Obesity is a growing concern, and the cost of treating obesity related diseases in the Western nations is in the billions of pounds. Many people consider obesity to be a simple case of greed and laziness, but scientific evidence shown obesity to be a complex multifactorial disease, often associated with underlying metabolic disturbances. Insulin resistance characterises obesity, and the cause of insulin resistance is known. Fructose is a component of sugar that has consistently been shown in the nutritional literature to cause the development of insulin resistance when eaten in reasonable high concentrations in its refined crystalline form. The rise in the levels of obesity have closely mirrored the increase in sugar consumption that is prevalent in western society. The implication of governmental taxes such as the sugar tax was an implicit acceptance of the association between sugar consumption and obesity. However, as has been shown previously taxing a commodity often does little to change the consumption of that commodity.
Governments could do more to educate individuals regarding good nutrition practices. Some campaigns to increase fruit consumption have been successful in schools. However, more often than not, corruption, agendas and propaganda become part of government initiatives as the politicians are easily influenced by coercion and bribery.
Some of the blame for the obesity epidemic should therefore be taken by the food companies that peddle their poisonous sugar in high concentrations in their low quality foods. However, the ultimate responsibility for the problem is not the fault of the food manufacturers. Afterall, most large businesses and corporations are run by psychopaths with damaging personality traits, and it is difficult to blame a psychopath for being a psychopath. A better solution would be for the government to prevent people with such destructive personality types from obtaining powerful positions within large businesses. However, as governments tend to be both corrupt and composed of people with similar destructive personality traits, this solution is never likely to be considered. The additional cost of products through use of a sugar tax will do little to deter the purchase or sale of sugar and sugary products and so direct government involvement will never have the desired effects. However indirect methods may be effective.
One of the major causes of the current state of poor health amongst most members of the public is a lack of nutritional knowledge. People are simply unaware of the dangers of most of the low quality foods they consume and are unaware as to how to improve their diets. One thing that would therefore be useful would be a basic level of nutritional education through government advertising and programmes in schools. However, the effectiveness of such advertising and learning strategies is questionable and there is scope for propaganda and misinformation to be applied to further lead to confusion. Often anything the government touches is poorly run, corrupt and lacking any effectiveness and so this may simply be a complete waste of time and taxpayers money. Ultimately therefore the education responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the individual, and it is the individual’s responsibility to look after their own health and the health of their children. This is the message that needs to be made clear to everyone.
Sugar is very likely the cause of obesity. Everyone should be free to eat as they wish, but a certain degree of personal responsibility for poor lifestyle choices should be shouldered by the individual. The lack of accountability and individual responsibility in our society is a key driver of poor lifestyle choices.
The purpose of this website is to address these problems by allowing people to educate themselves about nutrition. Then an informed decision could be made to the personal direction the individual wishes to take. I do not believe people should be forced to conform to particular nutritional standards. I believe in free choice and freedom of existence. However, I do believe that individuals should be held personally responsible for their decisions, and that the freedom of others should not be impinged in order to correct the poor lifestyle choices made by others. If low quality junk if what you wish to eat, be my guest, but I do not want to have to pay for the consequences of those actions. The real cause of the obesity epidemic, I believe, is the lack of personal responsibility that has crept into our ‘neoliberalised society’. Widescale rejection of neoliberalism and the irrisponsibility it encourages, is a first step to addressing ill health by reinforcing personal responsibility and accountability for lifestyle decisions.
Eat Well, Stay Healthy, Protect Yourself
RdB
