Diet, Cancer and the Promotion of Food Fetish

CONSIDERING the huge publicity recently given to the problem of obesity and the current report linking cancer to diet, with the strong recommendation that positive steps be taken so that weight should be kept to a minimum, the BMI, body mass index, is now said to be too crude to be a useful health guide. What actions can be taken?

One thing I have long considered a health hazard is the amount of exposure given to “good” food guides, food programmes on TV and articles in glossy magazines. These are not aimed at healthy eating but to encourage epicureanism. They attempt to make food more attractive, but considering the number of people who are quite in excess of their age-21 weight, it seems that we need less attractive, not more attractive, food.

Think of how much more difficult the anti-smoking campaign would have been had it to compete with programmes telling us how to get more enjoyment out of tobacco, as they once did.

When Gerald Ford was US President, he did not say that what the country needed was a good fivecent cigar. What he did say was that eating was refuelling, just like putting gas in the car. If you did not make a fetish of it, and got it over quickly, you had more time for healthy pursuits such as sport. Naturally, he attracted opposition from the catering trade, but there is not much obesity in those who follow Ford’s advice.

I am a recent diabetic and I am attending an NHS course on food. There is nothing in that course on making attractive meals but a lot on how to balance carbohydrates, fat and protein, limiting portion sizes, as well as a look at the calories in alcoholic drinks. This course reminded me of Ford’s advice, for it is all about calculating the body’s energy requirements.

Whether that would make a good TV programme is another matter, but in a period of strong concern about the effects of overeating, it could be necessary.

Chris Parton, 40 Bellshill Road, Uddingston.

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

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