Addressing the social and economic factors influencing overweight is a big ask. In fact it is pie in the sky [no pun intended]. Even if there is to be some personal suffering, it would be much better to do something about getting Johnny’s weight down now to prevent him from spending the next 60 years or so feeling very unhappy about being over-weight.

Can you explain what Kate Carnell's comment (former Liberal Chief Minister of the ACT) has to do with Labor policy?

Better to be teased for being fat as a kid than to live with chronic illness in later life.

Peer group ridicule is a strong incentive for overweight kids to trim down.
Another method may be to intercept the grossly overweight parents lurching into Mc.Donald's with their greedy kids in tow, and hand them pamphlets about healthy eating.
On second thoughts, those parents would probably just use these to wipe their noses then drop them on the ground.

isn't it time we started requiring licenses to procreate? we can test for bad genes, and we can test for fat addiction, and we can test for stupidity.

australia's next generation deserves competent healthy parents.

We follow America in everything, including markers of poverty. The lower your income the fatter you are. I am too lazy to find the Australian studies that show increased family income is associated with healthier weight.

When we compare Australians now to the pictures of Max Duplains Australians of the 1930s and 1940s we are all fat now. Most of us eat much more processed food than people did 50 years ago. Cadbury's chocolate, Mars bars, muffins, should not be part of anybody's daily diet. We eat oven bake chips made in belgium and coated in who-knows-what fats. We also eat larger servings than previous generations and we expend much less energy than previous generations. [That said we don't want to go back to good old days of using men to unload trains and ships hessian sack by hessian sack hefted on the back. Remember labourers used to be crippled by their early 40s.]

If we are serious about reducing obesity and over weight
- ban advertising of snack food on TV, the advertising is so ubiquitious that every one thinks they can be consumed daily
- ban advertising of soft drinks. Have you noticed its cheaper to by soft drink than cordial now
- introduce complusory school lunches to ensure kids get proper food and learn appropriate serving sizes
- lose this climate of fear that compels parents to drive their kids to school and makes adults frightened of catching public transport after dark

Maybe we could consider a eugenic approach.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19426005.800-gene-makes-some-people-fatter.html

We could test foetuses and abort any baby that carried "fat genes."

DEMOS may be onto something

Jamie Oliver was so correct when he attacked the diets of school children, he should have attacked the lazy habits of parents who stuff their offspring with fast ,easy slap dash food instead of making sure that at home, food was nutritious and tasty.
There is nothing more satisfying ,comforting than a chip sandwich also there is very little goodness for building bone, muscle and brain power in the same sandwich.
I grew up in an age where there was virtually no take away food and no money to buy it had it been available. We had stews, soups, roast mutton and vegetables were a cheap filler.We were not fat nor were we shut up in rooms with electronic gizmos. So we played outside, walked miles and were pretty healthy. I wish today's generation could have the fun we did and the good tucker to go with it.

What a sanctimonious load of claptrap this thread has turned into. For example. "lazy habits of parent", " we can test for fat addiction, and we can test for stupid". "greedy kids in tow", topped off nicely with "We could test foetuses and abort any baby that carried 'fat genes"". What next, prison camps for fat people, or the final solution for the overweight?

How about we test for the gene that enables dopey comments on blog threads?

Less TV, less sitting in front of the computer typing is what we need. I'm off for a walk.

My feeling is that the sanctimonious one here might just be the same person who fails to recognize tongue-in-cheek when he sees it.

We are perfectly entitled to be concerned about the growing numbers of people who for whatever reason choose to overeat and live on processed and junk food. The future epidemic of chronic disease and mental health problems that will result from this is going to completely swamp the capacity of our health system. We will all end up paying for this greed and ignorance one way or the other.

I agree, education is the key. But we also need a government who is not afraid to start regulating the multinational conglomerates and supermarket monopolies responsible for foisting all this junk onto consumers. I agree, ban all junk food advertising. Eliminate junk food from school tuckshop menus and get school kids involved in growing their own food.

It's a pity also that we're stuck with John Howard's undiscriminating GST. A differential tax system could have been used to encourage better purchasing choices, with natural and unprocessed food given tax free status and all junk food (including alcohol and cigarettes) highly taxed. The revenue collected could have been channelled into offsetting the inevitable collapse of our health system.

"My feeling is that the sanctimonious one here might just be the same person who fails to recognize tongue-in-cheek when he sees it." Granted Bronwyn, this is a possiblity.

However, having examined threads on OLO for some time, the instances of humor are somewhat rarer than instances of stupidity. Perhaps those responsible for the pearls of wisdom I quoted might care to enlighten us on exactly what they meant?

Browyn I agree with your comment that the government should subsidise healthy food like grapes and bananas etc. They talked about putting a tax on fast food but they never mentioned making good food cheaper. In other words we dont mind punishing the fat ones by making them pay more as long as WE dont have to fork over any of our profits or taxes to make foods that are basic healthy staples cheaper.

I'm all for exercise at school but I'm not for overzealous teachers pushing children to run when they are not fit enough. As in building up your fitness slowly and not dangerously quickly. Also a child may have gone to shcool that day just on the verge of going down with the flu and not feeling well. Children should be encouraged to go for a brisk walk and run if they wish but only if they wish to.

God protect us from the food police, and the exercise police, people who want to peer into other peoples shopping trolleys and be judgemental. People who think they are qualified exercise experts forcing people to run before they are capable of brisk walking.

