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Jock The Lard
Who ate all the Bridies? Scotland has the second highest level of obesity in the developed world, according to a new report. Only the United States has a higher level of obese adults.
The figures, released by the Scottish Executive, show not only the worrying link between obesity and serious disease in Scotland, but also reveals that childhood obesity has developed at an alarming rate.
25.5 adults in Scotland are classified as obese (compared to 23 for the rest of the UK). While that puts Scotland some distance behind the United States (32.2 percent obesity), the Executive is looking at ways to reduce the levels, which have increased by nearly 50 percent since 1995.
The Telegraph reports:
"The heavy toll the problem takes on the nation's health is highlighted in the report. It says that almost 500,000 cases of high blood pressure can be attributable to obesity, as well as more than 5,000 strokes a year and almost 30 per cent of all colon cancer cases — around 650 annually.
"The cost of treating obesity-related disease was estimated at £171 million six years ago, the last time such a figure was calculated."
Naturally, the Scottish diet is the first thing to be targeted. Scottish food has long been a subject of British satire - the Scots will batter and deep fry anything that moves, and have a particularly sweet tooth. Deep-fried Mars bars, anyone? Tablet? Then there's the possibly apocryphal story about a television chef who visited Glasgow to discuss fresh produce only to find a little girl who didn't know what a banana was.*
However the reports findings show that obesity isn't limited to the inner cities. One would think that life would be healthier in the Isles. It isn't: More than 70 percent of men and 65 percent of women in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles are either overweight or obese.
Nor is it necessarily related to wealth. An article in The Guardian looks at how many of Scotland's ruling class have been laid low by heart disease which the author blames on diet. He even imagines the Grim Reaper eyeing up Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Executive hopes to correct the stereotype by getting kids while they're young. From next year, Scottish schools will have to serve healthier meals. Fizzy drinks and "sweeties" are banned, and deep fried food limited to three helpings a week. Mind you, that's Monday, Wednesday and Friday, plus the stuff that they're presumably eating at home - hardly a massive reduction in fried food.
Kids will be offered two portions of fruit and veg every lunchtime, and oily fish will be served once every three weeks (again, this is not a radical change, but one presumes the Executive is starting small).
The Liberal Democrat health spokesman argues that schools should provide pupils with free fruit and create "breakfast clubs" to give children a healthy start in the morning. Cue English concerns that they will be subsidising free oranges for Scots as they subsidise Scots education and pensions...
Here's the full list of obsesity levels from nation to nation, from The Times:
United States - 32.2 percent
Scotland - 25.5
Mexico - 24.2
UK (as a whole) - 23
England - 22.5
Canada - 22.4
Greece - 21.9
Australia - 21.7
New Zealand - 20.9
Hungary - 18.8
Czech Republic - 14.8
Germany - 12.9
France - 9.5
Italy - 9
Norway - 8.3
The full report from the Scottish Public Health Observatory is available here.
*In fairness, your correspondent has only ever seen deep-fried Mars Bars on sale in Ulster. Furthermore, in the early 1990s, a Northern Irish teenager developed scurvy after years of dietary inadequacies. And in England, following a high-profile campaign to feed children salads and fruit in schools, Sassenach mothers were caught shoving hamburgers and chips through the school fence in case their youngsters were in danger of losing weight or even starving.
However, 22 percent of English people are counted as obese while in Ireland the figure is only 13 percent.
