Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down

All these years I have been living under the assumption that it pays to be healthy, to watch my weight and try and refrain from eating my weight in Pringles every night. Apparently this is not the case. Apparently it pays to be obese. Literally.

Typical. All those years spent worrying about how big my bum must look to the person behind me and the wasted guilt over the calorie content of the Chunky Kit Kat I just wolfed down on the way back from the gym.

Now the British government are to roll out a scheme next year, which will see them handing out pounds to an increasingly super-sized nation. Maybe I should start gaining a few stone and cash in on the action… Hmmm, maybe not. Summer is but one dose of sun burn away and my bikini already seems to have shrunk while it was in storage over the past winter months.

What on earth are you on about now I hear you cry. More burger bashing and rants about how parents are killing their kids? No, not this time. This particular gem is the brilliant game plan of an ingenious government, a government who are about to start paying obese people to walk their kids to school.

With 60% of men, 50% of women, and 26% of children predicted to be very obese by 2050, of course it is a good thing that the government are trying to do something to shift a nation of Webbles off their increasingly round bottoms. But why should those who are extremely overweight be paid to get up and get moving. What sort of example does this set their children? That they don’t care enough about their own health to do it for free? That if you base your ’7 a day’ around the menus of McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC and don’t try to shed the pounds on your own, then the government will reward you for all your hard work?

OK. So it’s not actually cold hard cash that’s being handed out, it’s points. Points for making ‘Junior’ pound the pavement to school. Points for using a bus instead of a car. Points for running in the fresh air. Points for buying an ice-burg lettuce instead of a gallon of ice cream. Points for attending an exercise or weight loss class. Points for losing half an inch when you are there. Points for not using the TV remote. Points for buying your fries at the counter instead of from your car. Points for getting a plain Cheeseburger instead of a double. OK, so the last few may not be true, but when dishing out these points, where do they intend to draw the line?

And how do you collect these points? Why, with a loyalty card of course. You simply go for a jog in the park, swipe your card and then collect your voucher to pay towards your healthy food, sports equipment and gym sessions. Why stop there? Maybe the points could also be counted towards a nifty stomach staple and some lunch time liposuction.

I wonder if, just like the supermarkets do, the government will also make a bit of money off the side by selling on these loyalty card details to companies harvesting information. Perhaps the downside of the scheme will be an avalanche of Spam from Weight Watchers and ‘The Miracle Wonder Diet Pill’. Mind you, with all that extra exercise, these card holders might just appreciate a little bit of Spam to spur them further.

I wonder how they will even decide who gets paid and who is and isn’t deemed fat enough? Do the obese get outed in a public weigh in?  Will obese children also be included in the scheme? Surely this type of labeling would increase the social stigma that is already attached to being overweight.

The main reason for the controversy that this scheme has provoked comes down to money. What else. Many are claiming that it will be too easy for fraudulent fatties to cheat the system, by simply hopping out of their cars, swiping their cards and then driving away.

Secondly it is said that the scheme is nothing more than bribery, and this is surely not the way to go about slimming down a nation. It does seem like a very slippery slope to climb to the top of.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly to the healthy people out there (and there ARE some left you know), the £30million price tag to foot this bill is incredibly unfair to those who are already having to tighten their own belts to make ends meet.

Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to simply clone Gillian Mc Keith and have her dispatched out to the four corners of the country. She could single handily scare the sh*t out of most unhealthy people, and then chase them up and down the streets with a toasting fork and a bag of freeze dried lentils to beat them about the head with should they stop running.

Or how about giving Jamie Oliver the money. I’m sure he could put it to good use with his numerous campaigns encouraging the country to ditch their take away menus and pick up a saucepan instead. Why on earth should he have to struggle to get the governments backing. Surely they should support anyone with the incentive to try and make a difference.

Or here’s an even easier solution. Instead of taxing the thin to help bribe the fat, start taxing the very fat so that they can help support the burden that obesity is already placing on the NHS. If every person was weighed by their doctor (yes I know, technically an invasion of privacy and a daylight nightmare to women everywhere) then those who cross a ‘clinically obese’ threshold could be put into a higher tax bracket.

This isn’t unfair, per say, it’s a logical way of making people more accountable for their own health and giving them more of an incentive to lose weight, than say being told they can earn 2 points towards a pair of legwarmers for taking a walk in the park. Of course when the person loses weight, they pay less tax again. Win win all round.

What about for those who don’t work and pay tax? Cut the benefits accordingly. Do I sound harsh and unsympathetic? Probably. But maybe it could be seen as an incredibly tough love scheme to help those who have gone past the point of knowing how to help themselves.

