The main cause of death in the US emerged yesterday as not smoking, but obesity.

Statistics published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that in the year 2000, 400,000 Americans died from poor diet and physical inactivity.

Since 1990, the number of people killed by gross fatness has increased by 33%, whereas tobacco related death has decreased by a disappointing 1%

Two thirds or 130 million people in the US are obese.

It cost the US economy $117 billion in 2000 alone.

Next year the US government will spend $440 million on obesity research alone.

Traveling through the Antipodes, I was much enamoured at the superior quality of food, especially in Australia.

In over three months I could count on one hand the number of bad meals that I had eaten.

Good food comes at a price however, and after spending far more than I originally intended in a year long odyssey, sensibly decided to cut back for a month or two on dining in restaurants and switching to the cheaper fast food outlets.

Now before I continue, I should point out that I am considered slim by most people.

I do not have, and never really have had, a beer belly or stomach even though I consume vast amounts of alchohol much to the distress of my General Practitioner.

But after one month of kebabs and take-away Indian and Chinese meals I was astounded to see my first love handles that could not be comfortably attributed to the inexorable march of age.

They were real.

Now I have nothing against junk food per se, it serves a purpose, though I have considerable problems with particular outlets such as McDonalds and that fucking stupid clown that I would love to see crucified.

I can attest personally to these subjective experiences, which I am the first to realise does not constitute a scientific study.

However, having reverted to my normal, rather more expensive and healthy diet (except for the copious amounts of alchohol) I can see after one month, a slow return and retreat like the worlds glaciers of my newly born midriff.

It takes a lot longer to take off, that which you have put on.

If this has been happening down many years, I can quite understand why people get upset with their infinitely faddish 'lose weight now' variety of diets fail to work.

It could take twice as many years to return to a 'healthy' weight after years of abuse.

One Morton Spurlock, decided to venture forth on a Ramadan long fast whereby he resolved to consume (I reserve the word eating for a pleasurable activity) every repast in a McDonalds outlet.

Incredibly, he gained a remarkable 12KG in 30 days and felt extremely ill.

He is now trying to regain his previously sculpted figure (so he says).

In a different experiment in New Zealand, a Christchurch boy ate only sweets and pies for two days and his math’s and reading abilities were subsequently recorded to be up to 50% of his normal scores.

To back all this up, a 20 year old athlete in NZ decided to eat only hamburgers for two months.

He too gained 12 KG.

Returning to his normal diet, it took him 5 months to reduce his gain by 10KG.

But it isn’t just the US that has concerns over obesity.

Australia is also worried about the obesity of its citizens, as is the UK.

But is there a connection?

The US, the UK and Australia are all aggressive free market economies, where the emphasis is on de-regulation and consumer choice.

But when that consumer choice leads to the appalling health hazards of obesity and the costs associated with their health care, why should the thin subsidise the fat?

Should fat people not pay more for their conspicuous greed?

We're talking about of course is a fat tax.

Why shouldn't foods that have 'excessive' salt, sugar and fat content be taxed?

Why shouldn't gymnasium membership attract a tax-break?

Why shouldn't fat people pay more for transport?

But surely, this is a ‘fattist’ policy, no better than a form of racism?

Why?

People are not born fat, they become fat through choice.

Why are there no diet books in Ethiopia or Mali?

The equation is very simple, burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight.

But this of course horrifies fat people, because it means one inescapable truth:

Exercise.

Move it and you lose it.

However my invective isn't solely aimed at fat people and their weak personalities when it comes to eating and exercise.

How did they get fat in the first place?

There has been a flurry of instances in the US where people have attempted to sue McDonalds for being culpable in contributing to their obesity.

I initially had no sympathy with those trying to sue McDonalds until I read that some twenty odd years back, McDonald’s surreptitiously increased the size of their meals without telling its patrons.

And the amount of fat that was in each portion.

People couldn't understand why the same diet was suddenly piling on the pounds.

Advertising also has a part to blame in this quite literally enormous problem.

The other day I was tempted by an advert promoting cornflakes with ‘banana bits’ inside.

Thinking this was some sort of dried banana piece and therefore probably good for you (and besides who doesn’t like sliced banana over their cornflakes?) I picked up a box and had a look at the nutritional content.

Normal cornflakes were 0.9g fat per 100g serving.

Banana bit cornflakes were 7g fat per 100g serving.

Full fat milk is about 5% fat.

So the inclusion of theses healthy sounding banana bits has the effect of containing over 7 times the amount of fat per serving (not to mention the salt content).

Politicians in Britain are trying to force advertisers to put warning messages on high fat, high salt processed foods, just as on cigarette packets.

But the food lobby is immensely powerful, so let’s now have a look at this other factor in the equation.

There are something like 22 billion farm animals alive in the world today.

This is set to grow by 50% in 20 years.

There are pig cities a million strong in the US and Poland.

The world’s livestock produce 10% of all the greenhouse gases including 25% of the methane.

It takes 500l of water to raise a kilo of potatoes, 900l for a kilo of wheat, 2000 for rice or soya, 3500 for a chicken and a staggering 100,000 for a kilo of beef.

Water, the world over, is running out.

The US Worldwatch institute estimates that 1.1 billion people are underweight, 1.1 billion are too fat.

Economic growth is measured by the increase of GDP, but this is a deceptive measure.

Heart disease cost the US 180bn in 2001 but is recorded as a gain, because it shows up as increased business for the health sector.

Humans need around 1500 calories a day to stay fit.

Eat more than twice this and you become obese.

Meat offers the food industry a way to raise the ceiling on global consumption of farming output; feed the staple foods to the livestock and then sell the meat to the consumer:

2kg of feed yields 1KG of chicken, 4kg for pork, 7kg for beef.

The bar can be raised again by throwing most of the carcass away or grinding it up for animal feed (BSE) and so on.

Meat is cheap to buy whereas greens and vegetables remain comparatively expensive; people therefore eat more processed meat than they need and the vicious circle is closed.

Fat people are unhealthy, unattractive and a burden on society.

There are fat camps for kids, why not for adults?

If you're BMI is excessive, then off you go for preventative treatment in a camp where jogging, muesli and lima beans are de riguer.

And you stay until you are cured.

Meanwhile, tax the people that provide bollock burgers (100% beef but they don't tell you which bits of the cow make up those 90% fat filled patties) until the pips squeak.

The sad thing of course, is that food is necessary and should be enjoyable.

Fast food is a tautology and an unhealthy one at that.

So let them have their cake, and tax it.

yechydda,