There we go again. I am hardly up hoisting my morning coat on, and what do I see on opening The Australian newspaper ( for art and TV section), a largish article expanding on the previous week’s news on the Danish Fat Tax (DFT) and giving some rather interesting snippets of insight of a country that likes to prevent rather than react afterwards.
It waxes lyrically on how Finland and Romania are now also going to implement this tax. Now, the curious but very enlightening part of this article is on how those Nordic countries seem to Govern. It’s heart-warming again, isn’t it? First let us reflect that Denmark has taken a turn to the left with a female leader with Ms Thorning-Schmidt, who, nota bene happens to be the daughter in law of the former British Labour leader Neil Kinnock…
Ms Thorning-Schmidt came to power last month promising to increase taxes on banks and high earners to pay for more spending on health and schools. Eyes agog please! She got into power promising to increase taxes! The fat tax had already been introduced by the outgoing conservative government, but to no avail. Their promises of increasing taxation weren’t big enough and they, the practical Danes, booted them out. Can this tale get any better? Yes, it can.
Denmark has a low obesity rate of 10% with a special tax on high sugar content foods such as soft drinks and sweets having been in place for some years. It is the highest taxed of developed countries with a VAT of 25% on top of everything else. With these taxes one would have thought there would be riots and blood on the streets daily, but no, nothing like that on the news lately. On the contrary, I don’t get the impression the Danes are particularly unhappy with their lot.
England is generally known as being loath to take action of any kind too rapidly with their fondness for ‘order, order’ instead, are slowly considering a fat tax as well. Previously, like here in Australia, they preferred to nudge people into better food and eating habits. Any form of tax to force things along is traditionally thought of as forming corrupting ‘Nanny State’ habits, implying that the UK is some kind of dream socially equal paradise already.
With a wild guess that Australia might have had a much lower obesity rate some years ago, it would not be all that unreasonable to assume that our world reputation as the fattest on earth, could have been nipped in the bud by none other than…our intrepid potentially disastrous future leader, the honourable…., I give you……. Tony Abbott…. Order, order,… some years ago.
Yep, that’s right, wasn’t he a health minister, health and ageing some 10 years ago? Before that there were other Liberal Health ministers. While obesity started to impact on general health with a blowing out of associated diseases, nothing was done. Not even the banning of TV advertisements of bad foods during children’s programmes. Nothing must impede the “markets”. (Wasn’t it lovely to read Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest doubled his salary and collected a handy $48.000.000 million in dividends from his company in just the one year, FMG?) Now there is the market working for you.
With our fondness for Neo-Liberalism and letting Markets do the walking for us we now seem to have reaped a nasty fat bug. That’s of course apart from homelessness, our miserable state of mental health, the aboriginal disaster, old age care, hosts of other collapsing societal benefits including our hostile and unfriendly manner of dealing with a few thousand boat people. Yes, indeed, a more prosperous and freer society but not a more equal society. A bit of a looming lemon really. Oh, for just a bit of Denmark.
To markets, to markets to buy a fat pig…Home again, home again…
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I can’t do much about your own governments findings’.
Here are some hints however. Pick your choice Voice, feel free to disbelieve or discount this as well.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity has
been increasing significantly over the last two
decades. Data from the 2004–2005 National
Health Survey indicate that nearly half of all
Australian adults (based on self-reported height
and weight) were overweight or obese in 2004–
2005: around 7.4 million adults were overweight
or obese (over one-third of these were obese)
and close to three in every 10 Australian
children and young people were overweight
or obese.
Click to access obesity-2.pdf
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OK, so from what you’ve written here that’s roughly 33% of the entire population overweight , nearly 50% of adults, and a quick calculation gives roughly 20% of adults obese. They sound like more reasonable figures. It still sounds as if their definition of obese doesn’t match that of the man on the street, but it’s not completely absurd. Presumably a medical definition, which it wouldn’t do any harm for us to use more widely.
One useful education campaign would be some diagrams of typical medical obese types, with a few simple notes about build or whatever is relevant and a disclaimer that it is only a general guide.
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Yes, but those figures are from 2004/2005 and from a survey conducted in 1999-2000. . Add at least an increase of 1% annually in the obesity rates, compounded over 7 or 8 years to bring it up to the present and the figures might well be worse.
