Up for sale or not, the National Health Service was unsurprisingly a key battleground in the UK election campaign.

It was mentioned no less than a combined 78 times in the Conservative and Labour Party manifestos.

Political leaders understand the importance to voters of the health systems upon which they rely. But the economic burden of ill health, and particularly obesity, is not something that has been debated at length.

This despite the fact that a failure to address the challenge posed by the obesity epidemic will place an even greater strain on NHS resources.

Passing mentions to the prevention of disease in their manifestos aside, our would-be leaders could do so much more to highlight the human and financial toll of obesity and how by addressing these, the NHS could be made more economically viable and sustainable.

The costs of obesity are well known, not least to the current government. Public Health England states that the “annual spend on the treatment of obesity and diabetes is greater than the amount spent on the police, the fire service and the judicial system combined”.

Nearly a third of children in the UK are overweight or living with obesity and that figure rises to two thirds in adults. The UK is unlikely to meet the World Health Organization target of halting the rise of childhood obesity by 2025. It is not alone.