I probably sound cynical and ‘fattist’ as well. I don’t mean to be, ‘fattist’ that is, I will always be cynical. As I’ve said before, obesity is not a ‘Fat Versus Thin’ debate, it’s all about looking after yourself and making sure that you have a longer life span than a household appliance. After all, an obese person dies on average 9 years earlier than somebody of normal weight, and a very obese person as many as 13 years.

In my defense it does seems that as the dress sizes increase and the size 8′s, 10′s and 12′s are shunted off the rails and into the ‘Unnaturally Healthy’ section, the world is starting to accept that being unhealthy is the now the norm. That’s crazy.

I’m all for embracing what you’re born with and accepting your body shape, but I don’t remember seeing any news headlines about a load of 22 stone babies bursting into the world.

OK, now someone quick pass me the cake tin. I’ve got points to earn. I reckon if I eat for 4 hours a day and put in a year of some really hard work, I could potentially earn a membership to the local health spa, with a free seaweed wrap thrown in free.

Damn it. I’ve just remembered that I won’t qualify, I’m living in Australia now. Never mind, this is now the world’s fattest nation, so give it a few years and the scheme will surely be rolled out over here.

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What IS on the end of your fork?

Of course I have been aware of the food scare crisis going on in China over recent weeks, but I admit it was only last week that I sat up and really took notice. I was emailed a list of some of the potentially contaminated products and was disturbed to say the least when I saw on the list the same Baby Bite rusks that my little boy has been powering his way through for the last year.

Like many people I imagine, I had thought the risk were limited only to certain brands of baby formula. Apparently not, it appears it could even be spreading in far wider food circles than that, even covering Dove chocolate and M&M’s.

With 4 Chinese babies already dead and nearly 11,000 babies and children still being hospitalised, the world is now sitting up and starting to get itself into something of a flap. Dozens of countries, from Indonesia to Kenya to Colombia, have now banned Chinese dairy imports amid fears sparked by the tainted infant formula.

As a precautionary measure, Tesco (UK) removed ‘White Rabbit’ milk sweets from its shelves, a brand that the New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority have now warned contains “unacceptable” levels of melamine – a chemical used in making plastics and fertilizer that can cause kidney stones and even kidney failure.

Of course the Chinese government are busy trying to play down the problem, or in other words stick their head in the sand where no one can ask them too many awkward questions. Despite Xiang Yuzhang, the quality watchdog’s chief inspection official, telling reporters in Beijing that “There is no problem,” the world it seems is just not buying it. Perhaps because another senior Chinese product safety official has also insisted that the problem was “under control, more or less“.

Not the most comforting of words to use really, ‘more or less’. Those in charge of Chinese media spin must be shaking their heads in horror.

It does seem these days, according to the media at least, like the world is forever lurching from one food scare to another. It’s hard to know what’s safe to eat anymore, whether something is healthy or packed full of cancerous additives and which panic reports and urban myths to believe.

A World Health Organization study reported this year that unsafe food is responsible for illnesses in at least 2 billion people.

Of course it’s impossible and unrealistic to expect everything we eat to be 100% germ free. Food now is grown, flown and consumed all over the world and passes through more pairs of hands than you can shake a stick at. So while you may keep your kitchen as sterile as an operating room and religiously and rigorously wash every piece of fruit that you eat, the chances are the food you eat has already been contaminated in some way, long before you even brought it home. Possibly 1000′s of miles away by some backpacking fruit picker who went to use the loo and forgot to wash his hands. What a lovely image as you bite into your Royal Gala.

A long history of food scares, many of which turn out to be completely unfounded are enough to have you turning anorexic with fear.

The outbreak of listeria in 1989 that had customers fleeing from  supermarket soft cheese and cooked chicken. Edwina Curries ‘egg fiasco’ of 1999, when the country stopped poaching, scrambling and boiling their breakfast for fear of getting salmonella. The 23% of pigs taken for slaughter that the British Government then reported were also infected with salmonella in 2000. The BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and the outbreak of E coli that caused widespread mayhem in 1997.

The numerous links with cancer for a whole host of foods, including salmon, prawns, low fat milk, MEAT, bread, rice and even potatoes. The reports that cling film was dangerous, chickens nursing the flu could kill and swordfish gives you mercury poisoning. The concerns over food irradiation and the ongoing debate surrounding margarine.  The media furore over GM (genetic modification) food and the unknown fear over what long term effect a chemically enhanced cucumber may have on our body in 20 years time.

Even trying to eat your 5, or is that now meant to be 7-a-day has become a mission in staying alive, with recent reports of fresh spinach, tomatoes and peppers all testing positive for salmonella and certain brands of carrot juice (organic no less) being linked to botulism.

