Smoking and Obesity

[Quillan]

Wanted to post this yesterday but didn’t have the time.

 

English TV News programs on Tuesday seemed to spend a lot of time on two White Papers that have just been published.

 

Smoking, the British government are considering placing a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs that sell food. Will this have an effect on business in these places and would it not perhaps be better to have better segregated areas (I guess rooms is what I am thinking) for smokers and non-smokers.

 

Obesity, it has been proposed to label foods in red that contain higher levels of fat and ban advertising for such foods till after the ‘watershed’ on TV. Is this not treating the symptom and not curing the problem. As it has been deemed to cause psychological problems for children playing ‘competitive sport’ who loose and the reduction of hours spent in PE and games, that children might not be getting as much exercise as they had in the past?

 

Should not more emphasis be placed by the government on schools to educate children about exercise and smoking from an early age thus ‘fixing’ the problem at source?

 

Has the British government become ‘control freaks’ by removing freedom of choice or are they looking at long term solutions to reducing spending on health. As people give up smoking following long term TV advertising campaigns does anyone know how the government plan replace the lost revenue from smokers?

 

Other countries have already taken the same steps as the British government plan; do you think it will happen in France?

 

No I am not joking, just interested in what others think.

 

So, what does the panel think?

[GRT17]

Wendy, I totally agree, the sooner the better as far as I am concerned.

Gill

[Dick Smith]

I heard a lovely quote from a woman who was, I think, the chief of the Royal College of Nurses; "Your right to smoke ends at my nose." Says it all for me.

Education has clearly not worked, and appealing to smokers for restraint is liking asking the lion to respect the lamb...

[Tresco]

As a smoker, like the vast majority of smokers, I regret ever starting.

Anything that reduces the 'freedom' to smoke is fine by  me, especially any move that stops young people starting in the first place.

[Jomo]

Smoking costs the NHS between £1.4-£1.7bn a year.I agree that education does not seem to have worked, giving people the information to make healthy choices can only help. They are also beginning to state the number of units on alcoholic drinks another major cause of illness.I hope whatever system is used on food is easy to understand at present its very difficult to read the labels and even if you can how many know the difference between saturates, mono saturates etc

Joan

[Teamedup]

I've never smoked, hate it, but I can't help wondering how much G Brown gets from ciggies in the first place. I always suspected in the past,that more came in than went out on the NHS, and that was why the govt never went further.

Will it happen in France, it is still so hard to get a non smoking spot in a restaurant. It is a nice thought that one day it will though.

[letrangere]

 it is still so hard to get a non smoking spot in a restaurant

Last time we asked for a non-smoking table in a restaurant in France the patron ordered two waiters to move a table from just inside the door to outside on the pavement.  Admitedly it was Provence but it was also February, and a particularly cold night too.  I know they can be found increasingly but after this experience we're always a little wary about asking...   M

 

[Piprob]

We have often wondered just what determines which legislation comes to the top of the pile. Some issues are more obvious; for example raising retirement age is an outcome of funding concerns. Yet governments routinely ignore reports and recommendations.

The foxhunting ban looks like a consolation prize thrown to his MPs by a Prime Minister who's personal agenda seems otherwise to have side-lined them.

Surely it is government finance speaking, rather than 'nanny'. Whatever your politics, if we want a free National Health Service, surely it makes no sense to fund the escalating costs of treating illness that are increasingly accepted as the result of 'lifestyle' choices. You either ration the treatment or prevent the disease.

 

[Quillan]

Some interesting replies.

 

I guess my main concern is that the UK government have gradually reduced peoples freedom of choice whilst telling the public it is giving more.

 

I wonder if the government looks and reacts to high profile issues like smoking, obesity and fox hunting when there are equally as many low profile issues like old age pensioners getting free central heating, better public transport systems, pollution, the massive rise in asthma suffers, student grants to name but a few. Perhaps they pick on these issues to deflect the public away from WMD’s (the lack of) in Iraq which made the war unjustified and the fact we are now seeing the body bags coming home. Oh to be able to get inside the mind of a politician.

 

With smoking I believe people should have the freedom to smoke but people who don’t should also have the freedom not to be in a smoking environment, probably why I was thinking along smoking rooms as opposed to areas where the smoke can overspill in to non smoking areas. I can remember when you could smoke on planes; they segregated the smokers by drawing a curtain across which was not really acceptable.

