De-Fatting the British Food Industry
A sad commentary on what is happening to the British food industry in the name of health.
A sad commentary on what is happening to the British food industry in the name of health.
Actually, I found the article rather cheap, jingoistic and unnecessarily points scoring and setting up a straw figure to attack with phrases like the muesli crunchers, tofu brigade and obesity czar.
I don’t think the article takes seriously the point that this food IS contributing to obesity and diabetes, is very addictive, and will cost the taxpayer eventually millions in health care. At least this ought to be recognised, and then maybe the article could make some decent points against the governments strategy.
Well, Paul, I completely agree it’s combative. But I find the whole obesity issue difficult. I’ve just returned from the US so it’s been rather on my mind.
I find it hard to believe that digestive biscuits (or ham or Stilton cheese) are the cause of obesity in Britain. The first have been around, what, at least 80 and I suspect 150 years. Ham and cheese have obviously been around much longer. So for most of that time they were no problem. So what has suddenly happened to make them a problem? That’s a serious question.
And I also have concerns about how far the government should go in mandating these kinds of changes.
Rachel, you make a good point about the history of these foodstuffs, and the interesting question of why are they now being seen as a problem.
I still find the overall tone of the article objectionable, rather than combative, because I think it stops these issues being taken seriously.
Like you, I live in Mexico, which I now understand has the highest growth rate for obesity in the world, as well as, I think, the highest rate of per capita consumption of ‘refrescos’. It saddens me to see how these fizzy drinks appear at every fiesta, and in every cenaduria, where sometimes they substitute for the delicious aguafresacas or horchata.
And I think that Mexico is storing up a time bomb for itself. I used to work at the Mexican Institute of National Health, and I know that people there are concerned about the diabetes epidemic they fear will break out soon. So Mexico will soon have the obesity problems of the US but without that country’s resources to deal with this…not that the US health care system is that great, though…..
Our US healthcare system does not ‘deal with obesity’. Or rather it does not deal with it well, for even with all the powers and intelligences of the combined dollars and brainpowers of our medical community, obesity is commonplace and it looks to my untrained eye as is morbid obesity is growing.
As far as the article goes, it may be – just as people ‘learn’ in different ways – visually, aurally, tactilely, etc . . . and therefore are able to understand and digest the information more effectively – that the particular style of writing used in the article may actually be more meaningful to some readers than it would be if the information were written in a more serious tone.
Parody, Satire, Nonsense-ism . . . these forms of writing have been used by some of the greatest writers throughout recorded history.
After all, we live in a world where football is many people’s major obsession (watching it, not playing it obviously for there would then be less obesity around) and where the weekly network television show is the secondary obsession when it is not football season.
This type of writing may actually be more useful in terms of communicating realities to the average sort of reader, than not.
The question finally does arise though as whether this is something that actually could be solved by the government or whether (shocking thought) it might actually need to be solved by the individual. The information is out there for the individual to do so – in most cases that are not complex or complicated by alternate health issues.
And to prove that one should not try to write anything serious before noon (though of course they should try to believe six impossible things before breakfast) I entered my url wrong after the last post.
Ha ha ha ha ha . . .! :)
The comments above are making me think why I disliked the article so much so I have reread it again.
I completely agree with Karen that there is a place for satire, parody and nonsense. I think the thing that aggravates me in the article is its lack of intelligence and subtlety, and the way it grossly (not cleverly) caricatures what it is aiming to attack
Also, I suspect that behind the article lies an implicit neo-liberal philosophy of not wanting state regulation in all aspects of our lives. Whilst the last thing I want is a totalitarian or nanny state, I do think there are areas where regulation is good and useful……..witness the result of the lack of good, effective regulation in the financial markets.
Clearly regulating an area like food is very tricky and delicate.
Ultimately it has to be the individual’s decision, but it worries me that fast food companies have huge resources at their disposal to persuade people to eat basically unhealthy diets. An ex-colleague of mine did a study that showed that whilst the Department of Health in Mexico was spending resources trying to promote and encourage a more healthy diet, people were receiving in one day many, many more messages exhorting them to eat fatty sugary foods. So it is not exactly a “level playing field” (as we English like to say) in terms of making information available to people to make informed decisions.
Is there anybody in the UK that is unaware that eating fatty sugary food in excess is considered to be unhealthy? Picking up a packet of digestive biscuits and reading the back label should tell you all the information you need to know regarding nutrition, so if you choose to eat a packet of digestive biscuits it as an informed person. The fact that we now have a fat reduced version goes beyond this or does the UK government have evidence that poor diet in the UK comes down to eating biscuits and really this sort of thing must be stopped.
In the context of the UK or USA has there ever been any study looking at diet and time usage. I eat poorly when I am time poor (or hung over), I imagine that it is the same for many people.
I understand your points about the article, Paul. Their sword was not as sharply honed as it might have been to be fully or completely effective across-the-board . . . and I have to admit that though I enjoyed reading it very much in a certain way that had I been in a different mood it might have struck me wrong. Even beyond that, when I went back to read it the second time and the full weight of the politics of the rest of the site fell down in its huge crashing lumps of whatever-it-is, the article lost its original lustre simply from the crowd it was hanging around with. But I imagine the site is quite popular nonetheless – and that’s nothing to sneeze at.
aaa-aAAA–CHOOOO!
(excuse me)
No, it’s not a level playing field. But when or where has it been a level playing field for ‘le gens’? One can try to study this and figure it out (and I imagine that is what people who study how to govern societies do) but I’ve never heard of one except in fictional tales.
In that sense, ultimately, it has to come down to the individual.
But then we count on our experts to keep the data straight and on our governments to implement systems that will in a broad way protect us from the worst of what is out there to bite us.
