IT’S been a rewarding few days for that class of civil servants tasked with crunching the numbers of our destructive relationship with food and drink. The UK’s chief medical officers issued stringent new guidelines which, for the first time, stated that there is no such thing as a “safe” level of alcohol consumption; any amount of liquor, they said, could increase the risk of cancer. Thus, they recommended that the weekly limit for men should be identical to that for women – a reduction of seven units to 14. We must all, they advised, have a few alcohol-free days per week and pregnant women ought not to drink at all.

The guidelines are sensible – no more and no less – and confirm what many people instinctively already knew to be the case. In making such recommendations, our senior medical officers are simply doing their job and addressing the UK’s often ruinous relationship with alcohol. In Scotland, where we consume around 20 per cent more alcohol than the rest of the UK, the numbers are especially important.

A few days later a report by the Independent Cancer Taskforce, established under the auspices of the NHS in England, suggested that the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes should be at least £15 by 2020. This was one of six proposals made by the group which, they claim, if implemented could save around 30,000 lives a year. I don’t doubt them and wish them every success in their endeavours. I’m confident that an equivalent number of lives proportionately would be saved in Scotland if this were the case.

Yesterday, just to complete the picture of destructive ill health, the Scottish Government revealed that Scots purchased 981 million cakes, pastries and biscuits last year and that we consumed 290 million litres of fizzy drinks. Scotland’s greatest heroes, it seems, are not William Wallace, Robert The Bruce and Nicola Sturgeon; they’re Willy Wonka, Mr Kipling and Mr McVitie.

It’s reassuring to know that these three reports, compiled from each corner of the UK, together with their outcomes and recommendations, have the endorsement of government and that they are taking the health of the nation seriously. I am still waiting though for the report that records the numbers of suicides and depression-related illnesses caused by the DWP’s enlightened policy of “pick up thy wheelchair and walk, sunshine”.

What governments and politicians are less willing to discuss and address properly are the health inequalities in Scotland and the rest of the UK which make these numbers much worse than they otherwise ought to be. A breakdown of the statistics on alcohol consumption, cancer deaths and obesity will show that there is an easily discernible pattern of inequality running through them. You can tax booze, cigarettes and unruly comestibles as much as you like in the hope that this, of itself, will deter people from ingesting them. But unless you also study the health inequalities that exist in impoverished and socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and properly address the reasons behind them, then all the recommendations, warnings and waiting for more bloody official outcomes are utterly meaningless.

IN some of these places you don’t have to walk far in any direction to see why many will seek a temporary escape, a fleeting jag of euphoria, in a jar of whisky, 20 Regal and a cream cake before bed-time. What’s the point of telling men and women on an estate on the edge of town (which we abandoned long ago) that they can live an extra ten years if they cut out the drink and the fags? You might as well tell a condemned man to exercise more so that his neck will fit the size 14 noose.

In Unison’s Commission on Health Inequalities in Scotland, published towards the end of last year, the union’s researchers recounted starkly and eloquently what they saw and heard on a visit to a community in North Ayrshire. At a local community meeting, the manifestations of health inequalities encountered by the people attending were laid out unequivocally.

“They described a community with multiple issues that contribute to health inequality but identified poverty as the root cause. They outlined how community workers observe the tangible humiliation and shame felt by the growing numbers of people compelled to source their food from food banks; where the gaunt and malnourished faces of mothers is common, particularly those who feed their children before feeding themselves; where too often people face continual barriers to accessing (diminishing) local services; where it’s the community themselves setting up much needed services; where poor un-insulated housing is common and where the ‘ghettoisation’ of once thriving social housing schemes is routine.” The report, as thorough and well-researched as any in this area I’ve seen, lists the myriad causes of poverty and the absence of any proper, joined-up approach in addressing the blights. Nowhere on their list of actions required to begin solving the problems are drinking less, cutting out cigarettes and avoiding the cake shelves in Tesco.

The authors assume that people already know these things and that to include them in a report about inequality and social injustice would be to patronise them.

Instead, in their list of measures, we see the real reasons why people in these communities, irrespective of their drinking and smoking habits, die 20 years younger than residents living in communities eight miles up the road in fair and equal Scotland. In here is a call to pay proper wages, end the sanctions regime, stop the use of temporary contracts by local authorities and make best use of sports and recreational facilities by making them affordable and accessible for all. “Transform the quality and quantity of social housing across Scotland,” they demand.

And once the Government has implemented even a handful of the dozens of recommendations in this report, then they can fill their little administrative boots with healthy living outcomes and five pieces of fruit a day.