1st The Problems : then Solutions !*
Health Hydro – start of NHS included Swimming Pools
I’ll start my train of thought on this topic on the railways. Swindon specifically, the town named after a Danish King Swein Forkbeard who brought us home his Danish bacon – we have all heard of Wiltshire Ham, we ate Wild Boar before similar to Asterix and Obelix in Roman times. As in this town railway workers collectively pooled their funds to improve the health of both themselves, the workers and the health of their families. They built what is now known as the Health Hydro right by the Railway Village. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1382135 This started with funding one Doctor in 1847, and by 1868 a swimming pool was included + washing facilities in 1869. This was the inspiration for the NHS. Only the NHS only embraced the sickness bit, not the health bit, and looking at Covid cases with obesity it is clear that this needs to happen.
‘There it was. A complete health service in Swindon. All we had to do was expand it to the whole country.’ Nye Bevan.
https://swindonian.me/2020/06/26/healthcare-history-and-swindon/
Currently the small pool is closed, which we have had to fight locally for this part of the building to be turned into flats, what with people getting fat more flats are not required but sporting facilities are and also the Oasis just down the road is not open We are still fighting for that one, @SaveOasis https://www.saveoasisswindon.co.uk/ which started using Covid as a reason which was engineered into an excuse with a prospective ‘rebuild’ for closure, incredible. Both facilities used to be owned outright by the Council, but what with 80% of funds going into housing increasing population numbers, particularly in less well off areas who are too busy working to have the energy to fight back at the end of the day, and social care not being funded as a National Health Service Department responsibility, but it being regressively placed on Council Tax funds, which means the poor that work to pay for everything experience nothing positive themselves. Sports facilities have been degraded and as they have been sold off we are priced out of our own facilities, the entry fees have risen. We paid for these in the first place, then when most can’t afford to go they threaten to flatten them or turn them into flats making us fatter and fatter. Council have sold off these assets so we have lost out on our health and gained further restricting weight. We deserve to be cared about. They don’t care about us. Where is their duty of care to us?
I think all the food based ideas lack something, like Marcus Rashford and the still a bit fat Tom Kerridge – now Josceline and David Dimbleby’s son Henry have also joined in with The National Food Strategy, he owns the London based restaurant chain Leon which when I looked had fried food on the intro-loop – they are somewhat detached from reality. One recipe, I noticed in an Aldi magazine, of Tom’s and Marcus’s Full time: Get Cooking contains American Mustard. I thought “what’s that?” which sums it up really, they also contain one specific item that will need buying, something not simple, and have many steps to prepare them, certainly not fast food from Rashford and Kerridge. The recipes are a hodge podge of weirdity, not standard fare that could be done day after day at minimal cost and a growth of self-confidence in catering for yourself – unlike Delia Smith’s approach in How to Cook – explaining, non-patronisingly about everything including how to boil an egg. Not everyone has had this guidance, this does not make them thick, it just makes them ready to consume at high cost to themselves food that others have made and who want to sell it to you, a great business model for them, which probably explains the plethora of personalities wishing to get engaged in making people feel low about their skills in this area, which they do not want them to gain. There have been more than one generation without food education, so as there is no-one to teach you how are you supposed to learn. In the midst of this there was a trend I remember, that of space food of the future, dried food is one example, freeing women mainly from the kitchen, though ironically we are being ‘led’ by men in this field. Misled perhaps by this. France which used to be slim is not so much any more. I did notice in recent years that schools were no longer creating their orderly meals but were, like us, buying them in pre-made from a massive factory. Personally I’d recommend them to return to being more French with food.
Loads of Nurses in NHS are fat 25% in fact, so clearly all the knowledge in the world is not helping either.
There’s probably a lifestyle issue here, with the rewards of food presents patients give them, it is hard to be rude and say no, particularly when you’re hungry and especially when you’re on a night shift and all decent catering has closed. Catering within the ‘Health’ service is scientific rather than good, it is not nutritional. Many top chefs have tried, for years. It seems that when you think you know it all, I’m thinking the consultants and hospital managers you are not open to learning from others. We all need to learn from others.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-blueprint-for-better-hospital-food
Tonnes of apps: https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/ clearly not working so needs an original approach. We also use and subscribe to apps like we subscribe to gyms – some are free others cost a lot, clearly, looking at all the evidence around about few are effectively working.
Talking about it might be part of the problem, not the solution it sells itself to be. I think we need a different way to weigh less. Not a lose weight loser approach, more one focussed on winning, upbeat, happy, non supressional freezing all action. Often the reaction to when a fat person starts to get excited and move about in a lively way is to consider their behaviour indisciplined and to order them to stop, to freeze, to never burn up calories. Whereas we encourage the slim, we do not give them our additional burdens, often we support them in every way. To change we need to change our attitudes to this and our approach.
SOLUTIONS
Here we go with my List of Ideas for this:
Fitness dipping in and out rather than full on dangerous and off-putting – too much too soon – instructional rather than dictational.
Often when you start to go to a fitness class – they push you too far and make you feel you can’t stop even if it is a bit much for you, you agonisingly finish the lesson, say see you next time and never go back there.
I’ve had this book by Lyn Marshall, Yoga for your Children for years, I had it as a child and was inspired by it. In it, it says if it is hurting in any way to stop. This is a very good approach at the start when you need to not have injuries and you need it to feel fun to encourage you to do more in the future. I’d have round the clock Yoga sessions where the instructors could change periodically, like sign language interpreters do, and people can go in and out of the class as it suits them, no pressure to keep going for an hour when you did nothing last week – no-one does a couch to 5K in a day, it’s unrealistic and unsafe.
We all like watching telly. On telly in the breaks between programmes I think there should be transition exercises demonstrated – some will need 4D cartoons to show the inner workings as pulling your bum in repeatedly whilst on your seat is not very visible on the exterior – 3D obviously with the 4th the interior dimensions to show you how it’s done, a constant ‘Don’t Just Sit There (Why Don’t You Do Something Less Sedentary Instead)’ mini length series – little exercises you can do whilst doing other stuff – every little helps as they say in Tesco’s.
