With the rise in childhood obesity levels in the UK and other countries around the world, the latest idea here, proposed by the outgoing chief medical officer is a ban on snacking on all local public transport including buses, trains and trams. This idea of a ban has been circulating around social media recently and has been the focus of many discussions in the last few days, but would such a ban even work, and is it even necessary?
When I first heard about this ban I laughed. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard and wondered how on earth it would tackle obesity as well as wonder how the government would implement it, given our current policing crisis. But the chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies is serious about this being one of the ways to tackle childhood obesity. But banning all snacking on local public transport won’t be so easy and although the ban does include some exemptions, with water, breast-feeding and those with medical conditions still allowed to eat, it won’t solve the current problem of childhood obesity.
Not the same as smoking
In the past smoking and even having alcohol on public transport was allowed, although these days these have been banned completely (with open alcohol containers being banned on certain networks). The ban on smoking on public transport is something that is important to me as cigarette smoke (and smoke in general) makes me wheeze thanks to some sensitive breathing problems I’ve had since childhood. When people smoked on public transport, it didn’t just endanger their lives but it also endangered my life too. Cigarette smoke was something that could affect people around the smoker, and it also does nothing good for someone’s health and isn’t necessary for someone to live. These two reasons made banning it a good thing, and it made sense to do so.
Food on the other hand though is a more issue and is difficult to ban, as food, whether considered junk or healthy, is necessary to live, we can’t survive without food. People can’t live on air so eating and keeping hydrated is necessary. The act of eating food also doesn’t endanger anyone’s else’s life, it’s not like someone can get obese from the person sitting next to them eating, and so most food (unless it’s a particularly smelly fast food burger or similar) won’t affect those people around the eater. But the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) is convinced that this ban will help tackle the problem of childhood obesity because children won’t snack while on a bus or train and they won’t be exposed to adults doing the same.
Medical excemptions
Water, breastfeeding and medical conditions (such as type 1 diabetes) will be exept from the new ban. But this won’t work practically, especially the last one, as I’ve had experience of this before. At school I had type 1 diabetes throughout my teenage years and a few years before that too. I always knew I was able to eat in class if my blood sugar fell below a certain level (going into what’s called a ‘hypo’ or hypoglycaemic attack), I knew I had permission from the teachers. But the practice of taking out food and blatantly eating it in front of others, especially when the majority of your class (including those who don’t even know you) are tutting and making remarks made eating and drinking sugary drinks very difficult. It didn’t help matters that I was also overweight and bullied for being fat so eating sweets as a fat person only fuelled their taunts. It became such a stressful and horrible experience that I got to the point where I refused to treat hypos in class unless I was about to pass out. I purposefully let myself get into an almost serious, comatic state because I felt too embarassed and ashamed to eat.
The same could and would happen on public transport if people felt shamed into eating when others couldn’t, and given how vile some people are towards others about even smaller things like giving up seats, imagine the anger and nastiness some people could encounter for just trying to stay alive.
Why people snack
We can’t have people simply not eating on buses and local trains. Most people who do snack do so because they are hungry, while others may do it as a reward, to feel better about their day. The ban on snacking is aimed at children, especially school children who travel on buses and trains after school, something I spent hours doing each day when I was a teenager. School back then, and still now, is a long day of working and for many an arduous task of learning things. School can be very tough for many children and teens so when they leave, having spent the last couple of hours or more not eating and doing work in the classroom, the natural thing they want to do on the way home is eat (this want is even bigger if their last lesson was PE- physical education). For many like me, the first thing on their mind is hunger, and they won’t be eating their dinner yet, not until they get home which for many state kids can be a long journey, so the natural thing to do is to get something quick to eat, a snack. And for those who are very hungry, a healthy and small snack like an apple, just won’t do, they want to have something substantial and often something fattening or very sweet. These foods make you feel better when you eat them, and for many kids, especially those in secondary school, their parents won’t be able to stop them buying a snack and eating it (on a bus or before getting on).
Although there are many healthy snacks out there and I eat them these days, I know I didn’t back when I was younger. I didn’t and I was overweight (maybe even officially classed as obese) but taking away my chances of eating junk food on a bus wouldn’t have made me a healthier and slimmer person. I still would have snacked on the junk food, because for me, and probably many children out there, junk food isn’t just tasty, but it makes you feel better about your day. It’s a reward for doing something difficult, a reward for going through a horrible day at school. It’s a comfort for those who, like myself, were bullied every day. So maybe we shouldn’t be trying to ban eating on public transport, maybe we should be trying to find out the real reason why adults and children are becoming more obese than ever before.
