So the big news at the moment, so big that when I started typing this I’d only been up 3 hours but still had heard/read it on three different mediums in that time, is that Britain has the fattest women in Europe.

Thank you ministry of the bleeding obvious!

However, as someone who’s dedicated his life to helping these women get their life back, there’s a few things that annoyed me… Not about the news, but the way it was being represented.

So brace yourself, here comes a rant…

 

Warning: Although I’ll be censoring myself a little here, I’m not going out of my way, and it won’t take a genius to work out what I was trying to say. So if you’re offended by implied swearing, click away now!

Here we go.

Firstly, “Britain has the fattest women in Europe”

Official stats say 23.9% of women in this country are obese. No sheet Sherlock! Jesus, walk down the high street and you can see that around one in every 4 women are obese, and even more are overweight.

BUT what about the men? Why is this report so woman centric?

We might not statistically have the fattest men in Europe, but using the “Fattest in Europe” angle to report the same old news, and now heap all the burden onto women is more than a little bit irresponsible.

22% of men in this country are obese too. The difference is less than 2 frickin’ percent! It’s not exactly a million miles away is it?

So why do we get away with being a footnote to this story while the women are vilified?

2 out of the 3 times I heard/read this story this morning, men weren’t even mentioned, and then in the third, glanced over with a quick, “Oh yeah, 22% of men are obese too” approach to the statistic.

Way to be objective. If that’s not the most telling social commentary, I don’t know what the hell is.

Secondly, one of the things I saw this report on was TV breakfast news.

Now what really ground my man-berries here was the ‘expert’ they’d brought on did a really good job of explaining the problem. In fact I was pretty impressed. Just the facts, no ridiculous pseudo-science… And then she went and fracked it up right at the solution!

“Everyone needs to move more”. Great, “So how can we do that?”

“Get off the bus a stop early…”

Genius.

What’s that going to do for the obesity epidemic? Sod all, that’s what.

Bus stops are spaced, what, quarter to half a mile apart at a push?

So let’s say you get off a stop early on your commute. Now let’s say you weigh 18 stone. That means if you walk half a mile at 2 mph you’ll rack up around 160 calories burned.

Now take off 45 calories for the amount you’d have burned just by standing there, that leaves us with 115.

Now, at walking intensity, in theory around 104 of those will be fat. (In theory, in actuality you won’t even touch your fat stores until you’ve done around 45 minutes of exercise, and that exercise will need to be a darn site harder than walking! And even that’s not telling the whole story…)

A pound of fat can provide 3500 calories of energy, so congratulations. Thanks to the genius on the news, you’ve just burned a third of an ounce of fat.

Well that’s obesity cured right there…

There’s baby steps, and then there’s getting off the bus a stop early. That’s more like baby pigeon steps.

You can’t go, “Right, today I’m going to get off the bus a stop early. Tomorrow I’m going to stop having chocolate sprinkles on my doughnut”

When it comes to fat loss, you need to make BIG lifestyle changes. Small changes add up to big ones, definitely. Microscopic changes don’t.

Lastly, 90% of people who lose weight through a “Diet” – and the way she described it, that’s everyone who’s eating any other way than just eating a bit less of the crap they ate before – pile the weight back on.

TRUE: If you start replacing meals with diet shakes or eating just yoghurt or cabbage soup or some other such crap, then you’re going to pile it back on. Of course you will!

You’re not treating the cause (shitty diet), you’re treating the symptoms.

It’s like taking paracetamol for a brain tumour. It’s not frickin’ rocket surgery!

Unfortunately, that is the 90% of people she was talking about.

But what she was saying and the way she was saying it was completely misleading. The 10% of people who are following a calorie controlled, healthy eating plan, and learning how to eat permanently to get lean, healthy, and let’s face it damn shexy too are now thinking they’re going to pile it on again because they’re, as defined by Miss TV,  “On a diet”, and therefore, lumped in with the other 90%.

Testicles.

As my awesome Worthing Personal Training client Vicki, who’s lost over 20lbs so far and is on track to have lost 2 stone by Christmas says, “I’m not on a diet. If I’m on a diet, that means I can come off it. I just eat differently now.”

So in the words of Harry Enfield, “Oi! Journalists! NO!!!!“

Leave our women alone!

Yes, we have a massive obesity problem. Yes, our women may statistically be the fattest in Europe. But the fact remains this country’s obesity problem is spread far wider than our women. We’re pretty indiscriminate these days. Men, women, even children.

Singling out women just for the sake of a good story is not the way to fix it.

Now, let’s all calm down by watching this hilarious image of a bunny falling over….

Now we’re a bit calmer, I’d love to hear your opinion on this “News”! Go ahead and tell me your thoughts on this story below!