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Getting The Pints In
A new study shows that Britain leads Europe in levels of obesity, alcohol abuse, diabetes and smoking related deaths.
The report, compiled as a "snapshot of the nation's health" by the Dept of Health, paints Britain as "the sick man of Europe." Nearly a million children under 11 are classified as obese - a rise of 50 percent in ten years. In some regions, obesity levels are higher than the US national average. The average British level is 24.2 percet. The amount of alcohol consumed per person, per year is, at 11.37 litres, half a litre higher than the EU average.
What to do? The Telegraph, where the report appears, sticks to the facts. Here are a few from the English study:
"The number of women aged 35 to 54 dying of alcohol abuse has almost doubled in the last 15 years."
"There are 288 deaths per 100,000 people from smoking-related causes in the UK, compared with an EU average of 263."
"People in the Britain eat an average of 25kg less fruit and vegetables each per year compared with EU countries."
People living in the south of England can expect to live up to three years longer than those in some parts of the north.
The newspaper reports on plans by some health authorities to weigh and measure children, alerting parents to their responsibilities if junior risks joining the wobbly ranks of the obese. However, the Independent has a more radical solution. (Well, we think it's the Independent: Now it's peddling government propaganda as opinion it can be difficult to ascertain the source of its reports.)
The Indie picks up on some thoughts by a senior National Health Service adviser on how to tackle Britain's "health crisis."
In what the author admits is a "soft version" of paternalism, there are recommendations that smokers be required to purchase a "smoking licence" before buying a pack of fags, salt be banned from processed food and large companies be obliged to allow staff an "exercise hour" every day. Free fruit could be handed out to schoolchildren and the purchase of alcohol could be made more difficult.
Though there are worryingly nannying elements to the proposals, at least the author goes some towards making it the responsibility of individuals to stay slim. He trashes an official report released last week which declared that Britain was an "obesogenic" environment, " where energy dense cheap food was readily available and sedentary lifestyles were the norm and said individuals could no longer be held responsible."
"Saying it is all the fault of society invites a nihilistic response, that nothing can work short of a revolution. We need new thinking and new ideas. We face new health challenges from obesity and old ones from smoking which add up to something of a crisis. There is a real risk that our children will die at a younger age than us," he said.
EURSOC finds the notion that making it tougher to buy booze would cut drinking rates unusual, to say the least.
"Supermarkets could be required to sell alcohol separately from groceries requiring consumers to queue twice.Alternatively, the sale ofalcohol could be restricted to off licences (as used to be the case in the US), requiring an extra journey – and extra effort – by the consumer", says the Independent.
A similar system operated in Ulster for some years, with off-licences separated from the main section of the supermarket. Northern Ireland was not notable for its temperance in those days. Indeed, limiting the supply of alcohol presents other problems, not least the last-orders rush to buy rounds laced with "shots" or the violence that follows clubs and bars ejecting their clientele at the same hour.
The best look at the story comes from the Guardian, which sent reporter Stuart Jeffries to investigate the binge-drinking culture of Liverpool. Liverpool is said to be Britain's binge-drinking capital and Jeffries braved its streets on what was expected to be the busiest night on the boozer's calendar.
Despite his understandable misgivings about the exercise, he ends up having great fun. Last word has to go to a Liverpool nurse "dressed in a low-cut, short-skirted parody of a nurse's costume", interviewed by the Guardian's man in nightclub queue:
"We're getting on until I suggest that alcohol-fuelled narcissistic display is one of Liverpool's chronic diseases. She takes it personally. "Don't fucking judge me," she snaps. "This is the best party city in Britain, probably the world. I love it here and I wouldn't live anywhere else. So if you don't like the way I dress or the way I drink, you can fuck right off to wherever it is you come from."
""Where are you from?" her friend asks me. Wolverhampton, originally. "Ooh, you poor fucker," she giggles and both women collapse in laughter."
