KitKat Lawsuit fails despite "obvious merit":

Though not surprised by the ruling, lawyers for the claimant announced they, and their client, were shocked that their secondary aim was not recognised by lawmakers:

"Nestle marketing their KitKat product as a light, tasty snack is simply unacceptable when other snack items like crisps are vilified by the media. We expected that our claim for compensation on behalf of our obese client would most likely fail but wanted to bring attention to the fact that the advertising standards in the UK are very lop sided, just like our client."

Certainly the figures produced in the case add up - at 106 calories per two finger KitKat and 5.5g of fat they are not far off their frowned upon rivals such as:

• Walkers Crisps = 113 calories/5.3g of fat
• Walkers Baked = 98 calories/2.0g of fat
• Quavers = 88 calories/5.1g of fat
• Monster Munch = 108 calories/5.5g of fat
• Wotsits = 95 calories/5.8g of fat

The case was expected to highlight the unfair pressure put on crisp manufacturers to make their product healthier whilst none was placed on biscuit makers in this country. It appears that the test case has fallen on deaf ears as in the weeks after the trial ended there has been no let up in the marketing of snacks. We were able to meet with the claimant in this case who told us:

"The government gives people like me far more credit than we are due. What point is there putting all these scientific numbers on the back of a snack? I have no idea what they mean. They can't have it both ways. They can't say that maths standards in this country are dropping and then rely on our mathematic skills to work out what foods we should and shouldn't eat."

Studies at the University of Glasgow produced a white paper suggesting that people in the UK were indeed less educated than when the nutritional information boxes were introduced. However, their research found no alternatives:

"No matter what we used to get the message across: pictures, sounds, electro-shock etc. the result was always the same. Greedy people will always eat without looking. We have to focus on removing children from households where the parents cannot perform basic mathematics and getting them into care. It's the only way to stop obesity in children."