James Cracknell loves North Korea for its stance on obesity

James Cracknell really hates obesity. The wannabe Tory MP hates it so much, in fact, that he wants Britain to radically change its health policies so they resemble those of one of two countries that he thinks get it right – Cuba and North Korea.

In an interview with a couple of incredulous Sky News presenters on the UK’s child obesity programme, Cracknell, who won two gold medals as an Olympic rower for Great Britain, said he wanted to start trying to make a difference “from the inside”.

In his very next breath, however, he insisted that “two countries in the world have a handle on obesity… North Korea and Cuba”, both of which “are quite controlling on behavioural change”.

North Korea, of course, is a terribly poor country run by a brutal, murderous autocracy which experiences regular food shortages. Just last year, the nation’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun instructed the people to prepare for another famine and severe economic hardship following a UN security council vote to impose harsher sanctions. 

"The road to revolution is long and arduous," said an editorial, which continued: "We may have to go on an arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again.”

Cuba, meanwhile, is an explicitly communist country which has recently begun to experience food shortages of its own as tourism from the United States has boomed in the wake of the first thaw in relations in 50 years. Cracknell avoided the opportunity to elaborate whether his plan involved deliberately withholding food from fat people.

At present, the former reality TV star Donald Trump may also be trying to provoke North Korea into a nuclear war; it is unclear whether this is being factored into Cracknell’s bold new obesity plan.