How Do We Solve a Problem Like Obesity?

[BFTD]

6 minutes ago, moses1924 said:

all this thread has done is make me look up what "red pudding" is and want to find somewhere to try it...

I remember it tasting similar to battered sausage.

Absolutely fine, but nothing to slip into obesity over.

[54_and_counting]

So right now we have a cost of living crisis, prices of food going so high that people cannot eat

And we also have an obesity crisis where Britain is about to become majority full of fat b*****ds 

Cant we just let number one take care of number 2 and go on our merry way

[vikingTON]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/10/obese-patients-weight-shamed-doctors-nurses

Quote

The problem is so widespread around the world that health professionals need to be taught as students that excess weight is almost guaranteed in modern society and not the fault of individuals, so they treat people more sensitively, according to the authors of the study, 

Well I can think of another, real problem that is so widespread, that it is crushing the entire fucking country's health system under the strain in the first place. Why don't we focus on that first? 

Apparently there's also a 'National Obesity Forum', whose chairman has piped up as well:

Quote

 

Obesity has never been a ‘personal problem’,” said Fry. “Healthcare professionals need to get wise to the fact that many individuals affected are powerless to overcome the obesogenic environment in which they live, notably the ultra-processed food which slick advertising and relentless encourages them to eat.

“They are invariably cash-poor and depend on this cheap but less than healthy food to live – an environment from which they have no escape.”

 

Self-pitying drivel of the most harmful form. Where is society's truncheon to the face option when it is needed?

[Gordon EF]

A few years ago I was overweight. Then I started exercising more and eating less and got down to a healthy weight. A while later, I binned that and sat on my arse and ate pizzas. I put more weight on again. Here was me thinking it was a mix of diet and exercise that was affecting my weight. Turns out it was doctors and the obeseogeneity of my environment.

[Miguel Sanchez]

"obesogenic"

[TheScarf]

People are fat because the eat utter shite and walk about 300 steps a day.  It's as simple as that.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

2 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

People are fat because the eat utter shite and walk about 300 steps a day.  It's as simple as that.

300? Seems high imo. 

[TheScarf]

2 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

300? Seems high imo. 

Typo, I meant 3.

[Florentine_Pogen]

30 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Typo, I meant 3.

Correct......couch to fridge to couch.................

[Gordon EF]

2 hours ago, TheScarf said:

People are fat because the eat utter shite and walk* about 300 steps a day.  It's as simple as that.

*waddle

[Benjamin_Nevis]

4 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

*waddle

Orange Walks thread for this pish 

[vikingTON]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/17/people-should-not-take-cakes-in-to-the-office-suggests-food-watchdog-chief

The absolute, fucking nick of this:

Quote

The head of a food watchdog has suggested people should not bring cake into the office for the sake of their colleagues’ health.

Prof Susan Jebb, chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, also lamented that the advertising of junk food is “undermining people’s free will”.

“If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub."

Quote

 

She also insisted restrictions on advertising junk food were “not about the nanny state” but would instead tackle what she described as a “complete market failure” where sweet goods take precedence over vegetables.

She told the paper: “The businesses with the most money have the biggest influence on people’s behaviour. That’s not fair … we’ve ended up with a complete market failure, because what you get advertised is chocolate and not cauliflower.”

 

Last time I checked, there weren't hundreds of different cauliflower brands fighting for a share of the market. Which is why there is no total waste of time advertising for it. So that's straightforward economics - not a cruel injustice inflicted on the world by moustache-twirling Big Cocoa executives.

Is the public health lobby uniquely detached from reality in this way, or is there a wider problem with a Britain's education system that churns out these losers?

[ICTChris]

I think quite often public health advocates don't seem to be able to rationally analyse why people behave the way they do because they don't want to admit that enjoyment or pleasure are part of the equation.  People bring things like cakes into the office because it's good to socialise over a small treat with your colleagues.  People don't bring in trays of cauliflower because it's not a treat - I quite like cauliflower but it's obvious that it's different from cake.  I doubt many people are obese because they eat too many cakes in the office.  There's also a strange view of advertising, that people are uniquely malleable to cynical manipulation.  I mean, if you banned all cake adverts and replaced them with turnips, the vast majority of people are still going to prefer eating cakes to eating turnips.

