An article in The Age Saturday 25/9 is entitled "Bulging US takes heavyweight title" (read it here http://www.theage.com.au/world/bulging-us-takes-heavyweight-title-20100924-15qkg.html ). Britain and Australia as well as the US have the fastest obesity growth rates in the world. It details the side effects of obesity such as the risk of heart disease, diabetes, several types of cancer and other diseases. Not to mention lowered mood and a downward spiral of guilt and misery.
As they say (and I've always believed) "Obesity must be tackled by a multi-pronged approach" such as lifestyle counselling, health-promotion campaigns and compulsory food labelling. And it recognises that we can't wait for big business to self-regulate the ingredients in their high fat/sugar/salt foods. Government intervention is needed.
In essence, Eat THINK and Be Merry is customised lifestyle counselling and a personal health promotion campaign. Whilst I'm not involved in food labelling, I'm heavily in favour of the de-labelling of obese people as stupid and lacking self-control! Humans soothe themselves in a variety of ways (smoking, drinking, spending, eating): eating is just a more obvious solution and not a character flaw or personality defect. Change that attitude and you've won half the obesity battle. The other half - how about driving straight past Macca's and going home, making your own burgers and sitting down to eat with the family.
I'm off for a walk around the Botanical Gardens with my health coach - au revoir!
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