[Closed] Obese? "Exercise or We'll Cut Your Benefits" - Tory Council Plan.

Pizza in Italy is awesome. I'm no dietician. I don't know how healthy it is. But it definely looks way healthier than anything served over here. It tastes good too.

And funnily enough most Italians appear to be proportioned quite perfectly.

When I was there, it was sold by the slice from street vendors. Could be a portion size thing? Mind you the stuff they make compared to the stuff Dominos churn out are worlds apart.

[i]It's not widely acknowledged at all[/i]

Yeah, it is, by the entire Human race who existed in great numbers before Pizza was invented and before farming was created. But you know this.
😉

So keep your pizza and any issues with body fat. I'll be enjoying Venison steak, instead.

I think the health benefits of pizza in this famous 'Mediterranean diet' you speak of Molly, only take effect when you drink a shit-load of red wine with it too?

I have no idea, I'm not an expert in diet.

Given that the average house price in this country is now about £180,000, you must be on a nice salary to pay that mortgage with one income

Believe it or not, not many people are

Stats FAIL, seriously you should know better than that by now.

Mind you the stuff they make compared to the stuff Dominos churn out are worlds apart

Had the italian style ones from Domninos? I have, and I've also eaten from Italian street vendors.

dunno the nutritional values of these, but I'm guessing they're considerably less healthy after I've grated a load of cheddar over the top.
[img] [/img]
(all calories consumed within 45mins of finishing a nightride are "free")

These are all choices.

you must be on a nice salary

Unfortunately not. But then again, I chose a house that was considerably cheaper than the national average.

Sorry Molls... would you care to enlighten me as to what, piffling, easily-affordable-on-one-salary-without-living-in-abject-poverty figure we're actually looking at? Cheers

There's always choice

I know. That's what I said.

:o)

Had the italian style ones from Domninos? I have, and I've also eaten from Italian street vendors.

Nope, last time we had Dominos the Missus ended up with food poisoning (suspected), odd seeing as she had vegetarian and I had ominvore. Anyway, haven't been back to them since.

I'll bow to your more in-depth knowledge though!

There's always choice

I know. That's what I said.

:o)

:o)
Cofffeeeeeeeeeee

Had the italian style ones from Domninos? I have, and I've also eaten from Italian street vendors.

Cofffeeeeeeeeeee

Don't choose to have too much milk in it. It might turn you into a fatty.

:o)

Well, binners, the mean house price doesn't necessarily mean the most common house price, does it?

It's all part of the "Deserving and Undeserving Poor" campaign that the Torys and gutter press like stirring up innit...

[I]Yeah! All people who claim benefits are Fatties stuffing their gobs with KFC and watching Jeremy Kyle on 50ft Tellys they bought with their ill gotten benefits - Fact! - It must be true 'cos the Mail AND the Sun says so... [/I]

The fact is that as "evolved" and Politically sensitive as we all think we are obese people are one of the few groups nasty little gits can still sneer at and make jokes about with near impunity.

Obesity is considered an "epedemic" which means in order to get to that point gainfully employed, non-benefit claimants are just as much (if not more) part of this problem (Shocker)...

It can't be tackled just by blaming the jobless (like most things seem to be these days). Regardless of the cause the effort (and investment) needs to be focused on motivating people to try new sports, get involved in exercise and activities.

Encouragement not just bawling at them for daring to be tubby and telling them it's all their own fault, some people do need help and I'd consider it the mark of a civilized society that we help those in need rather than cut them loose and blame them for all societal ills...

Nobody chooses to be overweight, but poor choices, lack of education, psychological issue and living in a culture where we do less physical activity and increasingly drive everywhere are all contributing factors, tackle those problems before you start starving the poor of resources.

[i] by the entire Human race who existed in great numbers before Pizza was invented and before farming was created. But you know this.
[/i]

There are more people alive [i]right now[/i] than were ever alive before we discovered/created farming. And anyway, the grains we farmed were variants of the wild ones that we ate before, we just grew them in one place so we could have easier access to them and a more certain supply.

So, in short, I say you're talking balls.

[i]Nobody chooses to be overweight[/i]

...must...resist...

Molly - Actual figures on prices is not really the point is it?

What I'm saying is that at present supporting a family, and bringing up kids, while paying a mortgage - with only one salary coming in - is pretty much impossible. Unless you're one of the top 5% of earners. Or maybe if you got on the housing ladder 15+ years ago. But certainly not at present

In areas where housing is cheap, they are generally areas of high unemployment and low wages. And where there's high wage economy, property prices are sky high

Are you seriously disputing this?

Encouragement not just bawling at them for daring to be tubby and telling them it's all their own fault, some people do need help and I'd consider it the mark of a civilized society that we help those in need rather than cut them loose and blame them for all societal ills...

