Government measures to combat obesity not working

As a nation we are getting fatter. And fatter...

I have been in the martial arts industry a long time. As a student I have been involved since 1971, as an instructor since the mid 80's. In this time I have noticed a clear trend. Beginners are different now than as little as 10 years ago. I see more unfit and unhealthy students now. And interestingly I can no longer assume that 18 - 21 year old students will come in the door slim and fit. In fact not so long back I saw two young lads in their late teens early 20's who were unable to keep up with a female Krav maga student in her 50's. It was not an especialy tough session - just basic compound movements and a warm up prior to training. Read on...

With this in mind I find the recent comments of Lord Mcoll regarding the Governments approach to combating  obesity really interesting.  He asked why the Government is persisting with pushing exercise as a method of weight control. People wanting to lose weight should stop exercising and simply eat less, a leading surgeon has claimed.

Lord McColl of Dulwich today said that those wishing to shift some pounds would be better off just reducing their calorie intake rather than embarking on a rigorous training regime.  The Tory peer also criticised the Government's focus on promoting exercise as the key to tackling the obesity epidemic. His comments came despite the scientifically proven facts that regular exercise results in a lower risk of many chronic diseases - including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. I agree with him.

Whilst his view also flies in the face of research that shows exercise can also boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy - as well as reduce risk of stress, depression, dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Exercise alone does not address the obesity epidemic. He said: 'We are in the middle of the most serious epidemic to have hit this country for 100 years - the obesity epidemic. The cure is free - you just have to eat less.'

He asked Health Minister Earl Howe at question time in the House of Lords: 'Why does the Department of Health insist that exercise is important in this equation?'  Lord Howe replied that the department took its view from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice)

I totally agree with him. As a nation the over consumption of processed calories is the single largest cause of the problem. The most efficient solution is not exercise but calorie reduction. The government would be far better targeting high calorie processed foods, take aways etc rather than encouraging people to simply exercise only partially addressing the problem and completley avoiding the cause of it. I cant understand this myself. Working in the fitness industry, we all know that the exercise has huge benefits but the cause of obesity is plainly speaking greed. We all eat to much.

We dress the facts up in terms such as hypokinetic illness (not being physically active enough to maintain your oen health) or comment on plainly unhealthy diets with phrases like 'over nutrition' (eats to much).

We can dress it up a little - People with a high BMI rating (Body Mass Index - we will exclude heavily muscled athletes - I know they have a high BMI too)  suffer from a combination of over nutrition and hypokinetic illness. To put things in plain terms, Fat people eat to much.