Sunday 8 August 2010

Personal Responsibility

I have just read this article, a nice thing to do on a Sunday especially in combination to listening to TMS.

One thing that annoyed me though was this paragraph,

But Tam Fry, National Obesity Forum spokesman, suggested Field was being naïve. "If Professor Field wants a world where everyone assumes personal responsibility, he is living a dream. He appears to have forgotten the 35-40% of our population who live in the same obesogenic environment as he does but simply can't cope with it or have long since given up the unequal struggle. They are the people who are quite unequipped to resist the 24/24 battering of junk food promotion and are easy prey for the marketing men."

I am perhaps being a little hard but I think its a little patronising. It implies that 35-40% of our population are incapable of taking personal responsibility. Sorry your too stupid to take resposibility for the fact that you eat to much. Basically me and you can resist the tempatation to go for McDonalds for the masses cant.

2 comments:

  1. Personal responsibility is clouded by the crap advice about diet peddled by the medical-diet practitioner with which the NHS is riddled. They do not ever, it seems, read the science. Fat is proven to be unconnected with obesity; how otherwise would the Paleolithic diet and Atkin's Diets be so singularly successful in wieght loss for the obese. It also has been a significant factor in those with metabolic syndrome and indeed NIDDM to retreat from, or indeed never start down the road of drugs or insulin.
    I agree that we all need to take responsibility for our own health, but for the less fortunate, who lack the tools that both you and I posess, it is stupid to condemn those diligent folk who eat their medically sanctioned diet of 66% carbohydrates, and cannot lose wieght, because such a diet for the obese will only make them fatter and constantly hungry. Is it not time for the low-fat lobby to taken out and shot. Just like the grass fed Angus Beef steer that gave up his life for me to have that wonderful steak that I enjoyed last evening. I eat it with a green salad and it is what more of us should eat for health.
    Whilst I would never step into a McDonald's, it is not really the burger, it's the bun, the fries and the cola, laced with that appallingly dangerous High Fructose Corn Syrup.
    Our health has gone rapidly downhill since we stopped eating real food, like butter, meat, full cream milk, cream, lard, real mayonaise etc. Fat is good. What's the point in fortifieing skimmed milk with Vitamin D, for instance, when it's a fat soluble vitamin? Such nonesense is the reason for obesity not the universal stupidity of the patient cohort. There's plenty of evidence of the truth of my assertions but none of the Medical Profession cares to change a view that they have held for spurious and ill conceived resasons, driven by Big Pharma and the Food Lobby. What would they do with all those trans fats and statin's if they did?

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  2. @Blackdog. I understand that fat is just a quick way to say fattening foods, including sugar and carbs. Or just too much food. As per the correlation between diet versions of products and health going downhill you are a bit off the mark. I may agree in that avoiding lard is not enough if you drink 2 litres of coke a day, but if anything, skimmed milk or diet mayo may be good to avoid passing the daily recommended intake of fat. Otherwise I agree some advice is ridiculous and shortsighted

    @fuddled medic, is somewhat easy to claim and expect personal responsibility from most of the population, but it is just not that easy in the US, where a 6" subway cost $4,70 while the 12" cost $5. marketing goes straight to the most ingrained psychology. Consider too the working class. Overworked, they don't have time to cook and can get a cheaper meal at Mcdonals than a healthy meal at the supermarket.

    What you guys think?

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