Is It Really As Simple As A Matter Of Choice?

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The other day I read a phrase supposedly said by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. It said something like, “No-one is responsible for what I put in my mouth EXCEPT ME.” And this got me thinking, is this really true?

Is it really as simple as a matter of choice? You bet it is you choose what you put in your mouth, you choose if you go to the gym or stay on the couch

If we took away all forms of advertising, marketing, social media, our educational system, how would we know what to eat? I don’t know about you, but in my formative years I learnt all about food from my Mum and Dad and my uncles and aunts and cousins.

Large family gatherings were just to die for. My aunts were all superb cooks and so were their daughters. I didn’t pay much attention to advertising (or at least I’d like to think I didn’t) and from a hands on perspective, all I did as a growing boy was peel and wash vegies and do the dishes. The main cooking was left to the experts. (I was probably outside kicking a rugby ball around)

Then in my teenage years I went off to boarding school where all my meals were provided for me, literally on a plate. The biggest gripe I had as a growing teenager was that there was never enough. However from a nutritional point of view, I reckon the school kitchen got it pretty well spot on.

It’s only since I’ve entered into the fitness industry, do I really pay any attention to advertising and in particular, advertising of food, drinks and nutritional stuff. I consider myself a fairly educated person but geez there’s some absolute tripe churned out by the food industry when it comes to marketing and advertising.

A classic example is the rubbish we see for sports energy drinks like Powerade and Gatorade. In my spare time I coach my son’s rugby team and have done so for the past 3 years. It is absolutely clear to me that many of the parents of my boys truly believe that giving their child an energy sports drink and lollies after a 40 min game of rugby is essential.

Little do they know that they could be doing more harm than good? I’m not going to delve into the rights and wrongs of post workout nutrition here, suffice to say a 40 min rugby game for a 10 yr old is NEVER going to deplete their glycogen reserves to the extent that they’re going to need to replenish them with sugary drinks and lollies. Water and a banana or apple will do fine thank you very much.

So my question is; where did all of these equally intelligent parents get the idea that a Powerade or Gatorade was the best form of post workout nutrition for their child? The answer is pretty clear. They’ve bought into the whole marketing and advertising war that the food manufacturers have waged for years.

So if reasonably intelligent parents have bought into the lie that their children should be fed a sugary addictive drink after their sporting event, is it really as simple as a matter of choice or are our choices being unduly influenced by marketing and advertising campaigns and if the latter is true and their advertising campaign is contributing to our current obesity pandemic, what role, IF ANY, should government play in controlling these messages being delivered to us?

It’s pretty obvious that we have a serious obesity and health issue in our society today and that at some stage a line is going to have to be drawn in the sand because our current taxation regime cannot continue to fund our medical system in its current form.

We’ll either have to 1: pay more taxes to cover the escalating cost of our medical system, 2: shift to a more user pays system, (the sicker you get the more you pay) or 3: find a way to reduce our medical expenditure.

Common sense tells me that options 1 and 2 aren’t really options, (no-one wants to pay more taxes and it’s fundamentally unfair to place the cost on those that can least afford to pay it) so we must look at ways of reducing our spending without reducing the level of services we are provided.

The simple solution in my opinion is to make people healthier, rather than cure or treat them once they’re sick, don’t you think? Put the ambulance at the top of the cliff and stop people jumping off rather than at the bottom where we can fix them once the damage has been done.

A wise man once told me, if you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got. In other words, only an idiot expects a different outcome from doing the same thing over and over again.

If the food industry continues to spread their messages unchecked and blindly say that people have the right to make a choice, where the reality is people will choose what they’re subliminally told to choose, then we will continue to have rising obesity rates and more and more sick and unhealthy people adding more financial burden to our already struggling medical care system.

If we can change the messages people receive, we’ll ultimately have more of an impact on the choices those people make, don’t you think?

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