When you start looking at your fork and wondering what exactly is in the food you are about to eat and whether it will one day cause you to grow another limb, then you know it’s time to dig out a vegetable plot and only eat what you can manage to grow.

Much like with the everyday products that we use, the medications we pump into our bodies and the diets that we follow, it seems that in this day and age, eating has never been so dangerous.

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Cooked to perfection

Anyone planning to move Perth and pass their days rotating slowly on a beach towel like a rotisserie chicken should think again. Forget the myths about safe tanning – the sun is not your friend.

Over exposing your pale and vulnerable flesh to the harsh Australian sun, can and will leave you burnt to a crisp, not unlike a piece of blackened rump steak on the barbie. And just as that burnt steak can be a carcinogenic, so too can obsessive sun worshiping fast track you straight into the nearest oncology department.

Sunbathing here can equal baking – in a 40 degree fan forced oven. So unless you fancy looking like a Sunday joint in a roasting tin, then I’d suggest you think more along the lines of spray tans and bronzing balls, than lapping up the UV rays in your bikini.

Admittedly it does seem odd that in a country famed for it’s buffed lifeguards and beach life image, many people choose to stay away from beaches during the summer months. Unlike Brighton or Bournemouth on an August Bank Holiday, where pink flesh is laid out row after row, on a public holiday here many of the beaches are virtually deserted. As a socially phobic beach goer who doesn’t like having to suck my stomach in for long periods of time or listening to someone else’s music, I see this as a bonus.

There are some who will always buck this trend and lay out in the sun, regardless of how high the temperature gets. These include dogs and cats, tourists (who have limited time to achieve their holiday tan) and the older, die hard sunbathing fanatics. These in particular are easily distinguished by their rhino hide skin and the overpowering aroma of pork crackling that surrounds them.

It is not until you experience the sheer heat of the midday sun (particularly in the summer months) that you realise sun cream should never be just an after thought or something that you put on if you find the time. Sun cream is something you put on every time you come into contact with fresh air – whether you’re going for a walk, spending a morning at the beach or just mooching around in your own backyard.

Actually from painful experience I have learnt the hard way that your own garden is possibly the easiest place of all to get burnt. This can happen when you pop outside ‘just for 5 mintues’ to tidy up something in the garden. 6 hours later, after an impromptu full scale pruning operation, you look in the mirror and find yourself to be the same vibrant shade as Elmo and limited to loose, bag shaped clothes for the rest of the week.

The sheer size of the hole in the Ozone right above our heads is reflected in both the human and financial toll that it is taking on society. Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, accounting for around 80% of all new cancers diagnosed each year. Australians are four times more likely to develop a common skin cancer than any other form of cancer, a fact reflected in the 380,000 people treated everyday – over 1,000 people a day, and the 1,600 deaths that are a result of this. Skin cancer also costs the health system around $300 million annually, the highest cost of all cancers.

Such high numbers indicate the extreme severity of this problem – a problem that the Australian government does not take lighty. As well as the gruesome shock tactics press and TV ads that appear during the summer months, the ‘Slip, Slap, Slosh’ sun wise campaign is promoted everywhere that you turn.

This highlights the recommended methods of protection – SLIP on a top, SLAP on a hat and SLOSH on some cream. In addition, it is also recommended to wear wrap around glasses and stay in the shade during the hottest part of the day.

Keeping children creamed and covered up is especially important. Exposure to the sun in childhood and adolescence is an important factor in the development of skin cancer later in life. For children here, learning to put on cream is just a way of life and if they don’t have their hat at schools, they won’t be allowed to play outside. New born babies in particular shouldn’t be out in the sun at all. Most people use black UV nets over their prams – also good for keeping pesky flies away.

So if the dangers of sunbathing are so high, why has having a tan long been associated with wealth, health and superficial good looks?

Long before the Hiltons, Lohans and Jordons of this world began worshiping at the temple of St. Tropez, people believed that having a tan indicated good breeding and class – and the money to be able to travel.

A recent onslaught of budget airlines allowing anyone with a passport and an overdraft limit to fly, has well and truly knocked that perception on the head. On the contrary now, being a similar shade to an Umpa Lumpa is now a trait associated with the countless wannabe stars of the tabloids and celebrity magazines.

The perception that a ‘tan = wealth’ has however always been one reserved solely for the Western word. In Asia, it is a pale skin that is deemed more beautiful, with ‘whitening’ not self tanning creams in hot demand.