Tackling the real reasons
The one thing that is clear to me, every time somebody gives a new reason for doing something for childhood obesity, is that they haven’t tried talking to those who are obese or who were but now aren’t (like me). Rather than looking at charts and figures about the rise in childhood obesity, and coming up with radical plans to solve the problem, most of which will never work (and many which are laughable), those in charge should be asking people who are overweight and obese, or even those who used to be, how to solve the problem. Having been on the overweight to obese weight for many of my earlier years, I know exactly why I was overweight and what stopped me and eually what motivated me to lose weight when I was older. I know exactly what made me fat and I know exactly what could have helped make losing weight easier, and a ban on eating while on the bus wasn’t it.
The real reason I was overweight began with a medical problem but it soon became a depression problem. My mental health deteriorated throughout my early and mid-teens due to significant bullying at school and a very unsympathetic set of doctors who dealt with my diabetes and general medical care. Having severe depression as a young person made my confidence plummet and although I really, really wanted to be thin, so the other girls would stop calling me “Fat” and “Fatty”, I was never motivated to do so because I was simply too sad to do anything.
On top of that depression was the constant nagging of doctors to lose weight. In an ironic way, I found that the more the doctors went on about my weight (especially my diabetic childhood consultant) the less I wanted to do anything about it. The more the doctor went on about how I had put on weight, the more hopeless I felt about losing it. Of course there were other factors as well, the fact that she constantly complained I wasn’t doing good enough with my diabetes, but that constant failure didn’t motivate me, it just led to more depression.
Added to that school PE was less than motivating. To be in a class with all the fit girls and being the slowest just added to my depression. They would constatnly complain that I didn’t do something fast enough and I never felt good. At times when I actually tried hard though (when we had aerobics sessions or times in the weight room) and you could see I was putting in the effort and actually doing better in balancing than anyone else (weird I could balance on one leg when the fit girls would fall over all the time) I was neve encouraged and these activities were quickly replaced with competitive sports, the one thing I wasn’t good at.
It wasn’t until many years later, when all I had were positive messages about how well I was doing exercising and eating better (even on days I wasn’t doing so well and hadn’t lost any weight) did I finally feel motivated to continue the healthy eating trend and I never went back to junk food after that.
Obesity can be financial
Sure obesity is a problem of eating too much, eating unhealthily and exercising too little. But it’s also a financial thing and something many people, especially those who’ve never had problems with money, can’t relate to or understand. Growing up in a household where finaces were tight and we sometimes were close to or on the poverty line, I remember the strange question that always popped into my head whenever we went food shopping: Why are healthy foods (including fresh fruits and vegetables) so expensive?
Oddly, the most manufactured and unhealthiest foods out there are often the cheapest to buy with many fresh fruit and vegetables being significantly more expensive. Cheap supermarkets aren’t always around in the local area either and sometimes the poorest of households have to make do with what they can afford, and for many that involves a lot of tinned and processed items. Eating a lot of these foods does not help with obesity in the long term but does provide a significant amount of food on a table for each meal, so families will often stick to eating them as it’s all they can afford. Many times those same families often have no time to cook meals either, especially if the parents work zero hours contracts or for very long hours (or multiple jobs) so fast conveniece, microwavable or even take away food is often the best and only option.
So a ban won’t work?
A ban on eating on public transport won’t work. Even if the government implement it and police are actually used to enforce it, it won’t tackle the problem of childhood obesity. There are many reasons why children are more obese these days, and telling them and adults that they can’t eat on public transport when they’re on their way to or from school and work will not make anyone lose weight and stay healthy. The only thing a ban will do is cause friction and annoyance with anyone who’s hungry, and we can all just get off at the next train station or bus stop and eat while there before continuing our journey (- although this brings it’s own issues of leaving people stranded in the rain or dark because they need to eat!).
There is a rise in the amount of children classed as overweight and obese, but the figures often used to class this (a BMI chart) are themselves often an inaccurate way to test this and puts a large category of healthy individuals into the ‘overweight’ section (as I was when I lost a lot of weight and dropped to a healthly slim build but had significant muscle mass due to weight training while exercising). There’s also more testing of children today in their weight than there ever was when I was younger which can also tip the figures to look bigger than they are.
However, even though the obesity levels are rising and it is obvious there are a significant amount of children who are now facing problems with being obese and having complications such as type 2 diabetes, they won’t be able to lose all the weight without the real cause of their weight gain being discovered and being motivated in the right way to do so. For some it is finacial cost, for others it’s the fact they are comfort eating for living lives that are too hard to cope with. In other cases it’s a simple lack of the family knowing how to cook (the only cooking skills school taugt me was how to bake cakes and biscuits/cookies 🙄), and for even more it can just be that they don’t want to or feel like being motivated because of the way our world is at the moment. Life in the 90s wasn’t as terrifying and depressing as it is today, we also didn’t have the constant link to social media which for a lot of young people can be isolating and lead to increasing bullying.
