Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 52


     
     1        know, a stack of fish and chips, he might do that.  But it
     2        is not the McDonald's meal that makes the contribution to
     3        that diet, is it?  You could eat that McDonald's meal three
     4        times a day and still remain perfectly healthy?
     5        A.   It is actually very, very difficult in our culture to
     6        get people to achieve the levels of fat that health
     7        professionals are trying to achieve.  Very, very difficult
     8        indeed. It has been said, this is a quote, somebody looking
     9        at the recommendations in the Diet Nutrition Prevention of
    10        Chronic Diseases that the sort of animal products, like the
    11        meat.  They are not saying do not eat meat anything like
    12        that, but if you applied the advice in here, the meat would
    13        be rendered as a garish.  So it would be rather like the
    14        styles of eating in other countries.  Say China, where meat
    15        is an occasional treat you might have once a week.  You
    16        would have to eat that type of way to achieve the World
    17        Health Organisation's recommendations which is why the
    18        Government in this country came up with  a more moderate 35
    19        percent fat decrease which they have viewed as achievable.
    20        But even that, it is incredibly difficult with the culture
    21        we are in to get people to have a lower fat type of diet.
    22        And you have picked a young man, you know, a young man with
    23        moderate activity.  If you were to take, say a woman of my
    24        size, for instance.  I think you would probably find that
    25        you know, eating g that amount of calories and I think, you
    26        know for somebody, a small female for example, it would be
    27        very hard for them to, you know, eat and still be within
    28        the Government's proportion of fat.
    29
    30   Q.   Well, I chose a man Mrs. Brophy because it is our belief,
    31        and we are nearly on the point of being able to say it is
    32        the fact, that the people who eat McDonald's food anything
    33        like frequently -- that is to say once a week or more,
    34        yes?  Are mostly men between the ages of 16 and 34?
    35        A.   If--
    36
    37   Q.   That is why I chose him?
    38        A.   If we were to get a study going to look at what else
    39        those men also ate, I would suggest that those men and,
    40        this is in my experience of doing diet histories and
    41        looking at studies of what people actually eat that their
    42        fat would probably be above, if you are looking at that
    43        sort of type of population, above the national average.  I
    44        would think it would be very, very rare to find this type
    45        of individual that you are suggesting, one that would
    46        consume the McDonald's meal and then go away and eat the
    47        high carbohydrate, high fruit and vegetable meal.  I would
    48        say that would be a very, very rare sort of individual
    49        indeed.
    50
    51   Q.   I was not suggesting any such person, but that is by the
    52        way.  Do you know that dietary habits change as people get 
    53        older?
    54        A.   (No reply)
    55
    56   Q.   They seem to?
    57        A.  Dietary habits are more fluid in younger people.  As
    58        they get older they tend to become more firmly entrenched
    59        in terms of the types of food that people eat.  It is quite
    60        difficult to change the diets of older people.  Younger

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