Fabio Marchioro

The cardinal rule for all deep sea divers is this: plan your dive and dive your plan. It’s plain and simple: follow your plan or you will die. On the other hand, as many overweight people know, it is easy to plan a diet but, gosh, how hard it is to stick to it. And how easily all those Sunday night, practical and healthy decisions crumble when faced with a pint of ice-cream, a bar of your favorite chocolate, a crunchy sizzling pizza or a burger with two gigantic slices of bacon and a side of putin. And another week goes by. No gym, no time, no will, no health.

Obesity leads to cancer. Is it a rule? For you, it most definitely is, if you are part of the 33.33% of Canadians who are now undergoing chemotherapy due to a cancer related to obesity problems. That is a fair assessment from the report released last week in London by the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund.

Based on 7,000 studies, the report calls on governments to legislate healthy living, such as mandatory walking and cycling paths, better prices for healthier food, bans on ads and built-in exercise opportunities for children in schools. The report authors, in a bold move, noted that individuals bear responsibility for health and should change their lifestyles accordingly.

Is it pleasant to wake up in the morning and have the government in your kitchen forbidding you to have peanut butter as part of your breakfast? Or not allowing you to buy a six pack at LCBO? Of course not. But the thing is, obesity, especially in Britain, as reported in December 2008 by the Information Center, has reached numbers that resemble an epidemic. And like an epidemic it will be treated. Which means, a decisive and firm action is about to be taken by the English Government.

According to the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), 23.1% of Canadians aged 18 or older, an estimated 5.5 million adults, had a body mass index of 30 or more, indicating that they were obese. Were it a contagious disease affecting 5.5 million adults, let alone children, what would be the Canadian government’s response? It would take immediate action. Maybe it is time to picture, in vivid colors, a government official raiding your kitchen cabinets, looking for “CC”: candy contraband.

Civil libertarians cries’ will reach high heavens, but we should consider the strain that this epidemic is about to create on the health care system. Heart attacks, diabetes, back problems and, of course, cancer, will have to be treated. The question is: who should pay for an illness created by a lifestyle? Pathologies aside, we all can differentiate between a healthier salad and an “instant-heart-attack” kind of meal. Are we up to the task?