The government has launched a new ‘Obesity Strategy Public Consultation’, and one pertinent question is at the opening of this public consultation: ‘Do people have enough information to make healthy choices?’
The answer, surely, is a resounding yes.
We have education through TV, newspapers, the internet; through a weighing scales, through our eyes, an honest mother if we’re lucky, and always, a snug pair of jeans.
What we have too, is self-delusion and an amazing ability to tell ourselves that it’s not that bad and I’ll go for a walk tomorrow and it’s too cold and I’m too hungry to cook tonight, and I may as well finish the pack of biscuits now.
The fact is that 56% of the population is obese or overweight.
That’s a shameful statistic, in a country where the best of meat, milk, cheese, butter, and vegetables are grown. Even a cursory glance at this consultation would have the largest soul out there rolling their eyes.
The ‘strategy’, has three objectives, the first of which is to create healthy ‘food environments’ i.e. shops, restaurants, and takeaways, in what has to be one of the stupidest statements ever made with regards to public spending.
We can promise you, no one has ever mistakenly stumbled into a takeaway in the belief it was a healthfood shop.
There’s a real danger here that they’ll spend a lot of lovely low-calorie money on ‘educating’ us on the evils of chips, for anyone left who needs it.
This writer went to a HSE facility once, to cover the launch of its new ‘tobacco free’ campus.
Hungry, the options were a shop counter’s worth of chocolate bars, a fridge full of fizzy drinks, crisps, and a table of fresh cakes.
There was one small, black, token banana on the counter: a cigarette and a black coffee would be less risky.
To use a fitting horror-movie analogy: the call is coming from inside the house.
Another strategy is to introduce ‘clearer food labelling’, for anyone who was still, amazingly and after all this time and education and labelling, under the impression that a biscuit was part of a salad.
Labelling is important, and the popular Irish influencer Sophie Morris has gained a huge following in recent months on this very subject, with her clear and succinct videos on additives, and processed foods.
However, the likes of Morris are generally speaking to people who are already reading food labels and let’s face it, when we want to eat badly, we will.
The label has never, and will never, stop someone from eating a pizza if they want it. No one is stupid, but we are all capable of lying to ourselves.
The whole thing is a whole heap of talking and wishful thinking, which is fitting, because that’s what we do, and not just the 56%.
We are full of talking and wishful thinking, when we pay for petrol and somehow come away with a bag of Onion Rings too, or we get too hungry and horse into a block of cheese instead of the dinner we have waiting for us.
Whatever this new ‘strategy’ is going to cost, the money would be better spent on forcing supermarkets to give space and energy to fresh food, that includes butter and fat and oil and meat, as well as carrots and broccoli and tomatoes and fish: real food.
There is merit in putting a stop to promotions on junk and processed food, but that’s not getting to the root of why people are choosing to eat it to such an excess.
A lot of adults are lost causes already, so children is where it needs to start. Anecdotal feedback from the dreaded ‘Food Dudes’ school’s programme would make anyone suffer, mushy raw peppers in a plastic bag being just one egregious example.
Who gets a thrill out of raw peppers at the best of times?
Not one question or aspect of the public consultation on obesity referenced going outdoors, or enjoying a walk for its own pleasure, or the joy of getting to the top of a hill to be rewarded with the views and yes, tea and a chocolate biscuit.
There is a time and a place for sugar and chocolate and all those lovely things, but it’s not every day, and it’s not for breakfast. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s just that we don’t care. No government strategy can change that.