Unfortunately with so many models still promoting a sun kissed ‘healthy’ glow on the pages of glossy women’s magazines, the use of a tan remains a fashion accessory. An accessory that destroys your skin. How ironic that whilst tanning may give you an outer appearance of good health, it can also kill.

Not wanting to be seen to be promoting this health risk, many beauty companies do go into overdrive in the summer months, with their ‘responsible’ advertising of their safer, self tanning products. But don’t these just further enforce the idea that brown is still best? If big cosmetic companies really wanted to save people’s skins, then like on cigarette packets, they would advertise the terrible risks of sunbathing with hard hitting photos of melanomas, along side the sun creams they sell. But I’m guessing that stomach churning imagery doesn’t really help to shift beauty products of the shelves.

Having grown up in a succession of sunny climates, I know I have already fried my way through countless layers of skin, in the search of the perfect tan. Back in my teens and early 20’s, the mission was to get as brown as humanly possible, without actually having to undergo an ethnic transplant. Whether that meant dousing myself in Hawaiian Tropic or laying in a pool of my own sweat on a human griddle for half an hour at time, there was nothing I was not naively prepared to do. Back then, being pale did not equate to being beautiful, it simply meant you were coming down with the flu.

It has taken me a long, long time to finally get it into my head that having that ‘oh another half an hour won’t kill me’ mentality is really just playing Russian roulette with your health. The older I get and the more rigorous I am with the L’Oreal Wrinkle Decrease every night (which incidentally does exactly what it says on the tin), the more stupid it seems to then go out the next morning and undo all that hard work.

It has also taken a long time for the world to start pulling together to face up to this issue. One big step in the right direction will be taken at The 12th World Congress on Cancers of the Skin, held in Israel in May 2009. Dermatologists, plastic surgeons and oncologists from around the world will come together to learn about and discuss the latest breakthroughs in the world of cancer.

Until a cure is hopefully one day found, ignorance can no longer be used as an excuse when it comes to the sun. If you live somewhere where the risks run higher and you don’t slap on your slop, you will be treated like an masochistic idiot who ultimately deserves the consequence’s they might face. Unlike many others, this is one disease that can be prevented with a little common sense. So using some is essential.

If after reading this you still can’t resist lying out in the sun for hours, then here’s a way to achieve the same look in half the time. Simply baste yourself down with some good quality virgin olive oil, roll around in some fresh herbs and chuck yourself onto the barbie. It’s always been a look that’s worked well for a chicken drumstick, and at the end of the day cooked meat is just cooked meat.

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East meets West

China and the US are two countries as far apart historically and culturally as East is to West. To each, the other country remains an enigma, with fact and fiction merging and misconceptions rife. ‘The Land of the Free’ versus ‘The Communist Middle Kingdom’. ‘The Communist‘ versus ‘The Communist’. ‘The Consumer’ versus ‘The Manufacturer’.

Yet here are two great nations, tied together by trade and industry, moving forward and destined to become the two tallest towers in a global economy.

The world needs to start looking beyond these labels and sit up and take note of what China is achieving. As so many other now powerful nations have proved, it is not a country’s history that is relevant in the world today, but its future, and China‘s future is indeed bright. Few countries are on a more prosperous path with apparent unlimited potential.

So are the differences as great as would first appear? Both countries are run in the same authoritarian manner, ruled by strict controls and power. In the U.S, providing Americans with their freedom requires powerful leaders – the internal power that controls voters and drives each electoral struggle and the global power used to dominate the rest of the world.

Chinese authorities also use the tools of control and power; power to enforce political constraints and to hinder social developments. A different agenda perhaps, but the same tactics nonetheless.

The U.S is undeniably the primary superpower with the largest, most technologically powerful economy in the world with a constitution to protect the freedom and civil rights of every American. The U.S imports six times as much as it exports, making it the world’s largest consumer society.

But this has produced a culture of materialism, greed and financial gain, giving rise to a host of potential long term problems. High unemployment, low wages and debt are a continuing threat to the economy; one that already has inadequate investment in its infrastructure. Living life in the fast lane is taking its toll and the U.S will require vast amounts of foreign capital in the future to sustain its economy.

China is already the world’s second largest economy – measured on a purchasing power parity basis – but it is still a developing country. Continuing to operate within a political framework of Communist dogma, the leaders are not elected, instead those in opposition risk imprisonment and the population continues to be suppressed.

Conversely, in its economy, China is moving in the opposite direction, creating optimism and potential prosperity for many. Short-term benefits and a long-term strategy have been the goals. China has concentrated first and foremost on the development of its own country and economy, rather than spending overseas.

