Darragh McManus: We’re fat because food is everywhere
POOR old millennials. Already stereotyped, unfairly or not, as precious, entitled and delusional, it now seems our twenty and thirtysomethings will be the fattest generation since modern records began.
New findings by Cancer Research UK predict that more than 70pc of people born from the early 1980s to
mid-90s will be overweight or obese between the ages of 35-44. Presumably this will just increase as they age.
By contrast, only half of baby boomers were in the same enlarged state at that age. Actually, it says something about how obesity is so central to modern life that I wrote “only” there – as if one in two people being unhealthily overweight is normal or to be expected.
Regardless, these are staggering figures, although not to the extent that western health services will be staggering under the pressure of coping with the consequences of our expanding waistlines. As everyone knows – though it doesn’t appear to modify our calorific intake – obesity is directly linked to a terrifying swathe of illnesses, from diabetes and heart failure to
13 types of cancer.
And we’re all getting fatter; it’s not just the much-maligned millennials.
At this rate, the planet’s solar orbit will be knocked askew by the additional strain of ferrying our bloated selves through the cosmos, and we’ll end up hurled into the frozen end of the galaxy. The drop in temperature should, at least, burn off some calories.
So what’s causing it? A raft of explanations has been put forward. Modern life is overly sedentary. We spend too long in the car or in front of a screen. We’re not mindful as we eat. We’ve lost that connection to food production. Video games are making us fat.
It’s a conspiracy by Big Sugar and Big Salt. It’s because of PC idiots glamorising obesity as sexy or cool or some kind of a personal-aspolitical statement of rebellion.
Or maybe it’s one those sociohistorical ironies: even as thinness is ever more revered by media and fashion (and thus, society), and extreme sports become increasingly popular with over-achieving suburbanites, the other half of humanity gets lazier and greedier and, inevitably, bigger.
The most common argument – over-consumption of processed food because it’s cheaper than healthy options – is, in my view, both right and wrong. It’s correct, in that we do eat too much of this rubbish, which is full of sugar, salt and empty calories.
But I’m not sure it’s true that junk food is cheaper.
A bag of rice, clatter of vegetables and a chicken (or vegetarian alternative) will make a family dinner for a few days, and costs about €10.
That is roughly the price of a frozen pizza, chocolate bar and bottle of lemonade. Junk food is easier, yes, but not necessarily cheaper.
Anyway, here’s a fresh theory: there’s simply too much food around nowadays.
Food, food everywhere – so let’s all have a bite. Or two. Or 10. Oh go on, we might as well finish the whole thing.
And not just ‘bad’ stuff, but all sorts.
No matter where you go, what you’re doing, whatever happens to be on: there’s always so much food.
We can’t take a one-hour drive without first purchasing the large coffee (milk, two sugars) and muffin as accompaniment.
In your home, at work, christenings, funerals, sports days, birthday parties, trips to the park or beach, matches, fair days, expos, air shows, parades, even just strolling through town: food is all around. Indeed, things like Christmas markets are now 70pc or 80pc food and/or drink stalls, as opposed to selling gift items.
It’s literally unavoidable, and hard to resist; we’re only human. You think, “I’ll just have a quick latte and a Danish, sure it’s something to have in my hand as I’m wandering around…”
It wasn’t always so. I remember when, say, after baptisms, you’d retire to the parents’ house for tea and sandwiches, maybe a drink; now it’s a full-on four-course meal, with the choice of a million sweet treats for dessert.
Look at photos from the 1970s and ’80s, and virtually everyone is skinny. Even the ones we remember as fat were actually, by 2018 standards, only chubby. (I was shocked at how small Augustus Gloop is in the original ‘Willie Wonka’ movie. He looks more big-boned, layered in puppy fat, than anything else.)
Yes, the enormous hair-dos and shirt collars probably play a visual trick, making 1970s people seem even skinnier than they actually were.
But they genuinely were a lot slimmer.
For proof, ask any young person to try on their mother’s wedding dress or that velour suit dad has kept in mothballs since his discodancing heyday.
In all likelihood, you’ll need a crowbar, WD-40 and a team of strong assistants to complete the manoeuvre.
It’s mad. All this rich food, all the time, even when it’s not technically ‘junk’: no wonder so many struggle with weight.
Look at photos from the 1970s and 1980s and virtually everyone is skinny. Yes, the enormous hairdos and the shirt collars probably play a visual trick, making 1970s people seem even skinnier than they actually were – but they genuinely were a lot slimmer
many women, would argue we have not come anywhere near far enough.
If we don’t recognise this, and teach young men and women about sexual violence in the classroom, how can we expect real and everlasting change?
If we make the justice system so extremely hard and traumatic to navigate, how can we expect real and everlasting change?
IF we don’t, as a society, teach equality to children from the age of five, can we expect young boys, who then become leaders in business and politics, to even consider that women should be standing bedside them, leading the way?
And if our male-dominated Government today doesn’t challenge sexual discrimination, female harassment and an appalling lack of women in top jobs; if it doesn’t address equal pay, or increase the number of female TDs, striving to protect them from bullying and harassment online, how far can we travel?
By not forcing change in our classrooms, our workplaces, even our Government, we only ensure that there cannot be substantial and meaningful progression.
So for all the movements in the world, from Time’s Up, to #MeToo and International Women’s Day, without action, tangible change, nothing moves forward for our daughters, sisters, friends, or for us.
Perhaps the single most important movement in the country and, to an extent, the world for women right now is the mighty force of Repeal the Eighth. With bodily autonomy in Ireland, some change will come and most importantly, many young women will feel empowered to know they have a right to choose their own path without State or religious condemnation.
Perhaps if the mechanisms of the State take real action to create a better, fairer, more equal world for women and girls, women will not have to witness scenes of male dominance, harassment or aggression.
Perhaps if society gave a resounding ‘no’ to such behaviour, it would simply become so odious that it would eventually be stamped out. But for now, while we live in the unequal world we do, I do my best to be there for other women when I can. I tell younger women: ‘no’, it really isn’t normal for men to touch them up on nights out because it’s just something that they come to accept.
I encourage them to support their friends and on the night in question, when I heard such threats of violence against one young woman, I ensured she knew.
She was shocked but she was armed with the knowledge of the monster lurking beneath some handsome, high-spirited boys.
When we know society and the State haven’t yet provided women their entitled equality, and when we see any man in a place of business taking advantage of his power, and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to turn, we see we still have a very long road to walk.
But the journey’s end is not impossible and our young women will help navigate the way.