UK women are 'fattest in Europe'

[BaaBaa.]

Got my missus just in time then.

[Big Boy]

She's still got time to catch up

[traveller2]

[quote="Vital Spark"] It might even allieviate the strain on the NHS dealing with obesity related illnesses.

VS

Funny you should say that VS, the NHS has realised this and are trying to find ways of educating the young to look after themselves properly. Problem is, the young dont seem that interested at the moment.
Nobody's mentioned people prefering to sit and play video games at home all day long instead of getting out and doing something that might give them some exercise, like in the 'old days' (I sound like my dad now ). That goes for adults as well as teenagers and children.
Its all too easy to do nothing over here in the UK now.

Perhaps this might explain a little towards, why there are more people wanting to move abroad than ever from the UK, the country is on a slippery slope?

t2

[MrPlum]

Perhaps this might explain a little towards, why there are more people wanting to move abroad than ever from the UK, the country is on a slippery slope?

I don't think global warming is causing the waters to rise. The country is sinking from all that excess weight.

As far as 'conspiracy', the word is being over-used. The availability of low quality cheap food is a consequence of many factors. Government subsidy to the agricultural sector, to protect domestic markets from cheap foreign imports. Global food politics which sees the planet as one big market and where food can be used as leverage. The move from agriculture to agri-business, where animals are just raw materials for the food processing industry. The influence of the chemical giants who have moved into GM crops in order to sell more chemical fertilizers and pesticides. And the general desire of tycoons to be the Microsoft of their sector. They are 'money-junkies', who only see what's on the balance sheet. They produce hollow calories that have been flavored to taste like food. The consequence is vitamin and mineral deficiency. THIS contributes to obesity because the body craves the nutrients it is lacking, so tells you to eat more.

In the U.S. you may have 40,000 products on the supermarket shelf but only 4 companies have provided them. These big 4 have wiped out the American small farmer and dominate their sector, through economies of scale.

I don't blame the parents completely. They face the same difficulty as every parent does. Your child doesn't want to go to school with a lunch box full of Brocolli. They want to eat what all the other children are eating. Those sugary products that are designed to get them hooked, encouraged by Ronald McDonald and marketing drives, spewing propaganda designed to appeal. School books, cartoons, internet games, are dominated by images of children eating burgers, ice-cream and sugary 'sodas'. You've seen how 'in your face' advertising in Thailand is. What chance does a parent have?

The problem is systemic. However we got there, we now have a food production system which is out of control. We've created a monster. It doesn't care whether you are healthy. It only cares that you eat. Food labels with nutrients and calories give the impression of health, when it is anything but. I wouldn't feed 'Healthy Choice' to a starving dog. Yet we eat it with gusto.

You may think you have a choice but for those on low incomes, or lacking education, 'junk' food is the only choice. It is cheaper, tastier and more widely available than healthier food. Once you start to eat it you are at high risk of becoming addicted. Lethargy and stupidity go hand and hand with these foods. Children raised on these foods don't need fluoride, they are being doped by what they are eating. It's very hard to stop because your taste buds have been cultivated to salivate at a 'Big Mac' and turn your nose up with distaste at fresh fruit.

I don't see a solution until the costs of providing health services for the resulting sickness, exceeds the profits from providing it. If governments ended subsidies to these food giants and offered inducements to those growing fresh, organic food, grown in uncontaminated soil, our society would be less fat and less stupid.

'Fat taxes' are on the way.

[MrPlum]

It's a bit unfair to pick on one section of society as 'stupid'. The brightest and most well off also succumb to 'diseases of the fork'.

'A heart disease patient of late
Had an IQ of 168.
His brain was immense
But it lacked common sense
And it never engaged when he ate.'

[Rider]

Well said Plum Man, a breath of fresh air from the sheeple noises in some quarters