First they came....

[jgharston]

Oooo, evidence-based policy making. We can't have that. If we do that we'll be building nuclear power stations and using wind turbines to generate electricity by burning them.

JGH

[ARWadsworth]

One of the reasons some of the apprentices at work like me is because I let them smoke in my van.

[Dave Liquorice]

Naw, this a round of "consulations" for which expensive consultants will be engaged to produce documents to go foward to the next round of consultations... There may be a few consultation trials, engaging yet more consultants. Trials geared to produce the answers required but with enough scope to be inconclusive and require more consultations to sort out.

[Owain]

yes, suspend the cake just out of their reach in front of them on the treadmill.

Owain

[js.b1]

Many factors are blamed for weight gain:

- Sedentary lifestyle.

- Ease of bulk-buy high-calorie food.

- Dietary advice post 1960 that is dubious.

- Poor meal routine re timing.

- Poor sleep driving metabolic (hunger) reaction.

- Dual income required for housing costs.

The real factor is Food Science became Engineering.

- An overweight person's day is nearly always a set path.

- Continuous snacking, driven by addiction, to highly engineered comfort foods.

USA food science moved from cost reduction to engineer food around focus group trails. Human food expectation, preference and psychological loading can be manipulated. Classic is modifying confectionery to create extreme craving.

Good way to break the cycle:

- Have a "boring food" every other day, after a year there will have been substantial weight loss.

Bad way to break the cycle:

- Tax on pizza, chocolate, etc

Indeed food suppliers have already lobbied to "help" consumers by making chocolate bars smaller & higher priced, oddly enough boosting their profits in the name of "it is good for (cough) you". So expect more of this nonsense, never mind the actual food engineering in the underlying product.

[js.b1]

Which will be based on #1 - boost the profit of the stakeholders, #2 - boost contributions to the party / family members, #3 - boost GDP since we do not have any, #4 - make the treasury happier and #5 - not cost votes we need, whilst shafting those votes we do not need.

You wonder why everything takes so long to get nowhere, and costs a fortune...

[Tim Watts]

*urk*

[Tim Watts]

"Being born is the biggest cause of death"

[ARWadsworth]

Who's paying for their taxi?

[Bob Eager]

Hotel towel syndrome.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Saw an interesting program on the capsize of a pleasure boat in a US lake. It was certified to take 48 passengers in 1964 when they weighed on average 140lbs each. In 2005 when it sank with a full load, the average American weighed 173lbs, a 24% increase in average weight over 41 years.

(Increase in passenger weight since the boat was certified wasn't the only factor in the capsize, but was significant.)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wonder how much the average height changed over the same period?

[ARWadsworth]

Or in laymans terms "over eating".

However I prefer the words "greedy fat bastard"

[dennis]

The enforcement of the smoking ban is to protect others, pretty much as for any other H&S enforcement. Nobody really cares if smokers kill themselves, they are adults and are doing it to themselves. However when they do it to others its a different matter. Smokers are likely to be too stupid to actually understand this.

[S Viemeister]

My mother was 5'8"; my daughter is 6'...

[Andrew Gabriel]

I've seen that elsewhere. US height had been increasing at 1" every

25 years, for almost 100 years, but over the most recent 25 years, it's shrunk by almost 1". Recent poor diet has been suggested as a possible cause. So between start and end of that 41 year period, they're probably almost unchanged, although part way through it they were taller.

In the UK, we seem to lag the US growth trends by 25 years and were shorter, but we hadn't yet seen any shrinking, and our race-corrected heights overtook the US due to our continuing growth and their recent shrinkage.

It was probably 5+ years ago when I saw this data.

[grimly4]

The odd poke of chips or burger is fine - no real downside to them; it's when fat lazy bastards eat them all the time and become fatter, lazier bastards - that's the trouble.

[Cash]

require a bit of paring down?

I had this discussion with my own GP about a year ago, just after my last stroke, and he was gently rollicking me about my weight - until I simply pointed to his midriff and said "what about yours" along with a few more comments about his diet and lack of exercise - he agreed, gave me a few more pills, and quickly changed the topic.

Before these people start attacking the general public on any health matter, they should have a very good look at all those working in the health profession first - from the top to bottom.

[Clive George]

Anybody taking advice on alcohol consumption from a doctor can't have met many medical students :-)