So maybe we need to look at the big picture of why people are obese, of why people grow out of childhood obesity, and why others don’t. Maybe then we can finally come up with a real strategy and plan that will work on tackling the problem. But throwing out random ideas to punish those who are hungry and want to eat while taking a bus or train won’t solve the problem. The officials in charge need to start spending less time on weird policies and planning of ideas and more time with the people who are and have been affected, listening to them, rather than condemning those who don’t fit into societies idea of perfect.
Have you had a problem of obesity or being overweight in the past or now? What do you think of the ban on snacking on public transport? What do you think could be done to tackle the rise in childhood obesity? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
I can’t imagine how they think they could implement this idea. Basically, it would force us to eat more in secret, thereby increasing obesity. And they pay people to come up with these ideas!
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Definitely wouldn’t work and you’re right, eating in secret is what so many obese people do..I used to hide just how much I’d eat and would never show people. Imagine how much cash the government would have if they didn’t pay these people to come up with this advice!
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This was a good post. Banning food on public transit is not a smart idea for all of the reasons you mentioned!
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Thank you 😀 🙂 It is a really stupid idea, i can’t believe it’s even being considered as possible!
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Ridiculous… I mean people need to eat and public transport is a convenient place to eat on?! What are they thinking. I have no idea how to tackle obesity, it probably involves a lot of changes in the food outlets available and redesigning our towns so that people have to walk?
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Yes it is a really stupid idea isn’t it. Apart from anything else, you have a seat indoors and experts are always saying we should sit to eat (I think) and it beats standing outside in the rain. I have no idea how to tackle it really either, but it’s certainly never going to be solved with this idea. Thank you for commenting and visiting 🙂
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Excellently argued post.
Being very dry on the subject……That’s never going to work. (Civil Service rtd hat on)
1. Who will be the administrator? This would be the driver, since we don’t have bus conductors (who remembers those). Now the driver is driving. So if they see someone eating do they stop the bus and ask for ‘papers’ to allow them to eat, and do they do this straight away, causing a possible traffic stoppage? Or will there be specially assigned areas.
2. Someone is always going to look for attention and try and prove they have a civil right to eat on transport, so will make a big thing of getting on a bus and eating and then be a dreadful bore by being a faux-martyr.
3. The tabloids cause enough mischief anyway, we do not need to give them an excuse to cause more.
4. A ban requires legislation…Err..Parliamentary time. in the current climate?? Really ??????
5. Dare anyone pop a sweet into their mouth, while travelling on public transport, and does chewing gum count because it’s not swallowed? (well not on purpose)
And I have not even started on all of the problems.
No, not thought out at all.
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Such a good set of points and proof that this ban would never work. You’re right, chewing gum is a grey area as is who would ‘police’ everyone. And politics today is just a mess so I doubt anything like this will ever see the light of day in there! Thank you for visiting and commenting 🙂
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And I thought of another clutch of problems!
Should the ban be extended to cars in which the parents would be prohibited to allow children to snack? 🤔
If not we would have to have a whole new definition as to what constitutes public transport….Because I could envisage some sharp operator setting up ‘private snack buses’ and getting around the law that way (while making a ‘nice little earner’).
Being an expert in one field does not mean omnipotent in all fields 🙂
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Lol, it’s a good point, how would this ban work if children are always driven to and from school and allowed to snack in the car. Private snack buses, I’d like that, lol 😉
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Private Joe Walker out of Dad’s Army popped into my head when I was suggesting that one 😃
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Lol, brilliant!
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😃
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First of all, this would cause a problem for a lot of people who use their commute time to eat. For example, I had a school I went to at one point that finished at 3:00pm, but the bus journey I had to take to get home took so long it was some time between 5:00pm and 5:30pm by the time I got home (there was a dedicated bus to get there, which took much less time, but for some reason there wasn’t for coming home). There was no time for me to grab something to eat between my classes finishing and needing to catch the bus, so having not had a chance to eat or drink anything since my 12:00pm lunch break, I obviously needed at least a chance to drink something, and usually a snack too. Yes, OK, since I’d be having dinner around 6:00pm, I could have probably done without the snack. But not the drink, especially not on warm days. Then there have been times when I’ve taken a train from where I live near Hastings to where my family lives near Swansea. It requires me to leave home shortly after 9:00am, and I don’t get to my destination until almost 3:00pm, and that’s assuming there are no delays. Yes, there are a few places to eat at the train stations, but since I’m a vegan that limits my options, and since I’m blind so need help, I get passed from person to person, and don’t have a chance to even pull out a drink between trains. Stop allowing eating and drinking on public transport, and that would mean I’d end up going all day without so much as a drink. OK, so I don’t go to the school any more, and I don’t make that trip often. But there are people who do things like that regularly. Those people need to be able to eat and drink, even if they don’t have medical issues that require it.
