Where are you on the great diet debate? Is it fats or carbs that
make you fat? This really matters because, as we are now
discovering, the health risks of obesity are serious, and obesity
is increasing.
As one who has been overweight since childhood (although not
quite qualifying for the horrible "o" word), I tend to blame my
genes (I share my shape with my mother and grandmother). I have, of
course, tried all kinds of diets, and I am a firm believer in the
fact that diets don't work.
For me, the very worst diet was a low-fat one: carbohydrates
were allowed, loads of fibre; but only tiny amounts of the foods I
really like (meat, fish, eggs, cheese). I lost spectacular amounts
of weight, went down several dress sizes, and was unbelievably
miserable for more than a year. I was not surprised to discover
that when this diet was prescribed for overweight men with heart
disease, it was linked to increased depression and death rates (not
from heart disease, however - more from suicide and accidents).
In diets, as in dress, one size does not fit all. I now eat
protein andfat, and try to avoid carbs. It works for me. But I have
friends forwhom my way of eating would be purgatory; they can cope
quitewell on the regime that nearly killed me.
So it looks as if healthy eating today requires both
self-knowledge and discernment. We have too much choice, and we
cannot eat it all. Unfortunately, we also like cheap food. When fat
was blamed for our problems, the manufacturers reduced it, but
tipped in loads of extra sugar instead.
This is a problem for all of us, but it is a particular problem
for the poor. The rich can afford to be thin. They can be fussy;
they can feast on spinach, kale, and avocado smoothies if they want
to. But to eat well on a low income today requires time, culinary
skill, and ingenuity. The middle classes wax lyrical about the
peasant cuisines of France and Italy, but replicating them requires
access to fresh food, and a lively tradition of turning cheap cuts
and filling staples into nourishing dishes.
Cheeseburgers and shakes are as cheap as the chips that come
with them. So, as in many aspects of life, it is the poor who lose
out, and whose health is compromised by the cynical priorities of
the food industry, and the supermarkets who parrot the virtues of
"choice".
The Revd Angela Tilby is Diocesan Canon of Christ Church,
Oxford,and Continuing Ministerial Development Adviser for the
diocese of Oxford.
