So, we absolutely need to apply the same rigorous standards for public procurement in our schools, and I hope that the refreshed healthy eating regulations are going to have some teeth, because with so many of our children living in poverty, and families that are most vulnerable to choosing on price alone, even if nutritionally they are very poor value, it means that the free school breakfasts and nourishing school lunches are a lifeline for such children. In addition, the school-holiday eating programme ensures that these same children are not starving during the school holidays.

So, I want to see governors and local authorities being much more rigorous in ensuring that what is being served up for children in our schools is compliant with the healthy-eating regulations. Estyn has a sort of hands-off role in this, in ensuring that governors and local authorities are doing that job, but don't themselves inspect, and in my experience, there's a great deal of work to be done in that area.

Now, obviously, it isn't just our relationship with food that needs to change, it's also that we need to do more physical activity. I know that the Deputy Minister is leading the charge on ensuring that £30 million in next year's budget allocated to local authorities to increase active travel routes will be used not just on nice-to-have tourist paths, but is starting to shift the obesogenic environment dominated by the car. In Cardiff, Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Hamadryad and Howardian Primary School have led the way on having active travel plans, but we really do need to expect all schools to have them in place as well. And I wondered, therefore, what conversation the Welsh Government has had with local authorities about implementing vehicle exclusion zones around all schools, as recommended by Sustrans, so that all pupils have to walk, scoot or cycle to school for the last part of the journey. This, I feel, should be seen as an integral part of the package, to make 20 mph the default speed limit in built-up areas, and change the way we use our road space. That is what I assume the £4 million on the road safety grant will be applied to, and perhaps the Deputy Minister could clarify that, or, equally, the £5 million for Safe Routes in Communities grant in next year's budget as well. We have to recognise that children can be enthusiastic ambassadors for being more active. They can help the adults in their lives to adopt more active lifestyles.

While I fully support all these measures, I now need to address why obesity isn't just a condition caused by lifestyle choices that we want to reverse. We also have to treat it as a disease in the same way we do with diabetes or any other disease. First of all, the stigma attached to obesity. The UK Parliament's all-party group on obesity has released the results of a survey this week on the stigma associated with obesity. The survey confirms that people living with obesity face high levels of stigma, which impacts on their lives, work and leisure, their personal relationships, and their likelihood of seeking medical advice from their GP. Seventy-one per cent of people with obesity felt stigmatised when seeking health advice or support. Many people, including doctors, do not understand that obesity is a chronic disease. They see it as a simple lack of willpower, laziness or refusal to eat less and move more. But I think we have to challenge that attitude because it simply isn't acknowledging the extent of obesity, which has to do with more than simply environmental factors.

If we can't prevent obesity, then we have an ethical duty to treat it. Some of the treatments that we offer to people who are overweight or obese are frankly ineffective, as this summary of a whole host of research papers demonstrates, were you to be able to see it. The conclusion of these academic papers is that two thirds of the people who submit themselves to dieting regain more weight than originally, before they went on a diet in the first place. So, why is that? Well, I think that it has to do with the fact that, originally, we lived in much more difficult circumstances than we do today. We are hard-wired to treat dieting as a famine, for which the only rational response is to recover the weight lost as soon as the opportunity arises. In addition to that, some of the challenges people face are genetic. Whether we are thin or fat is highly influenced by the genetic make-up of our parents. Does that mean that, as more of the population becomes obese, more of the children that we have also become obese? We have to start thinking about what our response needs to be.

The most extreme response, if you like, is bariatric surgery, but it is recommended by the medical experts as the most effective treatment for people with severe obesity. A close friend of mine, no longer with us, did have bariatric surgery, and it certainly did transform his appearance, his weight and his ability to live an active life. So, I think there is an enormous benefit to classifying obesity as a disease, because it would ensure, then, that we have a clinical pathway for treating these very complex cases. Bariatric surgery for treating people with severe obesity is associated with sustained weight loss over 20 years. In 95 per cent of cases, it reversed the patients' type 2 diabetes and changed their relationship with food, as well as, self-evidently, making it easier for them to get around.

The Portuguese Government is the only Government in the world to officially recognise obesity as a disease, although there is a host of medical organisations who commend this as a way of improving the way we treat diabetes. Elsewhere, the Italian Parliament voted to recognise obesity as a disease following a campaign by the obesity and diabetes cross-party group.

To conclude, I think we have to recognise that for some people who have a genetic predisposition to obesity, the services need to be tailored to help those people avoid the most serious consequences. But that does not, and should not, absolve us from our political duty to address the social and economic causes of our obesogenic environment, which will otherwise reduce people's life chances and, in my view, could cause the NHS to collapse.