The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Fat

Once again, the British public has let Tony down. Thanks to our laziness and wilful ignorance, the government is on course to miss yet another target: this time the one about stopping the rise in obesity by 2010, at least among those too young to be officially impoverished. The Health Profile of England has been unveiled to show a variety of unpleasant bulges, notably the fact that Britain now has the highest rate of obesity in Europe and that, despite nearly a decade of moral enlightenment, the north-south divide remains as evident as ever.

His reverence, contributing to the BBC's morning serving of intellectual Pot Noodleâ„¢, noted that "it is to do with poverty. It's to do with diet, it's to do with exercise. It starts at school and it starts with what parents feed their children", and that "it was the government's job to raise awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle", although "the government cannot do it all." As so often when it comes to public health, the government's job is essentially one of public relations. It is up to the public - more free, more empowered, more efficientised than ever before - to make the right choices.

The difficulty for his reverence, you see, is "trying to balance not becoming a nanny state and telling everyone what to do, with trying to educate people that there are real choices which you make". Historically, of course, when nice people of his reverence's income bracket employed nannies to look after their offspring, the said nannies would occasionally take an interest in the health of their charges. Since then, of course, the rules of the game have changed. If there is one area where New Labour does not wish to become a nanny state, that area is public health.

His reverence did his best to acquaint us with the complexities of budgeting for ID cards, private prisons and Iraq. "We can't really afford a decent healthcare system," he said, "unless healthcare is not just about treating you when you are sick but also about looking after your fitness, your healthcare." The National Health Service, it would appear, is not so much under-budgeted as over-patiented. To remedy the situation "requires people to take some personal responsibility for what they do", such as being poor, and advantagising oneself of the many opportunities for personal responsibility and education which the state of being poor affords those who have chosen it.

His reverence attempted to waken our slumbering social conscience by informing us that the choices we make - e.g. the sensible choice of not being poor, as opposed to the silly choices made by some people - "make a difference to your health and fitness and that in turn makes a difference to the whole of the country." That's the stuff to give 'em, Reverend. There is such a thing as society. Feed your children properly, otherwise the Health Profile of England may suffer yet further.

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