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COMMENTARY
October 12, 2011
Fat is happy
We trust all our gentle readers have had a merry Canadian Thanksgiving, and are now largely recovered from the unavoidable indulgence in turkey and pumpkin pie.A substantial number will since have experienced guilt, associated with obesity. Campaigns against fat people are being conducted by numerous agencies of our Nanny State at present (David Cameron's government in England now leading the march). Junk-food eaters are the new smokers, a "crisis" has been created in which they star, and if you are a little on the plump side, from any cause, you are meant to feel very, very sorry. (And vote for the people who will put you on a diet.) There is no crisis, incidentally. Contrary to public myth, which is often believed in the face of hard evidence, there are plenty of fat old people. Indeed, life expectancy continues to rise, even while the human biomass increases. Don't let them scare you. And besides, if you are going to be alive at all, you might as well be happy about it. For anything could kill you. Indeed, from an evolutionary angle, smoking should be de rigueur. Our ancestors, both near and distant, lived by open fires. They cooked in intimate contact with fire; they heated their little hutches with it. They were constantly inhaling smoke. My paternal grandfather, an heroic roll-your-own smoker to his death at an advanced age, had this theory that a body uninfused with smoke is dangerously exposed to every kind of harmful microbial invasion. He was right about so many other things, that I pass along this word to the wise. Perfectly respectable sources have argued that the epidemic of asthma among our young is the consequence of growing up in sterilized environments. The young need dirt, to develop their immunities. Traditionally, the young got plenty of it. But add in smoke-free environments today, and the neurotic traumas associated with health faddism and single-child homes, and what did you expect? The Romans went down from lead pipes, I was told in my youth. There was a high incidence of mortality among them, consistent with lead poisoning, and they used lead pipes in all their waterworks, from aqueducts to street and household plumbing. Perhaps this also accounted for their other demographic catastrophe, it was reasoned: rapidly falling birthrates towards the end of the Empire. The Romans, beginning with their higher classes, then working down by the usual trickle effect, were becoming sterile. So I was told. But since, from childhood, I have had difficulty believing what I am told, I inquired into the matter. And from what I recall: no, it wasn't the pipes. Lead is a wonderfully malleable and plentifully available substance, used in plumbing far beyond Roman realms and times. The pipes become rapidly calcified, and the calcium provides an unintended protective lining. If they aren't safe to begin with, they quickly become so. No, the problem was lead cookware, which people obsessively cleaned. Lead was also being used as a food and wine preservative. That, according to the better authorities, is what got them. (Even cast iron vessels will get you, but quite slowly: generally, I wouldn't worry about things that might take you out around age 225.) As to the diminishing birth rate, it is perceptible whenever a civilization is going down, from whatever material causes. The real cause is the discovery, first among the moneyed classes and then trickling down, that children can cramp your lifestyle. In other words, decadence kills; and the religious nutjobs will inherit the earth. (Thank God I am a religious nutjob.) The Roman experience, properly interpreted, does give a hint to what is killing us today: excessive cleanliness, primness, priggishness, plausibility, smugness, liberalism, and food additives. To which I would add, jogging, gym workouts, and other contra-naturam forms of physical exercise. And, vitamin pills. Of course these do not make a dint in overall mortality statistics. But at the tender age of 58, I notice that I've already outlived many of my contemporaries who were health fanatics. I am my grandfather's grandson, and have long entertained the theory that vitamin pills are a killer. It stands to reason: they are chock with things your body needs in small quantities, delivered in larger quantities. The whole idea of a pill is contra naturam. But this is an age of pharmacology. A study just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, garnering much publicity, has given important confirmation to my theory. Some 39,000 older women were tracked for one metonic cycle (19 years), during which two-in-five of them died. Unambiguously (if only slightly) higher death risks were associated with multivitamins of all kinds, vitamin B6, folic acid, zinc, magnesium, copper, you name it. The one thing that escaped the car-horn was calcium. So go ahead. Drink lots of milk. (Especially if you are planning on a bender.) But don't let it become an obsession. And remember: good health is bad for you. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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