The Obesity Pandemic

by Sophie Parekh

 

I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that you spent the majority of the Christmas period thinking about which delicious, novelty, calorie-crammed item of confectionery you were going to shove down your gullet next. I know I did. And now, with the New Year’s resolutions still burning at the forefront of our minds, with the promises of gyms and a less fat-centred diet being the most popular, what an excellent time for the media to guilt-trip us about being the most overweight we’ve ever been as a nation.

According to the UK Department of Health, most people are overweight or obese in England. This includes 61.9 % of adults and 28 % of children aged between 2 and 15. That is a pretty shocking amount. However, I think that it is rather interesting that this topic has only really become a major news story this year, being described as a ‘Pandemic’. We know we’re an overweight country and we have come to expect this, but the story starts to get interesting when you look past its quivering mounds of blubber and into the cholesterol-choked arteries (as it were).

In 2013, the Daily Mail issued an article stating that 7,080 people claimed £29.3 million in one year in benefits because they were ‘too fat to work’. That is some serious money for just 7,080 people. Also, being obese is a valid and accepted reason to claim a mobility scooter off the NHS. Essentially the government has to give a fair slice of the health benefit cake to the chronically obese. Ironic, really.

But this is essentially the reason that the media (particularly the BBC because they are government- controlled) has been placing a massive emphasis on people to lose weight, because the government doesn’t want to pay out. I think an interesting way to go about this is by organizing a mass eating scheme to make everyone obese, then everyone can claim benefits and we shall unite to break the government. This would show everyone the power of the morbidly obese and help people become more confident in their body, knowing that, together, they can squash a government.