A Good Aussie Speaks Up, Again

As another entry in an occasional series, let's look in on Sydney Australia for more outstanding parliamentarian contributions from this blog's chum, Peter Phelps.

If you've not heard of him before, my introduction from October last year might help.

Those with a good memory might remember Peter Phelps, an Australian politician and Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Phelps is notable for being incredibly principled in defending liberal values in such an illiberal environment as NSW, and in a chamber which is situated in nanny state central Sydney. As such, I was thrilled to unexpectedly meet him in July during a coffee break at a Royal Society of Medicine event on over-regulation of pleasure. 

Last year - when he was government whip no less - I wrote about how he casually entered a chamber packed full of variously ignorant prejudiced prohibitionists armed only with insults, smears, innuendo, wild assumptions, and downright lies, and placed in front of them simple incontrovertible facts about e-cigarettes. 

And arguably won hands down.

That article was about how he was speaking at New South Wales's "Inquiry into childhood overweight and obesity", and bedevilling a dried-up crone who believes kids should be deprived McDonald's, Coca-Cola and chocolate because, erm, because she knows better than a kid's parents how to bring up their own kids.

Well our Peter has been doing the same again last week, this time revealing some inconvenient truths to politicians in his state who feel it's their job to dictate what people eat and drink. Which, of course, it is not.

The real problem is that, in fact, there is no obesity epidemic. The obesity epidemic is a myth, especially an obesity epidemic amongst children. For example, the most current report of the Australian Bureau of Statistics says: 

Around one in four children … aged 5-17 years were overweight or obese, similar to 2011.

That statement made me go back to the 2009 ABS report, which said: 

In 2007-08, one-quarter of all Australian children … were overweight or obese …

So I went back even further and noted that this number has not changed. The obesity epidemic is so great that there has been no real change in the number of overweight or obese children. I went back even further and found that, based on children's body mass index [BMI], from 1995 onwards—in other words for the past 20 years—there has been no substantive change. Indeed, the ABS makes the point in its 2009-10 yearbook that differences between the numbers in 1995 and 2007-08 are not statistically significant. 

That means that there is no statistically significant difference in the number of overweight children between 1995 and 2007-08—and by implication at the current time. The whole idea that there is an obesity crisis or an obesity epidemic is complete and utter bunkum.

It's almost like politicians don't even read the statistics that are collated for them at huge expense to the taxpayer, isn't it?

The result of all this propaganda, of course, is that the New South Wales parliament wants to restrict certain popular food and drink items from being sold in school canteens, in order to tackle an obesity 'epidemic' which doesn't actually exist except in the fevered, grant-thirsty minds of state-subsidised 'public heath' snobs.

They are saying, "It is not about restricting choice, but we're going to restrict choice." (it's true, see here - DP)  Is there a more Kafkaesque press release than this? "We're not restricting choice; we're just restricting choice." That is the sort of nonsense we face.

Phelps then goes for the jugular, in amusing fashion.

Welcome to the New South Wales education system where, in health and personal development classes and sex education, students can be told, "It's okay to fellate your boyfriend three times a week, but because of health requirements you can only have a sausage roll once every semester."

And whose fault is the latter (I'm certainly not going to comment on the former!)? Well, Phelps knows that - as we do - very well.

Who are the people pushing this nonsense? There is a willing cohort of public health activists who are always ready to fabricate a crisis to get on the public teat and get a bit of Government money. 

[I]f you look at the arguments that are used more often than not and the statistics for soft drinks—and I recognise the member's comments on sugar taxes—you will see that it is not based on any real evidence. In Australia there is a declining consumption of sugary drinks in the entire population and most notably amongst children. The only real growth in soft drinks happens at the level of those aged 50 and over. Why does this happen? Because there are people who believe that your body belongs to the State. It is the mantra of public health totalitarians everywhere. It has unfortunate resonances with the totalitarian regimes of Europe in the 1930s, whether of a red or a black variety. Both basically said that your body belongs to the State. When we accept that as a basic premise, we have lost the true meaning of what it is to be a classical liberal in this day and age.

Damn right!

And, as Phelps also points out, this is a hark back to the principle of sumptuary law, whereby poor people are deemed not worthy of consuming what rich elites do without a care. In other words, naked and unabashed, bigoted snobbery.

Of course, when you call out such bigots and snobs, they don't react very well, as Australia's state-funded broadcaster eagerly reported (click through for video clip).

There are now calls for Premier Gladys Berejiklian to pull Dr Phelps into line after he criticised his own Government's new healthy school canteen strategy. 

The Opposition's health spokesman, Walt Secord, said Dr Phelp's remarks crossed the line. 

"I think it's time the Premier acted on Dr Phelps ... he does this on a weekly bases he just makes outlandish, outrageous comments and he is beginning to treat the Parliament like a 1950s locker room," he said.

We don't want none of that truth thing in parliament, now do we? He has to be removed or, before you know it, the public will be able to make their own choices without being hectored by tax-sponging control freaks waving shrouds and junk science ... and then where would we be?

Well played Mr Phelps, again, the world sorely needs more truth-telling myth-slayers like you.

See also: When political correctness matters more than common sense - Spectator

Another Outbreak Of Common Sense In New South Wales

Those with a good memory might remember Peter Phelps, an Australian politician and Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Phelps is notable for being incredibly principled in defending liberal values in such an illiberal environment as NSW, and in a chamber which is situated in nanny state central Sydney. As such, I was thrilled to unexpectedly meet him in July during a coffee break at a Royal Society of Medicine event on over-regulation of pleasure.

Last year - when he was government whip no less - I wrote about how he casually entered a chamber packed full of variously ignorant prejudiced prohibitionists armed only with insults, smears, innuendo, wild assumptions, and downright lies, and placed in front of them simple incontrovertible facts about e-cigarettes.

And arguably won hands down.

