We all know that obesity in the Western world is high and growing. The difference in the number of obese people in the Western, industrialised nations and those in “developing” ones is also widely known to be stark. This was plain to see whilst on holiday on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand. The majority of tourists in my resort were German. Some were British, French, Hungarian and Russian. A great number of these guests were 60+ and nearly all of them were not just heavily overweight, but morbidly obese. Even coming from a rich nation like the UK, it was shocking. I can’t say why this particular group of people were so prone to obesity, obviously, but I would hazard a guess at lifestyle – lack of exercise and poor diet.
It seems ironic that, when Westerners are at home we love eating exotic foods – Indian food especially in the UK, but Thai becoming ever more popular. On holiday, though – whether in Africa, the Far East or India – we long for fish and chips, steak and chips, pies and lager. Consequently, whilst on holiday, I was finding it difficult to eat at a restaurant offering consistently good quality but reasonably-priced Thai food, with a far-ranging and imaginative menu. The fact I was unable to find a pad thai dish that was better quality than one served in Brighton or London was disappointing, to say the least.
Does pandering to Western tastebuds lead to local people shunning traditional diets and moving over to convenience foods with high fat content, high sugar content and far too much salt? Myth, or fact? I am pleased to say that in spite of the cars and scooters very much in evidence where I had been staying, Thais are generally continuing to stay a very slim bunch. There are the occasional obese children, but presumably this has always been the way.However, the cars and scooters will become ever more popular (not that the roads can accommodate any more vehicles during a typical working day, with a quite phenomenal stream of traffic across the island), people will exercise less, children in particular will become ever-more complacent about being physcially active.
Western companies will continue to boost their advertising, children again will be the focus of attention and come to see certain brands as the ones to choose – Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonalds, you know the ones. And yet, one thing puzzles me. When I went into a store to buy some relatively plain biscuits for my girlfriend, who had developed a stomach upset, all I could find was the widest range of cholocate flavoured / chocolate coated / chocolate filled biscuits, or biscuits with truly weird combinations of flavours. None of them were plain. None of them were made by big western concerns. Bearing in mind the amount of fat and sugar in these products, why are the Thai locals not already all obese? A World Health Organisation report a few years back blamed the increase in convenience foods (i.e. no need to go home and prepare your own food – just grab something quick and easy….then something else as a treat….then make your ‘proper’ meal once home and eat it whilst sipping on ‘a nice glass of wine’), automation of once-manual work, more sedentary lifestyles (that will be a ‘no’ to gym lessons at school and spending too much time watching TV and sitting in front of a computer screen) along with the spread of motorised transport (commuting to and from work, being shipped to and from school in a parent’s car .
The worrying thing is that the World Health Organisation first predicted this development ten years ago and there still appears to be no co-ordinated effort to combat the spread of obesity. People in developing nations are not going to want to stop purchasing cars, scooters and vans, when that is what they see on their TV screens (as with combating global warming, if everyone in the West already has one, why can’t I?) ; their children are not going to say ‘no’ to a Big Mac or a can of Pepsi; and the young office worker in Bangkok is going to want a Subway and a Starbucks just the same as their equivalent in London. Until we have stemmed the rise in obesity in countries such as the UK and the USA, we are unlikely to find the solution to stopping it in any other country. And until governments wake up and find the courage needed to kerb the power and influence of big business – both on our TV screens and within governments themselves – and explain to people how, in the long-run, it will be cheaper to tackle the spread of this phenomenon now, rather than when it is too late (Copenhagen, anyone?) we are on to a loser.
Damn you, John Montagu!