After taking a rather longer than intended hiatus from blogging due to a multitude of reasons, I find myself inspired to write again after attending a lecture on obesity and the impact it has on the economy.
I scribbled some random figures as the talk went on, such as
- how 24% of Britons are presently obese
- it cost the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) some US$5.4m in 2001/2 and the cost is rising every year
- it cost the UK US$4.25 in loss of earnings through obesity related sick absence in the same period
- By 2020, if it carries on spreading as it is now, 25% of the UK’s NHS budget will be spent on treating obesity. That figure will be in the billions, not millions.
One thing I noted throughout the whole talk was that obesity was regarded as a disease. The lecturer spoke about how humans are becoming obese because of our surroundings. My eyebrow raised at both of these suggestions. Is obesity really a disease if it’s (generally) controllable by conscious and deliberate eating? And can we not choose what to eat regardless of where we find ourselves? Where’s the personal responsibility in all of this?
At the end of the lecture there was time for some questions. I had read a few articles relatively recently in the LA Times regarding the fat tax and I asked him for his view on that as a potential solution. The fat tax idea is to basically add more tax to foods with higher fat contents so that they are not so cheap for the consumer to buy and that if you do buy them, you are contributing to the NHS budget for care you’ll supposedly receive at a later date. His response was that the consumer should not pay, the manufacturers should.
As I stood on the tube platform afterward, I thought about whether his response and talk as a whole did or did not make sense. Sure, the manufacturers of unhealthy foodstuffs are maybe misguiding consumers with all their health claims but is it not up to the individual to discern what they want in their bodies? Or maybe just because I have the interest and the time to teach myself about nutrition and how the body deals with certain foods, it doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Take the US Food pyramid for one. I think it’s fair to say that most people interested in food and politics are aware that it was put together with a heavy influence from manufacturers and the dairy industry. But so many people guide their lives by it, trusting that their elected government wouldn’t steer them wrong. If people are eating according to the pyramid and getting some exercise, how can they be getting obese they might well wonder.
I considered the lecturers point on the environment too. That we are now surrounded by so many foodstuffs it gets harder to make the best decisions for ourselves. Generally speaking I disagree on this point. I believe that if you asked someone what was healthier – vegetables or the ready made shepherds pie, say – they would know the correct answer. I am not entirely convinced by my own response here though, as I do have a recollection of it being in the news that a young boy somewhere in middle America did not know what a tomato even looked like in it’s whole form.
I also realize what we’re up against when it comes to making our own choices. For example, when we walked in to a a supermarket this weekend, we had to walk all the way to the back of the store to find the vegetables and fruit. By the entrance were rows of ready meals. It actually felt like a different planet with all the white packaged boxes, on white shelves with the white aisles. I might well have been on a spaceship! However, I did have a choice. I walked straight past these and found the real food, way down the back. For about a fiver you can get a cauliflower, a bag of potatoes, a bag of carrots, a savoy cabbage and a bunch of parsnips, which will feed us far more meals than a couple of the sterile packages sitting down the front. And doesn’t it just feel so obvious that the vegetables would be so much better for our human bodies?
After reflecting some more on this talk I began to think that whilst there may be some people out there who can’t or won’t help themselves, there are sure to be some who could use a little support.
The concluding sentiment of the lecturer is one I am in agreement with: to eradicate obesity we need to find the necessary courage and political will to make the overdue changes to our food production system and our environment.
What do you think? Is obesity really a disease or a condition that leads to the onset of disease? Is it a personal responsibility or one that should be shouldered by all of society? How should we go about educating people if the government is not fit or able to do so for political reasons? It’s a topic I am fascinated with, and one which seems to have a trillion different points of view, emotional reactions and heartfelt individual stories.
