Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5402100.stm

Oh Boris, you card!
Way to alienate most of your party, your leader, and most of the British public - all in the name of getting support from a few fat bastards.

If he was a bit brighter, you'd think he wanted to quit and was just trying to get fired.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

What? All he's saying is that we should give people choice and educate them to change their choices and self-regulate instead of being forced to go down the healthy options route. What he's really suggesting is that Jamie Oliver's campaign has gone too far because it has denied individual choice.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Even if he was bright enough to make that argument (doubtful) it has a fundamental flaw:

There is no less choice now than there was before. The choice is simply over different food. The guidelines do nothing to restrict parents giving their kids whatever crap they like for lunch. However, they take the crap off the school menu but replace it with better alternatives. Same amount of choice.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

That's like saying you can choose a house anywhere in town, then saying sorry, you can only choose a house in this terrifically dull suburban district and claiming it is 'choice'.

The fact is we'd better off getting people to eat healthily in general rather than having pupils not eating/hating their dinner and still eating horrific amounts of junk the minute they leave the school gate.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

He's right though, Jamie Oliver is a wanker.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I don't think most of the British public would be alienated by anyone attacking Jamie Oliver, the smarmy mockney muppet deserves a slap. As Lokken says he's not arguing against the idea of healthy food he's arguing for some degree of personal choice and against the need for government intervention.

You say he's not bright enough to make that argument, he makes it in the quotes in the article, more like you aren't bright enough to read it :rolleyes:

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

i quite like this quote of his from that article with regards to the new law requiring booster seats for children under a certain age/height
well now...

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

It's about time somebody stood up to the 'healthy eating' Nazis that seem to be growing in number each day.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

People who think fatties shouldnt be treated on the NHS are idiots, but theres still no contradiction/hypocrisy in holding both these positions; pathological cases aside, anyone over the age of 18 is able to become non-obese if they choose to, regardless of what they ate at school.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

School canteens have never offered a broad menu, due to the budget and the way that food is prepared in a canteen it's infeasible. At the school I went to there was very little choice. Personally, I think that if a government is going to provide food for pupils it should provide healthy food rather than junk food.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I do not know the age ranges here, but giving free choice in meals for 6-10 year olds would be a disaster here at least. In my work I make alot of food for children, and it's all healthy. The times when a class for instance has eaten lots of candy with their teachers before they come to us, shows clearly. It's not that they got more energy, but they got a sugar rush that is a mess to deal with.
Also, the children with the biggest problems socially are the ones that are spoon fed sugar. Their moods swing so much from early in the morning (having had soda or whatnot at home) to when they leave that it's almost impossible to get a proper view of their personalities.

I'm not saying that older kids should not have choice. But we only make them one meal, and they choose what ingredients they want (Ie ketchup/pasta/ham or pasta/sauce/ham and so on). They get one spoon of sugar when we have cereal, and that's it. I'm not going to waste any hours of my life making children fat and unhappy. And I promise you, if I had given these kids a choice, they would eat sugar without anything on.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Kids who eat crap and/or get fat when kids will find it far more difficult to get thin again in adult life (true story).

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Well yeah obviously, since kids who dont eat crap wont be fat and hence wont have to get thin :confused:

Or are you saying that if you have 2 fat adults, one who was fat as a kid and one who got fat when 22, the former will have more difficulty losing weight?

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

That's what im saying.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Why?

Fat kids who become adults probably have a greater chance of getting thin again because of the change in lifestyle when they become adults and move out of home. It might be the easiest thing in the world for someone whose mum bought cakes and stuffed them down their face to just not buy cakes and lose the weight. If someone has got fat in adult life however, then it is clear that the problems are their own alone, and they won't get the benefit from moving out of the house of an overfeeding parent that a fat kid would have.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

because it's far easier to get fit if you were in a reasonably good shape when you were younger..

and it's hard to burn calories when fetching the mail is your idea of 'a workout'.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Is this actually true though? If you used to be fit why does that mean that it will be easier to become fit again?* You can say it if you like, but I haven't actually seen any evidence for it.