Once or twice I’ve wanted to have a go on the swings, they are surprisingly good exercise in that, like swimming, they support all your body, and they use all your muscles in your body at once, both exhilarating and exhausting. Last time I did this in an area just off a playground I really enjoyed it but when kids came along intending to use them from afar I got off and focussed down at the grass whilst walking away, I wished they had not turned up just yet. Those swings are now gone which is a pity, they were sturdy Wicksteed ones, certainly strong enough to carry an equally sturdy grown-up and out. I’d plant loads of those plus some wide boys with thick chains for big chaps all across the land, we could all have a whale of a time turning out fat into fit.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5611447/Wicksteed-park-wants-recreate-1920s-playground.html
Only last week I saw a crop circle as evening was drawing in, on my way there I went past a play park in Upham Hampshire. I was tempted to try the slides, thinking one would be too narrow from a distance, when I got close I happy found out it was not, and another bumpy slide and a tunnel I just had to crawl through – I tried the adult gym stuff too after that (the swings looked too fragile for me to be fair, I did not give them a go) The thing is with all this I did a fair few steps with the reward being the thrill of it all. We need more slides, much less boring than steps on a counter. I’ve seen a hill at my local community centre in Swindon that would be perfect for a snakes and ladders arrangement, I remember as a kid going up concrete domes with stones on them – mini Silbury Hills – in Bradford, with slides down, in the 70s when I went to stay with my Grandma, memories of great joy.
I think it would be good to have open to use gym mats too, with a large floor area and other proper gymnastic gym equipment to use too. And many of those multi-sport mini arenas everywhere.
It would certainly be great and Schools would certainly score A*s all the way if their sports facilities were open to all, they have a lot of fantastic facilities that lie dormant in the late afternoons, evenings, all weekends and loads of weeks when it is perfect weather to be playing outdoors and yet children are stuck indoors on screens with snacks in hand getting fatter when they should be out and about safely independent getting fitter. Most people, what with the increased population number do not have the space at home for much, so their lack of movement is also making the population bigger, leading to loss of more space to move around. This is doing their heads in. So I would open up not only the sports facilities but for mental and social health the art and craft, music and science labs – most science is observed as if it were on telly, it needs to be experienced and experiments need to be done to learn discernment of facts from fiction, in the long term this steadies the nerve. Also social education in the form of board games, they are only bored when played by one or sat in their boxes, the real fun comes with the banter and chatting you get to have with others without the awkwardness of having to come up with another detail of your life until nothing newsworthy to share exists, this sort of activity makes you realise that you do have friends to play with which is a real boost to your mental health. These should be open to all, all the time when the schools are not using them with pupils.
I’d even put Public Libraries in schools, there are a decreasing band of people who want to keep them as they are, this is because we get our Reference Library information online now, and there are little sharing libraries, without fines – that’s what lost me; all the money I was losing getting a life and forgetting to return them on time. I’d let everyone register the books they had at home they were willing to share too, so this becomes a mega-library. Many public libraries seem to attract less lively personalities, learning should be a fun, lively and active experience. I feel a bit dull going out of them sometimes. And Silence is so hard to do too. Putting them in schools would wake them up a bit. You should be able to access University Standard Literature and Facts from anywhere, you have after all paid for all of that in your taxes, so why should you be denied access to your estate, and then be termed in derision the uneducated uninformed masses, when your work and due diligence created all of that. Equality of education is essential. We all need to travel in the mind and up our game career wise.
People often say it is a Free Country – I would like it to be. Free Swims and Everything Else
In the UK we pay a lot of tax for and to the NHS- the National Health Service – it is supposed to be free at the point of use – other countries have different Health provision models, but as we are not getting healthier, in fact the exact opposite, it’s clearly evidentially obvious medical medicines are not the only solutions. We need free access to exercise facilities like swimming pools, that is the solution I’m thinking of.
In the countryside in order to provide sufficient sporting facilities I would return Council Tax payments and other tax rebates for those who share their home facilities with others. There are those with swimming pools in their gardens or attached to their houses, and others with tennis courts too. There are those with tiny gardens in the country too. Farm land could be turned into foot ball pitches, cricket grounds, and to return some outdoor space to those backing on to their fields to become better back gardens. They could grow some healthy fresh vegetables there too. I would include free access too to Horse Riding out in the country as it is not as easy to form a team with fewer numbers to enable social sports. For the heavier rider Shire horses, a rare breed these days, should be available – to a point to be fair on the horse of course. Horse Riding is very relaxing both for the rider and those that hear the sound of hooves as they go past. I would require farmers to have a better attitude to dog walkers and joggers to make them provide good off road tracks and spaces where they felt welcome to be free within, as to most the countryside is in reality a prohibitive place. This land did, at one point, belong to us all collectively and we have paid the subsidies more that sufficiently, we ought not be turfed off our own land!
Rich footballers and sports fields – I always think when seeing their high salaries and fast cars, that they could think of others and make their mark across the land whilst preventing green fields from disappearing by buying them up and putting their names on them. David Beckham has his Academy which is very good. But acres are being built over as more people become overweight – Lineker’s Acres does have a happy ring to it, I’m thinking of a location in Leicester for that one, good for both Walkers, Runners and Football players and others. Once you’re on the map there is a permanent record of your presence on the planet, which personally I think is great!
https://www.idealnutrition.com.au/convert-calories-to-kilojoules/
Newton work in gyms – no work done at all not going anywhere not achieving anything – so like I said in my Balloon post where I discuss lots of little ways of saving the planet via energy generation – a workout here would be much more fulfilling if it have an actual purpose, other than making you look great and sooo attractive to others – personally I analyse the torsos of men – that is what I am attracted to, and being political am impressed by fit leaders – I think those that find ladies attractive also are looking at their physical attributes and enjoying them, so making yourself look great is not an entirely selfish activity because the result gives others a lot of pleasure, with them taking photos and videos in their minds to store to view later to make themselves smile on a grey day.
https://soundlandscapes.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/la-fonatine-stravinsky-and-its-sounds/
The design of gyms could improve, what I’m thinking is if you did weights, lifting stuff, could that not be uplifting water to then see it flow from on high – hydraulic power powered by you – my mind is on the Pompidou Centre exterior right now when I’m thinking this – how about rowing machines that take you up rivers and across seas, and make you feel like you are actually there – the sound of water, visuals and buffeting as in reality – ace preparation for a mission. Bikes that could take you on Le Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Britain and on and on – colourful gym equipment, a bit of fun to ease away and distract from the pain, a much more attractive environment, less torture chamber more force for good.
