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According to the comprehensive Global Burden of Disease project, the leading risk factors for ill health and premature death are linked to lifestyle, what we eat and drink and how much we exercise. Disease prevention does not occur in the hospital. We need the whole of society to be involved.

The typical Western diet is the number-one cause of premature death and the number-one cause of disability. In other words, a long and healthy life is largely a matter of choice.

One of the reasons it's so difficult to study the relationship between diet and disease is because many dietary behaviors are associated with non-dietary behaviors.

Many people assume the diseases that kill us are pre-programmed into our genes. High blood pressure by 55, heart attacks at 60, maybe cancer at 70, and so on... But for most of the leading causes of death, our genes usually account for only 10-20 per cent of risk.

I considered obesity a disease. It can destroy you from within. It almost destroyed me, and I do not want that to happen to anybody.

The idea is to eat well and not die from it - for the simple reason that that would be the end of your eating.

From my time in Health I know that choice empowers people lives.

Smoking is the now the principal avoidable cause of premature death in Britain. It hits the worst off people hardest of all. Smoking is one of the principal causes of the health gap which leads to poorer people being ill more often and dying sooner.

Think about it: Heart disease and diabetes, which account for more deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than everything else combined, are completely preventable by making comprehensive lifestyle changes. Without drugs or surgery.

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.