I love it when the Left is outraged by what I say, but can offer no evidence to counter my arguments #stillwinning

— Peter Phelps MLC (@PeterPhelpsMLC) May 27, 2015

Well, on Monday he was delivering more common sense, this time at the NSW "Inquiry into childhood overweight and obesity", colloquially known as the 'Fat kids' inquiry.

As expected he was sound throughout, but his exchange with Jane Martin - Executive Manager of what appears to be a turgid authoritarian organisation called Obesity Policy Coalition - was as amusing as it was accomplished.

Ms MARTIN: They should not be advertising to children so they should be happy to set that aside.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Why not? What is wrong with children who have high calorific outputs exposed to advertising which gives them high calorific inputs?
Ms MARTIN: Because children who do a lot of exercise need more healthy food, not junk food.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: How you achieve your calories is a component part of that. If a child has a diet which only gives the child 8,000 kilojoules a day and the child is expending 12,000 kilojoules a day that child is manifestly unhealthy.
Ms MARTIN: Elite athletes who do a lot of sport do not eat more unhealthy food because they need more calories. We need to eat a nutritious, healthy diet. If you are exercising a lot you get your calories from nutritious food.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: But no-one—certainly not McDonald's or any other company—is suggesting that your only diet be McDonald's.
Ms MARTIN: But it does make it a more normal part of life. It also associates sport with—
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Having enjoyable food is not a normal part of life? 

The denormalisation of McDonald's, eh? Rings a bell doesn't it?

Ms MARTIN: I suppose if McDonald's is called a Happy Meal then maybe that means it is but it means that having these associations—as a mother, I know what it does. You go to play sport and then the kid thinks that they deserve a McDonald's or it creates that affiliation, it creates that association, it creates the pester power. That is exactly what it is designed to do. We need to protect our kids and support parents who have to deal then with the demand that is created by those associations. That is what it is designed to do.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: But parents should be in a position to say, "No, you can't have that. You had a McDonald's yesterday. You're not having one today."
Ms MARTIN: But kids pester a lot because there are a lot of promotions that they are exposed to. Much more so than when you were young or I was young, it is a very different sort of environment. I saw some research the other day which talked about the amount of times that parents are pestered in the supermarket. It is massive. Why should parents be the ones to fight this marketing and promotion?
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Because they are parents, Ms Martin. 

This!

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Are you saying that sweetened beverages in Australia are an increasing problem for people?
Ms MARTIN: I do not know that we said that in our submission. I think we said that what is acknowledged is that there is very high consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks. Most of the added sugar in the diet comes from sugar-sweetened drinks and some subsections of the population are very high consumers of sugary drinks, particularly young men.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Would you agree with the Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] figures which indicate that the proportion of people aged two and over who have consumed sweetened beverages decreased from 49 per cent in 1995 to 42 per cent in 2011-12?
Ms MARTIN: Yes, that is true, but that is all people including people who do not necessarily drink sugary drinks.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Would you also agree that the ABS statistics show that the greatest decrease in consumption of sweetened beverages was seen among children, with the proportion of children aged two to three who consumed sweetened beverages decreasing by more than half, from 67 per cent down to 31 per cent?
Ms MARTIN: Has that taken into account the under-reporting in that survey? 

Ah, the old 'public health' under-reporting excuse, they trot this out occasionally. It's shorthand for "we can't argue with that so we'll try to pretend the data are flawed somehow". Phelps is on it, though.

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: It certainly mentions under-reporting; however, I am sure that a survey taken some almost 20 years afterwards has better reporting mechanisms than the 1995 survey, which was more likely to be under-reported.
Ms MARTIN: My understanding is under-reporting was a bigger problem in that survey. However, it does appear there has been a decrease but that does not mean that sugary drinks are not a problem.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Do you also agree with the ABS statistic which showed the overall consumption of soft drinks and flavoured minerals waters decreased from 33 per cent in 1995 to 29 per cent in 2011-12?
Ms MARTIN: Yes.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: And, moreover, the only age cohort which showed an increase in intense sweetened soft drinks was the ages 51 to 70?
Ms MARTIN: That is one subsection of the sugary drink market. I do not know what an intense—
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Presumably regular Coke and the like. Is it not true that in fact this supposed sugary drink menace is grossly over-reported whereby you have a situation of level or diminishing levels of sugary drink consumption in Australia over the previous 20 years and more particularly significantly lower levels of sugary drink consumption amongst children?
Ms MARTIN: I think you could still argue it is a serious problem ...

I suppose she will always have to say that no matter the statistics, considering it is the current approach of anti-obesity professional worldwide to lobby for taxation. They're not that interested in what works in so much as what is simple so they keep their highly-paid positions by producing 'results'.

And Phelps addresses this too.

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Ms Martin, is it ever legitimate for a parent to feed their children McDonald's?
Ms MARTIN: We have all fed our children McDonald's. The problem is that these kinds of treats are everywhere now. I ate one chocolate a week when I was a kid; now there are three packaged foods in children's lunchboxes and they are basically all unhealthy. That is the problem.

"One chocolate a week"? I suppose there's a hint there as to why she's grown up to work in such a miserable, joy-vacuuming industry.

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Children do not buy their own lunches and put them in their lunchboxes. Their parents buy it for them. Again it comes down to this: Are you saying because we do not think particularly working-class parents are very good parents that it is government's role to step in and stop them being parents and it is government's job to be parents for them?
Ms MARTIN: I think it is government's job to support parents and that parents are undermined a lot. I think a lot of parents, including myself, thought that things like Nutrigrain were healthy foods for my child. It has just been reformulated to 26 per cent sugar, but it was 33 per cent sugar. I did not know that was not a healthy product, because that is how it is promoted. A lot of people would think that Milo was a healthy product. The Olympics was sponsored by McDonald's and Coca-Cola, because being affiliated with health makes the products appear to have healthier attributes than they have. I think that governments should support parents.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: They should, but they should support them not in a sense of prohibiting or using draconian powers to stop things from happening and rather to encourage greater participation in sport, surely?
Ms MARTIN: I think there are a lot of nudges, like taxing sugary drinks, like removing things that create the demand for these products in children, which is the incredible barrage and wallpaper of unhealthy foods marketing that our children are exposed to. We need to see the Health Star Rating made mandatory on all foods, and some improvements made in how the rating is applied so that Milo does not get 4½ stars.
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: That is simply because it is easier for governments to ban things rather than have effective behavioural change—you do not like the behaviour and so you ban things.

