Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 16


     
     1        of consumption of fruit and vegetables and the highest
     2        consumption of cheap high fat foods.  The reason is very
     3        simple:  People cannot afford to buy large amounts of fruit
     4        and vegetables and feed themselves and their children with
     5        cheap high fat foods in order to prevent them from being
     6        hungry all the time.  It is a social fact.
     7
     8   Q.   So, basically, you agree with what I have said but because
     9        of social problems, it is difficult to implement and
    10        improve things?
    11        A.  Yes.  It would be a wonderful idea if everybody could
    12        afford to buy the ideal diet that is recommended by this
    13        Committee, but you suspect those who produce these reports
    14        do not think about the consumer; they are thinking about
    15        the science of food composition and what would be the ideal
    16        for feeding human beings.
    17
    18   Q.   "Ideal" in terms of preventing obesity, heart disease and
    19        all the other problems that we have been talking about?
    20        A.  Well, there are a number of ways of preventing
    21        obesity.  Altering  diet might be one of them but there is
    22        a much simpler way and that is to eat less food or, better
    23        still, to increase physical activity.
    24
    25        If you recognise that obesity in men has doubled in the
    26        last ten years with no change in diet composition, we are
    27        talking about something other than diet; we are talking
    28        about physical activity.
    29
    30   Q.   You are not trying to suggest, are you, that the
    31        composition and nature of a person's diet has nothing to do
    32        with obesity.
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  As I understand it, you are not saying that
    35        at all.  What you are saying is that there is an
    36        intractable element about people's diet, for whatever
    37        reason, whether they are just reluctant to change what they
    38        have always eaten, or they cannot afford to eat what you
    39        would see as a more beneficial diet.  Does that really
    40        summarise your point of view?
    41        A.  Yes, that is so, your Lordship.  Dietary change is very
    42        difficult to achieve, and certainly the notion that people
    43        living in, say, Third World countries are going to
    44        radically change their diets because of advertising or
    45        something, it simply does not happen that way, but people
    46        should have the opportunity, as we have, to sample
    47        different cuisines and I visit Chinese food restaurants and
    48        so on.
    49
    50        No doubt in Third World countries people would want to 
    51        sample Western food, but one is talking about a very small 
    52        affluent majority there, but changing food habits is very 
    53        difficult and changing levels of physical activity is
    54        equally very difficult.
    55
    56   MS. STEEL:   We will not get into advertising.  I would make the
    57        obvious point that if it is not going to change people's
    58        diets then what is the point of doing it?  Anyway, it has
    59        been accepted by McDonald's, as far as I am aware, that
    60        that is what they are trying to do.

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