Sarah Boseley

An insightful commentary on the obesity epidemic, written by the Guardian (UK)'s Food Editor, so therefore in the context of that country but the situation equally applies here (if not more so). The author points out that demonising the overweight and obese as gluttonous pigs with no self-restraint is not only not helpful but completely futile in attempting to solve this particular problem. As is the case in most industrialised countries today, we live in an environment where it's almost impossible not to consume more fat, sugar and processed foods than are good for us. They are everywhere, not only where you'd expect them to be, in takeaway food outlets, but lurking in what appear to be relatively innocuous food items. Adding sugar to everything has of course compensated for the loss of taste resulting from taking the fat out of everything, but most of the time we're largely unaware what we're actually eating. Even if you attempt to decipher the composition labels on packaged foods, it ultimately becomes so confusing and misleading, you tend to give up and grab what seems ok, hoping for the best. There are some scary facts and statistics in here about the influence of Big Food, especially on the diets of children and although solutions are contemplated in the last chapter, they are going to be easily come by. When the powerful influence of companies who make huge dollars from selling food that makes us fat continues to prevail, as it does, doing more than acknowledging the problem is unfortunately not likely to happen any time soon.… (més)