Britain should follow Japan’s waist-measuring approach to cutting obesity rather than the “reckless” prescription of weight-loss drugs for millions, the government’s former food tsar has warned.
Henry Dimbleby warned that Britain cannot “drug its way of out of the problem” of obesity as he urged ministers to implement interventionist policies that he insists will be popular with voters.
Limiting us to raw turnips is going to be popular, is it?
Ironically, he’s a bit of a wobble-bottom.
Isn’t he just suggesting that rather than putting everyone on ‘Tranquilax’ or sending them on a ‘soma holiday’ to solve all their problems, we do something else?
Well, actually, selecting people on the basis of whether or not they have a “spare tyre” round their waist is less bad than using the dimensionally unsound BMI for classifying them as “obese”.
His plan still involves an infringement of liberty.
I am perfectly capable of planning my own healthy diet without the “aid” of Henry Dimbleby or any other government-appointed “adviser” (dictator).
Why not just let people eat what they please.
If they kick the bucket earlier, you’ll have solved the ‘too many pensioners’ problem without any of the fuss Macron has produced.
We *could* do that, or… Henry Dimbledore can fuck off and play with lions.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The only actual cure for obesity is people take responsibility for themselves. And that’s not a popular remedy. (And judging from past discussions about the subject, not even popular here)
@ bis
That is, as I have demonstrated, a means of preventing obesity so that no cure is needed.
For those who have allowed themselves to become seriously overweight it often (well, relatively often) requires a major fright such as a heart attack for them to change their lifestyle/eating habits.
Japan has four time the incidence of gastric carcinoma than the UK. Without knowing and understanding all factors results in apples and oranges comparisons by idiots and ignorami – of which we have a plentiful supply.
Something nobody’s ever been able to adequately explain to me is why this is any of the government’s damned business. Eat your greens and excercise, citizen! Strength through joy! Now I’m not saying that being a fat slob is good or anything, but that communofascistic shit can fuck right off. (And I rather like Steve’s lions idea for those who propose it. That would keep ’em on their toes.)
‘less bad than using the dimensionally unsound BMI for classifying them as “obese”.’
A few months ago I saw a cardiologist who was new to me. She had evidently glanced at my height/weight/BMI before I walked into her room. She declared that I was heavy but that I had the frame to carry it. Bless her: big-chested, broad-shouldered, wide-hipped fellas will tend to have a high BMI however much fat they are carrying.
If I were a “social scientist” I’d probably claim to have made statistical corrections for those confounders and discovered that really I’m slightly underweight. (I’m being sarcastic: my fight against the flab is going well but is incomplete.)
P.S. When I got a computer record of that last visit to cardiology it turned out that they’d got my height wrong. Isn’t science wonderful?