Lockdown Results in Increased Obesity?

Latest tv commercial from the NHS begins…

“After the year we’ve had, many of us are carrying a few extra lockdown pounds. All that comfort eating and treating has made a mark.” It then goes on to say “Now’s the time to turn things around. Let’s shop smarter, eat better and move more. For free help and support to lose weight search better health.”

Hold on a second. Rewind please. What was it she said at the start? “After the year we’ve had, many of us are carrying a few extra lockdown pounds. All that comfort eating and treating has made a mark.”

Does that mean locking down has increased obesity? Sounds like that to me? The one condition that is crippling the NHS has increased because of lockdown? Locking down was to lessen the burden on the NHS and we’ve long term increased it as a result?

Don’t forget the stats:

• 30,000 obesity deaths in the UK a year. That’s 82 per day.
• 78,000 smoking deaths. That’s 213 per day.
• 7,500 alcohol deaths. That’s 21 per day.

Because of lockdown this has INCREASED???

We’ve tried to lessen the burden on the NHS by stopping people working, keeping them indoors and sending important key workers round with kebabs, chips and San Miguel? Obesity has increased as a result of this? Whoops! Didn’t see that coming!

Here’s the thing (and I’m qualified to speak on this because it’s what I do for a living. I’ve got like thousands upon thousands of hours experience in dealing with it). Simply saying “It’s time to shop smarter, eat better and move more” ain’t as easy as that and if you are overweight or obese you only know it too well. YOU are the authority on this as well. Once you get to that state, all sorts of stuff happens like you withdraw, you lose confidence, your mental health suffers, you can’t cope. And what do you do to feel better? You take more drugs (pizza, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes) to cope because that’s what you know gives you a high.

Look around. It is as obvious as the size of a now “normal” person that telling someone to shop smarter, eat better and move more doesn’t work. It never has done and it never will.

What prompted me to right this is yesterday I saw an 8 year old obese kid carrying a 2 litre bottle of coke. Sights like that burn deep into my soul and haunt me at night. It is extremely likely that we’ve lost that kid. He’s likely not running and playing football with his mates because he has no confidence. He’s probably staying indoors to play video games on warm sunny days. And you know what else? As we’ve lost that kid, Coca Cola have gained a lifelong customer. He’s also being prepared nicely to be another long serving customer for diabetes and anti depression drug dealers.

You tell me how it’s right that child is allowed to buy a 2 litre bottle of coke? Free will? Don’t make me laugh. Greedy and lazy is he? He wasn’t born greedy and lazy. He’s been turned that way. The only reason he wasn’t smoking a crack pipe is because the Co op isn’t allowed to sell them. The Co op and others would if they could.

So as I always knew from the very start of this, when everything is fed into the big computer and all the statistics come out, we will have done more harm than good. Maybe with the addition of just five extra words bolted on to “Stay at Home” would it have been different? “Stay at home and look after your health” could have been the message. I wonder if that would have made a difference? They chose to accept the money from increased sales of pizza and crisps rather than put long term health and happiness as the priority though. Yes, increased sales of ultra processed junk came before health and happiness.

How’s it going to change? Here’s one way. When that bottle of coke – and all related products – costs 15 times more than it does now and the revenue generated goes towards creating exciting exercise programmes that make us all feel brilliant about ourselves. And that’s not going to some soulless warehouse and walking on a conveyor belt for thirty minutes either.

The poison that is so freely and cheaply available in the food supply has to change and so does our attitude towards it. Too much of it is toxic, addictive, harmful and is as dangerous as cigarettes – obesity is the second biggest cause of cancer. Legislation is what is needed plus marketing campaigns that are a little more serious than seeing a jolly fat man in a tracksuit eating salad.

As always, peace and love.