+1

Some fairly blatant demonisation/snobbery towards the poor/chavs/fat people - standard on STW. People might try to characterise it as making people take responsibility for themselves, but to me it just shows a basic lack of human compassion.

Mind you at least it's not as bad as UKC.

Except, as I explained, it's not

But you didnt explain did you. You made reference to having relatives who happen to be kids. I dont think this gives you any more insight than any other childless person does it?

Anyway, let's just say that there is a child who eats a lot of unhealthey food, which they obtain after watching adverts for it on the telly and pestering their parents into buying it. This continues to the point where the child is overweight. Is the excess weight really all the fault of the adverts? I'd say the lack of parental responsibility far outweighs the existence of the adverts

There you go again, its not all straight lines in the real world and a poor attempt at a straw man.
Pester power and peer pressure is unfortunately a real phenomenon and if you are ever in the position to have deal with it lets hope your armory is better equipped than simply saying "no"

Nobody chooses to be overweight

They may not have chosen to get there in the first place but they choose to do something or nothing about it.

How is choosing to do nothing not a choice to stay overweight?

Are you seriously disputing this?

No. It's hard to live one one salary for most people as you rightly point out. But you don't need to resort to poor use of stats to prove it 🙂

They may not have chosen to get there in the first place but they choose to do something or nothing about it

A great many people try to do something about it but fail. The majority I would guess. Why do they fail?

There are two possibilities:

1) It can be really very difficult

2) All fat people are stupid, ignorant and lazy, and all skinny people are heroes.

You should have a bit of a think about which answer you prefer.

Sorry mate. I don't usually resort to meaningless stats, and selective charts either. After all.... we have the usual suspects for that type of thing 😉

* waves at Woppit and Z-11*

I'll go for option 1 Moly. I've never said it's not difficult, choosing to give up is still a choice to be overweight.

Apart from those with some medical condition precluding them from taking part anybody can loose weight with a bit of effort and some lifestyle changes.

[i]I dont think this gives you any more insight than any other childless person does it?[/i]

I think it gives me as much insight as a childless person who nevertheless has quite a lot of experience with children. But not as much as a parent, obviously. My parents were, well, parents, though, and they were very able to say no, I do have insight into that.

[i]Pester power and peer pressure is unfortunately a real phenomenon[/i]

I never said they weren't, and, absolutely, marketing campaigns aimed at children play on it. But still, the final decision to purchase (usually) lies with the parent, there is no getting away from that.

TBH I can follow binners socio-economic logic and it makes perfect sense...

I think the problem you're having Mol is that as awesome as you clearly are the rest of the UK does not share your unique set of circumstances, income, outlook or opinions.

Some fairly blatant demonisation/snobbery towards the poor/chavs/fat people - standard on STW. People might try to characterise it as making people take responsibility for themselves, but to me it just shows a basic lack of human compassion.

Mind you at least it's not as bad as UKC.

It's a Forum for people to discuss their passing interest in £3K+ Ti/Carbon fibre road bikes you won't find many more middle class forums than STW...

How is choosing to do nothing not a choice to stay overweight?

you're projecting a few assumptions onto overweight people there aren't you, how do you know they are "Choosing to Do Nothing" exactly?

Why not just be clear and honest you're clinging to one of the last remaining forms of broadly acceptable bigotry; picking on fatties... Kudos to you.

I never said they weren't, and, absolutely, marketing campaigns aimed at children play on it. But still, the final decision to purchase (usually) lies with the parent, there is no getting away from that.

I'm sorry mate, but I'm going to make a record of that quote and gleefully hurl it back in your face, a few years down the line, once you're mired in the cold harsh realities of parenthood 😆

I've no idea what you mean BinBins. Anyway, I'm off for a cup of tea.

[img] [/img]

🙂

How is choosing to do nothing not a choice to stay overweight?

I never said they weren't, and, absolutely, marketing campaigns aimed at children play on it. But still, the final decision to purchase (usually) lies with the parent, there is no getting away from that.

So what about the morality of companies spending millions marketing appalling food to our kids? You seem quite keen on 'getting away from that'.

When people sell drugs to kids, whose fault is it? Not the drug dealers fault if the kids parents haven't brought them up properly is it?

Some fairly blatant demonisation/snobbery towards the poor/chavs/fat people - standard on STW

+1!

An epidemic isn't caused by lazy people eating junk food. its likely a "perfect storm" of lots of different factors, working longer hours, commuting further, less time to cook properly and less knowledge about how to do so, less walking/cycling for children, perhaps due to fear of the dangers (traffic/"strangers") or lack of time to accompany children on the commute, lack of gardens and space for playing, and of course the addition of sugar, fat and salt to almost every single item of food on sale and a complete lack of clear labelling on it so we can make an informed choice (thanks to the food industries campaigning).

