Is beauty now in the eye of the Body Mass Index?

Slim Pickens says:

07:37am | 08/09/09

Oh dear - Teh dreaded Elites are out to get us! An MP of a party that represents the interests of Australia’s wealthy and powerful corporate elite attacking intellectuals and academics for being elitist - the Party that puts the interests of junk food advertisers before the interests of children’s health - it’s parents who must take responsibility! Oh - Teh Irony!

If this is the kind of trite shite that Rupert expects us to pay to read online, he’s sorely mistaken.

Phil says:

08:01am | 08/09/09

The most coherent part of this argument was the word ‘‘Tosh!’‘. Punch, if you’re going to continue to invite pollies to write loaded columns that serve unstated political agendas, could you at least apply the ‘‘makes-sense-o-matic’’ machine to them? The same argument that Bishop is trying to apply to obesity could be used to argue that all illegal drugs should be legalised. ‘‘Oh noes! Those intellectual ay-leets are trying to tell me that selling heroin to kids is bad! That’s censorship, you know?’’

Dan says:

09:12am | 08/09/09

Obese/overweight people suffer alot more medical problems so why should the tax that I and other healthy people pay go towards the medical expenses of all the overweight people? Yes you should have the freedom to be an individual but not at the expense of other people.

At the end of the day obesity is a disease and it needs to be cured.

Nicholas James says:

09:17am | 08/09/09

I think there are two messages here that are clear albeit slightly incoherent.

Firstly, we need to make it clear that as Australians we do not want a mother of a government who tells us to eat our greens and when to go to bed.

Secondly, as our government begins to see us as (reasonably) competent individuals we need to come together to focus on more important matters than energy drinks and whether or not a shop that sells hamburgers can do just that in a hospital.

Nicholas James says:

09:21am | 08/09/09

@Dan

Unfortunately in a society the decisions of one directly or not affects the existence of another.

Your tax (and mine) goes into a big pot for administrators to administrate and this brings us to a fundamental point; they are just that, administrators.

Whilst you have every right to harbour feelings of agrievement that fat people may detract from government investment in areas you feel may be of more importance, just wait until they find something you do that they don’t like…

Jake the Muss says:

09:24am | 08/09/09

Slim:  Strawman much?

Phil:  Indeed, and illegal drugs should be made legal.  The real point you should have made is that Bronwyn Bishop chaired the committee that put out the ‘winnable war on drugs’ committee paper that called for the ramping up of the war on drugs.  Bronwyn may be a hypocrite but hey, I’ll take an ally on an issue wherever I can get it.

Dan:  That’s a very good point.  You shouldn’t have to pay for it and neither should I.  I feel very bad that the Government steals our money and calls it taxes, and I fight every day to hopefully bring about a day when they no longer do so.  I guess you too agree with me that taxes are theft.

In the interim though, I guess the way I feel about it is that we shouldn’t blame the victim, we should blame the robber.  It isn’t the pie eater that took your money it was the Government.  If you want taxpayer funded health then that shouldn’t be used to kill off individual freedom.

http://www.pimpinforfreedom.wordpress.com

Liz says:

09:29am | 08/09/09

Who are these elites? Where do they hang out? Maybe if we ignore them they’ll go away and take their attitudes with them.
It’s always sensible, committed individuals who drag Governments in the right direction and get sense seen.May there be more of them and less obesity, bad eating and encouragement of healthy shopping and eating habits. Give up Supermarkets and use the local producers as far as possible.

Claire says:

09:31am | 08/09/09

Why does she keep referring to the “Elites” when she is a Liberal Party Member? What a joke.

Dani says:

09:57am | 08/09/09

I agree with Clare. And Bronwyn, next time you want to attack the elites, maybe get a new pic to go along with the article. The hair, pearls and pose aren’t helping.

Don Clark says:

10:08am | 08/09/09

BMI a tool of the Elites. Really?