Bravo! Yep, that's about the sum of it. Well played again, Sir!

You can read the full transcript here, The excerpts above come from pages 10-14 of the PDF. Also look out for an appearance by Skype from Snowdon on pages 62-66.

H/T Catallaxy Files

Charge!

Phew, that was a close one!

A longstanding 'public health' lie came close to destabilising the NHS over the weekend.

A move that could have seen obese patients refused surgery in an attempt to save money is to be reviewed after national NHS bosses intervened. 

A proposed restriction by the NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group would have seen non-life threatening procedures delayed by a year for those with a body mass index exceeding 30. 

The rule would also apply to smokers. 

NHS England, which can intervene as the CCG is under special measures, said the group had agreed to rethink the move.

As Snowdon has already noted, this is not how most people would expect the NHS to operate.

Rationing healthcare on the basis of lifestyle was never part of the NHS's plan in 1948. It it had been, there would have been even more resistance to the nationalisation of the industry than there was. But after years of wrongly scapegoating smokers and fat people for the NHS's spiralling budget, it's no surprise to find the service being turned from a free-at-the-point-of-need Ponzi scheme into a tool of outright coercion and punishment.

Indeed.

It's what happens when health nazis torture statistics in order to play on bigotry and prejudice and pretend that smokers and the overweight are taking more than their fair share of NHS resources. Because that's exactly what this is all about, as alluded to in the BBC article.

"They are trying to lose weight in the vast majority of cases and to deny them treatment that they need on the basis of their weight, without then offering them effective help to help them lose weight is rather like discriminating [against] a segment of the population on the basis of their colour or religious persuasion."

Besides which, it has, quite simply, never been true (like almost everything you ever hear from 'public health') that unhealthy lifestyles unnecessarily harm NHS finances. Whenever economic costs of socialised healthcare are calculated, it is always the 'healthy' - and not those who choose riskier lifestyles - who put the most burden on health services.

It should be obvious, especially since 'public health' wants to simultaneously tell us that smokers and the obese live far shorter lives. Healthcare costs for those who are considered healthy are more expensive to the system both short and long-term, and the largest financial commitment any government commits to - pensions - are hugely more costly too.

When tobacco controllers, or any other 'public health' charlatan, tell you that x costs the NHS y amount of money, they are lying by way of only giving you one side of the equation.

It's not hard to understand really.

While smokers and the overweight are often criticised for the financial impact of their unhealthy lifestyles, an obese person's medical bills actually average 10 per cent less overall than those of a person of normal weight. 

Smokers require even less treatment, say the researchers. 

The reason is that the healthy tend to live longer and so, while they might not have to battle lung cancer, heart disease or diabetes in their fifties, they may need long-term care for illnesses of old age such as Alzheimer's. 

As a result, any "savings" made by them being healthy when young are more than offset by their being ill in old age.

Tobacco controllers - who know better than the rest of us that smokers don't actually cost the NHS more than anyone else, quite the opposite - usually counter this incontrovertible fact with shrill straw men such as "so you're saying that governments should encourage smoking because it's good for the country's finances?". Well no, we are just arguing that 'public health' lobbyists should stop using outright lies to push their agenda.

The result of all this wholesale lying by health lobbyists is daft policies like that proposed by the ignoramuses at NHS Vale of York. To save money, they have taken the stance that the best thing to do is penalise the people who cost them the least amount of money in the long run. It's why they are not handling budgets or performing actuarial calculations in the private sector .. because if they were they'd be sacked.

Restricting treatment is just one stupid policy recommendation that 'public health' lying creates, the other is the regular call - which you may have heard from the most easily-gulled in society - to charge smokers, drinkers and the obese for NHS treatment. You know, because it's self-inflicted, innit, and why should they pay for the healthcare costs of others.

This is very dangerous ground for the NHS. Once you get into that line of thinking it renders the NHS unworkable. There's little need for those lucrative sin taxes now, is there Mr politician? Just think of all those treatments the NHS provides which the public regularly object to, and there are very many. If we can pick and choose who is treated and who is not, there are going to be a lot of green ink letters from Mr & Mrs Disgusted of Cheltenham.

There are also dozens of dangerous activities anyone could name that might end in long-term and incredibly expensive palliative care, why should the public collectively pay for extreme risk-taking? And you know that unwritten contract we have whereby we pay our taxes and you promise to treat us accordingly? Well, there is just the taxation now, if the benefit is being withdrawn for large sections of the population, we'll see those taxes dramatically cut so we can source healthcare elsewhere at our own cost, Mr Politician Sir, or we'll see you in court.

You can't have a protection racket without the protection, now can you?

It only takes one successful case and the NHS could be holed beneath the water line. Imagine the free-for-all as those most able to negotiate the red tape and best-placed to afford it opt out of a portion of their taxes and go private. Oh joy!

I've written about this kind of backward thinking from NHS administrators (who ironically are the biggest direct drain on the NHS) before, and whenever I do I find myself thinking "bring it on!", just before health service grandees intervene and tell the local idiots to shut the fuck up and stop trying to derail the gravy train.

Just like this weekend.

Oh well, these instances are becoming more and more frequent, so better luck next time, eh?

As a footnote, Snowdon also mentioned the appalling 'nurse' Jane "They'll just have to die" DeVille-Almond in his piece. If you've not heard her contribution to the "do no harm" principle of the medical profession before, you can listen to it below.

