Mick Hartley

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Our Obesogenic Society

Mrs Thatcher famously remarked that there was no such thing as society. Now the pendulum’s swung the other way: there are no such things as individuals.

Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity so government must act to stop Britain “sleepwalking” into a crisis, a report has concluded.

The largest ever UK study into obesity, backed by government and compiled by 250 experts, said excess weight was now the norm in our “obesogenic” society.

Dramatic and comprehensive action was required to stop the majority of us becoming obese by 2050, they said.

But the authors admitted proof that any anti-obesity policy works “was scant”.

Never mind – any opportunity to further control our wayward behaviour must be seized.

“There is a danger that the moment to act radically and dramatically will be missed,” said Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific advisor and head of the Foresight Programme which drew up the report.

“It is a problem that is getting worse every year.”

Obesity, the authors concluded, was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense, cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife.

In this environment it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good.

Well yes, in our environment it’s surprising that anyone can even wipe their own arse. The notion of personal responsibility should be abandoned for good.

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5 responses to “Our Obesogenic Society”

  1. IanCroydon Avatar
    IanCroydon

    1 good idea of how attitudes have changed is to look at the difference between treatment for alcohol addiction and drug (narcotic) addiction.
    Alcoholism has a long history, and the tried and tested treatments adopt the “tough love” response and a conviction by the abuser to solve the problem through themselves. There is considerable resistance to labelling alcoholism as a “disease” by experts as an alcoholic will gladly cling on to any kind of blame transfer and this will not aid recovery.
    Contrast with narcotic addiction, where the approach is similar to alcoholism but has more softer alternatives involving substitutes, as this is something that is a more recent phenomena and is subject to our current nanny state approach, there is no reason why methods like the 12-step program that has been so successful in treating alcoholism cannot be continued.
    Now we come to “lifestyle disorders”, you can argue that the kind of food indicated as leading to obesity is just as readily available as alcohol and other soft drugs, yet now the nanny state has completely gone into cotton wool wrapping mode and its now everyones problem (because we all end up paying for it apart from the “abuser”).
    “In this environment it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin”
    A dire comment, no-one necessarily wants to be “thin”, just not so overweight it causes a health issue, which is a surprisingly easy state to get to even surrounded by the available food, as easy as not becoming an alcoholic really.

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  2. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    We need a word for these Annoying Deniers Of Life’s Fun. Any ideas?

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  3. TDK Avatar
    TDK

    “We need a word for these Annoying Deniers Of Life’s Fun. Any ideas?”
    The Bottom Inspectors
    http://nannyknowsbest.blogspot.com/2004/11/rise-of-bottom-inspectors.html

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  4. TDK Avatar
    TDK

    “A dire comment, no-one necessarily wants to be “thin”, just not so overweight it causes a health issue, which is a surprisingly easy state to get to even surrounded by the available food, as easy as not becoming an alcoholic really.”
    Actually the irony is that the same people will be obsessing about the pressures on people to be anorexically thin.

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  5. IanCroydon Avatar
    IanCroydon

    This whole idea of “fat” and “thin” is arbitary, there are the obvious cases of extreme weight, but the BMI used by most health checks to determine what is obese or underweight, or whatever, is not based on a measurement of health, but was intended as a comparitive measurement (originally used in the 1850s).
    There are also genetic and regional (or, dare I say it, “racial”) adjustments to be made for what is the appropriate BMI, there are certainly different definitions of “overweight” for South East Asians, for example. How the rules will be applied is going to be of concern.
    Whilst there is a correlation between BMI and various disease risks, this falls down when it comes to people who are extremely healthy, in particular atheletes, who have BMI measurements that completely belie their state of health. It is more likely that health risks are directly associated with lifestyle and food types, rather than simple BMI calculations on their own.
    So, not only is this whole idea of molly coddling the blatent lifestyle abusers at the cost of the rest of us patently absurd, but the entire definition of an “obese” person cannot be measured by their BMI or weight even, so it is open to further abuse.
    Keep an eye out for reports, the definitions are widely mixed, the usage of the term “obese” is not necessarily in a medical context, and quite often the word “overweight” is used to give a blurry definition. It has been established, statistically, that being slightly overweight, in BMI terms, is actually better for your health.

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