The Battle Of The Bulge

‘WHAT took the First World War almost five years to do, the Daily Mail can do in a single headline as this morning it signs the death warrant for a whole generation.

‘When I grow up, I want to be as fat as Eamonn Holmes’

‘Obesity: New Child Alert,’ screams its typically hysterical (if highly ambiguous) front-page headline.

Only by reading on do we learn that ‘the health of an entire generation is under threat from soaring levels of obesity’.

New figures show that one in ten six-year-olds is classed as obese and one in five 15-year-olds, with the number of children with serious weight problems at an all-time high.

So serious is the problem, says the Mail, that Government health advisers issued ‘unprecedented’ advice yesterday to parents on how to keep their children’s weight at a healthy level.

‘Basic measures such as advice in schools on nutrition, a return to home cooking, walking to school and active play are being pushed,’ it says, ‘in the hope of luring children away from junk food and computer games.’

However, children are advised that playing football can have serious side-effects – such as spending most of your twenties sitting in a prison cell.’

Posted: 8th, October 2003 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink