Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Waiting to board a Scottish passenger ferry recently, I watched a group of women disembarking. They were a cheery bunch, all sporting those ?hilarious? hats beloved of hen parties. They were set on having a good time. Every single woman was grossly overweight. As they struggled up the small incline, even the youngest already displayed the heavy-footed solidity of the middle-aged. Nobody blinked. Why would they? Obesity in Scotland is as common as the ferry. In the world obesity stakes, only the Americans beat the Scots.
Let us acknowledge the usual caveats. I?m not talking here about the minority whose weight is out of their control; those whose weight is a side-effect of illness, physical or mental, or a consequence of certain treatments. I?m talking here about the majority.
The question, ?What?s got into us?? is easily answered. Chips, chocolate, sugar, saturates, cakes, pies, pasties, beer and Irn Bru. Less easily answered is what on earth?s wrong with us? We weren?t always like this. Anybody watching Dominic Sandbrook?s television documentary series on the 1970s will have been struck by how thin everybody seems to be. It?s easy to trot out the 21st-century mantra of ?more sedentary lives? and ?too much fast food?, but that?s not the whole answer. More and more I?m convinced that despite the proliferation of diets and celebrity workout dvds, we just don?t care quite enough.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/struggling-to-carry-this-burden-of-obesity-1-2316432
Let us acknowledge the usual caveats. I?m not talking here about the minority whose weight is out of their control; those whose weight is a side-effect of illness, physical or mental, or a consequence of certain treatments. I?m talking here about the majority.
The question, ?What?s got into us?? is easily answered. Chips, chocolate, sugar, saturates, cakes, pies, pasties, beer and Irn Bru. Less easily answered is what on earth?s wrong with us? We weren?t always like this. Anybody watching Dominic Sandbrook?s television documentary series on the 1970s will have been struck by how thin everybody seems to be. It?s easy to trot out the 21st-century mantra of ?more sedentary lives? and ?too much fast food?, but that?s not the whole answer. More and more I?m convinced that despite the proliferation of diets and celebrity workout dvds, we just don?t care quite enough.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/struggling-to-carry-this-burden-of-obesity-1-2316432