The FastDay Forum

Heard a program on the radio

this is coming up on Four Corners, which is always an excellent program.

ABC Monday 8pm

SUPERSIZING INDIA'S KIDS

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/ ... 881205.htm

I think it may have aired this week on BBC This World

For much of the past hundred years India was a country that struggled to feed itself.

Now, as it becomes one of the world's economic powerhouses, incomes are rising and a new problem has emerged. A large part of the population is in danger of eating itself into an early grave.[b] The country is now described as "a global hub" of type 2 diabetes.

How did it happen? BBC This World reporter Anita Rani sets out to find some answers. She discovers Indian families, obsessed with the glitter of the West, are indulging their children with fast, fatty foods. In reality the problem is more complex. As one expert puts it: "genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger". By which he means some nationalities are genetically programmed to survive on relatively small amounts of food. Given too much, their bodies store fat and create a problem.

But genetics isn't the only issue in India's perfect storm of obesity. [/b]

found the bbc program site. was actually on in August this year. Anyone in the UK here seen it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038lw6z

i may have seen it on cable actually some months back and they are just repeating it on mainstram televsion.

Did anyone see the program?

Thoughts?

I saw it last night. Very sad. I know that some other 3rd world countries - Brazil, Mexico,,,, have similar problems with bad Western fast food replacing traditional healthy food. In the case of India it is the upper/middle class who are eating badly and becoming obese. I didn't like the program in that it suggested that the only option for these people was to engage in surgery.It would have been better to look at what could be done on a whole community level - regulate advertising to children, regulate the foods themselves. They said that MacDonalds etc could get away with much more transfats for example than they could in countries like Australia. And then there's the whole question of education, kitchen gardens in schools and so on. It was very much up to the individual obese Indian to solve their problem, but it is a social problem and needs a social solution. I wonder if the same thing is happening in other Asian countries, like Japan, for example, which have a strong traditional diet. Is that also being replaced by Western Fast foods, and are Japanese people struggling with obesity?

Pretty sad that gastric banding was the option after diet failed especially for a 14 year old. I knew someone with a gastric band who just didn't change her eating habits and still ate badly IMHO only more frequently. Won't say what happened as was not good. You would think major rethinking eating habits would be handy to drive dietary habits post op. It was rather sad though as the couple of kids I saw were really affected emotionally it seemed

What I found very interesting was the suggested genetics where earlier generations struggled to eat well with scarce food, so that the thought was that these kids were then sitting ducks to become obese and have diabetes. The food for thought (scuse pun) for me was do I have such an issue with a plateau due to genetics, were my predecessors small eaters I know both my parents were where I always felt in comparison my appetite was huge even as a 10 year old