From about the 70s, BMI (Body Mass Index: Weight in Kg/Height in Metres²) was taken up around the world as a fairly simple objective measure of “fatness” or “thinness”. “Overweight” is a BMI over 25. Source, hardly a nest of elitists:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/healthyactive/publishing.nsf/Content/healthy-weight 

As a general indication of obesity, BMI was also adopted by the WHO who since the late 1990s have done much work in compiling international measures and comparisons of BMI data, and have taken an active part in discussing the usefulness of the measure.  Hardly elitists: see http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp?introPage=intro_1.html

Like many simple widely used measures, BMI has become rather misunderstood and somewhat mis-used, for example,  more selectively than its virtue as a basic average indicator.

As a result, there is some fairly active discussion about the usefulness and worth of the BMI, among health practictioners and policy analysts and policy makers. If you need to know more, ask your doctor.

Summary:
Oversimplification of a complex issue, assumptions piled on top, with loaded terms and loaded direction. Despite the abundant sound resources readily available to a well-paid parliamentarian of long-standing, we get the stocks-in-trade of a lazy point-scoring scribbler.

“The Elites are back in town – that is those people who tell us endlessly that they know better than the rest of us” Well, quite. Thanks for the lecture, Ms Bishop.

What remains to be winnowed from this hectoring piece? Just the threadbare conservative core value: “Individual-good, common good-bad”. Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she.

Would or should we pay to read such fluff? Never, ever, ever.

Charles says:

10:17am | 08/09/09

Ms Bishop:  I am embarassed to call myself a Liberal supporter after reading this ‘blog’.  This covered two very diverse subjects: health & poevrty.

You invoke the term Leadership many times in the blog and on the subject of health I would offer that perhaps you would be best served by referring the Australian Public to this article from the AMA: http://www.ama.com.au/node/4919 rather than your ‘professional’ advice.

As you state it ‘is those individuals with vision and compassion who ultimately drag governments in the right direction’.  I would offer that your comments about BMI and health indicate that you should take your own counsel.

Tim says:

10:26am | 08/09/09

Don,
the BMI should never be used for individual assessments. Its only and tenuous use is as an averaging tool for obesity estimates of populations.

Robert says:

10:46am | 08/09/09

My BMI is 24. Yet I am wearing Small/Medium sized shirts and size 34/36 pants. Hardly the apparel of someone who is “borderline overweight”. The BMI fails to take into account individual builds, bone structure, muscle spread, etc and should only be used as a “guide”.

ts says:

10:54am | 08/09/09

personally, i couldn’t give a hoot if someone wants to be fat.  as long as i don’t need to listen to them whinging about being unable to lose weight because of ‘chemical imblances,’ whinge about the excess skin left behind when they lose some weight, whinge about being discriminated against, whinge how everyone in magazines are thinner than them and why aren’t any ‘real’ people ever shown blah blah

public speaker says:

10:58am | 08/09/09

Bronwyn, I hate to say this…but I agree with you. I hate people continually telling me what I should eat and drink, when how why…It is about time to tel these peple to shut up. BMI is not accurate, becasue if it was I would have been obese since I was 18 weighing 78 kilos at 5ft 8in. I wasn’t and I didn’t have n inch of fat on me until I reached 40, and even then I have a couple of little love handles, and I say those are earn t for the years of work I have done. I want a drink of alcohol every now and again, even to excess. I want to be able to go out hen I want, see who I want, and do what I want, not with a lot of do gooders telling me I houldn’t. I have a philospohy nothing is bad for you in modertion, and you do and say what you want as long as nobody gets hurt, or offended.

Don Clark says:

10:58am | 08/09/09

“the BMI should never be used for individual assessments. Its only and tenuous use is as an averaging tool for obesity estimates of populations”

“Never”? “Tenuous”?  Sweepingly bold and unsourced assertions cut no ice at all.

