I read with a great deal of concern two new outcomes from recent news reporting on issues to do with national interest.  The first is to do with international ratings agency Fitch, saying it was worried about New Zealand’s high debt levels and reliance on overseas borrowing… frightening enough (whose footsteps are we following in here?)  However, I won’t go into this in detail – there is another media ‘bone’ I will briefly address.

The second pressing issue ‘bone’ that our media dog is onto, is that our fit and outdoorsy national identity has gone out the window with the revelation that we are now the 3rd fattest nation in the world (only Mexico and the US are ahead of us).  I am unsure of the accuracy of the study or the point in placing a hierarchical order to it… as if winning something like that is something to be proud of.  This does however raise some very interesting discussions for our Nation.

As per previous interventions, such as the ‘anti-smacking’ bill, we seem to have governments who place legislative measures on the nation rather than dealing with the actual problem.  Another popular measure are those endless multi-million dollar ‘hard-hitting’ advertising campaigns, where the only outcomes involve advertising agencies becoming better off than the rest of the nation… not fewer kids being hit, fewer people dying of smoking related illness, OR fewer people dying at the hands of speeding, and/or drunk drivers!

I firmly believe that to sort out the issue of obesity, we do not place further sanctions on Schools, remove the right for junk food retailers to advertise or any other archaic attempt to change the ingrained habits of poor diet, poor lifestyle and poor parenting.  All such attempts will serve to strike at the branches of the problem, not the roots!  Find the problem and deal with the problem, whatever that may be… and if there is a causal factor which is parental, genetic, ethnic or gender related… deal with that, and don’t waste our time on changing the laws for everybody!

Hopefully that may mean we can save up some money in the national coffers too!  Now, anyone for some folate in their bread?