The Fat of the Land

More horrifying and frankly bewildering statistics about the increasing number of fat people in our society were fed to us with our cornflakes this morning. My main confusion arises from the fact that 'by 2050 most of us will be "obese"' which my mind automatically substitutes with 'by 2050 most of us will be dead'. Perhaps it's just the time of year?

You may have noticed that I refuse to use the word 'obese' outside protective quotation marks. This is because being fat is something we all understand: it is a normal human condition resulting from a combination of eating too much and not using up enough calories through exercise or thought (yes, I know, but indulge me!). Obesity, on the other hand, is a medical condition for which, down on the pharm, they are busy developing pills they can sell to us at vastly inflated prices creating fat profits to match their fat customers.

While fat may indeed be a feminist issue it is also decidedly a class issue, but not in the direct way we are led to believe. The relationship between over-eating and health has been found to be related to the structure of society under capitalism, rather than a class-related propensity for eating too many chips. In Britain on the Couch Oliver James argued that the competitiveness inherent in a capitalist economy and the hierarchy it generates leads to low serotonin amongst the ‘losers’ in society.

Later research has shown that the levels of serotonin in the brain are, indeed, lower in middle-aged men and women in lower social classes. A relationship has also been identified between lower serotonin and over-eating, as well as smoking and drinking alcohol to excess. In other words it is the unequal distribution of power, and the chemically based depression this creates, that is a central cause of the increase in obesity.

Food is the most basic of all human needs. Capitalism is failing to meet our need for food adequately. The food that is available is often so adulterated and so lacking in basic nutrition that it creates ill-health and cravings for other, more satisfying foods. The connection between food and the locality, the identity that is built through seasonal foods or local cuisines is being destroyed by a global fast-food culture.

More fundamentally still, the distribution of food between the West and the South is so poor that, we sit unhealthily on our sofas, obediently over-eating, while watching our brothers and sisters starve in Africa or North Korea. This is a fundmenteal indictment of capitalism as an economic system: it is failing in the central role of an economy, the efficient distribution of our most basic commodity, food.

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Feed Me!

The publication of a report on ethical consumption sponsored by the Co-operative Bank was rapidly followed by an article in the Economist telling us we are wasting our money. We can ascertain that the real food movement is building in power and starting to threaten the mega-food corporations. This is unsurprising since ethical consumption now accounts for 5% of all spending, overtaking spending on alcohol and cigarettes. The various co-operative shops take up a similar proportion of the total retail market.

The report shows that sales of organic food increased by 30% from 2004 to 2005, with a nearly 40% increase in fair-trade purchases and nearly 55% increase in sales of ‘sustainable fish’. Some of these rather dubious categories cause me to have a little sympathy with the Economist's scepticism, but I interpret these consumption changes as indication of a deeper concern about how we are feeding ourselves.

Food offers a perfect case-study of how the domination of the profit motive distorts the system of distribution in our globalised world. Economics is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Economics as ‘the study of how scarce resources are, or should be, allocated’ . How can capitalism possibly justify itself as an efficient system, never mind the only system in town, when it achieves this so badly that we have some people dying of starvation and others dying of obesity? No, it isn’t the vending machines, or the corrupt dictators it is the economic system that is to blame. Green politics is about limits and meeting needs, and an efficient economic system would respect these; conventional politics is about profit, and profit can be increased by the encouragement of greed. That is the central explanation for the rise in obesity.

We are encouraged to be greedy, to buy a new sofa to sit on while we over-consume and absorb advertising to persuade us to consume even more, interspersed between programmes instilling our patriotic duty to keep the economy afloat by shopping and terrifying us that we are heading for premature death because of, yes, over-consumption. This is the sort of self-contradictory message which generates internal confusion and mental dis-ease. No wonder that people over-eat to try to fufill the hunger that artificial and chemically based foods cannot satisfy. And no wonder that rates of anti-depressant prescription have increased by 125% between 1993 and 2002. Profits are made by advertisers, food corporations and drug manufacturers, while the costs are borne by us, not consumers but human beings.

Is it too outrageous to see a link between the pseudo-religious commitment to growth amongst policy makers and the accompanying growth in our waistlines? Clive Hamilton identifies the addiction to growth as a ‘fetish’ which he compares to the cargo cults that grew up in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. ‘Cargo cults and the growth fetish both invest magical powers in the properties of material goods, possession of which is believed to provide for a paradise on earth.’ The fact that ever-increasing consumption does not bring happiness is not an exciting new thought for most environmental campaigners, but the fact that a book called Growth Fetish received such wide publicity may be.

Our need to be fed runs deeper than just our daily bread. We have lost our relationship with the land and with other people. We have lost our ties to those close to us in our own communities in a world where we buy stuff on faceless estates made by nameless children in countries we could not locate on a world map.

Stroud Community Agriculture offers a model for how we might rebuild meaningful economic relationships, and the sense of wholeness and purpose that comes with these. The strap-line for the community agriculture project in Stroud is—‘Become a Member: Share the Harvest’. We do not buy our vegetables, we support the livelihoods of two farmers who manage the rented land by buying a share of the farm; we contribute our own time on fortnightly workdays; and we collect our share of whatever was produced that week. The farm also organizes festivals and events to mark the turning of the year.

This is a wholly different relationship to food and one that leaves you feeling satisfied on all levels. Food arrives not only infused with the vitality of your local soil but with a real sense of belonging to you. Ownership is not a right. Unlike the sanitized meaningless exchange of money for dead, pre-packaged vegetables that takes place at Tesco, in the world of owning your own food pounds sterling are a debased currency and only physical work will do. In the new green economy we have all to become producers; demonstrating our principles through ethical consumption will not be enough.

Find out more about community farms here.

You can find out more details of the ethical purchasing report here. Tweet