An equally current & qualified UK source then, which does cover the use and weakness of the BMI. Nowhere does it assert “never for individuals”, preferring a reasoned approach:

“[BMI] is used because, for most people, it correlates reasonably well with their level of body fat. It is also a relatively easy,  cheap and non-invasive method for establishing weight status. However, BMI is only a proxy
for body fatness.”
and :
“BMI may not be an accurate tool for assessing weight status at
an individual level, and other ways of measuring body composition may be more useful and accurate.”
Source: http://www.noo.org.uk/uploads/doc789_40_noo_BMI.pdf

Meanwhile, on BMI I’ll stick with the DoHA advice already posted, and that of my own Dr, thank you .

And I’ll stick to the core of the thread, too: despite all the facilities afforded her for sound info, Ms Bishop has chosen to publish a shoddy argument that relies solely on loaded rhetoric. Not good enough.

Julie Coker-Godson says:

11:52am | 08/09/09

I think what Bronwyn means by “elites” is “foodies”: food fanatics who believe they have the necessary background and experience to be telling us all how we should be eating, what we should be eating, where and when and in what quantitites.  Today’s story in news.com.au is a rather spiteful one asking us all why we have gone on a “craze” over big girls.  http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26042579-5007146,00.html  The article completely misses the point.  We love these people because they are human beings first and last and should not be discriminated against, treated with derision, scorned or frowned upon because they are plus sizes.  I would like to tell these “experts” that keeping oneself to an unnaturally thin weight all one’s life can end up with a person looking as if their head is out of proportion to the rest of their body, loads and loads of wrinkles and loss of subcutaneous fat - you know, that fat that fills in the backs of your hands, and around your ankles and face so that we don’t see all the bones!  (Believe me, I have seen people like this!)  They don’t tell you either that once you lose this subcutaneous fat you don’t get it back.  (A family friend in Queensland lost so much weight after her husband died that she now looks like walking bones and no matter how much she eats she cannot put it back on again.)  Anyone seen the picture of Sarah Jessicah Parker’s ankles lately? (Today’s papers).  These people should just shut up and keep their noses out of other people’s personal lives.  Their comments are unwelcome, divisive and hurtful.

keith says:

11:55am | 08/09/09

What a load of wankery, i.e., the pretentious pseudo-intellectuals here trying on their vocabullery. I’m going back to the gorgeous photo of Scarrett!

Slim Pickens says:

12:06pm | 08/09/09

@Julie Coker-Godson: The Liberals use ‘Elites’ as part of the Culture War. ‘Elites’ are intellectuals and academics with specialised expertise and tend to fall on the left/liberal end of the centre in our political spectrum - in other words, anyone who doesn’t vote Liberal. If there’s one thing we don’t like in Australia, it’s intellectuals. They are to be despised, vilified and cut-down at every opportunity.

Sporting and Fashion Elites, on the other hand, are very desirable and much admired in our country.

DG says:

12:08pm | 08/09/09

Dan (09:12am | 08/09/09) - “obesity is a disease”?

On what basis do you assume that it is a disease? A ‘state’, I’ll grant you that, a person can be obese, and as such, in a state of obesity - but a person can’t ‘have’ obesity.

Obesity is a symptom - of over eating, thyroid problems or a number of other medical conditions.

It is also a precursor to various diseases such as heart disease, diabetes etc.

Obesity is not something that needs to be cured, the behaviours that cause it and the illnesses that contribute need to be addressed and education is the best way of doing that. 

A part of that is prohibiting advertising that is deceptive or misleading - i.e advertising that suggests that marshmallows are ‘healthy’ because they are 99% fat free (yet are basically fluffy sugar).

As for Ms Bishop, would these be the same elites that know better than the rest of us and changed the law to expressly prevent homosexual people from getting married, and that overturned NT legislation permitting euthanasia? Or were they different elites that were busy telling us that they know better than the rest of us how we should live and die?

charles says:

12:09pm | 08/09/09

2nd visit to this article today.  Interestingly there are so few comments on the poverty issue, doesn’t that just show what a vain a self absorbed society we are!

