JPhillips
09-04-2003, 08:56 PM
And over here we'd throw a revolution if they stopped super sizing our cheeseburger meal.
From the Guardian
Silvio Berlusconi's government has made its own, characteristically unconventional contribution to the growing debate in Europe on how to curb obesity.
In a newspaper interview published this week, the health minister in Italy's right-of-centre administration, Girolamo Sirchia, announced that he would be doing what he could to reinstate Friday as a day of fasting throughout Italy.
"Apart from being an ancient religious tradition, the weekly fast is a useful health measure," Mr Sirchia told the daily La Stampa. "It has a scientific basis. It helps to purify the system of the effects of an unhealthy diet."
In a country, moreover, where the state continues to be present in many areas of society, the government should be able to ensure that its ideas are put into practice. Mr Sirchia's cabinet colleagues are in a position to dictate what is offered to hospital patients, school students and workers in Italy's still-extensive public sector.
"In school and works canteens and in the hospitals, we shall take the path of reduced portions and a day of abstinence," Mr Sirchia declared.
His proposal was made against a background of mounting determination within the EU to tackle the problem of obesity on this side of the Atlantic before it reaches the epidemic proportions visible in almost any US shopping mall or parking lot. Yesterday, experts and officials gathered at a conference in Milan on healthy lifestyles and some of the ideas generated in their discussions were expected to be considered further at a meeting of EU health ministers in the same city on Friday and Saturday.
Since Italy currently holds the presidency of the EU, Mr Sirchia will be in the chair - and in an ideal position to urge other states to take up his plans for a Friday fast. Other, less drastic, proposals include more explicit labelling of food products, in order to make clear the number of calories in an average portion and identify ingredients by their popular, rather than their chemical, names.
However, as Mr Sirchia noted in his interview, the problem is sometimes the other way round, as when saturated fats slip by under the catch-all denominations of "vegetable fats" or "vegetable oils".
At all events, the argument for doing something is persuasive - and nowhere more so than in Italy where, as in Spain and Portugal, people have been abandoning their traditional, healthy Mediterranean diet in droves. Despite the dependence of Italians on such high-calories delights as pasta, salami and ice cream, portions used to be generally small and the consumption of animal fats low.
In recent years, the spread of fast food outlets and the growing popularity of skipped breakfasts, snatched lunches and overly generous dinners have nudged the country's obesity statistics into the red.
In the EU as a whole, it is reckoned that 20% of men and 25% of women are overweight or obese. But in Italy, the overall proportion is estimated to be one in three. Of the country's 20 million overweight citizens, a quarter are judged to be obese.
In big cities like Rome, Naples and Milan, the preoccupation - not to say, obsession - with "bella figura" (always looking your best) has concentrated people's minds on holding down their weight. The tension between the need to stay slim and the availability of fattening foods is visible in any urban chemist's shop where customers can expect to be confronted with a counter smothered with proprietary diet aids.
But in the countryside, and in particularly the poorer centre and south of Italy, flab is more acceptable.
Worryingly, in a nations besotted by babies, there is strong evidence to suggest that Italians are using their increased prosperity to over-feed their children. A recent survey showed that 36% of Italians between the ages of seven and nine were overweight.
From the Guardian
Silvio Berlusconi's government has made its own, characteristically unconventional contribution to the growing debate in Europe on how to curb obesity.
In a newspaper interview published this week, the health minister in Italy's right-of-centre administration, Girolamo Sirchia, announced that he would be doing what he could to reinstate Friday as a day of fasting throughout Italy.
"Apart from being an ancient religious tradition, the weekly fast is a useful health measure," Mr Sirchia told the daily La Stampa. "It has a scientific basis. It helps to purify the system of the effects of an unhealthy diet."
In a country, moreover, where the state continues to be present in many areas of society, the government should be able to ensure that its ideas are put into practice. Mr Sirchia's cabinet colleagues are in a position to dictate what is offered to hospital patients, school students and workers in Italy's still-extensive public sector.
"In school and works canteens and in the hospitals, we shall take the path of reduced portions and a day of abstinence," Mr Sirchia declared.
His proposal was made against a background of mounting determination within the EU to tackle the problem of obesity on this side of the Atlantic before it reaches the epidemic proportions visible in almost any US shopping mall or parking lot. Yesterday, experts and officials gathered at a conference in Milan on healthy lifestyles and some of the ideas generated in their discussions were expected to be considered further at a meeting of EU health ministers in the same city on Friday and Saturday.
Since Italy currently holds the presidency of the EU, Mr Sirchia will be in the chair - and in an ideal position to urge other states to take up his plans for a Friday fast. Other, less drastic, proposals include more explicit labelling of food products, in order to make clear the number of calories in an average portion and identify ingredients by their popular, rather than their chemical, names.
However, as Mr Sirchia noted in his interview, the problem is sometimes the other way round, as when saturated fats slip by under the catch-all denominations of "vegetable fats" or "vegetable oils".
At all events, the argument for doing something is persuasive - and nowhere more so than in Italy where, as in Spain and Portugal, people have been abandoning their traditional, healthy Mediterranean diet in droves. Despite the dependence of Italians on such high-calories delights as pasta, salami and ice cream, portions used to be generally small and the consumption of animal fats low.
In recent years, the spread of fast food outlets and the growing popularity of skipped breakfasts, snatched lunches and overly generous dinners have nudged the country's obesity statistics into the red.
In the EU as a whole, it is reckoned that 20% of men and 25% of women are overweight or obese. But in Italy, the overall proportion is estimated to be one in three. Of the country's 20 million overweight citizens, a quarter are judged to be obese.
In big cities like Rome, Naples and Milan, the preoccupation - not to say, obsession - with "bella figura" (always looking your best) has concentrated people's minds on holding down their weight. The tension between the need to stay slim and the availability of fattening foods is visible in any urban chemist's shop where customers can expect to be confronted with a counter smothered with proprietary diet aids.
But in the countryside, and in particularly the poorer centre and south of Italy, flab is more acceptable.
Worryingly, in a nations besotted by babies, there is strong evidence to suggest that Italians are using their increased prosperity to over-feed their children. A recent survey showed that 36% of Italians between the ages of seven and nine were overweight.