Totally Harsh

[wendyful04]

Might I also add that since this is a forum based around two hard-working guys who have brought all of us a lot of pleasure in our lives, one of whom happens to be overweight and diabetic, it's pretty nasty that as far as you're concerned he should die on the street because he'd be a drain on your precious tax dollars.

Are you talking about me?

[Hero1]

AUSTRALIA has become the fattest nation in the world, with more than 9 million adults now rated as obese or overweight, according to an alarming new report.

The most definitive picture of the national obesity crisis to date has found that Australians now outweigh Americans and face a future "fat bomb" that could cause 123,000 premature deaths over the next two decades.

If the crisis is not averted, obesity experts have warned, health costs could top $6 billion and an extra 700,000 people will be admitted to hospital for heart attacks, strokes and blood clots caused by excess weight.

The latest figures show 4 million Australians — or 26% of the adult population — are now obese compared to an estimated 25% of Americans. A further 5 million Australians are considered overweight.

The report, Australia's Future 'Fat Bomb', from Melbourne's Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, will be presented at the Federal Government's inquiry into obesity, which comes to Melbourne today.

A grim picture is painted of expanding waistlines fuelled by a boom in fast food and a decline in physical activity, turning us into a nation of sedentary couch potatoes.

Those most at risk of premature death are the middle-aged, with 70% of men and 60% of women aged 45 to 64 now classed as obese.

But some weight specialists have questioned the tool used to measure obesity, saying "entire rugby teams" would be classified as obese if their body mass index (BMI) was calculated.

BMI is measured by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared. A BMI of over 25 is considered overweight while more than 30 is obese.

But the tool does not distinguish between muscle and fat, prompting calls for the BMI overweight limit to be raised to 28.

However, even leading nutritionist Jenny O'Dea from the University of Sydney — who recently claimed Australia's childhood obesity epidemic had been exaggerated — has backed the new figures, which suggest that the crisis for adults has been drastically underestimated

http://www.theage.com.au/national/ni...0619-2tjv.html

[Mistress M]

Are you talking about me?

Wendy, I'm always talking about you. I talk about you in the shower, I talk about you at breakfast, I talk about you to my classes...you're like my shadow...

[Mistress M]

Oh, Tim, you gotta quote from the rest of the article:

"Among the radical solutions proposed in the report is a plan to make fat towns compete for "healthy" status in national weight loss contests tied to Federal Government funding. Towns that lost the most weight would be given cash to build sports centres and swimming pools.

And like the "Tidy Towns" program, communities would have to meet targets to be eligible for a share of the funding pool.

Other suggestions from Professor Stewart's report include subsidised gym memberships, personal training sessions for heavier people and restricting weight loss surgery to those who show they can lose some weight on their own first.

One of Australia's leading obesity experts, Boyd Swinburn, will tell the inquiry in his own submission that a crackdown on junk food marketing to children is paramount in the fight against the epidemic.

With the fastest growing rate of childhood obesity in the world, Australia must make radical changes to the way unhealthy food is promoted if the rate is to be reduced, his submission reads.

Professor Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, will argue that better nutritional labelling and more funding for effective treatments such as weight-loss surgery are also necessary.

"We've got a huge problem here and we can't bury our head in the sand any more," Professor Swinburn will tell the inquiry.

"The previous federal government blamed parents and individuals and told them to pull up their socks … that's not going to achieve anything but make us fatter as a nation."


I especially like that last line.

These are creatice solutions to the problem which do not include tossing people out of the healthcare system.

Also, might I point out that all of this is fairly new. The Baby Boomers are the first generation to be well-fed on processed foods and living older and older. Our Great-grandparents all died by the age of 60; our grandparents never had processed foods and had a lot of lean times growing up; it's our aging parents who grew up in a world of overfeeding your kids processed foods and now can live to be 100 thanks to surgery and medicine that are the issue here.

And it's fascinating to me that dying at 70 of heart problems is considered dying "prematurely" -- that used to be the age you were lucky to live to. See what I mean?

We're really dealing with several crisis at once. We're dealing with the healthcare system being slammed by millions of baby boomers who we think should be living until they're 90. And we're dealing with what is a fairly normal old age obesity -- when the 60's and 70's was old age (which was only two generations ago). The problem is that we are NOT PREPARED for the reality of aging baby boomers across the world , and what that means to our resources pool. I don't think the problem is obesity, the problem is how we define what old age means and when it's time for someone to die.

[wendyful04]

Wendy, I'm always talking about you. I talk about you in the shower, I talk about you at breakfast, I talk about you to my classes...you're like my shadow...

yay

[Hero1]

Yeah I like all those ideas.. the amount of fast food advertising during childrens programs is ridiculous