PowerSwitch

This Government drives me mad. Where is their "joined-up thinking"? I hate that term, but bear with me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7807629.stm

They seem to have made the connection that part of the reason people are so fat is that they've forgotten how to burn up their own energy to get them around the place i.e. walking, running, cycling and the fact that the default setting for a majority of the population is to get into a car (or bus).

If you look at the Change 4 Life website, there are all sorts of ideas for various "sports" but no mention of walking or cycling instead of using other transport.

http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/Pages/Default.aspx

Personally I can't see the point of paying to exercise e.g. with expensive gym membership when life can be your gym.

Yeah I read about that on the Beeb, and I really don't know what to say. Isn't it kind of obvious that if pavements are only 1' wide, or there are no shops for miles, people will prefer to drive? Or ditto if cycle lanes are out in the middle of the road? If everything is disabled-friendly people will behave like disabled people (and for example take the lift not the stairs...now there's a moral dilemma!). I'm sure I've seen perfectly mobile people driving themselves around in those electric buggies.

And it's not the food: Average Brit ate more calories in the 1980s than today (says the National Food Survey), yet 1980s Brit was slimmer (must have been lugging those heavy mobile-phones and ghetto-blasters around ).

Anyway Prof Tim Lang says all that will sort itself out soon...

If you walk tyhe streets of, Manchesters inner city you get plenty of exercise, running from the armed 9 year olds.

I read somewhere that the average brit eats 33% too many calories.

Imagine the collapse in demand/prices (and therefore jobs etc) if we all ate healthy!

On the bright side , it may leave enough surplus for export!

The Jevons paradox of food!

Totally_Baffled wrote:I read somewhere that the average brit eats 33% too many calories.

Imagine the collapse in demand/prices (and therefore jobs etc) if we all ate healthy!

Crikey. 1/2 the nurses and doctors twiddling their thumbs on the dole. All those people who are currently building the next generation of hospitals...all those "health promotion" types (including the entire Obesity Task Force). Evans. The people who make motorised disability buggies, bed-hoists, and supersize coffins (yes they really exist ). Doesn't bear thinking about. Eat cakes for your country!!

The obesity problem may be overrated, there is some dispute as to where the threshold should be, hence the statistics can't necessarily be trusted. Further, its arguable that fat people who eat a good diet and exercise are a lot healthier than thin people who eat trash and never move. I'd rather see an effort towards the fundamentals of good diet and exercise rather than crude BMI.

BMI is very bad
When I was applying for the RAF i was overweight, being a solid block of muscle
Now I'm a lazy fat git, my BMI is ok

At least my BMI is in range.

Vortex wrote:At least my BMI is in range.

Vortex where on earth did you get this pricture of my wife from?

Im getting my lawyers onto you!!

DominicJ wrote:BMI is very bad
When I was applying for the RAF i was overweight, being a solid block of muscle
Now I'm a lazy fat git, my BMI is ok

BMI is perfectly good for the average fairly sedentary person. And the average person IS fairly sedentary.

Yes, it's obviously a poor indicator for individuals with extremely low body fat like bodybuilders and athletes, but for the average joe it's ok. People who do have very low body fat know full well they're not overweight anyway. They don't need to measure it.

What I dislike about the deriding of BMI that crops up every time it is mentioned, is that it encourages the average member of the public not to take it seriously, when they're precisely the type who should. The vast majority of people carry a lot more excess weight than they realise. BMI is far from perfect, but if it helps them to realise that then it's doing a useful job.

Yes but it's crap for things like assessing medical condition for travel insuarance and the like, for precisely the reason that DomJ mentiond: it is simply not universally applicable.

BMI is rubbish as an indicator of health. The only reason the government is so convinced obesity is the key factor is because the research into weight and health is funded by the obesity industry. I would suggest aquiring a copy of Paul Campos very well researched "The Obesity Myth" to anyone who is interested in this subject.

It has also been proven that weight cycling (yoyo dieting) is much more of a risk to health than staying fat. And that someone who has recently lost weight on a diet is at more risk of health problems by someone who has remained larger. Plus, being underweight is more risky than being overweight (except for extremely obese people), but you don't hear constantly about that do you. It's all about where the money is in our culture, and the money is in self-hatred. Weightwatchers, cosmetics, clothes, cosmetic surgery, even home improvements and so on, it's all about trying to make ourselves acceptable. Woe betide if we should ever decide as a culture that we're fine as we are, then you will really see the economy collapse !

Focusing on weight in my opinion actually encourages people to eat poorly and exercise less. We go on a diet, which as anyone with any intelligence now knows results in a weight *gain* in 80-95% of cases (studies have supported this time and time again). How many other "treatments" do doctors recommend that have a 5% success rate! We give up and say "sod it" and eat crap. We start an exercise program, to lose weight and tone up. When we haven't lost enough lbs and don't look like a supermodel after 3 weeks we give up and turn on the TV.

Instead of constantly going on about obesity, they should be talking about health, instead of diets and deprivation, nutrition and instead of exercise, activity. Yes like cycling or walking places.... oh such a radical idea, I mean why do that when you can go by car and then go to the gym later (or not).

yep, I read that too, good summary of the book

My dad said something that summed things up quite well.

"You never see a fat old person"

(ok you could have a debate over what is "old")

But on the whole its true - so on that basis, being a fat bastard cannot be good!

Well, my mum is 84 and must have a BMI of at least 30 (although it has been rising steadily for decades).

Not that tells us anything. She is not healthy, and the weight is more a reflection of her illness than vice versa. When she was young (1930s) being overweight was a luxury few could afford.

I've been hovering around BMI 0f 25 for a couple of decades. I get (just) enough real exercise to keep it there without actively controlling by diet.

When I do cut down the calories, it makes me feel ill...