(Data from the 2004–2005 National
Health Survey indicate that nearly half of all
Australian adults (based on self-reported height
and weight) were overweight or obese in 2004–
2005: around 7.4 million adults were overweight
or obese (over one-third of these were obese)
and close to three in every 10 Australian
children and young people were overweight
The most recent measured national prevalence
estimates for adults are from a survey
conducted in 1999–2000 among Australians
aged 25 years and over:[)
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It’s only the chicken that’s frozen. At the market they also have a la di dah, chicken specialists: Lilydale , or something. But it’s not as good as The Butcher’s frozen WA chivken.
Feeling slightly woozy, after anesthetic today. I think I’ll veg out and surf UKTV, Ovation, or STVdio.
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Bonne vegetation. You are entitled. I hope they find something and that it is a something that means you only have to pop a few pills for a couple weeks to make it go away.
Rarely (fortunately) for me, I am anaesthetised as well. But not on anaesthetic. Hic. Oops. Goodnight to all and to all a good night.
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A man I know has a cheesecake shop franchise. The main company has franchises throught Australia.
He told me that his best customers are the lower paid. They can’t afford big things, so cheer themselves up, with a sweet, expensive, fancy cheesecake.
I guess when they take it home all the kids go, aaah, and the family is illuminated for a while. It will always be that way…Cheering ourselves up.
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A Fat Tax appears to me as a tax on the poor. In general, food that is tasty, quick to prepare, and healthy, is expensive. Changing your diet requires good motivation, good morale, and time. I’m thinking of the woman I know who doesn’t get child support because she knows that her lawyer ex-husband would stuff the 3 kids around if she chased him for it. She works part-time, and they eat a lot of sausages. Not the gourmet kind. Two of her kids are thin (not from hunger) and the one who isn’t clearly has a bigger build all around, not just more fat. She is a well-educated, good and caring person. Yes, they drink Coke sometimes.
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Yes, but the Danes are DOING something. It might work.What do you propose should be done in Australia to prevent thousands of children developing diabetes 2? We are worse with our obesity status. Perhaps if support for single mothers was not so lousy, good food could be afforded.
I suppose, in Denmark the financial support would be better. I further suppose that this could well be due because of a much more equal sharing of wealth. Social democracy, perhaps?
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Definitely if she had more money she could and would have bought better quality food. Then she wouldn’t have been poor, so she wouldn’t have been my example for a Fat Tax being a tax on the poor.
Apart from being a tax on the poor, it is not likely to change the eating habits of the not poor but still fat.
I don’t pretend to have the answer. Doing Something for the sake of Doing Something doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Doing Something Effective and not Counter Productive sounds like a good idea, but I can’t tell you what it would be. Education programs would be my best suggestion. Again, good ones. Not this Become a Swapper thing they’re running now.
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Instead of fatty, ‘bready’ sausages, why not buy some good quality mince, make a meatloaf out of it, or hambugers with wholemeal bread and salad, and drink water .
Carrots, onions, lentils, chickpeas, pumpkins, almost always cheap, buy seasonal, grow your own as much as possible etc, etc….avoid sugar and fat…and walk.
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I never put that question to her, Helvi. She had a lot to deal with. Being a single working mother she was time poor, not just money poor, and issues with the children took a lot of emotional energy and got her down sometimes. She was very together in many ways and well-liked and respected, BTW,.
Good quality mince is expensive though. Sausages are way cheaper than a hamburger made from quality mince and wholemeal bread.
Growing your own vegetables in a little rented garden in Sydney is also expensive. Even not renting it would have involved buying a lot of manure or compost, digging it in, planting the seeds, buying and applying poison to kill the pests, or learning about organic pest control, then taking the time to apply that … It was never going to be at the top of her priority list.
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Voice, cheap sausages are just cheap and poor value for money. Paying for fillers, not meat. Good sausages are about $8.00 a kilo and when you cook them you should still have correct weight. Cook those cheap sausages and they shrink ! Good quality mince is $12.00 a kilo. Half a kilo will make plenty of bolognese to go with alway cheap pasta. It will also make 4 decent hamburgers. Helvi is spot on. Sorry.
