On The Increase

It's been quite some time since I've used the gym, and it really hasn't been my fault. I've been champing at the proverbial bit in my desire to torture this aged frame of mine, but the gym is inaccessible on account of a breakdown in the biometric entry system. And the system is so wonderfully sophisticated it will take months to fix. The wonders of technology, eh?
 
I suppose I could have found ways to get hold of the key to the padlock that helps secure the main door. And here's where I have to admit to a degree of guilt. Frankly it was just about troublesome enough to do so, and I've been so busy dealing with the bloated Toad, work, that I've not tried hard enough. But I'm planning to put that right this week, inspired as I have been - believe it or not - by the PM's National Day speech.

I've not actually watched the speech, or heard it for that matter, but the press coverage featured quite a bit on some very sensible points made about the prevalence of diabetes on these shores and the need for maintaining a healthy life-style to combat said disease, and a host of other nasty possibilities that become that little bit less possible when you're eating and exercising sensibly.

I must say though, in terms of our general ability to cope with the problem of obesity in developed nations (whatever nation we happen to belong to) some of the figures quoted made for worrying reading. For as long as I can remember there have been pretty intense campaigns here regarding leading healthy life-styles, this Far Place never being exactly short of campaigns related to whatever is on the government's collective mind. And in a generally communitarian sort of society you might expect such campaigns to have some effect. Yet the average number of calories consumed per day per individual has risen from 2100 in 1998, to 2400 in 2004, and 2600 in 2010.

Now I don't know exactly how they compute the figures but there's enough of an obsession here with numbers to convince me that this is measuring something real. Yet I was around in 1998 and there was plenty enough grub and the green stuff to get hold of it to mean that the average Joe could have been munching his 2600 cals then, if he so desired. So what makes him munch them now (and possibly more, assuming one can predict a continued increase to 2017)?

I'm guessing that the forces of consumerism that are so good at persuading us to buy what we don't need are getting steadily better at persuading us to eat and drink more than is really good for us. And I'm guessing we sort of know this but sort of don't care. Scary. Very.