I was amazed to read the newspaper last week to see that we are still in an Obesity crisis. One in Ten children are obese by the time that they reach Primary School. The number of overweight 6 year olds has doubled in the last ten years, and the amount overweight 15 years olds has trebled.
Do you not find these statistics frightening? Even walking around our local town, you can clearly see that the country is in fat crisis.
I do not claim to be a 100% slim Jim, we are all apt to the odd bit of bad food, however, the parents should be really questioned as to why they are letting their children get so big.I was in Switzerland a few days ago and was talking to a colleague on the train, now lets call her Jo to protect her identity. She is pretty, I'd say a UK size 10, she did not look in the slightest bit overweight, however she told me that she was considered 'A Fat Friend' when she goes out. I was totally set aback, how on earth could she class herself as fat?
So, this led me to have a think about things on the flight home. When I first joined the company that I work for, I was a trim 32" waist, went to the gym most days, only because I was single at the time, and had nothing better to do, so I was burning everything off. Two years down the line, in a secure and stable relationship, we earn good money so we ate out a lot, we had wine most nights, and didn't really go to the gym. It was Winter, so I didn't really bother going out on the bike. When I went for my recurrent training, I was really quite offended how blunt the Swiss were regarding my weight gain. I must have been 14 stone, I would say that I was 'Well Built' but I would not say obese in any way. When we were on holiday, I was quite slim compared to our fellow British travellers.
As different societies, do we have a unwritten rule as to who is fat and who isn't? The Swiss Germans, and the Austrians seem to have a very outdoors lifestyle, given a few days of nice weather over here, then so do we. However it got me thinking, is our acceptable fatness level parameters much higher than our continental cousins? Maybe so. At school I was bullied because I was carrying a few extra pounds, but that isn't allowed anymore. Since I have returned from Switzerland, where I personally felt that I was bullied in a very minor way regarding my slight weight gain, I have done something about it, and it is having a positive effect. I managed to get into a slimmer pair of jeans without a muffin top appearing at the front.
We have toyed with the idea of Velo Squad for a while now. is now the right time to push it along with everything else that we are doing? I say Yes. If we are able to educate ten people into healthy eating, getting out and about on the bike, taking responsibility for their actions, then surely that is a good thing? We can run Velo Squad along with Velo Cruise, and combine it with Re-Invention At Sea, it works. I do not want to see these sorts of headlines in the coming years, when the Government seem to be turning a blind eye and focusing on events Thousands of miles away, when they have their own NHS ticking time bomb right on their doorstep.
