Fat people are costing us all billions. It’s time to get tough

I used to think the obese should be left alone – but they’re beginning to crush us
WILLIAM SITWELL | 13 May 2024 • 6:15pm

A sphere projecting against a plane: Only the rich were fat....once CREDIT: James Gillray, 1792

 

As I write, the 31st European Congress on Obesity is meeting in Venice. It’s the city that sinks, and it’s a metaphor for the world today sinking into ill-health and economic doom because of obesity.

 

Delegates to the congress are discussing a new report that shows how obesity hampers economic growth, specifically because obese workers are twice as likely to take time off sick. And as Britain is among the fattest of Europe – almost two in three British adults are overweight or obese – that means that huge numbers of British workers may be off sick because of weight-related issues; the worst of such ailments being diabetes or heart-disease.

 

 

Which means it’s no longer just their problem – the dilemma of the obese – it’s our problem too, because it’s our country and our economy.

 

Obesity costs Britain more than terrorism, it increases the risks of more than 30 types of cancer, it costs the NHS £6.5 billion a year, and it’s pushing up welfare bills. It is making our country inefficient: fewer staff means customers may spend longer waiting for companies to pick up the phone or to get their new passport processed. So is it time we intervened? Hell yes. When it comes to the British obesity crisis, I’m afraid we need to get illiberal.

 

How we got here is understandable. After the War, and rationing, adding a few notches to the belt felt like freedom. And in the ensuing decades, the transformation of our food culture represented extraordinary progress. As the War ended, kids passing grocery stores asked what those newly-imported bananas were. Now we can eat when we want, shop when we want and the world is our culinary oyster.

 

But with that fabulous choice has come the devil’s twin horns of the industrialisation of food (ultra-processing et al) and the bad decision-making and ignorance that accompanies that freedom.

 

And what has then turned that into a disaster is that those ultra-processed foods, (such as soft, white-sliced bread), fast food, takeaways and ready-meals are often cheap. They tend to be less nutritious and, when consumed without moderation, lead to obesity – especially if the consumers aren’t moving about as they should, let alone exercising.

 

We need to fix this. To do so will take courage and a long-term vision and, sorry politicos, short-term unpopularity.

 

But we have been here before, with seatbelts, with alcohol, with smoking. And we got through those pain barriers. We look back now aghast that it was once normal to light up in the office.

 

Taxing the firms who manufacture sugary drinks, restricting the sales of takeaways, putting 18-certificates on fast food, ushering in a new era of rationing might all seem impossible. We have already gone too far.

 

Well, there is a way. There is a route to compulsory good eating and to indoctrination. And that is through schools. By which I mean free school meals, in every school, and a very limited menu of choice. Were learning about food to become as much a part of the school day as a maths lesson, it would be the greatest social leveller of the 21st century. No more wretched, divisive (plastic) lunch boxes and generations understanding and appreciating a good diet. 

 

Would it be expensive to implement? Of course. We’re talking billions every year. But it’s a revolution that would in time transform this country.

 

ARTICLE SOURCE: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/13/fat-people-are-costing-us-all-billions-time-to-get-tough/

So many slippery slopes in that article.
First off a country that mandates what you can eat and not eat is not a free country.
As much as I hate government interference I do applaud the British and European governments for not allowing certain types of food additives into their countries. We are way to lax on allowing Big Food to poison us.
I absolutely agree that educating our children on nutrition is vital but…that is the responsibility of the parents and not the schools and even if the schools were to try that what guidelines would they teach from. I can pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be from the perspective of The Proper Human Diet.
Education begins in the home.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6, ESV)


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9 hours ago, Geezy said:

First off a country that mandates what you can eat and not eat is not a free country.

I shared it because it pinpointed ultra-processed food specifically, which we're all in agreement with how terrible these foods are for ones health and well-being. I'm not sure what an "18-certificate" is (this is a British article and that's British jargon), I assume it's a warning label of sorts. That would be okay. The "rationing" and "restricting the sales of takeways" leaves me a bit confused too.

But food education in the schools would be a good thing. True, this is a parent's responsibility, but we have a lot of irresponsible parents not-raising their children in today's world. 

10 hours ago, Geezy said:

what guidelines would they teach from. I can pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be from the perspective of The Proper Human Diet.

And you have a point here. You know Big Food representatives would be sticking their nose and their dollars into shaping these guidelines and in the end nothing would change. But if they would actually push "hey, just eat single ingredient foods that God/nature provides and stay away from ultra-processed food that corporate man makes for profit" that would go a long way in helping shape young minds.

Agreed Bob but don’t you dare mention God in a public school. You know He’s not allowed. [emoji6]


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I am in the USA. When I was in high school there was a semester focused on nutrition. It wasn't the standard approach of a health class. They approached it using a book which pointed out how the food industry and old wives tales have corrupted our understanding of what constitutes healthy nutrition.

Everyone got on board. I think it is part of youth finding their individual identity when you give them something with which to reject The Man, The Establishment, etc. Diet is something you can own personally, taking control of your diet. Then of course there is the seed-planting of fear taking place. It goes both ways. You can manipulate people, especially young people, easily telling them things which indirectly encourage them to choose other things. 

Older people, on the other hand, have to overcome a degree of laziness, they have a longer standing habit to break and lifestyle to change. They also have varying degrees of physical consequences of age and time invested in unhealthy behavior.

As they grow older many people try to reduce disruption to their hopes and plans taking less risks even choosing a safe yet dull and boring lifestyle. Many people tend to grow more and more convinced they know everything and are less likely to be open to being wrong. They learn some new things along the way but they take it in believing they already know everything and do not fully acknowledge how little they could possibly know about most things.

IQ tests are full of questions which measure whether you can determine or identify a difference and/or similarity between concepts. If you cannot recognize differences and similarities chances are you do not know you are ignorant. (i.e. "profiling" vs. "racial profiling"). 

Complicating things is the contemporary prevalence of oversimplification and labeling in terms of absolutes. Something has to be either black or white when in reality most things are varying shades of gray. What!!! Impossible!!! How can you be that when you are this?

Edited May 19, 20241 yr by Another Meat Head

On 5/17/2024 at 11:57 AM, Geezy said:

So many slippery slopes in that article.
First off a country that mandates what you can eat and not eat is not a free country.
As much as I hate government interference I do applaud the British and European governments for not allowing certain types of food additives into their countries. We are way to lax on allowing Big Food to poison us.
I absolutely agree that educating our children on nutrition is vital but…that is the responsibility of the parents and not the schools and even if the schools were to try that what guidelines would they teach from. I can pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be from the perspective of The Proper Human Diet.
Education begins in the home.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6, ESV)


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That article is terrifying. Mandates, taxes, regulation, indoctrination. It always starts well intended. It's about parenting, really. And it should stop there.