the exercise they used to.

Yet the government complains that obesity is rising – when its very policies have helped lead to the problem in the first place. If playing fields still existed and competitive sports remained a key component of state education, young people would be getting the exercise they need.

If school meals could be nutritionally sound on a realistic budget, we would not need Jamie Oliver to tell us the obvious truth – that fresh food cannot be served in schools which do not have a kitchen and meals cannot be freshly prepared without skilled cooks.

If hospital management spent less time counting the cost of meals and more time encouraging a higher standard of food, which would enable patients to get better more quickly, they might realise forcing caterers to operate on the margins of profitability is counter-productive.

This is not so much an argument for more public spending on food, but rather a plea that the government should recognise that its policies have not helped the public to fight the obesity problem.

Nor – even worse – has the government helped the catering industry to provide nutritious meals in schools and hospitals. Ridiculously tiny budgets have forced schools to buy in ready-prepared food items for re-heating or to employ untrained staff to prepare the most basic meals.

It is time the government stopped pointing the finger at the catering industry and recognised that words alone will not tackle the country’s growing obesity problem.

The latest nutritional guidelines for school meals are a step in the right direction, but without the money to buy the necessary ingredients and the trained staff to prepare them, it is unlikely they will have the required impact. And without a much greater emphasis on sports and exercise, even the most nutritionally balanced meal will not have the desired effect.

The government is encouraging higher standards but withholding the means to attain them. This is not sensible governance. What is needed is less hypocrisy and more leadership.