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Jack Knox: Our leadership in fighting obesity is a big fat lie

News item: Health Canada might prohibit the marketing of unhealthy food to anyone under age 18.
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Health Canada says our childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1980. Almost a third of those between the ages of six and 17 are overweight.

Jack Knox mugshot genericNews item: Health Canada might prohibit the marketing of unhealthy food to anyone under age 18.

I jabbed a gravy-soaked french fry at the young fellow across the table: “You know what you need?”

He paused before replying: “More unsolicited advice from adults who preach without listening?”

“No, not another video game,” I said. “You need to cram less junk food down your pie hole.”

This is true.

Newsweek reported Monday that of the world’s 100 most populous countries, Canada’s children have the third highest rate of obesity, behind only those in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Health Canada says our childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1980. Almost a third of those between the ages of six and 17 are overweight.

“When watching television, children view on average four to five food and beverage ads per hour, with the majority of advertised products [65 to 80 per cent] not in line with current Canadian dietary guidance,” Health Canada said in announcing it will spend the next six weeks consulting the public on whether to restrict or ban junk-food advertising. “One in three teens will eat at a fast-food restaurant today.”

These concerns are not new. We have been fretting about fat kids for the past couple of decades.

You know what else isn’t new? Prescriptive solutions aimed at nudging Junior toward the salad bar. The region’s rec centres began shifting toward healthy options in their vending machines a decade ago, giving less space to chocolate bars and chips and more to twigs and berries and fruit leathers that looked as though they had been peeled from the bottom of a truck tire. Diabetes-In-A-Can was replaced with bottled water (which prompted its own backlash).

B.C. actually banned junk food from school vending machines in 2008, though by then many schools had already made the change on their own — and had seen their bottom lines (though not their bottoms) suffer in consequence. The West Shore’s Belmont Secondary, which had been making a $1,500-a-month profit from its machines, saw the figure fall to $600. Oak Bay High’s profits fell from $18,000 a year to less than $12,000. Schools in the Greater Victoria district saw sales drop by 35 to 50 per cent. (The irony is many schools had relied on the revenue to fund sports teams.)

There’s also periodic talk of junk-food taxes, though evidence shows it’s convenience, not cost, that prompts parents to stuff their children’s lunches with pre-packaged heart disease. Moms and dads who wouldn’t dream of letting their offspring waddle four whole blocks to school lest they be abducted by some imaginary bogeyman think nothing of poisoning them with low-nutrition, high-calorie meals sold in disposable containers, washing them down with “energy drinks” meant for those recovering from marathons, not math class. We’re told this could be the first generation of kids to be outlived by their parents.

I wanted to point all this out to the lad across the table, but had a hard time keeping up when he scuttled to the other side of the food fair. For this is the unwelcome truth: as chunky as Canada’s children might be, it’s not as though the rest of us are firefighter-calendar material. More Canadian adults than children are overweight. It’s hard to hector Junior about his eating habits while doubled over with a stitch in your side, wheezing like a pump organ.

Oh, we’re good at wagging a finger at kids and telling them to lay off the concession food. We nod approvingly when Big Brother pulls the poutine from their chubby little grease-stained fingers.

But you don’t hear us clamouring for a ban on marketing unhealthy food to adults, do you? Ottawa isn’t going to tell Hockey Night in Canada to drop the beer commercials. There would be a revolution if the social engineers wheeled the pop machine out of your workplace lunchroom (what would you mix with the rye?) or took the sugar out of your double-double. And you can have our hors d’oeuvres when you can pry them from our cold, dead hands. We put the hippo in hypocrite, are better at lecturing than leading.