Ms B offered suggestions on the poverty issue & this barely rated acknowledgement in reply from the readers.  OK. Ms B.  I’ll begin.  Hadn’t heard of Results Australia before - now I know a bit more: http://www.results.org.au .  Everyone who reads this article should spend at least as much time on the results web site, maybe while they are consuming their latte & melting moment.  Perhaps if readers gave the price of their daily treat (cost of even one coffe or cake), or one morning of their time to this organisation we’d achieve two objectives:
1) Create a healthier (not necessarily thinner) population - thinking of others is healthy for the mind and body.
2) Make strides in generating the public and political will to end poverty - the objective of Results Australia.

Thanks for apprising me of the work of Results Australia.

michael says:

12:50pm | 08/09/09

In who’s best interest is it to let multinational corporations to market and sell fat, salt and sugar laden rubbish to our kids. The kids or the corporation?

Matt Worthington says:

01:25pm | 08/09/09

Charles,

Poverty - HMMMMM maybe our 4 billion dollar contribution in external aid isnt the problem.

Keep in mind that the worlds population is around 6,733,164,238

In a particular country they have a population of 1,130,618,000 with an area of 3,287,263(km2) and a density of 344 people (km2).
Around 1/6 of the worlds population in just one country.
United Nations World Population Prospects (2004 revision)

Poverty, human rights abuse, female and child abuse is a global problem and is endemic in certain countries.

Countires providing aid to suffering areas is wonderful but doesnt seem to make a dent. Though Its not from a lack of aid.

What these affected countries need is a change of attitude, education and heavy policing to the univerally accepted standard of human rights..
Of course this can not be achieved as it could be seen as a dictatorship and massive resistance occurs.

Throwing money at it doesnt help much and attitude readjustment will always be met with complete resistance.

How to solve this problem will either be drastic or a reluctantly accepted fact of modern global life. 

Tis a quandary.

pc says:

01:29pm | 08/09/09

People who havent met Bron, I hear, like her. I dont believe it though.

Daniel says:

02:01pm | 08/09/09

The BMI topic:
Well it’s either use penalty measures such as taxes or truly educate the public about long-term issues such as health and lifestyle choices.
One will cost the government up-front (and allow the opposition to ridicule and appeal the the lowest common denominator) and the other allows a source of income.  Of course education measures done properly will LIKELY both reduce the overall costs (which again would take some educating of the public for them to understand) and provide a higher quality of life.  Applying taxes to penalize those who consume is an inefficient way to go about it but at least someone has the guts to try (I guess you need less guts when you have such a high approval rate).  will the liberals again cut the ABC budget if they are put into power, thereby reducing (what I imagine) is the largest non-advertiser sponsored education of the public.
Saying that the elitist would use BMI is a bit of a laugh - perhaps the faux elitist may. You’ll find BMI as a measure of health is not very specific and is quite outdated, but I guess it appears often enough in Dolly for you to think it’s still scientific (is an equation with a vinculum all you need?)
In any case - are you saying we don’t have an obesity problem? By the time the liberals are back in obese people will likely be the majority - smart move Bronwyn.

Leah says:

02:26pm | 08/09/09

The BMI scale is great. It helps tell people whether they’re in a healthy weight range or not. (NB: it’s not absolute because someone a person might be over the healthy BMI range, but they might be a pro footballer with nothing but muscle). However, trying to dictate what people eat and forcing them to behave a certain way by introducing taxes and influencing advertising (or indeed legislating) isn’t right.

Diversity is great… as long as we aren’t risking people’s health for the sake of diversity.

