Should we give up?
OK, this is a chart showing obesity's progression (worsening) in the U.S. from 1990 to 1998 to 2007 (credit 15th edn of Basic Pharmacology for Nurses):
I'm in Canada, and I believe we're lagging the US in obesity by perhaps 10-15 years, and I'm guessing similarly for you folks in the UK -- but clearly, we're all trending in this direction so the writing's on the wall.
Is there any hope of stemming this obesity tide and the predictably horrific consequences on our healthcare systems?
~wbiC
Taxes worked pretty well for damping out enthusiasm for tobacco -- my vote would be for steadily inching up eventually horrendous taxes for unhealthy food choices and practices (so long as it was done in a way that the poor would not be disadvantaged--I think they deserve food stamps or some other subsidy that encourages healthy food consumption).
Of course, the Questionable Food Lobbyists would work overtime to sabotage that sort of initiative.
Hi wbiC I think that we have a culture problem where we as societies have been manipulated with slick adverts to make us consume and then consume some more.so we have lost touch with why we eat and what we eat with fast foods being high in calories and low in nutrition which is literally a recipe for disaster.
If anyone has read Jethro Kloss back to Eden books he predicted 100 years ago that hospitals would be full of people because of their diets and boy was he right.
But I haven’t given up hope as being a coeliac I eat a gluten free whole food diet and don’t have obesity worries or nutritional deficiencies so my diet works for me and 24/7
Really it’s up to us what choices we make you only have to watch tv and see how much trimmer our societies were 50 years ago.
In answer to your question we are what we eat and it’s up to us to make the right choices for us.
It can be fixed, but people have to want to fix it. I see no sign of this - in fact the trend is the exact opposite, with the media, "thought leaders" and politicians all pushing the idea that obesity is normal and that we should not "judge people" for being fat. The public have latched onto this with enthusiasm: you cannot now stand up and point out that being fat is (a) both unhealthy and unattractive and (b) that it's caused by a well-understood metabolic failure, because you'll be pilloried and ridiculed, or, if you're in the public eye, "cancelled".
My personal opinion is that TPTB are doing this because fat people are very, very profitable. The nature of the condition is such that, once your metabolism starts to collapse under an onslaught of junk, it demands more of it. In engineering terms it's known as a runaway condition - a positive feedback loop in which things go rapidly downhill until halted by something catastrophic. Big Ag, Big Pharma, and the dietetic establishment can all make eye-watering amounts of money from this scenario. If a critical mass of people understood how simple it was to reverse this condition, several multinationals would file for bankruptcy.
The people in charge aren't going to let that happen - it's a "too big to fail" situation - so they continue to drip-feed misinformation about what causes obesity ("you all need to eat less and move more!") to ensure that nothing changes. The USDA healthy-eating advice is basically a recipe for obesity: follow that, and you'll get fat and ill. Yes, junk food is a part of the problem (driven, as it is, by enormous subsidies for bad food), but the popularity of junk food is a symptom of widespread obesity, not the proximate cause.
The only solution is for people to take control of their own lives. Ignore the nutritionists, who have about as much knowledge of nutrition as astrologers have of astronomy. Ignore the food manufacturers pushing their "healthy" low-this-and-that trash. Learn how your body works. And start eating proper meals: even if you live in a "food desert", where there's a will there's a way. This is perhaps easier said than done, because people tend to believe what they're told by authorities, and to do as they're told too. But it absolutely is fixable.
Reached my ten pound weight loss target this week (I'm averaging 5 lbs/month weight loss using my piece of styrofoam to visualize how much I need to drop from every meal).
So, I've earned my large frozen pizza treat (with some willpower, I'll only eat half of it for lunch and the rest for dinner).
Just ten more pounds to go! (aiming for around 16% body fat content, as a male)
I like treats. Doesn't everyone? My problem (& I doubt it's just me), is that if I've any goodies in the house, they won't last the day. Time and again and again, I'd buy a box of cookies or large chocolate bar or whatever, intending to only have a sane portion and leave the rest for another time, but that never happened. It vanishes, promptly (never lasting overnight).
Never again! I bought a 'time lock' (food storage that you can lock up, and like a time release Bank Vault, you can set a delay until you're allowed to open it up later). For the past year, I've been choosing twice a week as the only points I can access my treats.
Works great! No need for willpower. It's critical though that you not eat your treat while it's still unlocked (else you'll be tempted to keep going back for more). Gotta remember to close it up and reset the timelock.
Problem with those three approaches is that the budget for the opposition is gigantic (we'd never be able to match, let alone, outspend the convenience / processed / junk food industries), and 'screen time' is fun -- who wants to give up fun? (especially when we're less limited just now to safe alternative activities)