Fighting obesity - Time to get real about junk food

THOSE brave souls who have taken on new year’s resolutions are just getting into their stride.

Some may want to cut back on alcohol use, others will, one more time, try to give up smoking. Others will have different, more personal, agendas. However, it is fair to say that the majority of those trying to change something in their lives will try to lose weight.

One of the appalling and unfortunate consequences of our age of plenty – in this part of the world at least – is that far too many of us are jeopardising our health and happiness because we are too fat. We eat too much and lead inactive, sedentary lives.

Today, some 24% of Ireland’s population is obese. Medical professionals warn that within two decades half of us will be obese. This one-in-two obesity prediction is in line with the epidemic swamping America.

Walk down any street in Ireland and these dire predictions will seem conservative. Already it seems that more than half of our teenagers are very overweight and developing a lifestyle that can only lead to poor health and unhappiness.

Despite all the efforts to promote healthy lifestyles and diet it seems that huge numbers of Irish people have succumbed to patterns that will have disastrous consequences for their health and self regard.

Why is this? Why are so many of us unable to develop the resolve needed to protect ourselves from obesity? Is it that we are culturally unused to denial or self-discipline? Do we think we are somehow different and that these warnings don’t apply to us? Are we psychologically or emotionally incapable of developing sustainable lifestyles?

As we have seen in so many others areas denial only works for so long and reality, even if it comes dripping slow, will surely prevail.

One of the core issues surrounding obesity is diet. We eat far too much junk food and use far too many drinks which are little more than coloured sugar. We have reached a sorry pass when it seems we may have to legislate to prevent people killing themselves or their children by feeding them the wrong food.

Ireland led the way in challenging the tobacco conglomerates and the time has come to confront the industries that are doing so very much to undermine the health of our entire population. It is hard to see why we shouldn’t, as obesity will do more harm to society and our economy than smoking ever did.

Prevention is only one part of the solution, education is another. Though we have invested heavily in trying to convince people to eat wisely it has not been the success we need it to be.

Maybe we should educate all of our children to develop the personal and psychological skills as well as the character needed to have the confidence and resolve to confront these issues. We should train them to understand that actions, or inaction, have consequences and that they can say “no” to even the most powerful blandishments of the happy-meal industries.

We should give them the skills needed to survive in a world where so very much of human activity is one form of exploitation or another. With these skills they could confront much more than obesity.