Secondly, some people try everything they can and still fail to lose weight. I eat sensibly (most of the time anyhow; everyone has treats) and have actually tried several different diets over the years. I’ve exercised until I’m so sore and exhausted it’s reduced me to tears. But nothing I’ve done has ever been able to get me in to what they consider the “normal” weight range. Before proposing schemes to tackle the issues, they need to stop and think about that kind of thing. Quite frankly, I’m sick to death of everyone assuming anyone overweight is overweight because they scoff junkfood, snack constantly, etc. I know people who are loads lighter than I am who eat more than I do, eat more sweets and cakes than I do, and do less exercise than I do. Why can’t they talk to people, instead of assuming?
Sorry, weight is a sore subject for me…In case you can’t tell.
Banning smoking and drinking alcahol was a good thing, and it’s something I would agree with if it hadn’t been done already and they were suggesting it. Banning consuming all drinks and food… No.
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You have made so many good points in this comment. I used to take hours to get home from school like you, I think it took me from 3.30pm to 5-5.30pm depending on the busues, occassionally 6 if it was coming up to Christmas (I had to go through the town centre to get home on paid for buses.)
I’ve not travelled daily or weekly somewhere but I’ve had a trip from home to one family memebers house that takes almost all day on trains too because of the bad connections around the outside of London. I’ve found snacking or eating my lunch easier on the train as I get a seat too and don’t have to stand as I seem to when arriving in London (I have to go through London to get there unfortunately). Snacking, eating or drinking on trains and buses is so important for all the reasons you’ve highlighted. I can’t believe that this person ever thought that this would help stop obesity.
Please don’t feel bad about your weight, I completely understand it being a sore subject. It’s certainly not easy to lose weight and there can be so many different reasons for why it’s easier for some and harder for others. This can include things like a low metabolism and…I really don’t know what else, but I do know it’s not easy and my mum is struggling with her weight right now and can’t seem to shift it no matter how active she is and how much she changes her diet.
People in positions like this chief medical officer just never speak to the people who are actually affected by the things they are trying to affect. And it shows when they come up with these silly ideas. Weight’s been a sore subject for me for years too so I understand how upsetting it is when somebody just assumes that eating anything that isn’t considered ‘perfect food’ like a salad immediately translates into scoffing or binging on junk. I hope you don’t encounter any more of those ignorant idiots. We all deserve to be happy to be ourselves and be able to live our lives without having others be mean and make horrible assumptions on things they don’t understand. Thank you so much for taking so much of your time to comment, I love hearing what you think ❤ 🙂 …sorry for the late reply too, my internet connection's been dodgy for a few days and yesterday completely went 😮 !
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I have to go through London for the trip to Wales too, so I know what you mean about that.
I’m better at not letting my weight issues get to me these days, but people who assume like that still get to me. It’s the same with other things besides weight; people are way too quick to make assumptions with everything.
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So true and unfortunately I think there’s always going to be a group of people who both assume things and are naturally biased against people. But I wonder if it’s gotten worse since social media, the whole world seems to care less about people these days, there’s a sort of apathy that I don’t think used to be there, or maybe I was just more optimistic as a child and teen.
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In a world full of chaos, food is my biggest ally! Which type of food is your biggest ally, (Kitty) Cat Strawberry – Meow!?
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Agreed! 🙂 Lol, choices, choices. I’m terrible at picking a favourite food, but I do love pasta as well as salads (and the odd cake every now and again 😀 )
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How about you? Forgot to ask, as well as thank you for commenting and visiting 🙂
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Great post! I agree that this idea is not going to solve obesity because it doesn’t look at the route of the problem. Eating on a bus doesn’t make you any fatter than eating at home or school, it just creates more tension. If the government really wanted to do something to encourage healthy eating then they would stop putting tax on junk foods and make healthier foods cheaper instead. Educate families on how to stretch their budgets within the time constraints they have. But like you say poverty can bizarrely create obesity.
When it’s 15p for some unhealthy microwave noodles that will be a meal, or a cauliflower for over £1 that will be part of recipe then you can easily see where there problem is. Unless you have never had to experience poverty and then maybe you just really won’t understand.
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Thank you, yes, it’s so silly that the government thinks they could end obesity in this way. As you say adding taxes to junk food while the cost of healthy food stays even higher than the junk food isn’t going to stop people who can’t afford the healthy option from buying the noodles, even if they are filled with all sorts of strange and bad ingredients. they always seem to want to put a tax on something bad rather than making something good cheaper. Just like with other things in this world.
Thank you so much for visiting and commenting 🙂 🙂 ❤
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