Many people with good resolution at the time of purchase create their own gyms at home. They could using this system – your NHS QR Code card scanned on entry to pay the person whose equipment it is from the NHS as above for the country, both for the town. You may well make friends and can gear each other up for better performances.
Accessible access to walk in and jog in and run in and around your local area – particularly in the countryside and specifically to enable positive dog walking.
Borough and Country Parks car parking charges = exclusivity = many poor people getting out and about in these place less – again paid for by Council Tax in the main: so so unfair. People must be encouraged not prohibited at all times to move about freely. As organisations have sought to profit from fresh air people have become staler and fed up with it too – this affects their reactions to external activities, for example, why should the increasingly restricted person have the desire to back the freedom of movement across an entire continent for others when they are losing freedoms to many places locally, they need to look after themselves and to be allowed to do this.
I look at places like Buckingham Palace and think they’ve got a swimming pool, tennis courts and potential for a football pitch – I really don’t know why One hasn’t drawn one on the lawn for all the people for all of the time (if you’re not keen on us there then we want a different ruler over us) that isn’t otherwise used for anything else but Summer Garden parties where food is eaten, why not something permanently active. It is really weird that this has not happened what with William’s Football Association connections, why would he not associate such thoughts here, very odd? I’ve thought for a while that Buck House would make an Ace Sports Centre what with the complete square corridor – an all year round indoor running track is what I have been thinking for years.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2448791/Prince-William-wears-Wayne-Rooneys-boots-Buckingham-Palace-football-match.html a one off by One of them
I have also imagined a game I call in my own mind Quickie Footie where you need to have no kit but a ball to kick, using all the widths as goals and it only being off side if it goes off the long sides – at least with this cheap version a decent number of goals would be scored!
I think it would help too if you can make your own dream for others a dream you can achieve. What I not in the spectators at football matches are some spectacularly huge stomachs, yes I do know of the good goalkeeper who really did eat all the pies, he was questioned on this a lot, by supporters, no-one and nothing got past him! I’m thinking that the Football and other ball sports should have Uni-Leagues – no separations – so all can move to get to the Top faster in our own rights, not just sat on your bottoms watching others get to the top – try to join them, aim higher !-!
I have thought through the detail of this e.g. more players on the pitch for little people – a kind of Paralympics comparison of all sorts to create a level playing field.
New cards to add to the Red and Yellow – I have thought of the cheats Green card for acting – like the Equity card. When players fake what they act up as a fatal injury, then as soon as the referee gives a Yellow or Red to the other side they Miraculously Fully Recover! And now a Blue, was inspired to think of this watching vicious criminal behaviour against England – Actual Bodily Harm, arrestable normally, so this Blue card will be a massive penalty to ensure all play with all sorts is safe – the Police are called the People in Blue, hence the colour of the card.
I’ve got other details – lots of them – to make this work – please do ask. What we need is Constant Contests for all those who like that sort of thing. Fight it out in sport not as a spectator. Join Fight Club – you choose whether or not you talk about it or not!
Minilympics – this would be The most appropriate contest for us all to hold up and down the land, Pierre de Coubertin was actually inspired by our recreation of the Olympics in Ancient Greece, we were seriously into the Classics whilst firing up the World with our Industrial Revolution. The Modern Olympics started at Much Wenlock and The Paralympics at Stoke Mandeville, hence the mascots having the letters W and M on their taxi light foreheads.
I’m thinking in terms of teams, like Houses in School, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow:
You can locally call your own what you like,
You can choose or make up your own sports – as long as they are physically active – no exertion nor exercise activities are not allowed
The scores each Colour makes can be added to the local and national scores (I remember in Primary School not being motivated to do anything just for me, when I went up to the next level everything we did went towards the House scores, that made me feel good, doing it for the team, we won together)
You can make your own medals – for kids or for fun for adults – out of whatever you can find – I made cookie medals for London 2012 – after a lot of rigorous vigorous activity they might well be deserved and would go down well!
I have thought of a new logo for a parallel Olympics – being that people are becoming more aware of all sorts of categories of people and even though you may be keen on a sport your body type does not win in it, kind of bodyframist – it does combine elements of each + both contests I dream of being conducted simultaneously, like the Commonwealth Games now are.
A ring of solid dots like emoji heads in all the colours of the rainbow with paralympic swirls (like commas) like arms reaching out to hold each other in all the skin tones of the world. A conversation of togetherness. That’s how I see it.
All are included together. It would be a dream if that could happen in time for Paris 2024.
….. …. … .. .
Certificates and Badges – rewards for all sports, not just martial arts colours – currency incentives, with the certificates being like bank notes and the badges coins: I think the reason that martial arts are so popular with many people is that you can work towards different belt colours. There is a syllabus, an aim, a goal. There are schemes in most sports, it’s just they are seldom open to adults, so that it takes parental support as a child for you to participate in these. I have researched and desired to do them since I was 18 – probably because they weren’t openly generous with them when I was a child. I have imaged a lovely collection of them.
I did do Gymnastics and Swimming, I managed to complete B.A.G.A. up to 2 when I was 18 and then complete the set in 2005 though 1 was issued if you had done 7-2. I was planning on continuing. I was doing the Swim Fit accumulative awards, sending off for the next one when I needed to motivate myself. They stopped this without warning and kept my last record card, and tried to subscribe me onto a new now Sponsored by British Gas computer based thing, I’ve got Excel so thought I could do that at home. When they were sponsored by Frosties they were great. Soon after Al Qaeda did what looked like a bit of a gym display in the desert, they released their training video of this and at the same time the World Trade centre memorial pools had just been created – so I had to stop and get real – did not want to though – I would have preferred a more positive life in a dream, not a nightmare. I should have died on 9/11 because I had suggested a new oil free, totally green transport system – still no-one is doing this as I imagined, batteries are very heavy, I factored that in from the start and thought of a better way. They knew I was a real threat to their funding model with my ideas for freedom. An additional one suggested at the time was and still is Power to the People which would include Electricity Generating Bicycles and other purposeful gym equipment which with your own purposeful power would power up the grid. You cannot be more motivated than that, your Calories or Kilo Joules burnt up to save the planet from burning. My transport system also included a way to cycle powerfully on it. Please get in touch I want to make this dream come true.
