Thursday 22 December 2011

Yes, but everybody in my family is quite slim...

From the BBC:

Christmas may be a time of indulging for many, but health experts believe it is the perfect time to tell a loved one they are overweight. The National Obesity Forum and International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk said it was important to be upfront because of the health risks...

And no, the NOF is not a traditional fakecharity, it is primarily a lobbying front for Big Pharma. And why people would take advice from pieces of furniture is beyond me, no matter how fancy the name for it.

I note that the article does not end with a Department of Health spokesman promptly agreeing that something must be done, as is so often the case.

4 comments:

dearieme said...

"the perfect time to tell a loved one they are overweight": the overweight live longer. You have to be quite a long way ito the "obese" range before your life expectancy falls as low as someone at the bottom of the "normal" range.

Why don't we just hang all these fuckers? I've been reading a history of England in the Age of Reform, which contains the usual deprecation of sinecures and the like. But we nowadays support far more mouths sucking at the state teat, and many of them, rather than doing nothing, are actively doing harm. Deeply corrupt, the whole business. Actually, delete "hang". Too much fuss. Drown? Shoot? Or just ostracise, banish.... Got it! Send 'em to somewhere run on strict socialist principles - N Korea.

Mark Wadsworth said...

D: " the overweight live longer"

Is that so? Even if it is true, what has that got to do with anything? The UK government seems to share the Nazi beauty ideal of everybody being slim, muscular etc. They hate size zeroes as much as they hate fatties.

Anonymous said...

Anti-biotic use (especially in youth) are linked (IMHO convincingly) with obesity.

Could it be that big state treatment-rationing has been behind the growth in obesity even more directly than the economic incentives to ignore your own heath imply?

AC1

dearieme said...

"everybody being slim, muscular etc": anorexics on steroids, then?