Wednesday, July 07, 2004

EXERCISE ANYONE?

The real cause of expanding waistlines is lack of exercise. Blaming junk food is a leftist scapegoat. Rather than banning advertisements maybe children need to be encouraged to walk to school.

"Freake and those at Bluearth take a decidedly different view to obesity than the knee-jerk response that puts this blight at the foot of junk food, serving sizes and snacking. There is little sympathy for Mark Latham's bid to ban fast-food advertising on prime-time television. In fact, Bluearth cites research showing that the calorie intake of children has barely moved in 20 years. What has changed is the level of physical activity. Remote controls, two-car families, the proliferation of visual entertainment, the focus of schools on academic achievement and all the time-saving devices we use have created a more sedentary world where there is less burning of calories. In an 85-page report analysing the latest research on obesity and related diseases, entitled Physical Activity, Health and the Quality of Life, Telford cites evidence that children's annual physical activity has fallen 650 kilocalories in the past 50 years. This equates to walking to and from school for 20 minutes and physically active playing after school for 30 minutes or more. It's a similar story for adults."



LEFTISTS ARE THE NEW PURITANS

They just hate people enjoying themselves in their own way:

Food cops cooking the truth:

"Food cops never miss a chance to blame the so-called 'obesity epidemic' on an illusory 'toxic food environment.' Never letting the facts get in the way of their pursuit of 'fat taxes' and other restrictive policies, nutritional nags like Marion Nestle and Kelly Brownell continuously insist that our diets are worse than ever before.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture paints a far different picture of our changing eating habits. According to their data, from 1970 to 2000 some of the per capita shifts include:

Fresh fruit consumption increased 30 percent;
Fresh vegetable consumption went up 35 percent;
Dark-green leafy vegetable consumption increased 378 percent (with consumption of escarole, romaine and leaf lettuces increasing 1300 percent);
Broccoli consumption went up 365 percent;
Fish and shellfish consumption increased 22 percent;
Consumption of beans, peas, and lentils rose 23 percent;
Skim milk consumption rose 150 percent; and
Direct use of lard decreased 47 percent.
The Department of Agriculture also noted:
Nationwide, the market for fruits and vegetables has expanded in recent years, with many consumers benefiting from an ever-widening array of fruit and vegetable choices in their local supermarkets. Supermarket produce departments typically carry more than 400 produce items today, up from 250 in the late 1980s and 150 a decade earlier.
Despite evidence of nutritional improvements, CSPI director Michael Jacobson laments the centuries-long trend toward better variety and taste in our food. "Records of English manors in the 1600s reveal that the peasantry feasted on perhaps a pound of bread, a spud, and a couple of carrots per day," he asserts. And that, to Jacobson, is "basically a wonderfully healthy diet." No wonder Jacobson "is proud about finding something wrong with practically everything" we eat now -- he'd rather we eat like serfs than enjoy surf and turf.

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