Not a slim man, An Taoiseach Brian Cowen. And the cartoonists like to picture him with a cigarette stuck in his ear.So there you have it. Less than a perfect example of good health.
But would you mind, Mr. Cowen, leading the van against mid-life obesity? It's all about stopping the obesity epidemic before it completely swamps the already overburdened health service.
Dr. Donal O'Shea believes that all the money spent conquering cancer and diabetes would be better spent on obesity prevention, what with obesity directly linked to the development of adult-onset diabetes and certain cancers.
It will take the leadership of Brian Cowen to guide a shift in research funds, to tell the cancer researchers that they're being cut so that Ireland can find a cure for all the fatness that is growing more pervasive by the day.
A quarter of the Irish people are too big for their own good, and they're on a path to illness that doesn't need a fancy cure when a national diet would make all the difference. In Dr. O'Shea's mind, it's a waste to study something like diabetes when the source of the disease isn't getting enough attention.
Unless Mr. Cowen stars in an all-Ireland version of Biggest Loser, the idea that he could promote obesity prevention at his present size isn't going to be taken seriously.
The time has come for a change in health service policy. The obese have to be mandated to take exercise and eat right, or risk imprisonment and/or fine. It's only fair to those who pay the taxes that fund health care and who keep fit so that they don't have to use the health care system. No point in getting sick when you have to wait months to see a doctor. That's the biggest impetus to lose weight that there is.
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