We are what we eat

It brings me great amusement when I receive commendations from people when I tell them that I haven't eaten at McDonalds in the last year. I think it speaks volumes about the regard that we, as a society, have for ourselves.

"Hey! I haven't swallowed any spare change in the last year!"

"Great job! Keep up the good work!"

Initially I stopped eating there because of corporate disgust and distrust and that I stopped eating meat - McDonalds being the world's most notorious leader in both beef consumption and dodgy corporate practices. The aversion to the peer franchises of McDonald's quickly followed. A few months ago, I made the miserable but healthy and successful transition from vegetarian to vegan.

Turns out I'm doing myself a world of good. My colon has never felt better.

The drastic alteration to my diet was in no initially way motivated by personal health and well being. The primary concerns were political and environment, but that hasn't stopped my health from benefiting profusely. The mildly annoying, yet humourously satisfying advantage to all this is that while McDonalds hamburgers, fried chicken, meat-lover's pizza, fish sticks, pizza pockets and ice cream are delicious, I get to be the smarmy vegan non-participant when there is a saddening deliberation over whether some meat product in the fridge is still okay to eat and risks are taken or loss is felt.

Now I'm starting to understand some of the long-terms benefits of avoiding these products that, by a valuable coincidence, contain most of the ingredients that kill people, but not before making them obese.

A study recently released by Danish researchers reveals statistics exhibiting the links between unhealthy diets in young people and fatally unhealthy lifestyles in middle age. Much of the research depicts what most of us already know - fat children grow up to be fat adults.

This is not really news so much as it is reinforcement of facts in different capacities. Every day there's a new headline about a public school that just instituted martial law on the grub they serve. So the only thing we really know for sure is that a few influential people have gotten the message. Only a handful of people need to understand the extremely easy-to-follow links between greasy meals eights times a day and obese 15-year-olds scraping as they waddle past one another in the hallway in order for the lunch menu to change. If the parents never grasp the simple logic, the wisdom will never be imparted to their children, and all the students will just say "To hell with this bland rubbish, I'll just go elsewhere for lunch." Elsewhere, in this case, is the rest of the world outside of the school (the real world) where trans fats are cheerfully sold in all sorts of shapes and colours.

The study details an interesting fragility in adolescents. At age 40, 11 kilograms may not be cause for distress, but for a 12-year-old boy who's base weight is obviously less, those 11 extra kilograms could apparently determine risks and health complications in later life.

A few years ago government came to the senseless conclusion that placing the images of smoke damaged lungs on cigarette packaging would combat smoking. This lip service has proven unsuccessful since it was no surprise to any smoker that they were indulging in something harmful. The motion was acknowledged and promptly ignored. Smokers have no condition equivalent to bulimia and anorexia. Smokers don't look at magazines and feel a dense core of regret start to amass when they think about the cigarettes they just smoked. Smokers are going to smoke cigarettes will-nilly until they're pushing up daisies. As a smoker, I can guarantee this truth - people know the dangers and will stop when they decide for themselves.

The government put the wrong warnings on the wrong products. A potentially cruel solution may lie in packaging changes - a variety of rotund folks ranging from mildly overweight to precariously obese could appear on food recognized as profoundly unhealthy. The various weights of the people on the packages could correspond to how unhealthily the food is. It sounds cruel, but it would be the most pragmatic solution. People don't care about their health half as much as they care about their appearance.

If you have any comments, questions, etc., my e-mail address is downey911@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading and take care when crossing the street.