JUNK BONDS
In 2020, Michael Mosley did something out of character: he started eating junk food. Mosley is a UK-based science communicator who has authored a shelf-load of weight-loss books, starting about a decade ago with The Fast Diet, which introduced the wider world to the concept of intermittent fasting. Since then, he has written about diets to control blood sugar, improve gut health and shed fat faster – so for him to be tucking into burgers and chips, fried chicken, frozen pizza and fizzy drinks seems at the very least hypocritical. But, there is a reasonable explanation. The British-doctor-turned broadcaster is fond of self-experiments, and had put himself on what he describes as a “medium-level, ultra-processed food diet” for a documentary called Australia’s Health Revolution.
Initially, he rather enjoyed the novelty of unhealthy eating. “It took me back to the foods of my adolescence,” says Mosley. “And I quite liked eating things I hadn’t tried for a long while. But I didn’t like the way it made me feel. I was hungry all the time, sleeping badly and snoring loudly. It had an impact on my mood; I got a bit depressed and in a matter of days felt more lethargic.”
Governments need to intervene with legislation to control Big Food in the same way they have Big Tobacco.
His GP wife, Clare Bailey, is normally tolerant of Mosley’s self-experiments, even coping with the episode when
