Leader: Be brave, it's time to resist foody friends

Monday's seminar on food, at the Royal Institution, coming at the end of National Science Week, provides an opportunity both for discussion of the food we eat and the power of global companies to influence governments.

The food industry not only promotes foods that are bad for us, it persuades us to eat too much. There is growing evidence that to live healthily we should eat less and move more. Since it is not in the industry's interest to say so, governments should do the job. Instead they have for decades been suppressing or adulterating reports so as not to offend powerful friends, threaten jobs or reduce the tax take. It is time to get brave.