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Up to 68% of adults and 34.3% of children in the UK are classified as Obese. Obesity isn’t just about ‘body image’ but is more important in relation to our health & strain on the NHS.
Yet fast food seems to be everywhere.
Adverts
High Street shops replaced with fast food restaurants and takeaways
Celebrity endorsement
And now … monthly instalment payments with Klarna if you can’t quite afford your takeaway on the day!
Body positivity and the body positive movement to promote acceptance of all body types is a great movement to help reduce body dysmorphia and improve body image issues. But are we being ignorant to health? As ultimately being severely overweight or obese does put you at risk of:
Heart disease (twice more likely if overweight)
Diabetes (90% of adults with type 2 diabetes are overweight)
Cancer – excess fat can increase rates of growth hormones, inflammation and oestrogen which can increase the rate of cancer cells developing. (More than 1 in 20 cases of cancer are caused by being over weight. A healthy weight can also significantly reduce your risk of 13 types of cancer)
Mental Health studies show that overweight people are 70% more likely to develop mental health issues
Obesity is also a huge strain on public healthcare, 1 million hospital admissions in 2019-2020 were linked to obesity and it is predicted obesity could cost the NHS over £9 billion by 2050.
So should we really be promoting, fast food & takeaways in 3 easy payments? Or perhaps we can work on educating the nation and their children on what real diet and nutrition looks like… before they need to be prescribed FAD diets, stomach surgery or fat loss injections.
Perhaps making it part of our schools curriculum? Maybe having a regulation on advertising of high calorie/high fat food and regulations on the FAD diet industry that is deigned to fail and causes way more issues than it helps!
Education is key... why?
Only 28% of adults eat the recommended 5 a day fruit/veg
Average salt intake is nearly 50% more than the recommended amount
More than 50% of food we eat is ultra-processed foods
25% of men and 11% of women drink more alcohol than the recommended amount
Takeaway consumption has increased nearly 10% since 2016
¼ of adults do no physical activity
Ignorance is bliss right ...
Are you going to remain ignorant or will you take control of your health? Educate yourself and implement life changing habits which allow you to eat the food you love in moderation with health in mind, not just physical appearance.
[Sources – Cancer Research UK, NHS Public Health Survey, National Library of Medicine]