Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 69
1 Q. People bring up their children differently?
2 A. Of course.
3
4 Q. Do you accept the government's, the COMA recommendations
5 that we should keep our total fat content down to between
6 35 and 30 per cent of our total energy intake, and that
7 the saturated fat proportion of that should be no greater
8 than 10 or 11 per cent?
9 A. I see no reason to dispute it, except for two things;
10 one that those in the World Health Organisation's
11 recommendations are seen as maxima and not as averages;
12 two that average across the population can mask some very
13 different groupings. It is a Jack Spratt would eat no fat
14 and his wife would eat no lean situation. Two of them
15 could well meet the government mean, to coin a phrase, in
16 which case the average might well show that no one is
17 unhealthy, but in fact eating no fat at all could lead to
18 some problems and eating an excess of fat could lead to
19 some problems. So within an average figure you also have
20 to look at subgroups that might well be eating excess.
21
22 Q. I perfectly well understand that. You must look at not
23 only subgroups might be eating an excess; you must look at
24 subgroups who may be particularly vulnerable for one
25 reason or another; it might be constitution or it might be
26 health or whatever. Can I ask you one more thing --
27 I think it is probably one more thing only; it may be
28 two.
29
30 In the second paragraph after that I have just been asking
31 you about in your statement, the second statement, after
32 the references to "grazing in Peckham" you write:
33 "McDonald's is not the only fast food outlet of course
34 but it is the leading one, with an estimated 40 per cent
35 of adults having visited at least once during the year".
36 We noticed earlier on that, in fact, the Gordon Simmons
37 Research Survey of 1987 said 36 per cent and not 40?
38 A. That is true.
39
40 Q. Were you do you think you exaggerated figure?
41 A. I was trying to work that out at the time that you
42 commented in passing earlier as to that being an
43 exaggeration. I can only assume when I say an estimate it
44 is because I am predicting forwards from 1987 or something
45 like that. I do not now recall why I should have said 40
46 instead of 36. I would like to replace the 40 with the
47 36.
48
49 Q. It would not matter from the point of view of the public's
50 health if as a matter of absolute fact as opposed to
51 estimate or anything else, if 40 per cent or even 100 per
52 cent of the population were visiting a fast food outlet
53 once a year, would it?
54 A. It would not matter if they were visiting it once a
55 day if they were eating fast foods that were healthy.
56
57 Q. Even if I went and stuffed myself with a double
58 cheeseburger, huge chips, four milk shakes and whatever
59 else you would like to put into my menu, supposing I could
60 accommodate all that food and I did it once a year, it
