Posted on 01/28/2006 8:10:44 AM PST by metalmanx2j
THE Prince of Wales warned the British people last night that they were in danger of becoming as obese as many Americans because they did not walk or cycle enough.
The Prince, who has a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars and has rarely if ever been seen in public on the saddle of a bike, said: “We are perhaps not very far behind our American cousins in the ‘super-sizing epidemic’.”
In his speech at St James’s Palace he gave warning of a worrying sharp rise in childhood obesity. His intervention comes after the British Medical Association said that Britain’s fat youngsters, who account for a third of all obese children in Europe, were at high risk of developing life-threatening conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. One million under-16s were so fat that they were putting their health at risk, the BMA said.
The most recent statistics from the Department of Health indicate that more than 40 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women are overweight and 20 per cent of both are obsese.
The Prince, who credits his trim figure to a diet of one organic meal a day, which he calls the Des O’Connor diet, and long walks on the Scottish moors when he is at Balmoral, said that the rise in obesity was partly caused by the design of modern towns and cities.
“Research suggests that walking or cycling for just half an hour a day can have a significant improvement on our state of health. But why don’t we do it more?” The answer, he said, was that too many towns made it virtually impossible. “It might help if the built environment was more appealing and attractive to pedestrians.”
He urged the Government to embrace the work of Richard Jackson, a former adviser on health to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California. The Prince said: “Dr Jackson and his colleagues have pointed to a disturbing link between the built environment, physical inactivity and what he terms a syndemic of diseases, including, perhaps most worryingly, childhood obesity.”
Last year Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, and Margaret Hodge, the Children’s Minister, said that junk food advertisements during children’s television programmes would be banned by law if the industry failed to agree a voluntary code. They were contradicted by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, who said that the scheme would undermine income for ITV.
The topic of how building design affects public wellbeing is one of the Prince’s favourite hobby horses. He set up the Foundation for the Built Environment, which hosted last night’s event, to promote traditional urban design and architecture that put communities at the centre of the process.
In the past, he has called for greater integration of complementary medicine, to be used to tackle obesity, especially in youngsters. In November he backed demands for healthier, more nutritional, school meals
Two words: King William
Hard to argue with him. I know it's hard to hear, but take a walk in a crowded location.
Ah, yes...it's the one, the only, Tampax.
Go to any bowling alley anywhere in the country. Walk through a mall on a Saturday. Go to a pro football game. We are mostly at least twenty pounds overweight.
Charlie watches far too much "Maury," methinks. Note to the prince: not everyone looks like the sad cases on Maury and Springer. As an example, see Fox News Channel--except when interviewing Dick Morris.
I've found that if you go to a city with lots of pedestrians and public transportation, such as Washington DC or Manhattan, you see lots less obese people than, say, Dallas or Houston, where less walking and more driving is common.
I'm sure they're getting as fat as his royal head!
I'd rather use my Rascal....
Sure, we all see overweight people in a crowd. But we also see very thin people in a crowd, and lots of people in between. Some might even conclude that we're far to obsessed with thinness these days, especially watching "stars" like Calista Flockhart, numerous models, and checking out the ranks of those in treatment for bulemia and other eating disorders.
He's right
One of the first things I noticed when I moved to the suburbs is that there are no sidewalks up here
Just streets
And the way the nit wits that drive up here .. kids can't safely ride their bikes
As for the stupid bike paths that costs us millions to build??
They are nice .. but you have to drive to them because there are no side walks to walk or ride your bikes on because the roads are too dangerous to get to the bike paths
Then there are the perverts that don't get locked up like they should and parents don't let kids go on the bike paths or parks by themselves like they did in my day
LOL... it so would
uh oh...this clown thinks I care....what he has to say....
I'm an American, I don't have to pay for him.
Thank God!!!
It's ironic that our ideal has gotten thinner while Americans have gotten fatter. It's unquestionable, though, that as a group we're much fatter than we were even 30 years ago. Among children the difference is rather startling.
They'll have to start importing some decent food first.
it's because they can't go out and play by themselves like they once could in our day
Address the main problem and we can find a solution
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