Lies, damn lies and statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics National Health Survey of 2004 -2005 certainly gives one pause for thought...

"they" say:
62% of men and 45% of women are either obese or overweight
71% of men and 54% of women drink alcohol at a high-risk level
23% of adults are smokers and
77% of the adult population have at least one long-term medical condition

There was a television programme on SBS last Friday night - forgot it was on in the heat of the post conference wind down - that showed 60 million chinese people are obese. That's the entire population of France. The question is why are so many people putting themselves at risk of dying by eating too much?

Is it because food is so readily available today? Is it because we don't have to cook anymore. Everything is pre-packaged and pre-cooked. Fast food is cheap and calorie dense - have you seen how many calories are in the average burger or piece of fried chicken? It doesn't bear thinking about...and that is part of the problem. It is easy to over eat because we don't know how much we are consuming, because we don't have to fetch it from the supermarket, nor have to spend time in the kitchen cooking it. Instant gratification has become the norm. The give it to me now mentality has replaced the social aspect of cooking and eating together.

And of course it is not just the food that we consume that has contributed to the problem of obesity and wideness in our society. The light bulb (and of course electricity) has meant that we can circumvent the body's natural rhythms and cycles. We can stay up all night and watch the world cup being played half way around the world whilst consuming vast quantities of food to keep us awake.  We don't clean our own homes or mow our own lawns (I do the former but not the latter). We have people who "do" because we tell ourselves that we don't have the time to do it ourselves. In my case I don't own a lawn mower, and have no intention of buying one. You see the problem as I see it, is this...we always find time to do what we want to do.