Wednesday 16 December 2009

Class War Is Busting Out All Over!

Now, how can the ‘obesity war’ be fought and won? I know! On the playing fields of Eton!

Wait. What..?
A widening class gap is likely to be seen in the coming years in childhood obesity, a study suggests.
Funny, just after the government is handed the message ‘Stop banging on about class, it isn’t working’, it gets picked up somewhere else…
Previous research has suggested rates in England may be levelling off.

But the University College London team found this was happening most in children aged two to 10 from wealthier backgrounds.
Well, of course it is!

You are preaching to the converted there – to the worried middle-classes who read the ‘Guardian’ and the ‘Telegraph’ and haven’t yet realised that that most of these government figures aren’t worth the wholemeal rice paper they are written on!

Other people have far greater things to worry about...
They analysed data gathered by the government-funded Health Survey for England.
And definition of ‘obesity’ no doubt based on the faulty BMI. And we’ve seen the crazy consequences of that before…

But the rent-seekers are out in force, looking to ensure they’ll still have a job in the new administration to come:
Lead researcher Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis said: "This highlights the need for public health action to reverse recent trends and narrow social inequalities in health."
No, it doesn’t.

Nothing of the sort, actually.
"The widening socio-economic gap may be partly due to difficulties to reach and communicate health messages to families from lower socio-economic groups."
Yes, it’s because the people who work for a living either don’t care what the government says, or realise that most of it is utter bilge, intended to keep someone in a cozy office job somewhere.

But where’s Tam Fry? Surely that grinning little homunculus heard the ringing of the dinner bell?

Ah! There he is:
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, agreed awareness was more likely to be greater among wealthier families.
But he added: "It is also often quite expensive and time-consuming to buy healthy food and that puts wealthier parents at an advantage."
And we can’t have anyone having an advantage in the UK, can we..?

Unless it's a troughing politician, that is...

6 comments:

  1. I would have thought that when not working, time is not a problem, and that Jamie Oliver already demonstrated quite conclusively that buying healthy food is actually cheaper than buying ready made crap.

    But the last bit requires some kind of effort.

    ReplyDelete
  2. tam fry's nonsense has been debunked time and time again.
    is no one watching delia at christmas?!
    someone stick a triple fried mars bar in his gob

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's much cheaper to eat healthy food than processed stuff. The problem is chavs would rather bung a load of Turkey Twizzlers in the microwave than cook.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree with David Gillies. Fresh ingredients are generally much cheaper than processed ready meals.

    But quite a lot of research is pointing towards the importance of breakfast in a healthy, well balanced diet. In fact there are some indications that brekkie helps you fight the flab, because you eat less junk during the morning. So the divide may be between the families who have a regular breakfast, and those who send their kids to school unfed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "But the last bit requires some kind of effort."

    And there's the rub...

    "It's much cheaper to eat healthy food than processed stuff."

    It's not like there's any shortage of it in any supermarket I've ever been to. And it's on special offer with equal frequency to the processed rubbish, so there's no excuse there either...

    "So the divide may be between the families who have a regular breakfast, and those who send their kids to school unfed."

    That's a good point, actually. Weren't some school trying out 'breakfast clubs' and noting an improvement academically a while back?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't need the Government to point out that wealthier people are healthier than poor ones.
    Neither do I believe their rubbish statistics about obesity rates which a simple glance up and down the high street shows.

    Some twat woman was on the radio the other days claiming success for 'her' campaign against obesity because "after just one year" obesity was starting to decline as a direct result of her campaigning, yeah right. More like they got the figures wrong in the first place or even manipulated them to be artificially high in order to claim that very 'success'.

    ReplyDelete