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One thing about being poor it that it often makes it harder to get good value for money.
It’s not all about money. It’s about money, time, morale, other pressures. Most people aren’t poor from choice, but because they are dealing with other issues as well.
I totally agree with you about the value for money, Vivienne, apart from the cost of good quality mince but then I always buy low fat mince and I buy it in Sydney.
Not in a million years would I criticise this woman for buying sausages or make them more expensive. Not , obviously that they only ate sausages. If spag bol was never on the menu I’d be astounded.
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Good quality mince iswhat I am quoting on. Maybe I am fortunate – country, butcher, not being ripped off. This fat free stuff – it is brilliant.
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As a matter of interest, what do any of you guys pay for aged scotch fillet, or say eye fillet. What would a full leg of lamb cost you? The meat I get is hung for 3 weeks.
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I’m not sure I want to know what you pay, Vivienne. It would just be too cruel. I’d buy aged scotch fillet once in a blue moon and couldn’t tell you the price here. Of course they have to pay Sydney rents so it’s not all rip-off.
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You can be odd Voice. You bring up the subject and then don’t want to talk about it. Then you misinterpret me. I was interested in city prices versus country prices and value/quality. Simple really. You defend your friend buying cheap sausages for a number of reasons. I just say if she has time to buy sausages she has time to buy better value sausages.
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http://www.allaboutmeat.com.au/
This is who I use. They have a refrigerated van at The Farmers market
They also do hormone free chicken breast. I never thought that I would buy frozen, but it’s very good, from WA. It’s great for tandoori. I find if it’s defrosted slowly, it’s impossible to tell that it was frozen.
I buy a whole fillet sometimes, but only if’n I know I’m gonna use it. It does need trimming though.
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VL I followed your link and it’s only for QLD. Disappointed.
I learnt that deep frozen can be good in France. Lamb costs a fortune there. But every 3 months Picard has a 50% reduction on its deep frozen lamb and all the Australians in the expat network buy up. It’s from New Zealand and really good. Not having a big freezer I’d only get a couple of legs, roast one and cut up the other for curry.
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No chickens in Australian have added hormones in the first place. All are free of added hormones.
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Well if our 50% obesity rate is caused by people not having the money to buy good or better food, than the Vietnamese, Philippinos,Thais and Indonesians must be very well off.
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Obviously it isn’t. Also, the 50% … it’s nonsense, yes? Has some organisation actually said that? Because if they have, their definition of obese is not the one the man on the street uses. You do read a lot of weird statistics. Things like 25% of schoolgirls have been sexually molested, but they define sexual molestation to include absolute trivia.
I rarely meet or even see anyone obese; the last one I met has a serious gut problem that is the cause, not the effect. But I think that’s because I live in an reasonably upmarket area. I hear that out in the Far Western Suburbs things aren’t as good.
On the other hand if I want to see someone who’s slightly overweight I just have to look in the mirror. Still don’t walk enough in winter.
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We live in up-market area, so do our kids and most of our friends, but i see fatties as soon I go to Sydney, surprisingly the slimmest are the Asians; sorry Voice, it’s not fiction it’s fact, keep your eyes open or/ and do some ‘research’ .
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None of which is relevant to my comment Helvi. 50% obese sounds like nonsense, unless someone is using a very broad definition of obese. Since it was gerard’s claim, it’s really his job to check his figures and the definition used, not mine. I’m not his research assistant.
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I do agree somewhat with Voice on this obesity thing. I think the use of the word in this official way comes via the USA. For me there is a bit overweight, a bit plump, a bit fat, fat, very fat and then ones slides into being obese. It seems now that anyone who is ‘overweight’ is called obese. It isn’t black and white, there are all shades in between. Having said that, I do see the fatties in the less well off areas and few of them in the better off areas. It is even reflected in two supermarkets here (both Safeway or Woolies) – one in the town centre and the other in the northern suburb. They stock different foods and the northern suburb one always has mountains of cartons of fizzy stuff at the beginning of aisles, or mountains of chocolate specials, or some other unhealthy product. They know they are catering to different demographics and play to it to the hilt.
