We’re living in a culture that’s making us all ill – and fat!

Hello andf welcome to Grub4Life.
We’re living in a culture that’s making us all ill – and fat.
I took my “Get Your Life Back” tour to three of Britain’s biggest cities at the beginning of this year – and found myself gasping for a juice bar and a healthy meal.
It convinced me, even more than ever, that we’re living in a culture that’s making us all ill – and fat.
Never mind the Talking Shop about the obesity epidemic, whether it’s a gene or it’s all down to us being a nation of couch potatoes – what about my juice?
There I was, stuck in the middle of Birmingham, dehydrating in a hotel room that wouldn’t let me turn off the air conditioning, with only instant coffee and UHT milk and a white, processed cheese sarnie on offer, desperate for something healthy. I asked for a fruit smoothie – and was given some glutinous substance in a portion controlled carton with a straw glued to the side. I walked miles to find a juice bar. In Manchester and Leeds, I never found one!
I was meant to be delivering an inspirational message – about how obesity CAN be beaten – and I was incensed.
No wonder we have an obesity epidemic. Over half the population in danger – that’s 20 million adults and a million kids losing their childhood.
Never mind global warming – we humans won’t be around to suffer it – we’ll have made ourselves extinct long before the melting ice caps are a problem.
We are living in a toxic environment where it’s almost impossible to live a healthy life. Obesity isn’t just about personal responsibility – it’s about the government facing up to theirs. Big time.
I was speaking to audiences of men, women and teenagers wanting to solve their weight problem. They all wanted to know what could be done now. Like me a year ago, they didn’t want a giant debate about obesity – they didn’t want to be a statistic for the government to play with. They just wanted action.
And their message to me was loud and clear. Change must start at the government’s own doorstep.
And that means – within the National Health Service, on the inside!
Nearly half of the members of my weight loss support website www.FatHappens.com are nurses and hospital workers. They alone explode the myth that obesity is about being fat, lazy and ignorant.
So let’s start in one of the most symbolic and important places – the very centre of the nation’s health – the hospitals?
Let’s ask the health minister, -  how easy is it to “eat healthy and exercise more”, get your “five a day” when you’ve just finished a 12 hour shift and all that’s on offer from the hospital café is crisps, flapjacks, cola and coffee sludge from a machine?
How come the only hot meal on offer is a burger and fries from McDonalds and Burger King or a pizza from Pizza Hut or Baker’s Oven – franchised inside the hospital grounds? I was visiting a hospital in London recently where the commercial burger bar near the main entrance was packed with hospital workers, still in uniform. There was no room for the visitors!
When you clock off at 10 pm and you’re in again at 7am, you can barely find the energy to take your clothes off to go to bed.
“I’d love a gym at work,” says Suzanne, a Fat Happens member who’s a nurse. “But I don’t know when I’d get the time to use it…”
She also reckons hospital staff put on weight through stress and fatigue:
“Too few staff, too many patients. Not enough time to eat properly and nibbling throughout the shift to stave off the hunger.”
After my Get Your Life Back tour finished last week, I felt tired, dehydrated, my skin was blotchy, I had baggy eyes and generally felt low – yet the people I’d met and the things we’d discussed had been inspirational.
I felt unhealthy because I’d been stressed, drank too much coffee, grabbed junk food because that’s all that was available on trains and in room service, and hadn’t eaten a proper, balanced meal in days.
Our kids live like that most days. Many skip breakfast, are served up junk at school and resort to snacking all day from vending machines and the corner shop. Our nurses and doctors live in a similar world inside the very places that are designed to heal and help us.
So let’s be brave.
Get rid of junk food outlets from our hospitals and replace them with franchises which promote fruit, juices, quick food that’s fresh, nutritious and brimming with the values of a society we want, not one which we’re inheriting from the worst of America.
Outlaw all vending machines. Pay off the contracts – it cannot be more expensive than a sick nation that’ll bankrupt the NHS in ten years time if nothing’s done. If the principle of “you are what you eat” doesn’t exist in our hospitals, then how can the rest of society hope to flourish?