 

I am not to sure that the health service will benefit from the reduced amount of smokers, well not immediately, I think it could take 20, 30 even 40 years before the amount of illness through smoking is reduced significantly. It’s not a quick fix which is what the health service needs to save money. So just where will the money come from? They could raise tax’s but then that penalises more the none smokers as they will be paying more as well and they didn’t even smoke in the first place.

 

The obesity thing I feel is different. This is an area where the effects of reducing the amount of people will have a quicker effect. It is said that the cost to the health service of treating people for obesity is almost as much as smokers is this true I wonder?

 

Somebody felt that education does not really work although I did notice that less young people smoke when I was back in the UK. So perhaps it could work with obesity although to be honest I don’t know.

 

My main thrust on the obesity issue was the lack of exercise at schools due to silly rules about competitive sport etc and the fact that with the advent of computer games and hundreds of TV channels to watch kids do very little activities outside of school let alone at school. Perhaps the government could use the same taxing formula on video games as they do on smoking. Yes you can sit on your arse all day but there is a price!

[Eskenazi]

I agree with Wendy and others - having lived in

New York and California it is just so wonderful to

go to places that are, as they say there, 'simply

smoke free.' What annoys me is the fact that even the

half-assed British ban is going to take 4 years to

implement, and even more, that there is to be a 'massive

public consultation' about it! We have already had that,

and it came out well in favour of a smoking ban: to me

it sounds like the smoking lobby is just being given a

second chance.

Smoking in UK / France - it's interesting that, for

example, all the restaurants we frequent in the London

suburb in which we live, are all smoking - they say

things like 'sorry, we're too small to have a

separate area' (then it should be all non-smoking!)yet

three out of our five local favourites in France are

non smoking in the restaurant although it's allowed in

the bar. Seems a good balance to me if there has to be

smoking.

[Iceni]

I think that there are totally different attitudes to smoke and smoking in the UK and France. We used to hate to go out to eat in the UK as apart from one village pub I can think of which had superb 'smoke scrubbers' the smoke would get to our eyes and the allergies would kick in. Here, we go to small very rural bars where many smoke and even in the cold they open doors to get fresh air in - so we don't suffer to the same extent. I have this feeling that hell will freeze over before France gives up it's right to smoke as and when it wants, but no-one will ever smoke in my house.

With regard to childhood obesity, the real reason is not lack of competitive sports (some of us skinny kids never played those as we were never chosen, I am permanently scarred from walking round the hockey pitch in the cold with the other 'unwanted' ) but lack of any exercise. The minimum of 2 hours a week sport can be 'lost' in the curriculum if tested subjects need the time. Sports field sell-offs have accelerated since the UK gov promised to stop them. Children cannot play ball as every bit of grass seems to have 'no ball game' notices or parents are just to scared to let them out to play. Gardens are no longer areas for children to play in but outdoor rooms which must not be damaged by the younger element.

Children eat less calories than they did 20 years ago yet weigh more - simple exercise is what it needed. Most children do not even walk anywhere - it is a total car culture. Unless we want children on permanent diets they have to have more exercise. Removing fizzy drinks, fatty food and junk from the home menu is the parents duty, the governments is to remove them from school. Many schools make money by selling fizzy sugary drinks and sweets to their pupils - that to me is criminal. Reintroducing sports lessons, swimming lessons, gym sessions - and not one lesson a week but one lesson of EACH a week at least will help. Letting children play ball and rope games in their lunch breaks (which some schools have banned as they feel they will get sued if children 'bang their knees'). We may have not all enjoyed the cross country run, but it was good for us (I actually enjoyed this).

[Hewitts]

Smoking has been banned on public transport, cinemas, offices, many restaurants, and there is now talk of banning smoking on beaches because of the pollution from the cigarette butts.

I am a non smoker, reformed (the worst) and completely abhor smoking, but I must say it all does not seem to making a difference.

My husband has cancer, my daughter has had a brush with cancer, but do you think she will stop, no way, that is how additive it is.

Education at the school level exists here from Kindergarten, but if the parents smoke, the message does not get through.

A complete ban world wide would be the only answer and then where will the governments get their taxes and try banning them in France. I don't think so.

[Dick Smith]

If you break that down you will find that young people smoke much more than older people, and that socio-economic groups C - E smoke much more than A - B. Within those groups the figures are very worrying.