*maybe you're just saying "well if someone used to play sports/eat well then they already know how to so will have less trouble learning to do it again". These things aren't exactly complicated though.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Don't be a ****ing retard dude.

Environmental factors have an effect on gene expression. If your body gets used to getting fat then it becomes better at "laying it down". Unfortunately i don't have a link to the various articles i've read on this.

ALSO, epigenetics, aside. If you're a tubby little ****er when you're younger your lung capacity, heart size, and skeletal frame (for muscle attachment) will be under-developed in comparison to someone who is into sport when they're younger. As such you will find it more difficult to get fit in adult life if you're a fat kid. Funnily enough if something's hard to do less people will be inclined to do it which in turn makes it harder to get fit.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Your mother


That's a shame. What does "laying it down" mean?

If your muscles etc are under developed then surely they take more energy to use and therefore less movement is required to use the same amount of energy so your muscles work harder and you lose more weight for the same amount of exercise. It's easier for fat people to lose weight than thin people.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Laying down fat. Putting on fat. Getting fat.



I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I'm saying that the worse shape your body is in the less exercise you have to do to improve.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

You may have to do little to improve (because you are in such a shoddy state to begin with) but to gain X amount of muscle or Y amount of lung capacity if you were unfit / fat as a child you would actually have to make more of an effort to get the same gain as someone who was fit as a child.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

You can both continue to argue back and forwards over what sounds more intuitively plausible, or someone can post a study actually providing evidence for what theyre saying (not that I think its particularly important anyway but meh).

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Apparently the amount of fat cells you have in your body is mainly dependent on how fat you were as a child.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Or you can just believe me when i say i've seen the reports but can't be arsed going and digging them up.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I don't think we'll be doing that.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Stick bubbly. Be like that then.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I remember when I was in Jr. High School (grades 7-9). I was given the princely sum of $0.35 a day for lunch. For this I could choose a relatively nutritious cafateria lunch which changed from day to day, or I could spend my fortune at the snack bar.

I always chose the snack bar. I had two standard luch options.

Option 1: Cup of chili beans (10 cents), bag of potato chips (5 cents), carton of milk (5 cents) and three ice cream bars (5 cents each).

Option 2: Bag of potato chips, carton of milk and five ice cream bars.

The only variance to this diet was on days when one of the school clubs would have a bake sale. On those days I would purchase a carton of milk and six cup cakes (5 cents apiece).

While not a thin youngster, I was not morbidly obese. However, it is entirely posible that this diet may, in some small measure, have contributed to my eventual development of diabetes.

If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't spend so much money on milk.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

to be fair to boris the story was a bit blown up.

and i'm not quite sure that we can say an Oxford man is stupid

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Boris don't ever change.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

"I spent a lot of money on crisps, ice cream and beans. The rest I just squandered."

- dda.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

A Boris Johnson thread descends into the pit that is a fat George Best. :(

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

You probably ate fairly well at home though. It's doubtful whether this can be carried through into modern society.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Descends? I think you mean transcends!

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

Well besides the "people who are fat when young will find it harder to lose weight when older" argument, there's things like diabetes. It's a lot easier to get diabetes when younger from a terrible diet than it is when older, yet it'll stay with you when you're older.

That's a factor in itself for people being overweight. It's also something that the NHS has to pay for.


Indeed. When he wants to be intelligent, he's perfectly capable (as can be seen on topical discussions etc). I think he actually rather enjoys being portrayed as a bit of an eccentric buffoon, just so he can make these outrageous statements and then quickly retract them.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

He never retracts them though. He may apologise (although it's probably little more than lip service) those offended but he always defends the main crux of his argument.

those he does like to be seen as eccentric.

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

You have type 2 diabetes?

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I believe he retracted (or at least altered significantly) the statement this thread is about - that of criticising "Jamie's School Dinners".

Re: Boris Johnson and the Tory Party
 

I can't really remember what he said ( the link has changed) but I'm not sure if the underlying message was altered.

He has a knack of making good points which get lost in his often 'controversial' examples.