You see the same discussions about alcohol - most people enjoy drinking alcohol for the pleasure of it, the taste and the social aspect.  Obviously some people drink too much and it has health consequences, sometimes dire but people have not been manipulated into this by the Bud advert with frogs or whatever.  The Scottish Government is currently carrying out a consultation on banning alcohol advertising and the following was printed in one of the white papers

I don't drink anymore and was never really a big whisky drinker but anyone with a brain knows this isn't true.  Same goes for beer - is the difference between Skol and Stella Artois just marketing?  Just nonsense.  

[CityDave94]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/17/people-should-not-take-cakes-in-to-the-office-suggests-food-watchdog-chief

The absolute, fucking nick of this:

Last time I checked, there weren't hundreds of different cauliflower brands fighting for a share of the market. Which is why there is no total waste of time advertising for it. So that's straightforward economics - not a cruel injustice inflicted on the world by moustache-twirling Big Cocoa executives.

Is the public health lobby uniquely detached from reality in this way, or is there a wider problem with a Britain's education system that churns out these losers?

It remains to be seen whether this what appears to be a rant is just because she herself doesn't have the free will to say no to cake so obviously no one else does. Someone in her office must have had a telling for bringing in even more cake and this has had her go 'off on one' to the press to warn the public of the dangers and tackle the advertising brainwashing that goes on that has created this horrific situation, but not in a nanny nation way, definately not. Imagine if this chocolate and cream filled sponge cake armageddon spilled out of the office and into the streets and everyone started giving each other cake. It would be the end of the world.

I hope someone had the consideration to bring in a large tray of raw cauliflower for her next time there is cakes and sweeties brought into her office so she can exercise her free will.

btw Jebb is a boomer.

[Michael W]

It is, of course, just as easy to not have a slice of cake in the office as it is not to go into Costa or the likes on your way home and get a cake from there. No-one is being forced to eat it and Professor Jebb is really just trying to palm her own failings off on someone else. Her argument that free will is undermined by junk food being advertised is a particularly mental position to take. Like any other advert, you can just go ahead and ignore it; you are not obliged to do anything. 

There surely isn't a a gloomier, more po-faced group of people in the UK than 'public health advocates'. 

[101]

10 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Her argument that free will is undermined by junk food being advertised is a particularly mental position to take. Like any other advert, you can just go ahead and ignore it; you are not obliged to do anything

But they will deliberately advertise at times when they know it's most effective and their adverts aren't particularly reflective of the products they offer. Has anyone had a burger that resembles the advertising picture obviously they do enough to comply with ASA rules but it's pretty poor.

[coprolite]

I actually took in a small tray of fancy dried fruit for my birthday one time, alongside a couple of tubs of cakes. Surprisingly enough, they were still there a couple of weeks after the last of the brownie bites and mini teacakes had gone. 

Might take in a couple of caulies this year. Everyone thinks I'm a c**t anyway. 

[Michael W]

4 minutes ago, 101 said:

But they will deliberately advertise at times when they know it's most effective and their adverts aren't particularly reflective of the products they offer. Has anyone had a burger that resembles the advertising picture obviously they do enough to comply with ASA rules but it's pretty poor.

How is this any different from the advertisement of other products, though? 

[101]

7 minutes ago, Michael W said:

How is this any different from the advertisement of other products, though? 

I would say advertising food and drink is particularly bad for targeting when they know folk are easily led. Other products would be more seasonal like kids toys, cars and furniture etc.

But yes I agree most adverts show a version of the product that is often not what the customer receives and would favour better enforcement and regulation of all adverts rather than specifically food and drink.

Edited January 18, 2023 by 101

[throbber]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

  People bring things like cakes into the office because it's good to socialise over a small treat with your colleagues.