[Quillan]

Well thanks for all your thoughts. It would seem that I will have to rethink my approach to the UK, it's government and what is important to people there.

It would seem to me that judging by the replies people in the UK are more worried about passive smoking than child and adult obesity, old age pensioners heating requirements, fox hunting, pollution, rise in Asthma sufferers, war in Iraq and rather like being told what do by the state, especially if it involves smoking.

[SaligoBay]

A bit of an uncalled-for attack on the British there, Quillan!

I suspect that smoking causes more outrage than obesity, because another smoker CAN affect your health directly, but an obese person can't (unless they sit on you, of course!).

[Dick Smith]

[quote]Well thanks for all your thoughts. It would seem that I will have to rethink my approach to the UK, it's government and what is important to people there. It would seem to me that judging by the repl...[/quote]

Rather an inductive leap, there!

SB - can I be the obese person that sits on him, please?

[Teamedup]

Quillan, there is a scheme in the NE of England to give pensioners central heating. And for entre guillemet normal people I can only ask why.

[Teamedup]

My sons and I arrived at Orlando airport early and the check out tried to get us on an earlier flight to Detroit. Some head scratching, but in the end they decided that there were three seats available. We got on the plane and voila, one seat for eldest, and there were two next to a man that was taking up not only his own seat but half of the one next to him.

The airhostess said that we 'had to sit there'. And I said, in front of the man that there was only one seat and not the two we had paid for and that the air hostess must find us another seat. The big guy never batted an eyelid. In the end a seat was found for my son. And I sat down. This bloke had been holding himself in. As I sat, he relaxed and the mass of his body covered the spare seat.

TU not a small gal by any means, but only takes up one seat on an avion.

[Tresco]

[quote]Quillan, there is a scheme in the NE of England to give pensioners central heating. And for entre guillemet normal people I can only ask why.[/quote]

Hi,

Well I suppose its disease prevention or health promotion, given that many pensioners wouldn't be able to afford the installation, but it has another benefit of improving the housing stock.

I used to argue with my dad about this a lot, when, say, all the houses on a huge main road in Sheffield were improved, including double glazing. He saw that as a luxury, which in 1979 I suppose it was, but a doctor we knew told us that there was a dramatic drop in people calling at the local surgeries with headaches, chest problems, all manner of complaints related to damp, noise and pollution - including 'stress' which  of course hadn't been 'invented' at the time!

[SaligoBay]

LOL TU! 

Have a read at this one, do you remember it, the woman who sued after being squashed in a similar fashion?

http://www.aviation-health.org/news/browse.php?action=shownews&category=&id=11&topicid=10

A fascinating site altogether, did you know that Singapore Airlines has introduced Corpse Cupboards, for people who die during a flight?

http://www.aviation-health.org/news/browse.php?action=category&showallnews=yes

 

[Dick Smith]

Well said, Wendy - I'm heartily sick of this "It's all the Nanny State" stuff (that's entre guillemet, by the way). There was a creep geezer from the Adam Smith Institute on TV yesterday telling us that preventing smoking when passive smokers objected to it was an intolerable infringement of the smoker's liberties. So by the same token we would be free to murder or abuse anyone - if our liberties are taken to mean that we can do what we want without reference to the wishes or rights of others.

THAT, Quillan, is why we elect governments, politys, so that the rights of all are balanced and respected.

[Quillan]

What I am trying to say is there are other equally or more important issues than smoking, if not more important. It depends which group you fall in to. If you are a pensioner then getting the free installation and fuel costs of central heating is an issue. Some of us don't have to address the problems of old age yet so we don’t consider them important but a pensioner does (they do this in Scotland already).

Taking a straw poll of the answers it appears 9 posts were only about smoking, 5 about smoking and obesity, 3 were only about obesity and 3 about other things (nanny state etc). This is why I made the conclusion I did.

Some of the comments are a bit strange like “Does that argument extend to drink-driving? Should we scrap laws against drink-driving because we don't want the state telling us what to do?” nobody is suggesting that, but why ban the sale of alcohol on motorways? Surly it’s up to the individual whether they drink and drive but they should be made VERY aware of the penalties if they get caught. Perhaps it should be made a criminal offence to be done for D&D not a driving one. Perhaps also those that actually kill or maim  people when under the influence should be locked away for life (meaning life). You then have a choice. Why penalise the passengers who might like a glass of wine with their meal, is this not discriminating against all?

