18th November 2002
"What," bellowed the red faced man into his mobile phone as he strode towards me in Baggot Street. "What do you mean she's in great form sitting down eating an ice cream! She's supposed to be on a diet." With steam coming out of his ears he went past me leaving me to conjure up a picture of who "she" was at the other end.
It was a lovely sunny day - was it his little daughter who had been taken by a kind aunt to the zoo but who could barely bend down to tie her buttoned shoes and whose family doctor was in despair about all the treats the little dote had? Or was it his mother whose cardiologist had said the day before "One more banana split and she'll croak" except in cardiological terms? Or was he trying to form one of these ghastly boy/girl bands and the last girl who was to make up the team was not capable of fitting into the clothes of the one who had lied about her age and had to be discarded and the new candidate was being pared down surgically to fit into the old costumes and avoid expense? The list of possibilities is endless because chubbier we are certainly getting.
Years ago I read Susie Orbach's book "Fat is a Feminist Issue". Mentioning that fat was even more a health issue would not go down well with her, I felt. No one wants to encourage eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia but the most common eating disorder at the moment is surely overeating. I am at a loss to understand why Anne Marie Hourihane of the Sunday Tribune thinks Linda Green of T.V. fame is huge because she takes size 16. That is the most common size in Ireland now.
We have caught the American overeating disease in style. On 14 November, Diabetes Day, I met the American Secretary of State for Health, Tommy Thompson. Like me he is doing his best to urge people to take notice of what they eat in composition and quantity and also to take more exercise. With the reduction in funds for the health services, and with our huge drugs bill, we must try to get through to people the value of even moderate exercise.
In a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine there are the results of a trial of moderate daily exercise against metformin in reducing blood sugar and the exercise won hands down. And this was in people with an average BMI of 34. Metformin is not an expensive drug but wouldn't Micheál Martin's heart lift if he did not have to pay for it and instead we all went out for a walk and enjoyed ourselves? This is not the first time such results have been published but it seems very difficult to have them put into practice.
There was never a social cache to being fat in Ireland. In some countries, particularly in the developing world, fatness shows one is doing well and able to eat plenty. At least we do not have such a traditional attitude to overcome so why not walk up the stairs if one is only going one or two flights rather than taking the lift?
Secretary of State Tommy Thompson gave me a present when we met. It was his own pedometer. I am delighted with it and keep checking during the day to see how I am doing. The first day I did over 10,000 steps and that only involved walking into the hairdressers in town and home again and back around to the shops to get the things I had forgotten to buy on the way home. Now I don't step out in seven league boots but I reckon I must have done about seven kilometres. Apparently one should aim at 30 to 35 kilometres per week and I had done a fifth of it without going for a walk at all. Down the South Wall on Sunday morning with my neighbour, Mary Banotti, to settle the world (we have expanded from just Europe thanks to George W. Bush) clocked up over 5,000. I hope I don't become such a bore telling people how I am doing but checking the score on the dial every now and then is most cheering.
Some time ago I had two very sensible Americans in to lunch in Leinster House, (sensible not only because they agreed with me about George W.) and they said how pleased they were with the more manageable helpings of food one got in Ireland. I can assure you no politician dies of starvation because of the amount of food we get in the restaurant but "portion control" is no bad thing.
Recently one of my sons was in Canada and brought home some real maple syrup. Now I normally just make pancakes if we get hold of any of this delicious substance but despite the fact that I have no waffle iron I decided I would try making proper waffles. Down came "The Joy of Cooking", a wonderful American cookbook and I looked up waffles. Apart from one and three quarters cups of flour for six waffles I was advised to use a tablespoon of sugar, six eggs, 2 to 7 tablespoons of melted butter, 2 teaspoons baking powder and one and half cups of milk. There was further advice on delicious sauces and other toppings. Fearing that if I ate these concoctions I would have to follow the advice in another article in the same N.E.J.M. and jog 17 to 18 miles per week to get down my lipo proteins I just made pancakes.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
