AT the M&S food store close to our office, I was astonished and delighted to discover last week that they have removed sweets, chocolates and biscuits from the self-service aisle.

What a refreshing change, I thought, a commercial business taking action for the greater good. Now it’s time for public authorities to do the same, to take responsibility for their role in the nation’s obesity crisis.

Several times in this column, I have written about the shocking presence in Hove’s King Alfred Leisure Centre, which is run by Freedom Leisure on behalf of Brighton and Hove City Council, of vending machines filled with sweets, chocolates, crisps and fizzy drinks. To find any fruit, you had to be really proactive, asking for it at the reception desk.

The vending machines are virtually the only source of “food” in a place where children go to get fit and active. And this is at the same time the that the council promotes on its website the Department of Health’s Change4Life and Active4Life campaigns – motto: “Eat Well, Move More, Live Longer”.

It seems something is finally being done.

As The Argus reported yesterday, Brighton and Hove City Council has launched its Sugar Smart City initiative, the first in the country, to tackle sugar levels at schools, food outlets, supermarkets and vending machines at leisure centres and health care settings.

While I applaud the city council for this very positive and pioneering action, it’s still a scandal that it has taken so long for any local authority to tackle the obesity crisis.

I know that local authorities are notoriously slow at any action, as everything has to be approved by one committee before it goes before another committee to be finally passed by yet another.

But at the same time the country’s obesity crisis has been creeping up on us for years: more than 7% of four and five-year-olds and more than 13% of 10 and 11-year-olds in the city are classed as obese, according to figures from the National Child Measurement Programme.

The World Health Authority regards childhood obesity as one of the “most serious global challenges for the 21st century”.

So the council’s action is almost too little, too late, for while they have been dithering over whether to do something or not, children have been getting out of the swimming pool at the King Alfred and satiating their hunger with Pringles or Mars Bars for years, contributing to child weight gain, a sugar habit that’s hard to break and future health problems.

In fact, I would go further and say that a council run by locally elected politicians and staffed by local people paid from the public purse has an even greater duty to the citizens it serves than this one move alone. It should declare the war on sugar and obesity as one of its top priorities – because the obese minority is fast becoming the majority.

For example, the council’s education department should seriously consider adopting the approach taken by St Ninian’s primary school in Scotland, where pupils have to walk or run a mile each day. The pupils love it and obesity levels have fallen. Not only is this activity free, but it also gives children a love of an exercise - and so are far more likely to continue into their teen years and beyond.

Just think: Brighton and Hove City Council has within its power the option to give its child citizens a love of exercise for life or feed their sugar habit for life. I know which I would rather pay my council tax for.

The Argus: Davina McCall

Well done to Nuala O’Sullivan and Maggi Healey for founding the Short Hot Flush Film Festival, which was held in Brighton at the weekend.

It was the world’s first festival celebrating women aged over 50 in front of and behind the camera and held discussions on why older women are poorly represented on both sides of the camera.

It’s a long-overdue issue and one that certainly needs addressing because older women tend to become invisible in society once they reach the age of 50.

Interestingly, at the weekend too, the TV presenter Davina McCall was saying that we are now in a golden age for women in television. She cited examples of “strong female presenters” including This Morning’s Holly Willoughby, The Voice co-presenter Emma Willis, TV and radio presenter Fearne Cotton, The X Factor co-presenter Caroline Flack and the Strictly presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.

What a shame she chose those examples. They are almost all presenters of lightweight programmes and are not influential in any way.

Why didn’t she pick out Laura Kuenssberg, who was appointed the Political Editor of BBC News this summer, or ITN’s Nina Hossain, who gives political interviewees a tough time live on TV, or even Mary Berry, who although she does co-present the lightweight Great British Bake-Off, has still had a positive effect on the public in terms of reigniting a passion for baking? And she flies the flag for older women on TV to boot.