At last someone has had the guts to tell it how it is. Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association, says obesity is often caused by people eating too much and exercising too little.
It’s a revelation! Well, not really, but it is refreshing to hear someone of standing refusing to tiptoe round the issue. Because while most of us wouldn’t dream of telling someone they had put on weight, the slimmer members among us aren’t shown the same courtesy. It’s apparently perfectly acceptable to tell someone they’re “looking a bit thin”, as though this isn’t as offensive as telling someone they’re “looking a bit fat”.
So while those of us who are overweight blame everything from the cost of a gym (just walk it’s free) to the price of healthy food compared to cheaper convenience food (a red herring if ever I heard one), children are following in their parents’ footsteps.
So it’s about time we moved away from the ‘blame somebody else’ culture and take responsibility for our own actions. And if you can’t stop reaching for unhealthy food for yourself, at least do it for your children.
Comments (1)
All that Meldrum has done is state the bleeding obvious; it doesn’t really take ‘guts’ to make a gross over-simplification of an extremely complex problem. Anyone of any weight knows the relationship between diet and exercise can tip a balance in either direction, but this knowledge does not address why obesity is such a rising problem.
Anyone who can say that it’s simply a case of eating less (even for one’s children) is blissfully ignorant of the psychological factors involved in the compulsion to over-eat or the prospect of exercise for those who cannot maintain a healthy weight and need to seek solace from cultural proscription in food and fat.
To those who have no comprehension of the pain that is suffered emotionally by the obese, blame seems like an excuse. Usually this ‘blame’ is only used to deflect from the pain; in order to make it bearable. It’s a great deal easier than facing up to being a pariah to current cultural values and addressing extremely complex emotional problems without support (either from others such as the writer of this article, or from access to psychotherapeutic intervention generally).
Those who state the obvious with such gay abandon, and those who applaud them, deserve to wear a dunce cap and stand in the corner; or at least not lay claim to making any breakthrough in our knowledge of this misunderstood issue. That would be an archaic solution to such a prosaic view of the problem!
Posted by Julie Shackson | September 6, 2007 5:51 PM
Posted on September 6, 2007 17:51