People need different motivations to get them moving and we are all different in that, I wrote a letter to Madonna with this as part of the content of it:
Psycho-Physical Famine Disorder – skinny news presenters in war zones or presenting miserable doom and gloom news you can do nothing about affecting viewers – powerlessness = vulnerability > build yourself up to survive the disaster & repeat > piling on the pounds ad infinitum …
and sent her a Love Hearts sweets coat hook pair with Hung up on You on one and Hooked on You on the other, the first one referencing a song called Hung Up of hers, she released her album Hard Candy after this with the same font. It took me a while to realise that the sweets were muscles from sweats from Dancing on and on. Night Clubs are a thing to fling yourself in to. I give you:
Day Clubs
I love the buzzing sound of electronic and other DJ led Night Club music, I love the LED lights and other ones too. I don’t love that I have to wait all day to go and I prefer chocolate, tea, milk, soft drinks and water to alcohol any day – drugged up sorts scare me and they are unpredictable too. If Night Clubs became Day Clubs I’d be in my element.
I love dancing to music, I got myself a new rainbow pair of Sketchers sneakers for Coldplay’s Head Full of Dreams tour as they had memory foam in so I could jump, jump, jump on in songs that went with – most of them – the colours went with the album art. When I’m dancing to music I can go on and on and on – here’s me quoting Give It To Me from Madonna’s Hard Candy album. It’s all pleasure and no pain. I know I’m not alone in finding this my motivation to move.
I did dream of doing Ballet as a discipline which I thought would help me get the mindset of control to get slimmer. I suggested this to a BBC journalist Andrew Marr, who lived near the Royal Ballet School in the disciplined Sheen at the time. His response was a funny mention of hippos doing ballet on his Sunday Morning Programme AM – I laughed it off, but had serious intent, as they were always advising me on this front. He wasn’t as in control as I had previously assumed and had injuncted a lady to stay silent about an affair – which for a journalist (who I had obviously previously respected) who insisted others answer his pressing questions did not sit well with this role. He had a heart attack soon after and lost the use of one arm. He has now moved, with his wife, whom I really felt for, to the much more liberal Primrose Hill.
I did also try Rowing at Kingston University, I went there as a mature student after 9/11 as I thought – after I had publicly said that the world was a Financial Dictatorship that it was done for me as a result, that I did not wish to inspire such stuff – but the lady instructor was pushing me on my first outing there on the rowing machine, whilst simultaneously saying she had overdone it to permanent damage to her knees. I did not return because clearly that approach was not safe, I never got to row on the water like I was hoping to as a result.
On a lighter note me and my sister did want to get Athletes foot as kids because we thought it would make us run faster!!!
The Olympics and Paralympics are Like sets in school, the Gifted and Talented and the Special Needs, in that there is lots for the top and bottom but not a lot for those in the middle who are just perceived as ordinary, who do not get a mention, get far, far less spent on their needs, for both sports and education. This is not an equal approach and is probably one of the many reasons why the nation is too fat.
Income and job insecurity is another factor, as you cannot risk expending energy when your job may well end at any time, you certainly don’t invest in any membership scheme. And anyway the costs for admission, even for a one-off event are prohibitive, you could buy a lot of food for that, or if you dare with your budget, better quality food. And yet taxing the poor is the only approach the bullying rich with access to everything they need can voice as a solution, really they want this not to be solved so that they can go on and on justifyingly mocking in the eyes of their peers in their own judgemental aristocracy those less able than themselves – let them eat cake – if they are willing to pay through the nose for it!
There is also Maslow’s Needs Theorem, where you focus on the more basic needs first, and cannot focus higher until these are met, so when your basics are threatened, you are going to react in the exact opposite way to what is superficially the reaction that you were intended to do.
It is often said that ‘they’ don’t know how to cook. With an industry of instant meals that has been going on for more than two generations, and the cultural promotion of it on mainstream media, is that a surprise? In education the academic is looked up to the practical frowned down upon. So no help there to learn Home Economics – you don’t know just how true the title of that subject is, knowing how to sew, wire a plug, grow your own and how to cook as a few examples saves you loads of money – yet it is always perceived that this is a subject losers in academia take because they are too thick for anything else. Mmm, I wonder why we have a problem then?
I have a solution – one that is not patronising. You don’t get pushed or overwhelmed by being expected to learn it all, all at once. The current method of teaching is a bit like expecting someone to do School Leaver Exams when they do not know the alphabet or numbers, or to play in a band on stage when they do not know how to sing or play any sort of instrument. You begin with Do Re Mi, A B C, 1 2 3, e t c …
Elements – is what I am calling this. You need to learn to cook an element at a time, and bite by bit, ingredients to combinations you will understand what you are doing and have all the skills to do it.
Pasta and Potatoes – you would either boil a type or microwave, bake or fry one, and would eat what you have made simply with salt or if you have passed another element e.g. cooking tomatoes from a tin or fresh you could add these.
Boiling – e.g. peas and other vegetables, from a tin …
Microwave use
Chopping and Cutting – You would learn these skills and get to take home the chopped vegetable, fruit or other element as your reward.
Eggs in all their different ways
Spices – 1 at a time – when people prepare this food they mystify you with a long list of stuff they have put in – you would make a food item adding only one spice in it, so you can understand its properties.
Herbs – the same as spices, one at a time, for example carrots accompanied by coriander, tomatoes with basil
Baking – making your own cakes is not that unhealthy as you know what goes in them then, again simple ones first.
