Why we are fatter as a nation than we used to be
IREAD a recent article by a medical expert who implied it was generally accepted that the main cause of increased obesity was certain types of food which were more prevalent than in days gone by.
However, when everyone supposedly agrees over a particular issue, I’m inclined to think that there is more to the subject than meets the eye.
And certainly I believe that there are other significant reasons which must be considered when it comes to looking at why we are fatter as a nation than we used to be.
I mean didn’t the character’s in the “Famous Five” enjoy their “lashings and lashings of ginger beer” and other less wholesome delights?
A quote incidentally that belongs to the Comic Strip parodies rather than being the words of Enid Blyton.
Yet throughout her children’s novels you will find that the young characters did enjoy their food, including lavish helpings of ice cream, concoctions hardly noted for their healthy qualities.
So why didn’t they and real life individuals of that age (the 1950s) all become as large as Billy Bunter,
the Fat Owl of the Remove?
Simply that in addition to having a good appetite, people burnt off many calories through their normal daily routines.
More worked in occupations that involved heavy labour, be it coal mining or deep sea fishing.
By contrast a high proportion of twenty-first century employees are in sedentary jobs.
What’s more, the majority didn’t travel to work by car. They’d walk, cycle or go by bus. Which in the case of the latter often meant a considerable trek to the nearest stop.
And in the home there were fewer devices that made it easier to carry out household tasks.
Clothes would be washed by hand, while dishwashers were unheard of. If you were lucky enough to have a lawn it certainly wasn’t cut with an electric mower!
As for children, they weren’t tied to a computer, but played outside using up any surplus energy.
Yes, I agree that you can’t play in the streets nowadays – there are far too many cars for that.
Grimsby, though, is fortunate enough to have an excellent selection of parks along with community centres offering physical pursuits.
So really, it isn’t just a case of the survival of the fattest!