A says:

03:42pm | 08/09/09

Has anyone bothered to wonder why we have such an obese nation? Living overseas, I came to find that not only was I healthier and thinner and more active, there were alot less junkfood ads on tv to be tempted to eat more. I have gained weight since living back here and I’ve noticed our tv is full of junk food ads that are very frequent throughout the night. No wonder we are eating ourselves to death with all the suggestive advertising.

MarK says:

03:50pm | 08/09/09

BMI is FAR from perfect, you can be BMI Obese and lean as, However Obese people are ALWAYS BMI obese, just because there are false positives doesnt mean its completely useless

Philip says:

04:00pm | 08/09/09

Gee A at 0342 pm, you admit that you are the weak one who is susceptible to the advertising (you say you have got fat since returning to Australia). You then go on to imply you know there should be government mandated restrictions on advertising. How do you know that your desire for government control is not the result of advertising or other messages from the government? Why do you presume the rest of us are as weak minded as you? Perhaps there should be restrictions on what you and others like you watch but for us adults we will watch what we please. Rules are for fools and the guidance of wise men after all. Have a nice day and don’t watch to much grown up tv.

Sarah says:

04:12pm | 08/09/09

Matt,

I don’t think anyone is advocating “throwing money” at the problem of poverty and if you have a look at the Results Australia website, I think you’ll actually find quite the opposite.  Although they acknowledge that ending poverty will require more aid money Results seems to be equally focused on better spending of aid money.

It’s also completely untrue that aid money doesn’t make a dent, it makes a big one, but lack of greater progress most definitely is from a lack of aid!  Check out the Millennium Villages project. In these selected villages, chosen because they are the worst of the worst, aid is being provided at the levels recommended to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (pretending, for a moment, that the whole developed world is giving their fair share of at least 0.7% of GNI and aid programs are adequately funded). Their progress has been phenomenal.

The system works but these efforts can’t be repeated in every poverty stricken village around the world because, unlike in this hypothetical situation, rich countries do not give their fair share.

And to somehow imply that some countries will remain poor because of their bad “attitude” is just plain ridiculous. I think you’ll find that attitudes adjust significantly with education and that poor governance often requires an uneducated population to be sustained. I think you’ll find a strong correlation between lack of universal primary education and unstable, corrupt governments. Education we can certainly do something about, the rest will likely follow. 

Further, while I honestly think it’s admiral that you are even considering this quandary (since so many don’t even give it a thought) a little research can go a long way. Just like Bronwyn, I reckon you’d end up a fan of microfinance and Results. But what all this has to do with India’s population statistics, I’ll never know. 

PS: Charles, nice one!

Jeff Mueller says:

04:56pm | 08/09/09

So general practicioners are part of this Elite who might have some concern for one’s weight.  Argument weak- shout!

Terry Wright says:

06:34pm | 08/09/09

Those blasted elites. Are they the same elites who prompted BB to dish out The Bishop Report: “The Winnable War on Drugs”? Remember that government enquiry that was critical of Harm Minimisation “elites” whose only concern was to keep their job? They too were academics, scientists, medical experts and specialists in their field. Is that what BB means by elites? Someone who puts science, research and evidence based policies over ideology?

Bronwyn Bishop said in the article,  “The freedom to be an individual and make choices for oneself and one’s family is not to be surrendered.  We need laws to make our society cohesive – not laws to diminish our freedom”.

Ironically, the Bishop Report was all about surrendering those choices and freedoms and especially making society less cohesive. Limiting options for addiction treatment, removing even more freedoms by introducing more drug laws and alienating drug users even more than they are now.

Just for the record, The Bishop Report: “The Winnable War on Drugs” went down like a lead balloon. It was sh*t canned by nearly every drug and alcohol organisation in Australia including welfare groups, semi/government departments and the major advisory groups. It even received a lot of scathing criticism from overseas. Of course BB just wrote off the criticism as sour lemons by the elites.

I was seriously thinking about saying, Bronwyn Bishop is a nasty, hypocritical, pompous old fool ... but I decided against it.