These are all examples – you would go to a place – say a sports centre, which with my proposals you would have exercised for free, and showered too, useful when you have a boiler breakdown or cannot feed the meter that week. and there you can also complete an Element. You could microwave a potato and then get to eat it with butter there. You’d give them your name so you can have what you have achieved recorded, so like sports awards when you have completed a set you can be given a certificate – you’ll also be able to see what you have learned when you return home, so you can repeat it easily. You can choose what you learn next as long as the foundation Elements for that choice have already been completed. Only one Element a day so like when you learn to read you can remember and recall what you have learned. This is the point. So as you achieve you also build up self-confidence in the kitchen and an independence from instant pre-prepared foods, you can wean yourself off them and fight away the providers of this who are addicted to your money which you also pay for in the detriment of your own health. You take back control of your own body.
Service station food – no cooked vegetables or boiled potatoes etc
What I would do is try to engage good food shops into providing something like this. I remember doing temporary work at Membury Service Station on the M4 on your way Eastbound from Swindon to Newbury, when I was a young adult, and there was a proper kitchen, selling proper food on proper plates like you could prepare for yourself at home or were provided for by decent employers with sufficient staff numbers to justify the scale and size. I’d call the place:
Good Food
As simple as that.
There is a lot you could do with the lettering making it into crockery and cutlery or items of food.
I’m thinking that it would be lovely to get a stew bowl or even that in a cup to take away easily. Possibly for practicality purposes and for freedom of choice the meat could be stewed separate to the prepared cooked vegetables which you could add to it – this may make hygiene simpler too, and freer from the concern of allergies. Stock sauces could also be in separate hot bottles for this reason. All items would have their own serving spoon and you would have your own to stir the items in together. The meat types would be separate, mutton, beef, chicken, vegan…
An all day hot buffet which could include breakfast items so you could choose a flat plate of food. The wisdom of separating the above would be obvious as these could be included in this. The only difference is that you’d be choosing a drier knife and fork meal. The cuts of protein could be stored closely together on different shelves, small and larger sizes. These could be takeaway in card boxes as we have experienced in pandemic lockdown.
Portions would be controlled via server size, and counted, the plates could have a pie chart design on them – fill vegetables within this part, starch for example potatoes in another, and these would be boiled in various ways, also mashed, other styles too including oven or pub chips.
Puddings or deserts of the at least 1 of 5 a day variety would also be available here – cooked fruit with toppings of your desire like crumble, pre-cooked and toasted through, pastry biscuits both short and puff, with porridge, custard, cream and yoghurt, and hot fruit tarts too like tatin. Healthy hot proper food.
Boils at fish and chip shops and other outlets.
Places that sell fried food should help their customers feel better by offering veg on the side. What I’m thinking, to be realistic and practical, is one part of the heating element instead of being filled with oil is filled with water boiling up vegetables. We call having fried food a fry up, so these are a boil up hence boils. I’m thinking to be reasonable of frozen garden peas, green veg and cabbage, tinned carrots, sweetcorn and tomatoes. The first 3 could be placed in a sieve like holder similar to the one chips go in, and boiled in that, the tinned ones would go in a catering metal serving pan and be heated beneath on a stove behind the scenes and then brought out and placed on one side of this bain marie for them, forming a formation of 6 vegetables.
When you order your food, say fish and chips you could order the peas and when you did you would get far fewer chips to make it a healthier meal for you. If you ordered sausage and chips you could have tinned tomatoes to go with that, a steak pie cabbage and carrots, perhaps having the option of a tiny portion of chips as you have got the pastry in the actual pie, with a chicken pie or portion you might prefer carrots and sweetcorn. If you are a Vegan you might want a fried onion – like an onion ring in a way but with a pro-cooked whole onion fried like the fish and have that with greens for iron and chips.
Condiments could be better, when we have fish at home we squeeze lemon on to it – so in addition to vinegar there could be bottles of lemon juice at takeaways – I do it that way now because it is less fiddly and the amount I like to add counts as one of my 5 a day. It would better for the environment if sachets were swapped for bottles, and more economical too, there are many tomatoes in tomato ketchup, tartare sauce in sachets now have no green bits, they could seriously up the pickles in it, that would be tasty and is yet another vegetable for you.
People who are not accustomed to eating vegetables as a regular part of their diet would find themselves enjoying them and forming a habit of eating them as a matter of course. They’ll feel better and might be happier too as your eyes start to sparkle when you’ve got the right nutrients in you, in a sense, what is seen as an old wives tale of carrots helping you to see in the dark, has an element of truth to it!
The Natural Health Service – Gardens – walking, beauty all around, physical, mental and spiritual
One type of exercise I really love is walking, I used to have a dog called Trixie who took me for walks, I am looking for another dog but they have to be one of her relatives as whenever I saw another dog or stroked them when she was here on earth, rather than in heaven all around me as she now is, she would get in between me and then, I would have to apologise and say I was not a two timing bitch, a bitch is the word we use to describe a female dog, we were in love, so I can only be with one of her family members as I wish to remain loyal to her. More photos of her at the end of this post. She looks like this:
Getting out of the house is immediately beneficial to ones mental health, just seeing the bright white sunlight even through a cloud, or the liquid sun in the form of rain, the relaxing patter, like the relaxing patter of horses hooves running, I always turn the volume up on Belinda Carlisle’s Runaway Horses, she also wrote Heaven on Earth. It is good to get out into paradise and to wonder at it, in the wind of the hills or a beautiful formal town garden, looking at all the lovely little flowers and great trees and bees and other things buzzing all around you – it makes you feel so much more alive, and you so want to live so much more.
You can contemplate the infinite or you can be inspired, as I am, to reflect or create ideas that will renew the face of the earth, as in the hymn Send Forth Your Spirit O Lord And Renew the Face Of The Earth.
Going into a quiet, or if liveliness is your preference, a lively church, can do wonders for your prioritization of things, the absolute silence can calm the buzz in your brain and allow it peace, that can make you well in many ways. A rest is as good as a change and yes it can change you. A day off can really change the world. Singing is a wonderful thing, and actually doing it is even better. Endorphins can come through exercise both spiritual and physical, physical and mental, mental and spiritual and all three united together.