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I think that maybe the implication of this article and your subsequent comments is that if Australia elected a socialist government there would be no homelessness, mental health would improve, the aboriginal disaster would be cured , old age care would be good, and we would deal with the boat people situation differently. I could be wrong. It could just as well be Denmark Good, Australia Bad. But let’s go with the more positive interpretation.
Back in the twentieth century, when people who were able to get out of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe came to Australia or the USA it used to be written up in the popular press that they were seeking freedom. Yet the ones that I met in Australia always talked about money and the opportunity to make it, not freedom. In fact they missed things such as more heavily state sponsored arts and old age support and people being less ruthless. They wanted the benefits of socialism, but they personally didn’t want to pay the costs.
There was a fairly similar experience when East and West Germany reintegrated, with many East Germans being disillusioned with the more capitalist society. More evidence that socialism has many benefits.
Yet those socialist countries had a lot of problems as well. So socialism isn’t a cure for all the ills of society. It seems to be working fairly well in Denmark however. So before prescribing socialism as a cure-all for Australia it might be useful to analyse why socialism is a good fit there, and whether not not the same conditions that make it work there apply here.
Personally I don’t think that Danish demography, geography, fundamental economy (how they make their money) and social history are a close match with ours so it requires just a tad more thought before applying something here on the basis that it works there.
Would you care to elaborate a bit more on how socialism would improve the aboriginal situation? Or why it would change the way we deal with boat people?
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Voice:
‘Out of socialist countries’. No, you should have said ‘communist countries’.
There is a difference!
I suppose those independent bodies of people that have observed our treatment of aboriginals and boat people have come to the conclusion that we are lagging behind most other countries. Please try and get to read the UNHCR or Amnesty International reportage. They are hardly praising us, are they?
Where did I say that socialism is a cure for all? I do think however that social DEMOCRACIES seem, by and large, work better than open slather capitalistic countries. Do read my latest on the chooks!
Would you care to elaborate on how you would like to see improvements for aboriginals and boat people?
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Well, I haven’t made a claim that requires elaboration. You kind of have. If I’m reading you correctly of course. You seemed to be claiming that Neo-Liberalism (and I don’t know what that is either) and Markets were the cause of the aboriginal problems, and the driver for our approach to boat people, and that socialism would fix things. If you’re not claiming that, you’ve got nothing to elaborate. If you are …
I am certainly not claiming to have a solution to the aboriginal problems, or indeed to the boat people issue.
I suppose I could claim that Australia is too socialist already and we need to get rid of our socialism. Look at Qatar. They aren’t socialist and they don’t have any aboriginal or boat people problems at all.
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Denmark, has the worlds best restaurant: Noma The chef, Rene something, made a desert for MasterChef Australia.
I have watched a documentary, on his work, technique and ingredients. I was spellbound. but then I’m a foodie & restaurant tragic.
Wot’s Neo-libertarianism, gerard?
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Neo-Liberalism, sowwy.
What is it gewawd?
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I looked : Wiki:
Neo is a prefix from the ancient Greek word for young “neos” (νέος) which derived from the Proto-Indo European word for new “néwos”.
New Liberals. That sounds cute. Sorta trendy & caring.
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Go home Vee-ell. You look worn out.
Your blogging away to yerselll. Go watch UKTV, or summit.
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Yes, Vivienne. They do buy soft drinks by the carton now. I watched a large hipped lady struggling to put 4 cases of Coke cans in the boot of her car to-day. She had lots of facial hair and wore a frock made from hemp or jute.
Also, the latest is to discount if you buy two products. Like pan cake mix, 2 shake-em packets for 5 dollars. You can buy a kilo of flour for $1.20 and make ten times as many pancakes. OK, add another $1.- for a litre of milk.
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I would probably have a more generous take on that woman. From what you’ve described she may be a PCOS sufferer, and if her condition includes the complications of diabetes and depression, both strongly indicated, then that Coke is probably the highlight of her day.
PCOS is not for the squeamish. Its a bugger of a condition and is far more common than you think. Control of one’s weight is perhaps the worst of it. There is virtually no way a PCOS sufferer can stay within a healthy weight range.
Sorry for the downer on your type specimen.
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Warrigal, step number one for the PICOS sufferer is to lose weight, if this doesn’t happen then diabetes, androgen excess and infertility are inevitable, of course this is more difficult, but is achievable!