I listened to Tony Benn about 5 years ago when he did his travelling one man lectures, he is not a man I would normally sympathise with but he said a few things that to me made sense. He said that the reason that there was so low a turnout at the polls in general was that politicians had forgotten what there job is and exactly who they represented. They no longer took notice of what people wanted and did their own thing without consulting those that elected them (at a constituency level). Most people were in a state of apathy when it came to voting as none of the parties actually offered them anything they wanted and most of the time did not stick to their election promises.

There are quite a few people where I live (not all and not me) who put at the top of their list of reasons for moving to France the ‘nanny state’.

There are issues like law and order that are equally important and I believe people want dealt with. Like why does a paedophile, in most cases, get let out at 5 years, the same as a person using violence to steal a mobile phone.

I personally think that spending hours debating a law banning smoking in restaurants and pubs that sell food is not as important as other issues that the government should be dealing with. Stopping people from smoking is simple, double, triple or quadruple the price of cigarettes and price them out of the market.

By the way, I'm having a lot of problems with fonts in the forum at the moment for some reason.

[SaligoBay]

Quillan said "Surely it’s up to the individual whether they drink and drive but they should be made VERY aware of the penalties if they get caught."

But Quillan, it's not the drunk drivers I'm worried about, it's the people they kill and maim.   And there are plenty.

And if people don't like state control, why are they coming to France?    

 

[Pushkin]

Immediately prior to my present incarnation I was given this form to fill in.  I made a mistake in the "Lifestyle Preferred" section.  Instead of "Libertine" I ticked "Libertarian."  Silly, but where I was at the time the only light source was the flames, the air was full of sulphur fumes so my eyes were watering, I had spent the day stoking the furnaces and there were in the immediate vicinity these ominous creatures of damned uncertain temperament, each wielding a giant toasting fork.  I was anxious to get the Hell out of there and completed the form in a hurry.  So I ended up a libertarian.  Not much fun, but there it is.  It means that I prefer as few rules as possible.  Freedom, that's the thing.  But if one person's freedom adversely impacts upon other folk, that freedom must surely be rationed.  So today it's smoking and obesity.  What a marvellous time for the media folk.  Conflict is what they thrive on, and where there is none they will create it.  Politicians are slaves to the media, for this is the wheel upon which they can be broken.  How how long before we have a No Smoking Tsar and an Anti Obesity Tsar?  And what about a Bonfires Tsar?  The smoke from bonfires is carcinogenic, more so than tobacco smoke.

As science advances, we are made aware of dangers not previously known.  After the American Civil War, many wounded soldiers had become therapeutic morphine addicts. Diamorphine (heroin) was invented, and was hailed as a cure for their addiction. The connection between smoking and various diseases has been clearly proven.  Yet look what happened earlier.  Advertising campaigns promoting the virtues of smoking.  There was even one such campaign which targeted women in the USA "Don't reach for the candy, reach for a Lucky Strike!"  As to the junk food adverts, they speak for themselves.  So will the legislative machine grind into action?  Compulsion, not persuasion?  Maybe that is right, on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number.  But where does it stop?  Influenza is a killer.  Do we make the 'flu jab compulsory for all? Are people suffering from colds, 'flu or other infectious diseases to be banned from public places to prevent others from being infected and possibly killed as a result?  The list goes on.  But being a libertarian (by mistake) I prefer persuasion to compulsion.  If smoking in public places is presented as anti-social, it may have little effect. Present it as vulgar and the effect may be different.  As to obesity,  gluttony perhaps, but there are medical conditions which cause obesity.  We would not, surely, wish to see those who exceed some standard weight persecuted for it. Education is the key here, with adequate medical support. 

What worries me is that certain groups are so easily identified as targets these days. History shows us that this can lead to disaster.  A mature, considered and rational approach should be the answer.

Anyway, it's time for my evening pipe of very stong tobacco and a large cognac. Tomorrow I shall take my usual 5km spin on the mountain bike as I am trying to shed a few excess pounds (kilos, some might say). And don't anyone try targeting me - I've got a great big Rottweiler who loves her Daddy!

 

Pete (not Sue)

[Russethouse]

As smoking and obesity were the topics I didn't add my pleasure at the hunting ban going through........