An NHS for Pets – a version of the Natural Health Service in a way because part of the reason poorer people find it harder to have animals in their lives are the costs – yet this is the best greenest thing to do – also many poorer people may be money poor but they are less time poor, and the greatest richness you can give to an animal’s life is your time and your love. So I’d bring our pets, who are part of our families into the remit of the National Health Service, they can too be treated free at the point of use. Part of this would be a walking network if you have dogs so when you do have to be away it’ll be easy for your dogs to have a good time while you work. Advice forums with experienced carers, we are not owners as pets aren’t things, they’re people in a different format, from fish to birds, reptiles to rabbits, cats and mice, insects and smaller, ponies and bigger et cetera. When we say we wish to co-exist on this planet we really must mean it, and not just for another land. Plants too, gardening groups are great and weeding is a wonderful therapy. A wider perspective on health is a heathier outlook overall, a much better view for life.
Tough Love
Some people say we should stop people from buying certain foods because they are bad for them. Some people need that help, others do not. It is not fair to restrict everyone or make food taste bad or go off quicker by reducing preservative sugars and salts in them. It would be best to tailor these specifically according to need. This is how I would do it:
Heath MOTs will be conducted annually and by people who are appropriate for your previously known health status. This will be loaded up to your own NHS record. When you go food shopping it will ask you to scan this first at the checkout. If you have no weight or any other issues it will then just let you proceed as normal, if you do it will flag up items that may be of concern. This will be in the form of:
Guidance, Limiting, Rationing, Discipling, Barring and Banning:
Guidance – you will receive an e-mail when you get home which will advise on consumption of a particular foodstuff
Rationing – you will have a monthly, weekly … limit on for e/g high cholesterol foods, or a fat % limit or high calorie foods
Disciplining – this will take place when you are seriously overweight for example and are not making positive progress, you will not be able to over purchase items and warning triangles will flash up – this will also apply for diabetics and to allergies to make sure that you are safe
Barring – if you are very obese you will not be able to buy certain food categories at all, unless you are given an allowance as a result of doing a certain amount of exercise. This will be recorded on a device you wear in combination to you logging on with your NHS Card (plastic like a credit / debit card) at exercise venues
Banning – outright bans for the morbidly obese until they reach safety.
At the outset everyone will be on Guidance then over time, to give people a chance to change their habits progress to more restrictive types as relevant.
All of this will cost the NHS less than all the bariatric surgery and all the other programmes and books released by so-called experts who only exploit others health concerns to sell or make money from them on a cycle eg weight watchers, slimming world et cetera.
We all now have the facility of a NHS Covid pass – is your individual QR Code which links to your data – the example here is your vaccination record. As it accesses this data it can be a conduit both ways for other information.
Once you have had your Health MOT it will contain your weight and height and other inner info, such as your muscle mass, water % , bone mass, fat readings both overall and visceral, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and anything else that they find out. You could ask them to load up your measurements so when you buy clothes online or in a shop you will know what fits. Keeping an eye on your size is a clear barometer of overall shape, and with a 3D rendition would help you be more aware of yourself as others see you. It could to your benefit list your allergies, or preferences (so there is no need for provocative outward signs on packages) so that if you scan yourself in to any place where you buy food outside the home or if you are cooking at home you scan in the ingredients you will know which ones to include and which to exclude. It is a very easy task for manufacturers and processors to scan the QR code and type in the quantity added to any batch produced. They can also do readings say of nuts in the ambient atmosphere, these can be included as a %age even a fraction of one. The end product could also have a QR code on it. There is a really good use of these for traceability and for not needing as much food deteriorating plastic on a product – cabbages are kept better preserved and protected by leaving their outer leaves on – the label sticker could be attached to the stalk – you could find the grid reference for the field these were harvested from! How cool is that!
This is all inspired by hearing in the 1970s when I was a child grown-ups saying to each other in the supermarkets “ought you to be buying that!?” ie “I think you’re too fat and shouldn’t have that” they were quite explicit then and certainly didn’t hold back their opinions. People were a lot thinner in the 1970s. I think this helped.
I think these days what would also help as you can hide behind your computer screen and order whatever you like and nobody’s going to see you or judge you in your own best interests to keep you well that Online food ordering should also require a scan of your card. The minimum order (e.g. £30 / £40) should be minimised so you only order what you really need, you are not forced into the temptation of looking for foods you don’t need to buy them to add to most likely add your own weight. In order to make this worth the while of those food delivery supermarkets there should be local delivery points in public places, eg. Corner shops, pubs etc where the deliveries for many people could be boxed together into ambient, chilled and frozen and when the paid customer comes in with their own bags they quote their order number and their items are gathered together. They can reject substitutes and get an immediate refund for these, as before no-one needs what they don’t need.
People need different motivations to help them succeed. We could all compete to have the best health data. Like the daily Covid information we could get detailed data on the weight of the entire country, county, town etc. As when we are weighed for our Health MOTs the location information for that data on a zone level would be a known. From our height and other information it would be know how much overweight or obese we are, and that would be recordable as a number per zone in each category. When you are seen to be overweight you will be required to have more regular weigh-ins throughout the year, monthly for the mildly overweight, weekly for the very overweight and obese and more frequently for the morbidly obese – so we would have figures for all this. These could be broadcast on local and national news, shame might shift it and pride would be the result. This could also be detailed down to; Inter company – industrial estate – town , area , county – individual, family, community. A National contest where we all help each other to get better. Doing this as an individual effort is like putting smooth squares together, they may look individually perfect but they slide apart, a jigsaw is a better way, where we have bits of us sticking out and empty pockets, helping one another is containing the bulges and filling in the gaps, we lock firmly and surely, it is like a lovely hug for one another. We should help one another. I think it is very sad in history where people like George IV and Henry VIII were not disciplined by others, people were too scared to do so, like the Monarch – he inherited his role so that is the reality of his status – Kim Jong cheese face – clearly no-one dares or cares to take all the excess food from him, whilst many of his people are very hungry, the case with the historic monarchs, though as in all cases they all wanted to. It shows how out of control can be disastrous for others and also for the individual, we are all people.
We could help those living alone via a Eat with me app or zoom, online socialisation and company, like at a dinner party, this creates consciousness when eating, awareness as not alone and aware of others watching you, you also see what others are eating and feel increasingly uncomfortable eating more than them, they can also make you aware if you are not of how much you are eating and influence your food behaviour. Perhaps exercise done could come into the conversation. You never know you may find someone you could live with who could keep an eye on you and a lock on the kitchen door too!
