Poverty responsible for obesity, Lynn News Letters
The Local Goverment Association recently reported that nearly 15,000 4 and 5 year olds were not just overweight but obese by the time that they reached the reception class (The Observer, June 3). By the time they finish primary school well over 22,000 will be obese. That is over 4 per cent of children aged 11. While your readers may turn an accusing finger at parents for eating indiscipline, there is a factor that dominates obesity that is beyond the control of parents – poverty.
At age five, according to the same article in The Observer by Felicity Lawrence, those in poor households are twice as likely to be obese than the affluent households and, according to MPs on the health select committee report, by age 11, the poorer children are three times more likely to be obese than the rich ones. It is clear that the increase in obesity goes hand in hand with poverty imposed by austerity, an ideological strategy of the Conservative Party and their neo-liberal capitalist bed fellows. Researchers from different countries see a pattern emerging. Obesity is a form of malnutrition, they argue, and the greater the structural inequality within a society, the more that people living under financial and social constraints lack the opportunities for an active and healthy life. Simply put, families reduced to poverty by the Tories cannot afford to buy healthy food and buy processed food which often contains substances to preserve ingredients but are fat producing. If we want to decrease obesity, we need to eradicate poverty and we need representatives in parliament who will commit to this, not to spend taxes on useless aircraft filling the boots of American arms manufacturers.
Mike Larcey
Downham