But i guess its a lot easier to blame chavs eating McDonalds.

you're projecting a few assumptions onto overweight people there aren't you, how do you know they are "Choosing to Do Nothing" exactly?

People I meet or see on a one off occasion, I don't know anything about their choices hence why you wont find me judging them.

People you know over period of time, it's quite clear if they are losing weight or putting it on and what lifestyle choices they make.

It would appear it's actually you 'projecting assumptions'.

I think it gives me as much insight as a childless person who nevertheless has quite a lot of experience with children. But not as much as a parent, obviously. My parents were, well, parents, though, and they were very able to say no, I do have insight into that.

So in summary your experience is based on being a child once and having parents 😯

if huge swathes of the nation are becoming obese surely that's an indicator of problems with society?

The biggest problem is that only a few back what would be considered overweight is now considered to be normal.

An epidemic isn't caused by lazy people eating junk food. its likely a "perfect storm" of lots of different factors, working longer hours, commuting further, less time to cook properly and less knowledge about how to do so, less walking/cycling for children, perhaps due to fear of the dangers (traffic/"strangers") or lack of time to accompany children on the commute, lack of gardens and space for playing, and of course the addition of sugar, fat and salt to almost every single item of food on sale and a complete lack of clear labelling on it so we can make an informed choice (thanks to the food industries campaigning).

But i guess its a lot easier to blame chavs eating McDonalds.

+1000

Blaming the poorest in society is simply a way of ignoring the root causes of a growing problem that affects people at all levels of society...

Typical bloody Tories really. Its ok to demonise people on council estates for eating too many pizzas, and what they then cost the NHS

I don't see them expressing the same missionary zeal to get the middle classes to stop necking too much red wine and getting liver problems. Which presumably don't cost the NHS anything at all

Well, I'll try not to be personal...

[i]And anyway, the grains we farmed were variants of the wild ones that we ate before, we just grew them in one place so we could have easier access to them and a more certain supply.

So, in short, I say you're talking balls. [/i]

And you're entitled to your opinion. I'd just point out that its likely that we haven't [i]evolved[/i] much, which is to say that there is no significant genetic difference between you and your ancestor of 60,000 yrs ago. Yet farming and grains have been around, at best, 10,000 years.
So, to my mind, we aint set-up for grain consumption. Which is why we grind them and heat them to make them edible.

Are you seriously suggesting that the Cheesy Wotsit isn't a product of some food-based Darwinian natural evolution?

[i]So what about the morality of companies spending millions marketing appalling food to our kids? You seem quite keen on 'getting away from that'. [/i]

I didn't say that. But to put a stop to it you have to define what 'appalling food' is and what 'marketing to kids' is in order to be able to legislate against them. You might end up saying that Greggs can't sell gingerbread men...

[i]When people sell drugs to kids, whose fault is it? Not the drug dealers fault if the kids parents haven't brought them up properly is it?[/i]

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Apart from this one, obviously.

[i]Are you seriously suggesting that the Cheesy Wotsit isn't a product of some food-based Darwinian natural evolution?

[/i]

I guess that what I'm really suggesting is that Man, for all his self inflated glory and knowledge.

Doesn't create food which is as nutritious as Nature does.
Yes, that, sadly, does include wotsits.
😉

Theres seems to be a link between Anglo Saxon society and being a fat.

USA, UK Australia, Canada and NZ all seem to lead the way.

Could be the commercial activity in those countries, could be they have fine tuned life to be too easy or it could something specific to the majority race in which case I shout racism and request this thread is closed.

Sorry Solo, I didn't mean to sound so harsh. It was more a jovial 'you, sir, are talking balls' 🙂

[i]So, to my mind, we aint set-up for grain consumption. Which is why we grind them and heat them to make them edible.[/i]

And by grinding and heating them we turn them into something we are set up to consume. Many species 'process' foods that they couldn't eat on the raw form.

Plus, given that most of the human population survive on grains, that's surely a pretty strong indicator that they serve a pretty strong nutritional purpose?

An epidemic isn't caused by lazy people eating junk food.

Theres seems to be a link between Anglo Saxon society and being a fat.

Tonga.

Theres seems to be a link between Anglo Saxon society and being a fat.

Maybe we need some Africa-esque droughts? Can't see that happening though

Or more traditionally; get back to having massive wars. Possibly with each other. Or there's the usual Muslim suspects, if we must. Though they don't play properly. All that hiding and car bombs, and [b]ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAH - BOOM!!!![/b] stuff.

We need some good old fashioned trench warfare. So we can send the fatty council estate dwellers out as cannon fodder?

Plus, given that most of the human population survive on grains, that's surely a pretty strong indicator that they serve a pretty strong nutritional purpose?

The farming of grains was the greatest disaster to ever befall the human race

I'm not so sure. Have you not seen the stuff in this mornings papers about Jim Davidson?