Nick says:

06:42pm | 08/09/09

The hatred that is spewed upon large people is of the same intensity has the hatred that racists have for those of other races. It is interesting that the comments here point to fat people being unhealthy, well it is actually more dangerous to be underweight than overweight, but those who are too thin don’t seem to be abused with the amount of vitriol only reserved for fat people. My Grandmother was overweight all her life and lived until she was ninety and was hardly sick.
Fat people are the new underclass. Once upon a time, big was beautiful, and to slur fat people was considered to be sizest. Now we are a less tolerant and harsher society.

TedRe123 says:

05:56am | 09/09/09

Ms Bishop refers to people who “know better than the rest of us how we should eat, drink”.
Well, unless she has a PhD in medical science, they do know better than the rest of us what we should be eating and drinking. And sorry Ms Bishop, the BMI is a good guide of how overweight you are. Reading this column, it sounds like she’d like to replace it with whatever the individual thinks is right. What crap - in this instance it is simple: if you are over a certain BMI, your risk factors do go up. Everyone will have to pay by way of increased health costs.
The Elites are back in town? Where did they go? On holiday?

COF says:

01:54pm | 09/09/09

Whether you call them “elites”, “fuddy duddys” or by another tag, it is time people stopped calling for legislation to regulate other people’s lives - that is the crux of the BBs argument.
Obesity is the new fad for fuddies, but there are many things out there that are harmful to humans - excessive exercise can also be harmful to humans but there are no squads of exercise police out there going “right you, that’s enough for today - go home and rest”. But there might be if that becomes the next personal habit to go under the microscope.
The taxpayer funded hospital argument is another one that gets me -can you go through all your life choices that may have been a risk to your health and apologise to taxpayers for every one of them? Of course you can’t, you won’t and guess what - you shouldn’t have to.
It might come as a shock to most of you, but you are all going to die - give everyone else the satisfaction of being able to choose how, and live their lives up to that point in a way that makes them happy.

Carol Moran says:

01:53pm | 09/09/09

BMI aside, I was at the Poverty Forum where Bronwyn Bishop, Julie Bishop (Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Leader of the Coalition), Hugh Evans (Global Poverty Project presenter) and Jim Goddard (Manly-Manado community exchange) were panelists on what was essentially a Q&A style meeting. 
I was heartened to see that the question of WHETHER we should help the poorest of the poor was a no-brainer for all on the panel and all who attended. I was also impressed to note that all were seeking for ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our aid money. 
Bronwyn’s obvious passion for all things relating to empowering women so that they are in a position to look after themselves, their families and ultimately their community, ,was really a beautiful thing to observe (Don’t l augh!).  Politics is a tricky business and it is great to see an area that can arouse strong positive feelings in someone who has been around the traps for an impressive number of years.
The question of how to ensure that our aid to the world’s poorest be best delivered was one that the pollies seemed to be asking for our input.

I therefore challenge the readers of this blog to stop worrying about their BMI and their “rights’ when we live in such a fortunate country - even if we have been made redundant in the GFC, we can at least go and line-up at Centrelink for assistance - and to start getting involved in communities who can see beyond their own circumstances and actively work towards helping others who are unable to help themselves.

Bronwyn seems to be asking us to do just that, get involved and show the pollies where and how we want them to spend our overseas aid budget.

Sandra says:

02:51pm | 09/09/09

“Fat people are the new underclass. Once upon a time, big was beautiful, and to slur fat people was considered to be sizest. Now we are a less tolerant and harsher society. “

Nick, I would argue that thin is the new nigger. There are very few people we’re allowed to be horrible about any more. This is a good thing. We’ve learnt (well, most of us have learnt) that it’s unacceptable to insult people based on their race, gender, height, age or size – not if they’re overweight, anyway. But somehow, skinny women fell through the cracks. Maybe because they’re so skinny, get it?  Ha ha. See, there you go, that’s a perfect example of an insidious trend: Skinny Bashing. Can you imagine making a joke about fat people? I never would. But skinny people get no such protection, no such social courtesy because…they’re skinny. It seems to be as simple as that.

