My friend told me yesterday that the government told Australians we had overtaken Americans as teh 'fattest' nation to make Australians lose weight, and that it wasn't actually true.

After recent dealings with the LOCAL government, I don't find it hard to believe the federal dipshits would make up bullshit.

Well, we're apparently not as bad percentage wise as the US (YET) or so we're told here in the UK, but we're forever being shown reports of the fact we're the fattest country in Europe. I can't see any reason for that beyond trying to make people lose weight.
Governments make stuff up all the time in my experience, they just rarely admit it and instead wil come up with some long-winded excuse of misinterpretation of facts on somebodies part to make themselves out to be the good guys.
At 31, I have long since stopped believeing everything politicians say, in power or not.

Every time statistics are quoted at me I feel very tempted to request a source. What data are they basing it on? How old is it? etc.

It'd be so much more helpful if rather than telling people how fat the country is and thus how ashamed we should feel, maybe the governments could do something about lowering taxes to make it cheaper to eat healthily. Rather than instituting a junk food tax, how about abolishing GST on all food and meats? How about knocking the huge markups that the supermarkets put on produce and dairy on the head?

How about encouraging farming families to stay farming by giving them more money for their crops?

There are so many solutions that the government could use, but having caloric information on everything in sight isn't helpful. Filling people's heads with numbers related to calories, fat grams and the like is not going to help people make better food choices. Making food more affordable will.

They've been telling us here that we're the fattest nation for YEARS. Has it helped any? NO!

Has printing calories on the label helped either? No!

Grr. It's so stupid, I mean, do they not think that some people's healthy weight is actually classed as 'overweight' according to BMI?

And Kurayami, I totally agree with you.

*slightly unrelated*

I found myself googling BMI (still confused over minimum health), and ending up on the NHS site.

"If you're underweight, you could just naturally be so. However, if it's physically impacting you, you could maybe try gaining some weight."

"If you're overweight, losing any weight is benficial to you!"

So, you know, be too thin and no one cares. Be a pound overweight and the world is ending.

And the science does not support that. Overweight people who live healthy, active lifestyles - not obese people - have better health outcomes than underweight people.

Exactly. We're having thin = healthy hammered into their heads.

I'm so sick of hearing "You can never be too thin or rich". I know it's a joke, but seriously- too thin is a very real thing...

I personally don't believe in BMI anyway, I'm sure my BMI of 25 has me oozing fat out of all of my clothes and querying what a vegetable is and why I should eat them. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm a size 10. Woops.

Sorry, that was a bit off topic but we were discussing BMI so...

But ON topic, I too am sick of having 'thinner is better' messages and the like pumped into my head, it's just so annoying and unrealistic.

I personally don't believe in BMI anyway, I'm sure my BMI of 25 has me oozing fat out of all of my clothes and querying what a vegetable is and why I should eat them. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm a size 10. Woops.

Sorry, that was a bit off topic but we were discussing BMI so...

But ON topic, I too am sick of having 'thinner is better' messages and the like pumped into my head, it's just so annoying and unrealistic.

even though i already know this..it is INFURIATING to read it. how annoying!

YES YES YES!!!! that is something that irritates the snot out of me...how healthy foods are so much more expensive than the less-healthy. SO annoying!!!!

You see, I'm exactly the same which is why every single doctor I've been to is absolutely BAFFLED that I have very low blood pressure instead of high. In the last year, they ask me how it's possible I can be in the shape that I'm in and still have that kind of BMI. I merely tell them, "Kindly blow it out your ass."

The BMI scale I think isn't accurate to be honest. It was created years ago and it doesn't even measure up with heights and weights of what average person is today.

by the way Obese people can live healthy lifestyles too. Personally I'm obese. I'm not proud of it. I didn't get hear overnight. My brother weighs close to 400lbs and he's really healthy besides his weight. Everyone in my family is overweight. It's not a sin to be overweight like society says. They just think ya gotta look a certain way to fit their standards.. fuck society's standards.

Australia is the fattest nation in the world.... so I am not an entire nation.

I am a tiny component. I am unique and seperate, I am not defined by a group.

It is stastistically proven... I am not a statistic. I am a human being.