Big Britain

Big Britain.

Brits are getting fatter; over two thirds are over-weight or obese. This is a truth universally acknowledged, rather like the single man in possession of a good fortune who, as Jane Austen pointed out, ‘must be in want of a wife.’

In 1813, when Austen published those words, any swain would have found it easy to find a slender Englishwoman with child-bearing hips. Not so today. Sure, the hips would be there…somewhere.

I visit Britain regularly and, despite the fact that I live in America - ‘universally acknowledged’ to be Fat Central – I’ve noticed the growing avoirdupois of fraught blondes, raucous towheads in tow, who push their loaded trollies around London’s supermarkets.

Of course, class-conscious Brits make a distinction even about supermarkets; middle-class women who shop at Waitrose are not as large as the buxom wenches shoving their way around more working-class Tesco. But the general drift is…outwards, waist-wise.

Here’s the curious thing: ‘in the 1950s, the average Brit ate 100 calories more per day’ than they do today. This fact was pointed out by the estimable Prue Leith* in this week's The Spectator. (disclosure: I attended a Cape Town prep school with her brother, Steve, and I’ve watched Prue become one of Britain’s most authoritative voices on the topic of nutrition.)

The blunt answer to this paradox, this seemingly contradictory statement, is that Brits, like many Americans, just don't get off their fat backsides often enough. Their forebears did, but not this lot.

I try to walk 30 miles per week near my home on Long Island. When I take this daily exercise to arrive at that weekly total - the 10,000 steps per day prescribed by Fitbit - I see young joggers and cyclists working their bodies. But people over 60 simply walking? Not so much. In fact, often I get curious glances from drivers; they’re probably thinking ‘has his car broken down?’ or ‘is he homeless?’ or ‘should I report this?’

Last month, a Turkish friend, strolling near his hotel in Texas, was stopped by police and asked ‘what’s going on, pal?’ A half hour later, after multiple questions, he was allowed to continue on his – to them – ‘nutty walk.’

Do these observations make me a ‘fattist’? Should we care about the shape of things to come? Is it any of my business?

Well, yes. If my taxes are helping to pay for the forty percent of medical care that gets spent on what are termed ‘preventable diseases’, I certainly view it as my business.

And, again, leading with my not-yet-double chin, I’d bet good money that you'd find a statistical bulge of overweight people in the 43 percent of Brits who don't pay income tax or the 45 percent of Americans who escape Federal income tax.

Bottom line: the people most likely to suffer from weight-related diseases such as diabetes and heart failure, are the same people who contribute the least to health services.   

What to do? Again, Prue Leith: ‘Given how many obese adults started out as obese children, being serious about tackling obesity must mean landing schools with some of the responsibility. By the time (UK) children finish primary school, those from the poorest households are twice as likely to be obese as the richest.’

My response to this otherwise sound suggestion is that it likely would involve state funding, certainly in the UK’s state schools (known as ‘public schools’ in the US) where the obesity problem begins. And, as Ms. Leith herself admits, ‘what chance of that?’

I'd say the causes are not ‘society’ or evil marketers, or uncaring governments. Some of the causes are rooted in underprivileged, unknowing families. But a lot of the damage is inflicted by deliberately ignorant parents. Yes, from unhinged, cake-lovin' Trump through chubby, kinetic Kim - to todays’ geo-political mayhem, drugs, alcoholism, obesity, and your noisy neighbors – I blame the parents.

I'm blessed with five grandchildren. And, sure, it may sound smug to say that they're all lean, athletic and zestful. But you can guess why.

© Brian Clewly Johnson 😎

 London 🇬🇧   

September 2017

* 'Fat Britannia', The Spectator, September, 2017.