About two years ago I went to the university library, intending to write something myself about obesity. It would never have been on either Rachel or Adam’s level, for I simply can’t do that – but I wanted to better understand what was going on in current (and historic) thought and research.
I brought about eighteen books home. I was ridiculous-looking, trying to get to the car.
I read each book. And found that there were about ten completely conflicting (some intersected at places but not all) concepts developed by esteemed experts of the causes of obesity in current times. Some placed it medically. Others placed it socially. The food industry came in for its share of the flak, as did government and culture and agribusiness and and and and . . .
So – where lays the cause?
And if the cause can not be agreed upon then what to do?
The mention of legislation of smoking/cigarettes in the other thread was somewhat similar, but in that particular case wasn’t pretty much all of the data in agreement and most of the experts in tow behind it that 1. cigarette smoking was harmful to the health of self and others, and 2. cigarette smoking caused cancer (?)
It seems to me that there is still a lot of disagreement among the experts that fat causes morbid (dangerous to health) obesity in all segments of population across-the-board, and this is something that might still need sorting out before government regulation should begin, if it should. (?)
Oh yeah. I eat poorly when I’m tired also. Sometimes when I’m angry too. But I find that keeping potato chips and cookies not in the house is helpful in this way.
How life has changed. It used to be, some years ago – that I decided against keeping the wine rack filled as the wine was simply so delicious when I was tired or angry. From wine to chips I’ve fallen.
Paul, Karen, Adam
Thanks for all the comments.
Karen, So sorry that you had to revert from wine to chips, at least in the house.
And I’m not sure the smoking case is not a little more complicated than often represented. That cigarette smoking causes cancer is agreed. That secondary smoke is a serious health hazard is not quite so clear and to me it drives home the importance of realizing a point that management science has made time again in the last fifty years: that all large organizations–government bureaucracies as much as corporations as much as NGOs–have diverse agendas. Not only do they have the one they are officially set up for–protect the health of Americans, make money for stockholders, help the world poor, for example–but they have others such as protect our jobs, expand our power and influence. So I am both grateful for them all and wary of them all.
The US smoking legislation, I believe I am right in saying, came along at a time when the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to expand into areas that officially belonged to the Food and Drug Administration. Smoke free spaces was a good way to do it. And so the agenda was, not surprisingly, a mixed one. There’s a whole lot more that could be said about comparative health risks (secondary smoke is not high on the list), the use of guilt to change human behavior, the wisdom of coming close to criminalizing smoking when most experts in drugs seem to be agreed that de-criminalizing drug use is going to be necessary before we make a dent on the drug problem, etc etc. But all this takes me away from food.
I am suspicious of the state legislating diet (as opposed to food safety, etc) because it does seem to infringe on personal liberty. Most people who have lived under rationing are not anxious to return to it even if their health improved under the system.
There’s of course the argument always trotted out that unhealthy people will cost the state, other taxpayers, the health service money. Against this, if we want to save money, then unhealthy people who die young cost less than healthy people who live a long time.
So for adults, give them information, do what you can to make the food system as safe as possible always realizing that eating is intrinsically dangerous, and then let them loose is where I stand now.
Yeah. From avoiding too much wine to avoiding too many chips is a tough life. I’m just grateful that I never developed any sort of longings at all for Starbucks line of Gargantua coffee drinks. :)
Last night when thinking of all this I was reminded of Gary Taubes’ story on the diet/fat/medical/regulatory industries (and what you write above is another reminder of how very human all the efforts are – in all enterprises – when the actuality is dug into).
Amazingly, the Taubes article is still online in its entirety. It was an eyeopener to me.
Here’s the link to it:
What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?
I wonder what your thoughts are on that essay, Rachel. It’s quite possible indeed that even within that story there is more story to be thought about . . .
:)
HI Karen, Don’t ever go and live in Spain because then you’d have to ban potato chips too. As least if like me you can’t resist real potatoes cooked in olive oil.
Hmm interesting you bring up the Taubes article. I remember when it came out and finding it and the accompanying commentary quite fascinating. I’ll take another look at it.
Gosh, Karen, that is a long but interesting looking article to look at. I hope I can find time to read it.
I know what you mean, Paul. It took me a bit of time to read it, as it’s not the sort of thing I’d naturally whoosh through easily. I came across it originally in one of the ‘Best American Science Writing’ annual books . . . and I do remember carrying the thing around reading two or three pages then sitting with it for a while before reading on – just to be able to digest exactly what he was saying.
Maybe printing it out and carrying it around would help – sitting at the screen to read anything that long is so onerous.
Taubes wrote another controversial book recently which I haven’t gotten to yet, called ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’. Here’s a link to wiki on Taubes with a bit on how ‘Big Fat Lie’ was received by the public. :)
My goodness, I love all these responses. I’ll need time to work on them.
I’ve only just come across these comments on the article linked here, which I wrote. It may well have been unsubtle and neo-liberal in Paul’s view, but I’m not writing for nutritionists or healthcare professionals. I am trying to communicate the insidious mission creep of the British State. This is all about setting the limits on the ambit of government.
Although there are things the state should perhaps regulate, it concerns me that once bureaucrats develop a taste for banning and controlling, then nothing falls beyond their remit. If the population wasn’t as passive as it is, I wouldn’t have to write with the equivalent of a lump hammer but the population must wake up to these infringements.
Sure, if liberty isn’t your thing then don’t worry, but plenty of people accepted the first few years of Nazi rule because the small and petty restrictions didn’t really affect them, just the people they disliked. I think, Paul, you need to look at the bigger picture. It’s all very well being a trim individual with a sensible diet… but perhaps not if it means you must eat your meals from behind the bars of a prison that’s been built around you.