150,000 Vile Curtain-Twitching Prodnoses

I hear great news about the latest campaign by odious, preening, self-publicising lardarse Jamie Oliver.

Food and drink manufacturers have praised the government for ruling out Jamie Oliver's proposed sugar tax, claiming the idea was “misplaced”.

Good, it's a daft idea.

By "misplaced" manufacturers mean it will have no effect whatsoever, which should be obvious to all but the most moronic in society, and it seems there are quite a lot of them.

Nearly 150,000 people have signed the celebrity chef's petition which calls for a tax on sugary drinks in a bid to fight childhood obesity.

I'd explain why signatories to that petition should be held in contempt but I don't have to, because Grandad already did a good job of it earlier this month.

So here we have a bunch of mindless morons actually calling on their government to tax them more, just because an idiot with an agenda told them to?  Did someone mention turkeys and Christmas? 

It's not often we get a chance to see into the mind of the brain dead, but here they were in force, with their outpourings of shock and horror.  An odious little arse-dribble tells 'em they must do something and they do it in their droves, without question. 

The Cockney Cunt has a petition on-line to implore the government to apply more tax.  It is a very efficient sheeple counter. 

At the time of writing, there are 98,672 bleating away happily and the number is rising. 

And they wonder why the world is up shit creek?

Quite. Sleb worship meets the great unthinking, with predictable fuckwittery.

I'd disagree only on one minor point, you see these hideous people are not calling on the government to tax them more ... but to tax others more. So perfect do they consider themselves to be that they suffer an irresistible urge to impose their narcissistic worldview on other people by way of force. Vile little bullies, each and every one.

Long time readers may remember the same revolting character flaw being exhibited by Sonia Poulton on Radio 5 Live in 2012, on which I wrote at the time.

[W]hile Poulton was waxing hysterical about how we needed controls for "our children", Gabb challenged her. Exactly as he should. "Our children?", he said, "you look after your children, I'll look after mine". The result was as predictable as it was shrill. 

From then on, Poulton issued insults; demanded people who held that view "be quiet"; refused to debate; and became madder the more it was insisted that others might not share her opinion. She embarrassed herself by asserting that she knew - knew no less - that Gabb wasn't a parent simply because he believed other people's kids were not hers to control, and when the host revealed that Gabb was indeed a parent, simply called him names and became even more insulting. 

This, sadly - in fact, soul-destroyingly - is modern Britain. A place packed full of arrogant people who feel it perfectly acceptable to interfere in every aspect of the lives of others. If you disagree, or resist, they will shout and scream; make a call to their own delusional authority; and denounce you as a heretic or anti-social abuser. 

We used to have a few of these prodnoses dotted around, but they're everywhere now. Self-aggrandising, aloof, condescending of others, and entirely dismissive of choices different from their own.

It takes a special kind of rancid finger-wagging cocknostril to insist that government punish other families for making different choices than the ones Jamie's gullible simpletons think they should.

I'd say their type are as beneficial to society as thrush and I despise them with the power of a thousand suns. So congratulations to the UK government for effectively inviting them to stick their head even further up Jamie's ample arse so we don't have to listen to their snobby, ignorant, spiteful shit anymore.

Halloween: A Time For Witches

As you alternate between watching TV and answering the door to cute fancy-dressed, gruesomely made-up little 'uns bearing sweet-collecting receptacles, how about I recount a proper scary tale for you on this Halloween, eh?

A station manager told valleynewslive.com in Fargo that a woman identified as Cheryl called into the Y-94 morning program saying that she wanted to make a stand against obesity during Halloween. Her idea? Give children who had extra pounds on them a letter instead of a sweet treat. 

"You (sic) child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season," the letter reads. "My hope is that you will step up as an adult and ration candy this Halloween and not allow your child to continue these unhealthy eating habits."

No, she really did. Look.

Because, what else is Halloween for if not an opportunity for being a righteous arsehole and upsetting kids?

This is Michelle Obama's model citizen, it would seem, since she decided to spend her time in the White House feeding the prejudices of people like this. It's not that Michelle's policies created Cheryl, it's just that modern politicians around the world have nurtured her natural mean-spirited interfering nature towards others. She has always thought this, but never dared to be so brazen for fear of public disdain, but now the WHO and the public health industry are in charge, Cheryl is a righteous freedom figher and not anymore a disgusting crone which society used to rightly despise.

She is the kind of pinch-nosed witch similarly encouraged by tobacco control industry CEO John Banzhaf back in 2010.

When government and NGOs make the private lives of the population into something that everyone is allowed to comment upon; when they describe your children as everyone's children, this is the deeply anti-social and eagerly sadistic individual they inspire.

The evil walk among us, ladies and gentlemen, and they grow daily stronger, and more disgusting, with every motivational speech uttered by public health-mesmerised political fuckwits.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Don't have nightmares, now will you? The demons are not in your dreams any more.

Mwaha, mwahaha, mwahahahahahahahahahaha, hehehehe, he.

UPDATE: Of course, if you are one of the aforementioned witches, you may want to check out Julia's article for some notes on who to call if direct action isn't your kind of thing.

via Lenore

A Nanny Looks Forward To 2013

Sorry, I did try but just can't let this pass without comment.

A government minister has written to magazine editors asking them not to promote post-Christmas "miracle" diets because they pose a "health risk". 

Equalities minister Jo Swinson wrote an open letter asking magazines to "shed the fad diets and fitness myths" in their January editions. 

She suggested they "celebrate the beauty of diversity in body shape, skin colour, size and age" instead.

This, from a minister in one of the most guilt-ladelling, obesity-obsessed administrations in history. Perhaps she would be better served sending a letter to each and every one of the 650 MPs in parliament telling them to go easy on their fatty-bashing language, no?

Add into this that unless she sent the letter about a month ago, magazines will almost certainly already have their articles lined up and ready to hit the shops the moment 2013 kicks in. You're too late, Jo.

