No conspiracy theory can explain the real reason we’re so fat
Yes, there’s lots of unhealthy food about, but it’s your choice to eat too much of it
Why are we all so fat? Is it a conspiracy by food manufacturers? It is because we watched too much telly as kids? Air pollution? Stress? Additives?
Oh, oh, I know! It’s a disease, isn’t it? Genetics. Saturated fat. Hidden sugar. Too much salt. And we’re back to the conspiracy theory.
Barely a month goes by without a raft of new research into the causes of obesity. It is, of course, a headlinegrabbing subject and our most pressing public health problem to boot.
This week the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that to safeguard the next generation against obesity and mental health issues, babies and toddlers should not be allowed to watch screens. Children aged five should be limited to just an hour a day or less.
Meanwhile, scientists at Harvard have identified an additive used to preserve bread and other baked goods that could be fuelling obesity by leading to increased levels of hormones that trigger weight gain and diabetes.
I’m not for a moment suggesting these are not important pieces of a jigsaw that will help experts complete the complex puzzle of how behaviour and consumption interact to create the health crisis we face as a society.
But the truth is that nobody ever got fat from eating enough. It is eating more than our body needs that causes obesity.
Yet, saying so has become taboo. Even broaching the matter of weight
triggers such a unique blend of hypersensitivity and hostility that common sense flies out the window. Assuming it can still get off the ground.
In other areas of health concern the edicts are straightforward, verging on blunt, and yet receive broadly unanimous support. Smoking – stop! It’s bad for you and your children. Alcohol abuse – cut back! It’s bad for you and your children.
Obesity – eat less! It’s bad for you and means your children are more likely to be overweight. Stop outsourcing the blame. Yes, there’s a lot of unhealthy food out there but it’s your choice to eat too much of it.
Every attempt to suggest obese people should consume less is invariably met with defensiveness and indignation. Then again, overeating is often fuelled by emotion, so perhaps it’s no surprise that anything deemed to be critical provokes just that. But that doesn’t mean it should.
This time last year Cancer Research was accused of “fat shaming” in an advertising campaign. Comedian Sofie Hagen claimed that by warning the nation obesity is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking, the charity was being “incredibly damaging”.
Huh? The only damaging thing going on there was Hagen’s wilfully stupid insistence that the oncologists had got it wrong, and that hurting fat people’s feelings was somehow worse than letting them eat themselves on to a cancer ward.
In these knee-jerk hashtag days, adding the suffix “shaming” to just about any word immediately prompts an outcry. Fat shaming, skinny shaming, fertility shaming; you name it, there will be a backlash.
Social media has given us all a voice. But it has also generated a profound and alarming misconception that all voices have equal authority. They do not.
In Northern Ireland, where I was born, a leading cardiologist revealed earlier this month that “obesity is the new norm”. Around 37 per cent of the population is obese and a further 27 per cent are overweight. The obesity figure for England and Scotland is around 29 per cent. At current rates, 74 per cent of men and 64 per cent of women are predicted to be overweight by 2030.
I’ve been slim, I’ve been fat. Slim felt nicer. Right now I’m trying to shed weight and it’s not easy. But it ain’t rocket science either.
I do realise that many people from disadvantaged backgrounds often don’t know how to cook, and are ever more reliant on processed foods; there’s a cast-iron argument for restoring good old domestic science to the curriculum if ever I heard one.
You don’t have to be Jamie Oliver to guess that introducing kids to school dinners featuring new flavours, spices and herbs could help wean them off the sugar and salt combinations that are proving so addictive.
Incidentally, the Government proposed a Healthy Schools Rating Scheme in 2016, which was to help schools to become all-round healthy zones. But we’ve yet to see it put into place.
I can’t help thinking, however, that before we set about tackling obese bodies, we need to win over hearts and minds.
There’s a psychological mechanism at work that prompts overweight people to feel angry when this is pointed out. Like everything else that’s hard but worthwhile, willpower is crucial – and to solve any problem you first need to acknowledge that there is one.
The normalisation of obesity is a terrifying prospect. Medical issues arising from being overweight and obese are already costing the NHS around £6billion a year, and are projected to reach £9.7billion by 2050. That’s one hell of a bill for our all-you-can-eat buffet.
It would be facile to suggest there is a single silver bullet to cure obesity overnight. But unless we stop accepting being overweight as normal today, we are conspiring to sabotage our tomorrow.