Heroes Not Zombies

I read two reports about obesity today – one from the USA – which highlights the issue of the increasing prevalence of both advertising for high fat high calorie foods and the number of sales points for “junk” food (especially in the environments of teenagers. The other from Scotland showing we have the highest rates of obesity in developed countries second only to the USA. These figures are not new. But I was just wondering about the massive amount of obesity around as I walked through Queen St Station in Glasgow yesterday. Here’s my question –

What has changed in the last ten years to produce this obesity epidemic?

There are a lot of theories out there but the common themes seem to be increased consumption of “fast foods” – people prepare many less meals from scratch now, and eat many more meals outside of the family home. A close ally to this is the increased consumption of sugar-laden fizzy drinks. By the way, have you ever seen a skinny person drinking a “Diet” fizzy drink? There’s a message there!

The other major theme is a reduction in physical activity with children spending more time sitting watching TV and playing computer games, and schools offering less sports and exercise time, and in adults, a huge shift, through globalisation, in jobs, away from physically demanding jobs towards sedentary jobs (and in addition a reduction in the amount of exercise, including walking, taken by the average adult)

Well, whatever the causes, the changes are way more obvious than the more talked about global warming, and in our lifetimes, it’s looking like the obesity epidemic will kill many more of us than global warming does.

The point is, the obesity epidemic is a typical complex phenomenon. There are no single causes and no quick fixes. This is just the kind of issue we need to get to grips with. We need the science to help us understand what’s happening and what interventions might make a significant difference. We need ingenuity and creativity to tackle it. And we need to care. Today’s children aren’t going to have very healthy long lives unless we do.