Besides, I haven't seen anyone stating the bleeding obvious on this story yet. What right does she think she has to attempt to place herself between what people write and what the public would like to read? It's a sad reminder of the level of arrogant over-reach now endemic in political circles.

In other news, still no end in sight for the country's trillion pound debt.

Now For Popcorn And Milk

Well, that didn't take long.

For all those who still have fingers stuck firmly in their ears trying to pretend slippery slopes don't exist, the startlingly swift nature of this one might shock even you.

The New York City Board of Health showed support for limiting sizes of sugary drinks at a Tuesday meeting in Queens. They agreed to start the process to formalize the large-drink ban by agreeing to start a six-week public comment period.

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

"The popcorn isn't a whole lot better than the soda," Vladeck said.

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

"There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories," said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

Barely has the ink dried on Bloomberg's latest illiberal flight of food snobbery, and they're already discussing how to dick ordinary New Yorkers about further.

Next time you hear some public health goon try to claim that the slippery slope doesn't exist, simply remember the many examples which contradict them and try to think of just one occasion where some bansturbator or other didn't move on to the 'next logical step'.

Considering their track record, only a fool would take anything state-funded public health says seriously.

You Are But A Victim, You Need Saving

There was a time when you used to just 'like' something. Whether it be chocolate, a kebab, a glass of scotch or a cigar, you enjoyed it.

Not anymore. You see, you're merely an 'addict' now.

Now that your right to self-declaration of enjoyment of tobacco has been denied by those who know you better than, err, you, it's interesting to see the same being rolled out for - well - just about anything really. How about food?

Yes, food. All food.

We are, on average, 3st heavier than we were in the 60s. And not because we're eating more or exercising less – we just unwittingly became sugar addicts

And, of course, once you are an addict, you are a victim who requires help. You're not yourself, d'you see? You have no ability to make any kind of choice, therefore choice must be made for you.

This is tobacco template 101. But for the BBC, it is just another snobby condemnation of the working class - posing as health concern - to place in front of the nation.

The well-trodden path of methods employed by other prohibitionists before them doesn't end there, either.

There's the evil industry knowingly adding unhealthy additives.

Leptin raises a big question: did the food industry knowingly create foods that were addictive, that would make you feel as though you were never satisfied and always wanted more? Kessler is cautious in his response: "Did they understand the neuroscience? No. But they learned experientially what worked."

The "they're evil so we must prevent them from having any input into the debate" opening gambit ...

But Yudkin's work was rubbished by what many believe, including Professor Robert Lustig, one of the world's leading endocrinologists, was a concerted campaign to discredit Yudkin. Much of the criticism came from fellow academics, whose research was aligning far more closely with the direction the food industry was intending to take. Yudkin's colleague at the time, Dr Richard Bruckdorfer at UCL says: "There was a huge lobby from [the food] industry, particularly from the sugar industry, and Yudkin complained bitterly that they were subverting some of his ideas." Yudkin was, Lustig says simply, "thrown under the bus", because there was a huge financial gain to be made by fingering fat, not sugar, as the culprit of heart disease.

... coupled with a crank being touted as some kind of evangelical saviour. Yep, seen them before too.

The absurd claims.

Other studies have found that sugar may even coat semen and result in obese men becoming less fertile.

They'll no doubt get to something about toe-nails in time (funding permitting).

And finally, conflating the threat with a previously denormalised substance (serving nicely as a hat tip to those who made it all possible).

David Kessler, the former head of the US government's most powerful food agency, the FDA, and the person responsible for introducing warnings on cigarette packets in the early 90s, believes that sugar, through its metabolisation by the gut and hence the brain, is extremely addictive, just like cigarettes or alcohol.

Now, if they just left it there. You know, education for the lumpen proles so they could make their own minds up, I could hold some grudging respect for them.

But, again, from previous experience we know what comes next. Firstly, from another well-known crank, a gentle encouragement for action to hit evil Big Food business in the pocket.

According to Professor Kelly Brownell at Yale University, one of the world's foremost experts on obesity and its causes, the science will soon be irrefutable and we may then be just a few years away from the first successful lawsuit.

Hints at the need for government health warnings on food.

Why has Kessler, when he has had such success with his warnings on cigarette packets, not done the same thing for processed foods high in sugar?

And, inevitably, some liberty-blind, and self-determination oblivious, MP stung into furrow-browed action by the constant whining.

Anne Milton, the minister for public health, tells me that legislation against the food industry isn't being ruled out, because of the escalating costs to the NHS. [...] "Let's get one thing straight," Milton tells me, however. "I am not scared of the food industry."

Yep, and we've seen that bravado before too.

So the whole lucrative ambulance-chasing bandwagon begins again, just with a different target.

There are plenty other examples of similarities in approach from elsewhere in the referenced piece, see if you can spot them.

Perhaps we should devise a scorecard for when such articles appear and play public health slippery slope bingo, or something.

UPDATE: Spiked reckons the aforementioned Kessler is a hopeless scaremonger, too.

UPDATE: More than that, he's definitely on the cranky side.

And the BBC are promoting these people as calm, reasoned 'scientists'?

Food Snobbery: California Playing Catch Up To UK's Lead

If there is one set of bansturbators who can claim to emulate anti-smokers in terms of hysteria, it can only be the food police. Let's have a peek at what is happening in California, shall we?

The food truck nation is fretting over AB 1678, a bill introduced into the California State Legislature on Tuesday a.k.a. Valentine's Day. But this was no love letter for fans of mobile food. The bill seeks to ban mobile food and beverage vending within 1,500 feet of elementary and secondary schools from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. when schools are in session.

A statement ... reads in part: "Mobile food vending poses a threat to student safety as well as student nutrition. Mobile vending near school campuses incentivizes students to leave school grounds, which increases students' exposure to off-campus hazards such as heavily trafficked streets."

As the article describes, this is what it means for people in the State Capital, Sacramento.


