I recently watched a BBC documentary called, Mischief: who made me fat?

Although this programme was excellently presented & well researched, it made me pretty angry ( especially the part about the olympic games, that I shall go into in a minute.

The programme was presented by Becca Wilcox & I have to admire her control during interviews & whilst being accosted by security guards.

One of the opening statements on the programme went something like this: fat people are a bigger threat to the economy than terrorism or global warming.

Well, The NHS spends 4.2 million on obesity & the ministry for health spends 75 million on tv & advertising campaigns such as their “change for life campaign”.

One example of the cost of tackling obesity was given about the fire brigade needing to get a fat man out of his house. They needed to build a ramp & close the road & the procedure took 5 hours to get him out.

Now to the bit that really annoyed me:

Olympic games:

Apparently, the only companies giving money to the 2012 London Olympic games are

Cadburys

McDonalds

& Coca-cola

Yep! healthy choices indeed. A diet consiting of that lot will surely turn you into a mean, lean olympic machiene!

Here are a couple of McDonalds olympic’s adverts:

The companies derive a “halo effect” by sponsoring such events ( not to mention making a huge amount of money & getting more kid’s hooked on the junk they call food ).

The ethos that has always been behind the olympic games since they begun is ” physical excellence “.

Becca Wilcox portrayed this well, with gathering a few less pysically excellent specimens and parading around the Olympic commitee offices as team GBB ( Great Big Britain  ) and said ” Don’t take food from an athelete, they may be feeding you junk “.

Personally, I think that any athlete that helps these types of “junk food feeder” companies, should be disqualified for any olympic games.

Becca also sent a cracking letter to Lord Sebastian Coe about the sponsorship & in his reply he said that, The Olympic Commitee ” was proud to be associated with ” said companies. Well any respect I may have had for Sebastian Coe is gone.

Now, on the sponsorship front……………………….

Burger king sponsors NHS:

Yes, sad & hard to believe isn’t it. But enter your nearest NHS hospital and do not be too surprised if you see a Burger King in the foyer. I sadly have noticed this myself in the past, but apparently one of the best known hospitals in the UK, which is renown for it’s heart surgery ( I think it was Brookes Hopsital in Cambridge, but did not take enough notes at the time, probably due to shock! ) Has actually got printed in it’s directions on how to get to the heart surgery department ( I think it was ) turn left after the Burger King in the foyer. It was certainly something like that. The point is, how can they even consider printing such a thing, let alone allow a fast food chain within the hospital grounds.

Below is copied from a web page about the NHS Reading walk in centre, It doesn’t say much about Burger King but they do seem to like to name drop BK when they can.

Slough NHS walk in centre.

Reading Walk-in Health Centre is located on the first floor of the Broad Street Mall in Reading town centre and offers a wide range of GP-led services.

Reading Walk-in Health Centre is an 8am to 8pm service, open to registered and unregistered patients with or without an appointment, 365 days per year. Please note that after 5.00pm on Sundays when the Broad Street Mall is closed, entrance to the Centre is only possible using the door near to Burger King.

( I wonder how much longer it will be a walk- in centre rather than a roll- in centre , or being hoisted by a crane-in centre )

The NHS seem to be obsessed with promoting burgers.

And from the British Heart Foudations website:

12/02/2010

Responsible approach to portion size needed

In response to an enquiry regarding a new ‘double Angus three cheese burger’ being sold at Burger King restaurants Victoria Taylor, Senior Heart Health Dietitian at the British Heart Foundation (BHF) said:

“A responsible approach to portion size is vital to the promotion of healthier diets and never more so than in meals that are high in saturated fat.

“Although both the standard and double versions of this burger are high in saturated fat, going for the double Angus three cheese burger would provide an adult woman with her entire daily saturated fat allowance and half her daily calorie limit, and that’s without adding in chips and a sugary fizzy drink.

“Consumers need to use nutritional information available to them to help make healthier choices and be wary of going large – as they could get more than they bargained for.”

Is it just me, or is that an increadibly lame response. No mention of home cooked meals, eating fruit & vegetables & that junk food should not really be eaten at all.

No wonder, chairs are being made ( & there is demand for them ) to accomodate people of 70 stone!