It has been a while, since health organizations and the government have been trying to implement measures to drop considerably the number of obese people in the UK.

A survey published early this year has shown an increasing number of people, specially women as victims of weight gain blamed on their hectic lifestyle and much demanding work and household roles. According to this survey, 40% of British women have seen their weight reach the sky line while juggling motherhood, career and the fierce pressure from society to keep or improve their looks.

Instead of gain confidence, women tend to feel depressed when they fail to keep up with the demanding market of beauty.

In Britain only, it is estimated that over 20 weekly magazines on celebrity are published to a group of over 10 million! Apart from the famous and their lives, this kind of material talks about another subject that is everybody’s curiosity: weight loss. Usually celebrity weight loss!

The whole net works integrating heavy publicity, marketing and the consumers buying behavior that motivates one in social, cultural, psychological and personal levels.

Conscious or not, readers of celebrity magazines, who are greatly represented by women, start buying the imposition from the media and soon see themselves trapped in a picture that sells: beauty = happiness.

Surely all of us should up to a certain point, worry about finding the right stimulation that would help us to reach happiness. However, we need to be aware of how slaves we become of the whole package of beauty, fitness that delivers satisfaction.

Published by the British edition of “Glamour” magazine, the article about finding your happy weight intends to rest women’s mind about the constant concern on one or two inches lost or gain. But in fact, the beauty/fitness dictation is so obvious in the article. If we were to be over all that sort of extreme behavior, why on earth are we still talking about it, anyway?

Frankly, I understand as a priority the feeling of well being. It should not be the norm eating burgers and chips in a daily basis and ignore the wonders and privilege of eating the world in fruit and vegetables. Nowadays, we can have sweet oranges from Spain, then bananas from Costa Rica, or maybe try the succulent Sicilian tomato and a tender piece of New Zealand lamb.

So, why do we keep stuffing ourselves with crisps, chocolate and tasteless ready meals? Because they are surely tempting. So, have we forgotten how our grannies used to eat? They would have the old pyramid of carbs, veggies, fruits, sugar followed strictly. And guess what: they were rather slim.

The fact is, we are in these days, spoilt by options: some healthy ones, other, not so much. As a result, we end up eating every section from the supermarket.

In multicultural places such as London, we can have a latte and croissant to kick off the day, followed by a bar of chocolate or a bag of crisps as a mid morning snack and end up the day in a curry feast followed by two or three glasses of red or white.

That would be quite an average eating habit in daily London.

Of course, the concern about how fat we are getting, exists. But why poor people tend to be fatter or larger than wealthy ones? Simply because with 20 pence, you can afford a bar of chocolate, but you cannot afford a pack of strawberries.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, following the tendency of trying to insert good eating habits in the young population, launched a show where kids and teens would help him to prepare tasty healthy meals while they would try to ditch junk food from their lunch boxes.

However, facing the reality, I would not be surprised to find out that every kid has got a bag of crisps they “kill” while poor Jamie is on.

Eating well should be common sense. But greed speaks louder disguised as lack of time to eat properly and the convenience of opening a pack of any junk and fill our stomachs and fat deposits.

A new book on weight loss, “Why French women don’t get fat”, tries, obviously to go through the habits of the French known as a slim people.

I myself wonder:

Why Italian women don’t get fat once they eat all the tasty and forbidden food as we learn?

Why Japanese women are, in majority, skinny and elegant?

And why British women are getting bigger every day?

Then, I came up with an answer:

French women eat French food.

Italian women eat Italian food.

Japanese women eat Japanese food

British women eat the world!

By: Nara Vidal