There’s a degree of incongruity in the fact that the two major problems facing this country are child poverty and obesity. Dr Jonathan Boston, professor of public policy at Victoria University, ruffled more than a few feathers last week when he said that there are children living in New Zealand in circumstances not much different from those living in the slums of India. “They are in houses that don’t have heating, in caravans that don’t have running water and in families that simply don’t have enough food of the right kind every day,” Boston claimed.
It is undeniable that some New Zealand children are living in circumstances as outlined by Dr Boston, but surely it is drawing the longest of bows to equate their plight to that of the many children living in the sort of slums we associate with India. Child mortality statistics from agencies like the World Bank would no doubt confirm this.
The government countered Dr Boston’s concerns by listing the money they spend in an effort to alleviate this situation: $1.15 billion in accommodation assistance, $182 million in childcare assistance, $260 million in hardship support, $1.25 billion for the DPB, $16.9 million for out of school care, $267 million for child support, $1.93 billion for family support, $494 million for work tax credits, $176 million for paid parental leave, $32 million for parental and family tax credits and $1.58 billion in early childhood education subsidies.
For a population of 4.5 million it could be argued that we have an extremely generous welfare state.
Obesity of course is another matter. From the images we’ve seen from the slums of India obesity is not a problem over there. There is obesity amongst our poorest citizens here and is usually a result of the wrong food choices which are often the least expensive.
It now seems likely that we have all been making the wrong choices of food and this is because of misdiagnosed information fed to us in the 1980’s. The cover of last weeks’ Time magazine had a photo of a nob of butter with the headline “Eat Butter; scientists labelled fat the enemy - why they were wrong.”
Back in the early 1980’s we were all urged to eat less high-fat red meat, eggs and dairy products and replace these with more calories from fruits, vegetables and especially carbohydrates. These instructions were widely adhered to.
However new research suggests that it’s the over-consumption of carbohydrates, sugar and sweeteners that is chiefly responsible for the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Refined carbohydrates, like those in “wheat” bread, hidden sugar, low-fat crackers and pasta causes changes in blood chemistry that encourage the body to store the calories as fat and intensify hunger, making it much more difficult to lose weight. “The argument against fat was totally and completely flawed,” says Dr Robert Lustig, a paediatrician at the University of California, and President of the Institute for Responsible Nutrition. “We’ve traded one disease for another.”
The disease we traded is cardiovascular disease which is still the number one killer in western societies. The incidence of heart disease has fallen, but experts believe this has come about as a result of better emergency care, less smoking and widespread use of cholesterol-controlling drugs like statins.
The vilification of fat is now deeply embedded in our culture. Ironically our fat stock buyers demand that farmers produce lean stock, skim milk has replaced full cream milk and the margarine section of the chilled display cabinets in our supermarkets has overwhelmed butter by about ten to one.
“We have known for some time that fats found in vegetables like olives and in fish like salmon can actually protect against heart disease. Now it’s becoming clear that even the saturated fat found in a medium-rare steak or a slab of butter, once public health enemies numbers one and two, has a more complex and, in some cases, benign effect on the body than previously thought,” said the Time cover story.
I’m not sure just how all this helps the poorest of the poor in New Zealand, but perhaps a low cost McDonalds’ happy meal is not such a bad option on the odd occasion and porridge with full cream milk can make a deliciously fortifying breakfast.
But it will be huge paradigm shift for society to make after nearly four decades of believing fat was fatal. Consumer habits are deeply formed and I’m still reluctant to put cream in my coffee.
Those who are concerned about obesity need to know that skipping is the best way to lose weight. Skip lunch, skip dinner, then skip dessert.
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