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I defer to your greater clinical knowledge and experience M. And there is no doubt you are correct for those that have been diagnosed in the last decade or so.
Before that however PCOS was “not recognised” and underdiagnosed. I’m reliably informed that if PCOS remains undiagnosed and untreated for many years, a common experience for many women whose doctor’s simply kept telling them they were overweight and to get on with a diet, then weight gain leading inexorably to diabetes and subsequent depression is the common path.
This is another of those body image diseases, not quite psychological dysmorphia, but losing weight when the only comfort in your life is eating can be somewhat problematic.
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It just isn’t a very good look watching people at the supermarket and judging them based on their purchases on the day and their weight. There’s just so much that you don’t know about them and it is even a bit creepy. Perhaps if it was part of a study, you interviewed the people with a set of relevant questions, you included thin people carrying Coke cartons as well as fat ones, and left out remarks about their facial hair and clothing.
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Yes, but my observation do not see thin people loading coke cartons anywhere near the same level as large overweight people doing that. As for facial hair and clothing. You are right, that would have better been left out.
I am not that rare to have made observations of people loading trolleys with unhealthy food being large as well. The Drum with pieces on our obesity plight many have also responded with similar observations.
May I make another observation? In public, many people with weight problems are also often eating food and/ or drinking soft drinks while walking along.
Another one;People riding bicycles are often slim.
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It isn’t surprising that people are judgemental when they see fat people buying cartons of coke or queuing up at McDonald’s. I’m certainly not immune to the odd unkind thought myself. But being judgemental about a particular individual is so often wrong.
It’s not surprising also that you don’t notice or remember thin people loading cartons of Coke. It’s perfectly normal for peoples’ observations to confirm their prejudices.
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I introduced my daughters to beer when they were about 13 and 10 during a long hard wood splitting, carting, stashing session. It was a sunny winter day and we got a thirst up. I shared a can of beer between the three of us with the girls having a shandy each.
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That’s the ticket Viv. That’s the European way. Moderate drinking with the family.
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Cold beer is a very good thirst slaker when you’re working, and the calories can be steamed off in your sweat.
Viv, I had a similar experience when I was young. Went hay carting one summer. Drank beer everyday and even though I was a stripling youth of only some fourteen summers, I never seemed to get drunk.
That trick I learned a few years later and I’ve been working on my technique ever since.
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Ah, well…… ummmm I always thought of myself as a woman of the world.
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The Danes make great television – most recently The Protectors.
I must be thinking of the wrong country but I thought they installed a slightly mad right person.
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No, they now have a more leftist person, a woman as well. 😉 The current Prime Minister of Denmark is Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She leads a coalition government consisting of the Social Democrats, Socialist People’s Party and the Danish Social Liberal Party with parliamentary support from the Red-Green Alliance.
Yes, they make good TV.
The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey (In Danish: Ørnen: En krimi-odyssé) (2004) is a series in 24 episodes produced by DR, written by Peter Thorsboe and Mai Brostrøm and directed by Jannik Johansen and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, in which The Eagle (Ørnen), an Icelandic inspector in the Danish police force, heads a new task force to help solve international crime. The series won an International Emmy Award from The International Academy of Television, Arts and Science for best non-American television drama series in 2005.[
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Yes, watched it too. There was another one, the name of which escapes me – brilliant timing and suspense and acting and everything.
Can’t think which country I have got mixed up unless the radio report I heard was just a crock of unconfirmed crap.
On the fat stuff, I just can’t understand people who can drink so much fizzy stuff like Coca Cola etc. The last time I had a can of fizzy was at a school fete when I was doing the plant stall and it was very very hot. Town water was awful and I didn’t bring enough rain water with me. My only real indulgence is once a week a (just one) hot fried dim sim when I get the papers and just before I then set off to town on errands. Every now and then I get some hot chips from the best fish and chip shop in town. Is beer fattening?
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Vivienne,
We usually tip out remnants of soft drinks when the kids have been here. We allow 1 litre bottle a day for 2 of them. Sometimes a treat at the lolly shop. All our grand-kids are slim if not skinny as well. Their parents seem clued up to good food. I also like the dim sim or chips at times, also a beer.