Unless they burrow themselves away from populated areas (i.e. where there are shops, people and, err, schools), they can't operate. It's a cleverly couched ban as even observing the rules would mean such a loss of business that they would become non-viable.

For once, though, we can't laugh at California here, since we are already subject to the same stupid nonsense. I wrote about one such case in 2009, and there are plenty others easily discoverable on Google. California, the spiritual home of health twattery, is actually lagging behind our supposedly free nation.

And what for? The cult of Jamie Oliver and his junk food myth in schools and beyond. Or, as it should be properly termed ... Hoxton-esque snobbery.

A Big Mac contains less than 500 calories, not much more than a tuna sandwich but with less fat content, while the chips contain more vitamin C than apples, pound for pound. The drink? Well, one is 87% water and the rest sugar, and approved. Orange juice.

Caviar and anchovies are hugely salty, but if a top end restaurant opened up near a school, can you imagine their being banned as 'junk'? Course not, despite the rules being quite clear on what is, and is not, junk food based on fat, sugar and salt content.

OK, I know what you're thinking. Kids won't eat such stuff so it's not a threat. You'd be right, but if we are going to have arbitrary rules, let's place them on the food rather than who buys it. Otherwise we'll have something like ... oh yeah, that snobbery I mentioned.

And that's all this is.

Obesity? Do me a favour. Government, as always, dismisses human diversity without a care in the world, despite their spreadsheets and models missing something very important. Individuality and, well, nature.

And this is the most fascinating thing: if Nyström's small group are representative, then it would seem that our bodies are more adaptable than we give them credit for. In other words, metabolism may play a much more important role in the problem of obesity than many people think. Indeed, Nyström claims that for some people, eating 10% more will lead to their metabolism increasing at the same level. The extra energy will be burned off as body heat during sleep.

Not convinced? Well, even if so, let's just remember - for a goddamn minute - why this obesity thing is apparently so important. It's the risk of death, remember.

Jamie - bless his arrogant money-grubbing heart - keeps talking about kids dying younger than their parents. Why does anyone buy this shit when it is patently false, and backed up by life expectancy statistics from every state agency in the developed world?

The difference between a few calories and fat here and there at school lunchtime means what, exactly? Well, nothing really. BMI is such a coarse method of measurement that the entire complement of six nations players would be termed obese, whereas someone unfit and lightweight like me passes with flying colours no matter how many kebab shops I have on speed dial.

And even if one subscribes to the ever-increasing waistlines theory (which hasn't been true for a few years), obesity itself isn't the problem. The small marginal increase in potential problems as a result of obesity is. And when the numbers are crunched, normal, overweight or mildly obese people have almost imperceptible differences in mortality - in fact, life expectancy for those overweight is slightly longer than those classed as 'normal'.

It is solely down to a finger-wagging attitude of what some people want others to eat. You've all met one of these ghastly idiots who swear about how appalling McD's is but consider a Starbucks Dolphin-Friendly Tuna Melt the height of taste (at 93 calories more than a Big Mac). In California, their 'big I am' attitude is now hell bent on destroying businesses based solely on their own spiteful prejudice.

The problem in the UK is that we have MPs in thrall to middle class health bigots who look down their noses at the food choices of others. If they were only able to step back from their circle-jerking bubble for a moment, slap themselves around the head and realise that they are here to serve the public rather than dictate. Oh yeah, and actually look at evidence which isn't fed to them by those with an agenda and/or a salary dependent on it, we might see some sensible government.

If any are reading, I suggest they purchase this book, as reviewed by Snowdon last year. They might actually learn something, while also bringing some relief from their wasteful, pointless, economically-damaging, and often counter-productive hectoring.

Naughty Scots Are Not Doing What They're Told

Where does one start with this nonsense, faithfully copy and pasted by the BBC?

Many people understand advice on healthy lifestyle but fail to act on it, according to a report from NHS Health Scotland.

A majority described their alcohol consumption in moderate terms despite drinking over recommended limits.

Nearly nine out of 10 adults knew they should eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily, but less than a quarter did so.

Researchers concluded that offering advice alone was unlikely to work.

Now, far be it from me to point out the obvious, but 'offering advice' is the very limit to what any government should be doing in a free society. However, the implication seems to be that more bullying is required.

Because the recent incessant noises coming from these obsessive tax spongers have been an unqualified success, we must assume. Well, the report itself kinda puts a dampener on the back-slapping.

Current and ex-smokers were asked about their intentions to quit smoking or any attempts they had made to quit. 14% were current smokers with no intention of cutting down or stopping, a slight increase on 2009 (11%).

[...]

41% of adults in 2010 did not want to eat more healthily, an increase from 34% in both 2008 and 2009.

In a world where the public health community was paid by results, this would surely mean a cut in funding to shut their nagging for a bit. It's clear that the public whose health they are concerned about are increasingly fed up with listening to the whining. But of course, this is the alternative civil service universe where failure is encouraged, and bolstered by the shovelling of more cash their way.

Hmm, rather like those bank executives they keep moaning about, eh? Where is UK Uncut when such public money is being wasted that could be spent elsewhere? Strangely silent, it would seem.

Anyway, let's study the highlights of this state sector exercise in tutting at the Jocks.

ALCOHOL

Perceived consumption levels

• The vast majority of adults described their own alcohol consumption in moderate terms: 41% said they were a ‘very light or occasional drinker’, 21% said they were a ‘light but regular’ drinker, and 19% said they were a ‘moderate drinker’. Only 3% described themselves as ‘quite a heavy drinker’ and less than 1% as a ‘very heavy drinker’.

• The 2010 SHeS results found that 49% of men and 38% of women drank outwith either the weekly or daily recommended alcohol limits for their sex. These figures clearly exceed the proportions who feel they are light drinkers. The 2008/2009 KAM report illustrated the discrepancy between people’s perceived and actual alcohol consumption: of those who drank outwith the limits, 19% described themselves as a ‘very light or occasional drinker’ and 32% said they were a ‘light but regular drinker’.

