Obesity not individuals’ fault

I was reading an article today on the BBC’s website entitled “Obesity not individuals’ fault”.

It summarised a report stating that individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity and claimed that government must act to prevent the nation “sleepwalking” into an obesity epidemic.

The authors (a bunch of 250 experts and academics) admitted proof that any anti-obesity policy worked "was scant" (this is true anywhere; I think most medics don’t believe diet and exercise works).

Following on from this they report that obesity was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife.

Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said that in this environment, it was surprising that anyone was able to remain slim, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good.

"The stress has been on the individual choosing a healthier lifestyle, but that simply isn't enough" she said.

Now in that quote Susan Jebb is absolutely spot on. We all know that the “healthier” approach to diet and exercise is not successful. Adherence to program’s of this type is incredibly low. Modern terms such as the “eat less move more” and the “be more active” as a euphemism for “exercise” are largely just spin.

But Dr Jebb went on to comment that the planning of our towns had to be improved to encourage more physical activity (there’s that word again), mothers should be breastfeeding to slow down infant weight gain, but the report stopped short of actually making ANY recommendations.

So in other words these 250 experts just got together and complained ... it took 250 of them to compile a report that states the bleeding obvious. They are (as far as I am aware) all experts, but could not make one concrete recommendation.

So what are you supposed to do if the experts won’t make any recommendations?

Well, lets go back to that article and the title “Obesity not individuals’ fault”.

The title has two key points. We live in a blame culture. We are looking for someone to blame. Someone or something to point the accusing finger at. The first point I make is “fault” in that title.

Why do we need to look for blame? As a society we live with our heads’ in the past looking for someone to blame. It might make us feel better, but it is not an effective solution is it? It doesn’t solve the problem. The obese are still obese and the overweight are still overweight.

So if it doesn’t solve the problem, what does it do?

Well the obese and the overweight often feel that they must be to blame, end up (wrongly) feeling guilty, consequently eat more to improve their short term morale and ultimately compound their problems.

The second point I want to make in this post is that it may not be individuals’ fault, but what good is that? Again no solutions.

The simple fact of the matter is that it is the individuals responsibility for how they act upon that knowledge. Well we may not be responsible for putting on the weight, but we are responsible for how we react.

We as a society, and this I believe is typical of many cultures around the world, live with our heads in the past and look for who’s to blame. We would be better to get our heads together and look for solutions to solve the problems, not just state the bleeding obvious.

The experts view was that the government needed to act. But if the government tells you what to do ... yet again ... doesn’t it make you feel like “here we go again ... nanny state”? It certainly makes me feel that way.

The better course of action for me was to accept that I had got too big and then start to look at ways in which I could help myself. I did take responsibility for my own actions and as far as I can see, it ultimately is down to us as individuals to act to solve our own issues ... to lose that weight if that is what we want.

If we look back to that article, Dr Susan Jebb commented that in this environment (in our society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife), it was surprising that anyone was able to remain slim.

Well the solutions lie in those factors ... we as individuals have to look at ways in which we can improve our actions within this environment. This is the world we live in. The experts want to change it. It won’t change ... and even if it does, it will take so long that we will all be dead and buried by then anyway. In reality, it will probably only get worse over time rather than better.

We aren’t to blame for this, why should we blame, but we can find better solutions to cope with how we deal with this ... our reactions to modern society. The answers lie within our own lives and our habits and actions within this crazy society we live in.

We can make smarter responses to it. We can challenge ourselves in easier ways than bashing our heads off the old diet and exercise routine.

More on what I did to succeed in losing weight and maintaining my trim self for five years now will follow as I get more of the website up and running.

Take a look if you fancy at:

http://www.slimmersecrets.com

In all honesty, there is not a load there at present, but I promise my aim is to help as much as possible. I may not be one of those experts, but I won’t keep quiet.

‘Til next time, take care,

Ian