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'Calorie caps' in store for England's KFC, McDonalds in crackdown on obesity

January 16, 2018
SAN RAFAEL, CA - OCTOBER 30:  A bucket of KFC Extra Crispy fried chicken is displayed October 30, 2006 in San Rafael, California. KFC is phasing out trans fats and plans to use zero trans fat soybean oil for cooking of their Original Recipe and Extra Crispy fried chicken as well as other menu items. KFC expects to have all of its 5,500 restaurants in the U.S. switched to the new oil by April 2007.  (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Fast food outlets in England could face "calorie caps" on their meals as the nation's health department issues new guidelines to KFC and McDonalds.

Public Health England, the health advisory agency of the Department of Health, is to issue new guidelines to fast food outlets, which could see calorie caps on lunches at 600 calories and breakfasts at 400. 

UK news site Metro, using information from LiveStrong, put that in context, pointing out that a Big Mac, medium fries and a drink is more than 1000 calories.

Public Health England’s chief nutritionist Alison Tedstone told the Sunday Times the new guidelines will be issued in March.

Ms Tedstone said 27 per cent of British adults are now obese, and another 36 per cent are overweight. 

"This is all about things like pizzas and ready-made sandwiches. We will need to set out guidelines and, I suspect, a series of calorie caps," she said.

Ms Tedstone said people eat 200 to 300 calories too many a day and the agency will "work with the industry to reduce the calories in everyday food". 

"This is about looking at the 75 per cent of calories that are not covered by the sugar reduction programme."

An OECD obesity report released last October ranked the UK as the sixth fattest country in the world.

New Zealand is the third fattest nation, the report showed, with 30.7 per cent of adults in this country classified as obese.

The USA was ranked first with 38.2 per cent of its adult population classed as obese.

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