This one may come across as controversial, but our baggage is weighed as we board a plane to make the aeroplane balanced so it flies safely. I have also seen objections by people who find others getting the space they paid for, so they are squeezed in. Yet we don’t do a Pay by weight for people. Really thinking Green Ecology and Fuel Economy when travelling by air you should be weighed with your luggage so you pay for what you are getting, light people carrying less should pay less – obviously the weight of the plane is something we all share equally – this might be just the push you need to get your personal health airborne – after all the staff on these flights are pushed to keep trim to slide through the aisles comfortably past each other without bumping into passengers spilling their drinks.
At Work donuts etc etc are given out as staff motivators, really people would prefer more pay. Often they are rewards for excellent performance too. This needs thinking through, okay where people are physically flat out it’s a good safety device, or in very poor weather this can give the energy out to ward off potential illnesses. Fun sport stuff at work e.g. inflatables which you allowed to go on at work without this being frowned upon or damaging to your own personal reputation or career chances.
Basically all in all, to sum this all up, sport needs to become the Reward and stop being the punishment for which having gone through it you reward yourself with a donut and a dense with sugars and fats coffee ironically afterwards. We need to amend our attitudes, this may be more taxing and tiring than a % on VAT on a product but the bottom line will be very actively productive.
Workplace discrimination of fat people – I know I’ve said what we need to do to get the fat off people, we also need not to discriminate forcing fat undercover, underground, under the radar. People who are prohibited attitudinally tend to put all their energies into getting what they cannot easily have. The Prohibition of Alcohol in the US of A in the 1920s and 30s is a case in point here. If someone is behaving well and performing well at work they do not need nor require a disciplinary from you, which happens often in the workplace, which perpetuates obesity is outright discrimination of fat people, often the poorly behaved thinner person who also is not pulling their weight in the team gets the promotion and the praise and whatever the fatter person has done which is really good is ignored, they are often paid less and do not progress. The trouble with this as a model for improvement is that it is a complete failure. The fat person is fat because they cannot afford the good food, they cannot afford to risk hunger as any further stresses will put them over the edge and cause them to have a meltdown at work – too many people are knocking them and saying they’re bad when they’re not, they are constantly dealing with all that stuff, so a lectureathon from anyone is going to have an absolute zero positive effect, in fact it’s just another thing to endure in the day, which means that when they go home at night they are absolutely knackered and need a cup of tea to calm down and a chocolate bar to up their mood. The cycle perpetuates. You need, instead to discipline the poorly performing team dragger downer, and make them feel shame, this will up the confidence of the one that lacks it, they’ll lighten up mentally and have the freedom to improve themselves, and will have the income to find a home with the space to move around more in – remember thin celebrities have massive mansions – they’ll feel great, they’ll look great, the team will do great, it’s all great this way.
Some sprinklings from the herbs and spices cabinet – food for thought:
Maslow’s Needs Theorem – plus Job insecurity constant new ones having to reapply – from abroad not affecting basic needs of those at the top – constant change of lunch break times for the business – damages metabolism and control – eat to survive – cold workplaces
Over-burdening in your local area by the rich who give out the burdens but do not take them e.g. housing incomers
Bodies are input and output devices – you need a balanced approach of both to solve and sort out the quantity and quality within
Invested in watching others hoping they would succeed, we need to invest time in ourselves too to also be successful
Calories are different for each and every individual – QR personalised ratings for each food item
Work should not see the fat as indisciplined as this is inaccurate and this constant threat of losing your job means you cannot risk spending money on better food or paying to exercise
Representation on tv and award scheme literature affects you feeling welcome and can participate in each sport and sports in general
Jeremy Hunt’s dancefloor in his house – a Health Secretary with a secret or private dancefloor in his own home, a house that is living the dream!
There is also the Moral Dimension too.
Many churches and other religious places feast in what might be perceived as sinful in a deadly capacity. Let me lead you to the 7 deadly sins. To quote Robbie Williams “I’ve got my Catholic Shame…” Here is the list
Pride is excessive belief in one’s own abilities, that interferes with the individual’s recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
These are the Seven Virtues:
Faith is belief in the right things (including the virtues
Hope is taking a positive future view, that good will prevail.
Charity is concern for, and active helping of, others
Fortitude is never giving up.
Justice is being fair and equitable with others.
Prudence is care of and moderation with money.
Temperance is moderation of needed things and abstinence from things which are not needed.
Serious
If all the above does not work, the final idea does get increasingly serious. A kind of Cruel to Be Kind approach, no-one wants to go there but needs must as they say.
Illegalisation of Feedering – Out of Controlling behaviour that requires prosecution to Free the Food addict and the fixated feeder to live more normal lives in sanity rather than insanity
Child-overfeeding to be defined as abuse – positive guidance away from this for the child ensuring both they and their peers know that this is not the child’s fault and discipline to the parents for their bad behaviour in allowing this to happen to a minor in their care. Threat of adoption, for a new start for the child if repairs and a new proper parental relationship is not forthcoming. Schools must be monitored to ensure they compel another child or and other children to play with them in a lively way, so they are not sat still alone and isolated at all – selecting play groups for this purpose at every breaktime, so the child destroys what is holding them back and builds happy healthy relationships with others.