Judge not or you will be judged on your own imperfections.

Hopefully, one of these days, people politicians and social engineers will rediscover the fact that people, not governments, must take responsibility for their own lives

Of course there are two side to the equation, calorie consumption v exercise. Unfortunately our kids seem to be losing out at both ends.

Perceived fear about not letting kids walk to school is valid though probably not rational, organised sport is expensive due to insurance costs, housing blocks are getting smaller and houses are bigger resulting in no back yards. Parks have signs saying almost everything is banned bar looking at flowers.

Can anyone explain why a kilo of oven fried chips is a similar price to a kilo of spuds?

“It's a pity also that we're stuck with John Howard's undiscriminating GST. A differential tax system could have been used to encourage better purchasing choices…”

Absolutely Bronwyn.

“God protect us from the food police, and the exercise police…”

Indeed sharkfin.

So what we need is a stronger social democracy, where our government is willing to implement the necessary incentives to make companies produce healthy stuff, and to make the populace shy away from any unhealthy stuff that is produced.

That’s a pretty basic concept.

So why then hasn’t it happened? Especially given the obesity epidemic and its high-profile nature.

One guess.

That’s right, big business rules OK? Not governments. Oh, and apathy reigns supreme in the general community as well….which allows big business to rule over governments.

Big profits for the producers and big contented guts for the consumers. Sounds like a win-win situation!

So how the hell do we fight that?

It is all very well to say that governments should do more, but if the support or push from the community isn’t there, then forget it.

Sorry, but it suddenly seems a whole lot harder to deal with the obesity epidemic than it did when I started writing this post.

“People… must take responsibility for their own lives”.

Yes Leigh, I guess that’s the bottom line.

Obesity and it's causes.

Who really knows why people are getting fatter. I doubt very much if it is one singular cause and aiming to correct the problem by focussing on one singular cause is doomed to failure.

Lets consider that since the promotion of the use of margarine as a healthier alternative to butter and the increased use of non-saturated fats, people in the western world have gotten fatter.

Correspondingly there is an alternative to sugar which is promoted as a healthy alternative and will help people loose weight, people are still getting fatter.

Perhaps as well is all the labour saving devices aimed to make our lives easier thus reducing the amount of exercise that people get.

Over perhaps the last 5 decades, food manufacturers in a constant struggle for market share and profits, produce more and more highly refined food to appeal to peoples palates.

Sure there is no denying that if the energy consumed isn't matched by energy expended, it gets stored in the body.

and just maybe the CSIRO is right in that the food pyramid wasn't correct.

Once upon a time we expended a lot of energy in collecting, preserving and preparing food.

I've noticed an increasing sort of arrogance towards fat people. Arrogance is nothing short of bigotry.

For instance: In a freebie magazine directed at young folk I noticed this piece of "journalism" in a report on the Violent Femmes concert. This is the intro (which really has nothing to do with the concert but everything to do with the author’s and sub-editors bigotry).

He said: “Crammed into the Tivoli crowd tonight, this reviewer finds his lions are being manipulated -albeit, through a thin manifold – by the lumpy buttocks of a morbidly obese woman, an experience unpleasantly like being dry humped by a bean bag . And I’m sure there are more than a few sympathetic readers…” What an arrogant bigot. Given the sensitivity of girls that age you all can imagine how these girls would feel if they recognised themselves? The psychological harm from this sort of thing contributes greatly to ill health of young folk.

Moreover, a local freebie afternoon paper has had letters section raging with people who hate fat people. Making suggestions as extreme as putting them in a separate carriage.

Reading this laxas tunicas scrombi reminded me of a feminist’s book Shelley Bovey's “The Forbidden Body” in which she argued that attitudes towards fat people was little different to racism.

She also pointed out that instead of picking on people perceived as fat for trains being cramped, etc. people should ask why the trains are so overloaded and cramped. RE: Tivoli they’d be better to ask why the place is so cramped and overcrowded.

So let's crack down on bigots who berate fat people.

Cont.
Bovey points out that the constant haranguing and carry on about weight creates that much stress that it actually (she cites pretty convincing evidence) causes more harm (increased blood pressure from stress of living up to others expectations; unrealistic diets that reduce the metabolic rate so much that when the dieter resumes normal eating he or she will put on excessive weight); the psychological damage from bullying at school and the snide remarks; hurt can be internalised and lead to low self esteem and compensating behaviours (such as relying on inauthentic personality or overly on sexuality); they become outcasts and clinical anxiety sufferers, etc. She points that if an Indigenous person were treated as such there would be outrage from the wider community.

According the Bovey, research suggests that heart disease, high blood pressure are more likely to be caused by stress of being frightened, stigmatised rather than obesity.
She says that everyone is entitled to live without worry, pretence or apology.

Avoirdupois in a woman is seen as counter to the culture where women, as a type, are laid down according to unrealistic expectations. Men, lets say a big Scotsman, are not seen as weak or out of control for their size. Indeed, a big ol’ McHaggis is seen as one to admire (don’t worry girls the McHaggis clan only like girls who are over 400pounds -too many fractured hips with the skinny ones).

So lets follow the McHaggis clan and honor our big girls. There's and old saying: "no one can be honorable unless he or she honors all humanity."

So let's be fair to the big girls - it aint as easy as you think to living up to the expectations of 2007's skinny-loving, arrogant culture. So let's crack down on arrogance.