Business is booming due to the more relaxed economic controls, opening the doors to increased foreign investment and a new high in foreign trade – in the region of US$851.2 billion, in the last year. Now the world’s fourth largest exporter and its third largest importer, China has built up vast foreign capital reserves, enabling it potentially to be the one economy strong enough to help the U.S in the future.

Add this to the fastest growing GDP, soaring stocks and an undervalued Yuan and it seems that, on the surface at least, China has come up with the perfect recipe to become the economic global powerhouse of the future.

The upturn in the economy has also improved social standards and expectations. Consumerism of city dwellers has soared and the man in the street is ever more demanding. More choices in how he lives, better housing, more mobiles, bigger cars and a voracious appetite for electrical gadgets to boot.

Diet is also becoming increasingly western; there are now around 800 Kentucky Fried Chicken, 400 McDonalds and 100 Pizza Hut outlets throughout China.

The Internet is also a development ‘barometer’ which indicates that China is on the brink of its own digital revolution. In the next two years, China is predicted to have the highest number of Internet subscribers in any one country – a staggering 153 million Chinese online. In the last year alone, 22 million new surfers signed up, bringing the current total to 80 million, making them second only to the U.S.

”This number is increasing by a daily average of 50,000”, said Cai Mingzhao, Deputy Director of the Information Office of the State Council, China’s Central Government. Simple maths dictate that if China continues on this path, with a current population of 1.3 billion, they will have the sheer ‘people power’ to wrest the title of ‘King of the Web’ from the U.S.

The Chinese people are revelling in this newfound online freedom, opening them up to the rest of the world and allowing more freedom of speech. A survey conducted by the Social Development Research Centre, under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 12 major cities, shows that 71.8% of the surfers agree with the notion that “they have more opportunities to express their views online”. 72.3% also believe that “government officials can acquaint themselves with more public opinions through the Internet.”

Lu Zhongmei, deputy of the National People’s Congress (NCP) is doing just that. Using his personal, forum-based website – http://www.hongyu-online.com – he solicits proposals from website discussions on affairs of state. He believes that the openness of the Internet will encourage the ordinary citizens to express their opinions and will give them a better understanding on how government policies are implemented at the grass-roots level.

“Netizens are a special group of constituency who can express their will at ease on the Internet, and their activities will facilitate to some extent the development of democracy in China,” said Zhou.

But this openness is causing concern amongst China‘s leaders. They are concerned that the younger generation – nearly half of China‘s internet users – under 24 year olds, are spending too much time online, assisted by the countless Internet cafes that stay open 24 hours a day. The worry is that these impressionable young minds are being exposed to unsuitable political content in online chat-rooms.

Investors, experiencing a rush of excitement, are after a piece of the burgeoning Chinese economic pie and have been buying, some would say recklessly, into the Internet Stock market. Eager to invest, but limited by choice, they have shied away from the state-owned Chinese companies and have gone for safer stock options.

Privately owned Internet portals, Sina.com, Sohu.com and NetEase.com, have benefited and their shares on the Nasdaq market have tripled in value over the past 12 months. Some financial analysts are predicting a sharp drop in Chinese stocks, to match the fall of U.S Internet Stocks in 2000, but currently their words of warning are being drowned out by the noise of the stampede.

“The bubble is going to burst”, said Andy Xie, a Morgan Stanley economist in Hong Kong. “It’s going to be bad”.

The race to jump on board is not restricted just to the Internet. Gold rush fever prevails and China is currently the hottest place for privatisations, mergers and take-overs. Overseas companies appreciating the advantage of the state-controlled cheap labour and untapped markets are flocking to China in their droves, their enthusiasm hampered only by the problems caused when negotiating in an unfamiliar culture and market.

All of this is, of course, the upside which China is broadcasting to the world. Behind this success, the government still struggles to reduce corruption and other economic crimes that threaten its progress. It is fighting to sustain the large state-owned enterprises, maintain the weakening population control programmes needed to protect the future survival of its social system and endeavouring to address the growing problem of the deterioration of the country’s environment.

Success and problems aside, China undoubtedly has the capacity to become a substantially greater nation in the future. It is using this time of economic growth to assert itself, to expand and develop on what the West has already achieved and to learn from past mistakes.

With this in mind, surely it would be the right time to invite China to join the US, the EU, Japan and Canada and to give them more of a voice and a larger role in global economic management.

Without a little more thought to the implications and consequences of Chinas new economic expansion, history is likely to repeat itself, causing worldwide resentment and unease as happened, when Germany and Japan last upset the apple cart.

The world leaders needs to wake up, look around and accept that differences in ideas, principles and priorities are part of our global society and recognise that no one country holds the rights to a power monopoly.

oly.

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oly.