No good being too pedantic but the problem here in Australia is costing kids lives. I am sure that it will not go away by just not doing anything. A tax or increase in prices of fat and sugar products will come about. The medical costs will outweigh the financial benefits that the sugar, fat and salt products are making for those business Emporiums and Merchants that are pushing those products onto children through advertising..
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No
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No, beer’s not fattening!
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Guinness is good for you. The ad says so.
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Gerard, I think a clue to the massive consumption of fizzy stuff is that it is now sold by the carton (at a cheaper price). It is also a product which costs bugger all to make and brings in massive profits. So, yes, some things should be taxed a lot more. But not beer or wine (already pay enough and beer and wine drinkers are good, sensible people). But, still……… the parents are responsible for the fat kids and their own fat selves. As I left the supermarket today I saw two women line up at the KFC outlet. They were grossly fat – probably just topping up.
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Guys, I’ve been indulging in some Grolsh lately. Very refreshing.
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Grolsch actually.
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Let’s boil some frogs. You might recall that ingenuous business anecdote about increasing the temperature of the water so gradually that the frog never notices that it’s really hot and boiling ?
We certainly do that with income taxation increasing the take from workers through annual bracket creep. Imagine if we did the same sort of thing for food – in reverse.
For example – the current level of sugar in soft drinks is about 10%. Surprisingly, it’s the same for most fruit juices that we otherwise imagine to be healthy. But the sugar content for iced tea drinks is only 5% – and they taste pretty refreshing – without also being rather acid. That suggests to me that we could increase the tax for drinks with over 9% of sugar – expecting the manufacturers to all knock the sugar content down by an almost imperceptible 1% – in the first year ……. repeat.
Same for fat and salt. Do it slowly and nobody will notice. If people cannot of their own volition choose wisely the foods and drinks they consume, encourage the manufacturers and importers to provide less bad choices. Just like we tax the crap out of tobacco and alcohol – and ostensibly use some of the money to meet the demands that over-consumption place on our health care and other services – law and social justice – same for crap food.
I’m in favour, for example, of low alcohol beer costing say 60% of the price of full strength beer – which seems to be the case. And on the weekend, FM and I bought some French cider from Normandy – it had only 2% alcohol. It was light, delicious and not intoxicating by the bottle.
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There used to be a chinese restaurant called Choy’s Inn. in Market Town. They served frogs as an entree. Fantastic food. Later on, Dominic Choy added another floor above the Choy’s inn. I think it might have beeen called 2000.
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We once bought ‘bin-ends’ reds from Dan Murphy. When we opened the bottle and tasted it, I lost the will to go on. Reading the label, it was de-alcoholised wine. Terriblement, vile. It was $10.- as well.
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Yeah, I’ll bet it did. The trick is not to put the alcohol in – in the first place. Getting it out probably involves heating. Urk !
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How awful !! Read the labels Gerard, read the labels. Also, as a rule, just avoid bin ends bins. Nobody else wanted them, so they are trying to clear them out and make a buck on a bum buy. They are not bargains as they sort of purport to be – they are rubbish!
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Viv, the local Sauvignon Blanc we bought last week is excellent, but gez’ box of Shiraz is only good for marinating mixes or maybe as medicine. I knew it after all we tasted it, this area is only suitable for white wines.
Ah well, live and learn.
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Yes, but I am a skin-flint- a sucker for bargains.
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One of the better hotels in Newcastle used to brew it’s own Ginger Beer, 2 – 3% alcohol, depending on the brewer. It was taken over by a Hunter Valley brewery, who’s beers have some semblance to cat’s piss, they also make alcoholic ginger beer, therefore the pub stopped making their own. Unfortunately the aforementioned brewer makes ginger beer in a similar style to their other beers.
Having said that, will keep eyes peeled for French ciders!
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Nice to see you back Big M. We missed you.
The Oettinger Pils ( seit anno 1711) sells at Dan Murphy $26.50 for twenty four bottles. It is still a bit dearer than milk and less fattening.
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Gez is not the only who has missed you, Big M, I left you a I-miss-you note on Gez’ yesterday’s story…I was the first 🙂
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Me too, Big M, I was second
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You are funny, Hung 🙂
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Thank you Your Aitchedness
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H,
One must be careful when using the word ” miss” .