Personal
Early neglect – Mary currency at 2 me teacher spotting I could not see what with the fact that I’d gone into French windows when 2
My Grandparents used to say that it was bad that I went to help myself to milk from the fridge when I was 2. My parents sent me to bed too early I think so I woke up too early. I also had to be stitched up after going through French Windows too when I was 2. My eyesight was not good, but they were unaware of this then, the stitches were needed close to my eyes, so I might have been blinded. I think they were generally blind to my needs, yet the same Grandparents went on an on about poor Mary, my sister having to relearn the currency when it decimalised, when she was 2. The differences between an elder and younger sibling’s love, care, attention and education are quite stark. I was further behind at school than my sister, it was a teacher who noticed from my reading style that I could not see, my eyesight has been corrected now, I would have had free cataract corrective surgery on the NHS if my eyes were only 1 point worse. I think from the rigidity of my sister’s brain structure and thinking that I am probably brighter than her, and from my imagination and ability to generate new ideas, but this early neglect which did lead to abuse – though this neglect is clearly an abuse in itself and must be addressed. Spoiling elder children by over-praising to give them an artificially unearned ego to the detriment and bullying of the younger ones must stop – this harms both mental and physical health and drives all people apart, in the workplace and politically, so global relationship health is harmed from the littlest of events, so this is extremely important. No-one must be told that they ‘have’ a brother or sister any more, no-one is a toy of their sibling, and no child goes to work so they should neither command or demand respect from their co-dependents, nor should any adult put them in command being in charge because they’re the eldest, they have not been elected to that position, being bigger and therefore more scarier is a recipe for bullying of all, and stating that form of conduct is condoned. Respect should be earned based on gifts given by that person to others not by demands made by them. Really eldests are the perpetual babies of their families being the centre of everything, other offspring take a more middle aged approach from the outset, being more humoured and easy going – this team led thinking should be encouraged. Schools should correct the over inflated egos of first borns and rise the smiles, hopes and confidence of those that followed them without the indulged priviledge 100% attention paid to them, whereas the progress made by those that followed, 2nds in particular having to start their lives to the screams of toddlers and them doing stuff to them that hurt, so they start not at 100% but probably 30% so teachers need to balance this out and make the eldests less self-centered sods, make them less selfish and a bit more humble as soon as they enter education and keep that up, to create a world of love and peace – harmony, teamwork, togetherness.
Personal stuff 8 and 14
I’ve been on the edges of both extremes, like the rhyme Michael Finnigan who first grew fat and them grew thin again, as a child. I was sent away to a mainly boys school too early at 7 years old, by the time I was 8 I was the fattest in the school, they used to weigh us in form groups, at the start and end of every term, and put the average of this in our reports, I was a stone over the others, I remember not enjoying this. I also remember being so stressed that I thought I may as well enjoy eating as it was the only joy I experienced. None of the issues that lead to my stress were addressed positively. I did experience being in trouble but being far too young for the experience did not help. Really if they had instead of punishments like work squad, detentions and standing still in the corner, they had given me 1 hour extra exercise a day all the issues I had would have melted away and all would have been much happier, both me and them. I did put on more and most weight in the shorter holidays to be fair and grow taller in the longer terms, they needed to face my parents and not blame me for the consequences of their neglect. 6 Years later when I was only just 14 I was abused by a family member who squeezed my tummy whilst kissing me with his tongue in my mouth, he was drunk at the time and has not recalled this, though I know from subsequent actions he does remember this. I had been slimming gradually being slim at 12 as standard but I remember my Mum using the word plump to the shop assistant when getting school uniform for my new school at 11, which I looked up in the dictionary later. I reacted, with inspiration from my hero at the time, Ghandi, and starved myself – I thought he cheated what with drinking the lemon infused water – I decided at 14 nearly a year after the abuse, to not drink. I had managed to not eat for 2 and a half days at 11 but the water made me feel dizzy. So this did make it less visible, but as we had to attend meals, a school friend told a teacher and they sent me to the infirmary. They treated this as anorexia, and as I was hungry, emotional and influentable I started to believe this. I used to smuggle away my Doctor Mum’s medical books and transpose the graph data on to my own graph paper – one of my school friends threw these books away, I was worried I’d get caught now, as I couldn’t return them to the shelf, I did try to replace one, and managed to, pre-internet this was quite an achievement. It was this book: Obesity and Anorexia Nervosa: A Question of Shape by Peter Daly and Joan Gomez. I was a stone lighter than the lightest in my class. They used to weigh us here but one by one in the infirmary consultation room, and I’d like most curious adolescents had had a stealthy quick unseen look at others results with their characteristic interest. The reading work I did here was very educational. I used to keep a diary of what I had eaten, trying to make this as little as possible, if I wrote too much I must have eaten too much, it was tedious with even the little I did eat at the time. In the recovery process I did develop oedema, you see this is post-famine people and whilst I was ill with it one of my eyes briefly went black and white only – I casually thought that this would be good for photography. It must be noted that being fat or thin is not just physical food based, it is clearly both sport and equally mentally and emotionally based too. Most schemes tackle this from a simplistic, instant gratification perspective – whilst ironically criticizing the lack of control over instant gratification of their target – this is the term I’d use, and this creates a defensive non-engaging characteristic, which is not helpful for resolution of the issue. Also that information digested without instructional advice can be dangerous, and the dangerous influence can appear very good on the surface. This is very confusing and can, after trying multiple times, create an effect that leads to giving up, hopelessly. The relationship with food should not be dismissed as people are not robotic things where you fix nuts and bolts and just like that they’re all fine again, there are many layers and they are much more complex than that.
I did write this book as a result of my experiences at 14 as it starts with the words Does it really matter, whether you’re fat or thin, it is what is deep inside, the person that is within. That and waiting at East Croydon railway station for the connecting train to school and seeing my English teacher Miss Hurley and feeling a bit guilty I wasn’t studying so I got my rough book out and started to write.
https://www.amazon.com/Indecision-Decisions-Elizabeth-Angela-Kingston/dp/1419617990 You can see this there, and the introduction that inspired Diversity in many fields, I thought I might have gone on too long in this bit and at the end before the book started a year or so after publication, but now I’m really proud of that bit. The book is designed to be coloured in and written all over and photocopied for classes to discuss these things in a fun way as a politics primer. The price has gone strangely high so I will be seeing what I can do about this fast, so that this text is freely available.
Colouring and art and discussing and talking about things are very good for mental health (as long as it’s not those fiddly tiny you’ll definitely go over the lines colouring in books for grown-ups in my opinion, they look stressful to me)
With respect we all will love each other better, without the sibling rivalry which can lead to markedly different lives, including a life of crime out of sheer frustration and constantly being told to fight to be as good as you should be by now. It is extremely difficult to be held back by a bully of a big sister or brother and to have this affect your entire life because everyone else is indoctrinated to do the same.