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Saturday, July 22, 2006

Responses

Obesity

The issue is not about a moral judgment of fatness and it is certainly not the case that all obesity is greed or ignorance. The problem is more complex. Diabetes does have a link to obesity. Depression may have and I am sure that in many (but not all) cases that may be due to societies view of fatness.

Historically fatness was not always unfashionable. A "plump" woman (and note it is usually woman who are being referred to) was more fashionable in Tudor times and is still fashionable in some other countries.

The link with depression is more difficult to assess then diabetes partly for this reason but it doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. And although I am reluctant to legislate on issues like this, if certain types of food do make people obese and putting the information on the pack is not enough, then some regulation by society is not necessarily wrong. The same applies to smoking and drinking.

An interesting point arises about smoking. Because passive smoking can damage other people's health we are now banning it in many places. If there is a link between depression and obesity and if that impacts (as depression certainly does) on child rearing should we not legislate on those foods containing chemical additives that make people obese?

Editing policy. I want to remind people that I don't normally publish comments about private life.

Heathrow. Can I ask Lobster Blogstar to look back on my Heathrow posts to see the more extensive discussion about expansion and modernisation? But two other points here. Firstly Heathrow is not sustainable right now. It is my contention that we can and must make it much better. Leaving it as it is must surely be a bad option.

Secondly, my main point in the climate change debate was to point out that if we just focus on one or two industries or services we lead people to believe that we can cope with climate change just by stopping people from flying or driving. I would argue that we all need to examine the way we run our private lives, what we do at work, our leisure time and in all other areas to try and find ways of reducing carbon emissions. Hence my examples of the House of Lords and the media.

A few points on the depression-obesity issue.

1. Most people who eat high fat food are not obese.
2. Most people who are obese are not depressed.
3. Most people who are depressed are not obese.

Conversely, all anorexics are depressed and most anorexics' obsession with starving themselves is related to body image - an image that is partly created by ideals seen in the mass media. An interesting fact is that Fiji prized obesity as beautiful until American television was broadcast to the island and young girls started to go on diets, resulting in the first cases of anorexia in the small nation's history. You can read about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/347637.stm

Does that mean we ban all images of thin people in the media and tax diet books to prevent depression? No, that is absurd. We educate and give people choices. Perhaps we could promote women with average figures as beautiful. Perhaps we could give girls something better to live up to than thinness, some way of allowing them to aspire in life without regarding themselves as so many pounds of flesh to be moulded into an ideal figure. Certainly, the intervention of politicians claiming that fat people are sad will not stop the misery of those with eating disorders and quite probably it will do nothing for those who over-eat as a result of depression.

This is an interesting article on obesity and depression, looking at all angles: http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/8596/24733/192512.html?d=dmtContent

Punishing advertising of fattening food will not stop obesity, but the act of restricting such advertising by the nanny state could further ostracise obese people and create more misery!

I'll take a look at your Heathrow posts as you request, but I'm not expecting a treat since you admit that Heathrow is not sustainable at present, but argue for its expansion to solve this.