The Macquarie Dictionary definition 7 of the word miss says miss means failed to hit.
Using definition 7 throws a whole new light on the phrase ” I miss you darling” . Which off course has the unwritten qualifier in ” Don’t worry, I’ll aim better next time” . This now translates into ” I failed to hit you darling”
Think about it. Astyages is right. It’s suppressed violence in Western culture. Scary.
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Well, it’s nice to be missed. There’s a little Pigs Arms vignette sitting on the desk top that needs some polish. I went to Adelaide last week. I was only there from 6 p.m. Wednesday until 6 p.m. Thursday. Spoke a a nursing seminar. It was the worst seminar I’ve ever attended. Should’ve buggered orff to see the Piglets in Adelaide..Oh, well, next time!
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Hung, now I do have a real conundrum, what word can i use if you ever happen to be away from Pigs…I’ll be too scared to use the word ‘miss’…
I’ll just say: I bet Hungie will be back soon…. that’ll have to do 🙂
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You are gorgeous
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Yes, but I nearly ordered roses by inter-flora for Big M.
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Good to see you too, Emmjay. Are you having a day off from work duties…
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Hi Asty,
The miserable unemployment and pension benefits here are, as for so many other social infrastructures, due to our endemic low taxation income revenue. Each successive government produces another bout of promises to lowering taxation.
The rich get richer, the poor poorer. No society can sustain this for long. As for a fat tax hurting the poor, I suppose you are suggesting that good diets cost more than bad ones.
I disagree and so do many food nutritionists.. A look at some shopping habits soon show that those shoppers in poorer areas are often not only bigger in size but so are their trolleys. Giant bottles of Coke, a plethora of crisps and crunchy foods, biscuits, instant ready mixed sauces, lamb chops, pre-cooked fish fingers are all foods that are often superfluous and expensive.
I think it has more to do with not having had the education that included reasonable dietary habits. The schools themselves with ‘tuck-shops’, hardly an encouragement for good food.
How do you suggest, the obesity epidemic should be tackled?
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A lack of nutritional knowledge is certainly part of the problem, Gerard, but it is only part of it… I find it is often cheaper to buy foods which are high in salt, sugar and fats (and often all three of these at the same time, which is in fact a very lethal, and more importantly, a physically addictive ‘fat-making’ cocktail!) and I rarely, if ever, buy things like potato chips, biscuits, etc… Remember also that the poorer members of the community also often live alone (another function of their poverty!) and that even if they try to eat healthy foods, such as fruit and vegies, the only way to get these cheaply is to buy in bulk and that they often go off long before a single person can get round to eating them… thus ending up costing them more in the long run.
I don’t pretend to have the answer to the obesity epidemic, but turning fat people into yet another source of government revenue through yet another tax seems unlikely to cure it to me…
🙂
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The problem I have with the concept of a ‘fat tax’, Gerard, is that, like most things, it would affect the poorer sections of society much worse than the wealthier sections… Besides, food here in Oz seems to me to attract a premium price most especially BECAUSE it’s healthy, so, as this is simply a function of ‘supply and demand’, healthy food would get no cheaper… unless, of course some of that tax was used to compensate the poor, who would undoubtedly end up paying a much larger percentage of this tax (proportionately) than other demoographics… but how this compensation could be done is also problematic, most especially ’cause every time the poor are given any form of ‘welfare’ here in Oz the rich demand two or three times the amount for themselves too; saying it’s ‘unfair’ that the poor should get such ‘handouts’!
I’ve been surprised at what some Ozzie pollies think of as ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ far too often… Nowadays I’m still sometimes shocked by it but no longer surprised… You must remember that in Denmark they have a completely different attitude to welfare; unemployment benefits, for example, are much more generous and represent a much larger percentage of the average wage… (Interestingly enough, however, depression rates among the unemployed of both countries is still similarly high; I would argue that this in and of itself indicates that such depression levels stem largely from the negative effect unemployment has on self-esteem as a function of perceived social worth…) So, to cut a long story short, Denmark can do this without inflicting severe consequences on their ‘poor’… but we can’t…
🙂
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