Damn them all to hell for not adhering to those government limits, eh? You know, the ones 'plucked out of thin air'? Because they are so reasonable, so they are, as the report reminds us.

• Men are advised to not regularly drink more than 3-4 units a day and women are advised to not consume more than 2-3

• Advice also exists about the maximum number of units that should be consumed within a single drinking session (men should not exceed 8 units, women 6)

So, we're talking one pint of Carlsberg - not a heavy duty beer at 3.8% - for men being the daily limit, and the same being excessive for women, for the former. And a 'binge' to be just over two pints of Carlsberg for men, and less than that for women.

In such circumstances, "the discrepancy between people’s perceived and actual alcohol consumption" is entirely down to the ridiculous 'limits' decided by a state which has long since departed from recognisable sanity. The public are overwhelmingly correct in designating themselves as light or moderate drinkers when those who produce incoherent claptrap like this have deemed 'hazardous' to be a third of a bottle of wine and a sherry trifle.

The story on weight is strikingly similar.

WEIGHT

Perceptions of weight

• In 2010, four in ten people (39%) thought their weight was about right. Nearly half (47%) thought they were overweight and 8% considered themselves to be very overweight.

• The 2010 SHeS found that a quarter of adults (28%) were obese, and 65% were either overweight or obese. People’s perceptions of their weight do not, therefore, wholly correspond with their body mass index.

Are they still trolling this BMI shite? I mean, seriously?

When even the people who produce execrable poppycock like this are well aware that arbitrary BMI measurements are - and always have been - deeply flawed for population level judgements, assumptions made on the back of the system are as useful as a wine cooler in the desert.

The 2008/2009 KAM report found that 37% of overweight people described their weight as about right while only one in four obese people said they were very overweight.

Yes. And, do you know what? I'd say they're almost certainly more correct than the idiots who are paid to trot out this hectoring garbage just before buggering off on their Christmas break.

Likewise ...

Parents’ assessment of their children’s weight

• The majority of parents (83%) thought that their children’s weight was ‘about right’. Parents were more likely to think their child was underweight (11%) than overweight (5%) or very overweight (1%). The 2010 SHeS showed that, in total, 33% of children had an unhealthy weight (either under or overweight/obese), and that 14% of children were obese. Parental perceptions do not, therefore, always match reality.

Beg pardon?

Here we have a report investing ultimate trust in a roundly-accepted flawed measurement, then accusing parents - who know infinitely more about their kids than some detached clock-watcher in a government department - of being out of touch with reality.

The arrogance is so thick you could tile your bathroom with it.

Their report ran to 40 odd pages, but it could have been summarised in just a couple of sentences. Here's what they should have said.

"The public are naughty and aren't doing what we have decided for them, so our methods are obviously ineffectual and failing. In light of this, can we have more money."

Yes, it wouldn't pay their mortgages, but they could at least then claim they were being vaguely honest, couldn't they?

Now For Burgers And Coke

Hmm, let's see. What's the new tobacco today?

Well, it's fast food and fizzy drinks, as it happens. However, this time it's not just some obscure publicity-seeking crank offering up the nonsense.

A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.

“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”

Twenty-eight scientific studies and papers on food addiction have been published this year, according to a National Library of Medicine database. As the evidence expands, the science of addiction could become a game changer for the $1 trillion food and beverage industries.

If fatty foods and snacks and drinks sweetened with sugar and high fructose corn syrup are proven to be addictive, food companies may face the most drawn-out consumer safety battle since the anti-smoking movement took on the tobacco industry a generation ago.

This is worrying for the fact that one of the cornerstones of anti-smoking strategy - built up over decades - is that smokers are not making a free choice to enjoy cigarettes. They may think they enjoy them, but it's actually just an addiction.

This is the prime driving force behind the worldwide state and supranational quango attacks on tobacco. It's how governments square their claim of presiding over a free society with increasingly prohibitive legislation which is effectively 'banning' smoking by way of price, availability, denormalisation, and restrictions on where it can be consumed.

The weak case for cost to health services notwithstanding, the assertion that an individual is being forced, against their will, to smoke; that tobacco users all really, really want to give up - and if they don't, they just need more encouragement - is used daily against the free choice of smokers.

Now the template is being utilised to attack people who like to eat Big Macs and suck on a Diet Coke.

They don't just like such products, y'see, they are addicted to them.

“This could change the legal landscape,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity and a proponent of anti-obesity regulation. “People knew for a long time cigarettes were killing people, but it was only later they learned about nicotine and the intentional manipulation of it.”

See what he did there? Calling down images of evil, omni-recognised demons within tobacco companies to help turn bovine minds against food and drink suppliers who have previously been very popular.

Because we have all been duped. That pleasure isn't real pleasure at all, it's just an illusion forced on us by greedy corporations.

Education, diets and drugs to treat obesity have proven largely ineffective and the new science of obesity may explain why, proponents say. Constant stimulation with tasty, calorie- laden foods may desensitize the brain’s circuitry, leading people to consume greater quantities of junk food to maintain a constant state of pleasure.

Education doesn't work. Again, this was a plank of anti-smoking propaganda. Smokers are unable to make decisions based on mere information or warnings, they're addicted and so bullying is the only option!

While anti-smokers have long compared (wrongly) nicotine with Heroin, anti-food campaigners have chosen the same strategy from the tobacco control template ... just using a different drug.

Binge-Eating Rats

The results produced the same brain pattern that occurs with escalating intake of cocaine, [Paul Kenny, the Scripps scientist heading the study] wrote.

“To see food do the same thing was mind-boggling,” Kenny later said in an interview.

Indeed, it's worse than that!

A 2007 French experiment stunned researchers when it showed that rats prefer water sweetened with saccharine or sugar to hits of cocaine

Is your belief in real life suspended yet? Don't worry, there'll be plenty more of this to come, if not.