Am I the only one who is getting really tired of body image nonsense? My current body image pet peeve is the use of the word “curvy”. This is a word that people CONSTANTLY use to describe overweight women. If one is overweight and actually has a discernable waist. then great, one deserves the title. However, if one is a bit large with measurements that are about the same from breasts to waist to hips, then I fail to see how that is “curvy”. Likewise, why don’t I deserve to be called curvy? My waist is 24 inches and my hips are 35 inches. Just because I’m small I’m, apparently,  less “curvy” than a thicker girl, despite having a larger hip to waist ratio.
This “curvy” term annoys me for two very important reasons. Firstly, it is part of this strange turn in what we call “body acceptance”, but is really just thin bashing instead of fat bashing.  Suddenly fat girls are “real women” and insinuation is that thin girls are not “real”. So now I am a ‘fake’ woman because I am not fat. Apparently the only way a woman past puberty can be thin is via anorexia or bulimia or drugs.  I have been sneered at and insulted in public when I am seen eating an ice-cream or burger.  I hear scoffs when I assert that I am “naturally thin” and I am scowled at for having the temerity to wear a waist hugging dress.
This does not encourage body acceptance, but simply body bashing on the other end of the spectrum. It is just shifting the target of discrimination.
Secondly, this isn’t just crappy for thin girls, it’s crappy for big girls too. When one calls a big girl “curvy”, even if she isn’t, you are perpetuating the notion that being fat, thick, big, whatever you want to call it, is loaded with semantic baggage. We have to used some sanitised euphemism because “Fat” is a pejorative. This Newspeak is self-censorship BECAUSE we allow these more accurate descriptors to be considered insulting.

Martin says:

02:56pm | 09/09/09

Ms. Bishop, like a number of other contributors to this blog I was very happy to see you talk about a commitment to reducing extreme poverty.

However I do think that you need to be careful making statements such as the “single most effective tool we have is the use of micro finance”. Whilst micro-finance is an excellent tool which has produced some outstanding results in poverty reduction, effective poverty reduction programs need to be a mix of policies and initiatives which involve both aid, government loans and personal loans (micorfinance). Microfiance cannot be relied upon to erradicate crippling diseases such as malaria and AIDs, provide basic education or build critical infrastructure such as roads and power distribution.

As a simple example, at some point a woman producing baskets using funds from a microfinance loan will hopefully want to expand by selling these outside her village. However if the government of that country has been unable to build roads to connect her village then her ability to do this will be very limited thereby reducing the effectiveness the microfinance tool.

Sue says:

05:06pm | 09/09/09

What gets me is the amazing juxtapositioning of 2 issues in this ‘blog’-  overweight people in our culture and the starving millions in some developing countries.
I agree we should drop the BMI debate, and seriously look at the poverty of one sixth of the world’s population. It’s pure luck that I live in Australia which gives me opportunities to live well and safely. It’s sheer bad luck that the children in poor nations lack the chance to go to school, eat well, drink clean water, have no sanitation and don’t get medical support when ill. Not even a cheap insecticide impregnated mosquito net to protect against getting malaria. /These are all very basic resources/services we all take for granted. And they are precisely the meat of each of the 8 Millennium development goals, which the world agreed to strive to achieve in 6 years time - 2015.
Yeah, RESULTS website is a good place to start to educate ourselves about poverty and what each of us can do.
Let’s do it!!

Jeff Mueller says:

02:44pm | 10/09/09

Nick, you’re nearly right - the underclass are the new fat.  In the 18th & 19Th centuries (and still, in developing countries) being overweight was a sign of wealth.  Now there’s almost a direct correlation between poverty in the developed world and obesity, smoking, diabetes and increased disease,