Following on from the Man v Food thread, and numerous recent reports on the the state of our health is it time action is taken?
I know long term education is the answer but what about short term ? Is it time that , just like on the back of cigarettes, that we put warnings on food?
In 20 years time we are going to be larger than Americans and as it stands a huge amount of under 10s are obese. Economics certainly plays a part here but we have a generation of Celtic cubs who grew up with both parents working long hours and many of them received money for their lunch , to buy an amount of junk and breakfast rolls etc, and at night time dinner was often something quick and easy from a package.
I don’t know how this generation can be rescued but there has to be a check on marketing, and just like the shock factor in the drink drive ads , we need ads of this nature in relation food. At the end of the day this is going to cost everyone as the bills mount up for meds, operations and transplants this epidemic will cause.
The British are the fattest in Europe and the Americans are the fattest in the world. Much of this is because of the extent of corporate influence over politicians in both countries. The food industry has obstructed and delayed public education on nutrition for decades, leaving the populations of both countries unfeasibly fat and largely ignorant as to why this is the case.
Food Inc (http://www.rottentom…com/m/food_inc/) is a great study of how this works. In the States, the media barely have the power to report fatal cases of e-coli in case it damages the company responsible. In that context it’s hard to see how education on nutrition can ever get off the ground.
Think this is being pushed alright. But 75% of weight is down to diet. The current primary school curriculum doesn’t address this issue at all and I know the buck stops with the parents but with so many of them being ignorant of the facts the government has to step in.
Was chatting to a mate about this the other day and the power of marketing and he was saying how after karate his young lad of 5 wants a lucozade , because he has been exercising! Of course he won’t let him but other kids are swamping it… Diabetes in a bottle.
The Government were set to launch a massive campaign against obesity a few years ago and had put a fortune into research. It was going to be run and maintained by the dept of health. It then had to be shelved when Mary Harney was moved to minister for health as she couldn’t be used as the face of the campaign.
When I’m sitting in my local Chinese waiting for my breast of chicken curry and sesame prawn toast it’s always amazing how many idiots come in ordering unhealthy Chinese take aways. Disgraceful stuff.
From what I’ve seen of Dunph during his fleeting trips home from France he’s making very little effort at shifting the weight.
I think when ‘education’ is mentioned in relation to debates like this, people think you are referring to schools and schools only. Certainly, schools have a role to play but the most important educators in society are parents.
Parents whose value system includes good manners tend to produce respective offspring. Similarly parents who teach their kids about nutrition will produce healthier kids. As mentioned in the Food Vs Man thread, I ate a lot of crap when I was younger and much of this was stuff that my parents bought. I would not blame them as they were much in the dark about nutrition as their parents were.
Lads around our own age have little excuse in this regard and the onus is on us to teach the next generation good habits. In this way the torch will hopefully be passed on for generations to come.
My point is that socialists believe in using the state to ‘reform’ flawed human characteristics. TASE was evidently confusing socialists with libertarians or classic liberals.
People from lower social economic backgrounds are at a massive disadvantge as their resources limit their ability to eat healthy. In this regard I would love for DEIS schools to provide free healthy meals (breakfast and lunch) for Kids who attend these schools.
An increasingly cozy alliance between companies that manufacture processed foods and companies that serve the meals is making students — a captive market — fat and sick while pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.
Country folk like us can feed our kids what we want Fen, as they’ll be burning 18,000 calories a day walking greyhounds, pulling ragwort, picking stones and laying ditches. Unfortunately the only things city kids burn are cars.