Little wonder that the food industry is pushing hard on the idea that the best way to get a handle on obesity is through voluntary measures and by offering healthier choices. The same tactic worked for awhile, decades ago, for the tobacco industry, which deflected attention from the health risks and addictive nature of cigarettes with “low tar and nicotine” marketing.

Yes, it worked "for a while", until the incessant barrage of propaganda turned tobacco from a choice which comes with risk, into an almost nuclear substance which will kill people after the merest second or two of exposure.

And just to further prove that this idiocy has been unleashed thanks to the stable door being thrown open to shrill tobacco controllers, here's anti-smoking, arch-lunatic lawyer, John Banzhaf, chasing the potentially lucrative new ambulance (and he'll have plenty of clients, too).

Once free will is destroyed as a concept for perceived unhealthy foods and drink, governments feel perfectly justified in denormalising them for your own good.

Eye-watering taxes, product warnings, advertising bans, demonisation and display restrictions are all clearly on the horizon for the fast food industry. It really is only a matter of time.

Still, at least Aunt Gladys won't have to sniff a wisp of smoke when she has her monthly tea and scone at Wetherspoons, so who cares about the elimination of personal choices as a result, eh?

Fancy A Certificate In Fatty Nagging?

Laid low at the moment with the lurgey Mrs P kindly passed on to me, as well as being rather busy planning an important event next month amongst the usual life clutter.

I thought I'd share this briefly, though, from the University of Reading.

Certificate in Obesity Management

The course focuses on the development of knowledge and skills to enable students on completion of the course to be able to set up and deliver an effective weight management service.

The Certificate in Obesity Management will cover the following aspects of obesity assessment & management:

- The management of obesity and prevention of obesity-related co-morbidities
- Patient assessment
- Dietary interventions
- Promoting physical and "everyday" activity
- Motivational Interviewing & behaviour change consultation
- The role of pharmacotherapy and bariatric surgery

What are the benefits of attending?

On completion of the course participants will have:

- a thorough grounding in all aspects of obesity management
- developed the skills to facilitate the delivery of appropriate services for patients
- participated in learning opportunities with local, national and international experts
- undertaken a practice-based project in their work area
- been instructed in the most effective method of sternly wagging a finger (OK, I'll admit to adding that one - Dick)

Who funds the course?

Development of the course has been supported by the Government Office of the South East (GOSE) and the South Central Strategic Health Authority (SCSHA).

Coupled with the news - featured in Saturday's link tank - that ...

Both LMCs and GP consortium leaders have backed moves by NHS Hertfordshire to block any patient with a BMI over 30 from being referred for routine joint replacement surgery without first being referred to a weight management scheme.

... and I think we get the bigger picture, don't you?

Lazy Parenting Is The Way Forward

"Best hundred quid I've ever spent", insisted sister Puddlecote on Sunday at a family 'do' while we lounged around on garden chairs - under a canopy to shield us, at least, from the showers - enjoying copious quantities of Arrogant Frog and generally being extremely lazy.

She was referring to the trampoline which was squeaking away metronomically under the weight of four bouncing kids. Just shy of its second birthday, it had already well exceeded the outlay by way of a relaxation cost of around 10p per hour.

I had to agree as the £20 football goal I sourced from eBay in December for the little Ps has also already repaid itself in a most satisfying way, even if it is ripped to buggery now (they have yet to ask for a new one, and I'm prepared to wait). Open the door, kick 'em out with the £4 Tesco ball, and forget parental duties for a good hour or two (apart from the odd sideways glare when it hits too close to the French windows, natch).

Excepting the odd bickering frenzy or cry of pain due to accidental ball-in-the-face - hard - scenario, it's been bliss. Naturally loud, shouty, childhood running around is being done without any effort from your host or Mrs P whatsoever. There's even scope for occasionally sneaking off, should one wish, IYSWIM.

Watch their every move helicopter fashion in a constant state of fear? Do me a favour! Far too much effort, sorry.

Likewise, the trip to the shops.

"Can you take me to the Premier Mart as they have the latest Dr Who Monster Invasion magazine I want to buy"
"Does it involve crossing the main road?"
"Yes"
"OK, be careful and use the traffic island ... and don't wake me up from my afternoon snooze again!"

Yes, they're 11 and 10, but we've been brilliantly adept in the art of raising kids for quite a few years now. No, seriously, it's been statistically proven.

Unlike 'proper' and 'responsible' parents, they eat and drink shit if they like, within reason, as long as they keep the hell away from us when the E numbers kick in - and they finish all of what they are given for dinner. Full stop. No arguments. It's amazing what you can get kids to consume when they are given free reign in just about every other aspect of their lives. No histrionics when faced with 'greens' in Puddlecote Towers, I can assure you. The girl loves a salad, the boy begs for liver ... before gorging on crisps and choccie for afters ... and running outside again. YES, even if it's raining!

On Sunday, when their heads began to glow from the heat after 6 hours of jumping up and down like Plastic Bertrand, we reluctantly put down our wine glasses and got them off the squeaky bounce machine ... to howls of protest!

They didn't half sleep well that night, though. Head-pillow-snore leading to, yes, more parental laziness.

We're can't-be-arsed, dreadfully irresponsible - according to some - parents, you see? And it works.

Wanna go to the park on your own? Sure, don't ever talk to strangers in the incredibly unlikely event that one tries to approach you*. Wanna pop up the road? You know the Green Cross Code, use it. Wanna drink but didn't say please? You'll just have to stay thirsty. Wanna molly-coddling Mum or Dad to bubble-wrap you? Sorry, kids, you've been born into the wrong household.

Lazy and 'irresponsible' works. Risk obsession, and parenting as a professional exercise in oneupmanship, is producing insipid preciouses with no sense of proportion, self-worth or maturity.

Lazy parenting should be promoted in government policy. With tax breaks, please.

* And if one does, scream loud as you can, swear profusely, and kick them in the nuts (or, to be non gender-prejudicial, lala)