No, I never was a health maniac! Not at all actually. But having now worked for almost 5 months in a really English environment, I realize that I might be. Most my colleages are constantly hung-over, they eat crisps every day and choclates and other stuff. When I come dragging with my morning yougurt (fat) and muesli (containing sweet fruits..) they eye me upside down and whizz "ohh, we are healthy today aren't we?", as if I was on a super detox.
And now it's skiing season and they all slide over to the alps to whizz around the slopes (75% in Meribel) and come back all tanned and spirited. To not stand out as a total nerd, they of course have to ensure everyone in the office that they had boozy lunches and dinners everyday and that "it is now enough with exercising for another 51 weeks". They wouldn't want to stand out as some sort of Germanic health-freak, hell no.
I love it that they are discussing Obesity too. I work with projects for improving the lives for young people, and this is now coming up on the agenda. So there are TONS of discussion on how to sort this out for all age groups and there are talks about rebuilding cities so that the steps of stair, for instance, will be harder to walk on, and to improve possiblities to cycle to work etc. All good and nice. But perhaps start by looking into some normal values?
A really lovely colleague of mine is 24 years old. He is really cute but has the biggest belly I have ever seen on such a young boy. He is now on a "diet" (they are all on diets. all the time.) which means only eating fruit and punishing himself in the gym. I would like to do some proper North-Swedish sanity check with him: What do you eat for breakfast? Do you have a continous burn rate in your body (the body has to eat regulary to burn fat, or it will burn muscles)? How often do you walk to work? How many pints of beer do you drink per week? How many bags of crisps? I am convinced that just slight changes of nutrition and exercise would make an enormous difference. Without crazy diets and starvation periods. I might tell him. And risk being regarded as the Germanic Muesli Monster.
Happy to take the risk though.
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Brilliantly put, ha ha - must send to my English husband who thinks I am exaggerating when I despair about the anti-healthy English and obesity amongst youth etc.
Another addition to the debate is posture, or rather lack of. My mother (and seems like most Swedish parents did this) kept telling me to "stand, sit up straight" - have a look at English teenage girls in a pub, they seem to all be drooping downwards.
Good thing you are there to impact the British Health standards my friend!!
/RC
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