I feel that, as I am referenced in the penguin's blogs, I, MG, have a, some may say dubious, right to usurp this blog for my own ends; you gonna stop me, penguin? I have your passwords! Just remember that before you start giving out information willy-nilly! Nobody can be trusted! Least of all me!
The last few blogs have led me to put fingers to a keyboard; mainly because of my own experiences. I have neither scientific studies, double-blind trials or any objective evidence to back up any assertions I might make; I rely on only my experience and anecdotal evidence, which is exactly what the penguin decries. However, I am not really trying to persuade you; merely trying to get you to think.
When I started 'secondary school' at age eleven, there were perhaps three (maybe four) who would have been deemed clinically obese out of a 'group' which numbered thirty or thirty-five. One was surely the result of parental indulgence (he was adopted), one was the exact opposite (left to his own devices, by and large) and one (possibly two) of which I had no knowledge. They were, as I was, considered to be 'different' (and that's important in the context of what I have to say) and so were ribbed, abused, often physically, and generally 'put on' by other kids. Although to be lamented, this is normal behaviour for children, who do not often have the 'social constraints' of more mature adults.
As these eleven year olds started to mature physically during adolescence, the notion of 'obese' began to fade. Probably overweight, yes, but clinically obese, probably no. The rest showed typical masculine bodies, it was a single sex school, and the previously obese no longer attracted the abuse because they were only marginally different; not markedly different.
Now fast forward to age sixteen. The size of the group had risen to around ninety to a hundred and yet the clinically obese had not increased, numerically, to any noticeable degree in relative terms, maybe eight or ten; ie about the same percentage. There were those who had a distinct thickening of the waist and flabby buttocks but those were the ones that often presented with sick notes from their parents which asked for excusal from sport/swimming/sailing/canoeing/etc on the grounds that 'little Johnny' had a verruca or respiratory problems or a strained muscle (quite clearly attempts to 'hop the wag'). So, most kids as I remember, were of averagely normal weight for their size.
So why? A British diet during the late 50s and 60s was not ideal; there was a lot of fat, in the form of oil and lard, mostly for home-fried thick-cut chips (fries to you yanks) and bacon, faggots {look it up!] and sausages; potatoes, whether boiled, mashed or fried (and don't forget bubble and squeek - day old mashed potato mixed with cabbage and then fried until the underside went 'crispy-brown'); toast and dripping (beef fat) for breakfast and tea; spotted dick and suet pudding and jam for afters (dessert, I think it is now known - how refined), in which the main constituent was beef suet; read fat, again! We used to shovel potato crisp (chips to you yanks) and tomato ketchup rolls down our gullets like there was no tomorrow and four-an -(old)-penny sweets (candies to you yanks) went the same way as if they were going out of fashion. So, why were so few of us fat or obese?
I think, although I have no evidence whatsoever, that growing up in the fifties, we never had the possibility of TOO much to eat. Granted, I didn't starve but I think that I may have wanted, like Oliver, a little more. But that wasn't an option; you got what you were given and that was it, whether you LIKED it or not; Britain didn't really become affluent until the early seventies. Although it may seem strange to young folks today, corned beef, can you believe it, was a treat reserved for the occasional Sunday tea, otherwise it was SPAM or brawn (pig's brain in jelly), and a chicken (a capon) was reserved for Christmas. We used to have cheap cuts of beef and lamb and pork once a week on a Sunday but only chicken (not turkey) at Christmas!
So with this relatively, by modern standards, poor diet, I NEVER ate my greens or beans, how did we stay so thin and, more importantly, seemingly healthy; even if not toned. Exercise! From the first day that I was allowed out to play with my friends in the street outside our houses, I can remember having 'stitch' as we raced so fast to catch one another. Whether it was 'kiss-chase' (my favourite) or cops and robbers or cowboys and indians or whether, even, commandos and Nazi soldiers at St Nazaire, I always remember being out of breath; that was how fast I tended to run. Any excess calories we might have accumulated through an intake of more food than we might have required was more than taken up by the frenetic scope of our DAILY recreations.
Even when I became too old for 'kiss-chase' (I did try to keep the tradition going with the convent school up the road in my teens but to no avail) still there was football, which I was lousy at, but still constrained to participate in; cross country running, which I wasn't bad at, in the cricket season (we played on average one game of cricket a month, the London clay was waterlogged the rest of the time); cricket; table tennis (which I assure you is far more energetic than most people think if you play to win, which I always did); sailing, which while not, in itself perhaps, is too demanding, requires a great deal of effort to swim to shore in the presence of a weir cascading water down at you at 30mph and your boat having capsized.
So what do I know?
Well, objectively, scientifically; diddly fuckin' squat! After all, I have had a stroke; what that does make me? An expert? No! But something has changed over the past forty years and it isn't how much pudenda have got 'deforested'. I seriously believe that the inability of young people (under 11s) to burn off the excess calories they absorb, all kids like sugar, didn't we all, is seriously hampering their ability to achieve 'non obese' 'targets'. If you start off fat, then it's difficult to change, however much you want to.
I remain to be convinced of my own argument.
How's that for fairness for you!
PS Lobster for dinner tonight; how decadent of me! And no, I don't like the way they're killed either but, hell, it will be the first lobster I have had in twenty years! So, cut me some slack!
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