Pish-tosh-a-rama!

Okay, so I'm really in a ranting mood today, but since when is 67.4kg considered as being obsese for women? What about BMI issues? Or height? Or other factors like that?

This follows from a study that's been conducted that's revealed that women's average weights have gone up five kilos in about seven years. Gasp, shock, horror, fall on the floor and lie there convulsing all of you who haven't already done so!

And of course women will only get fatter as they get older, or so it says in the article from the Sydney Morning Herald, Obesity: the new crisis for women. Factor in producing children and raising them and having to actually EAT at some point and oh heavens the sky is simply FALLING!

Now before I rave on a little more, I have to add this quote from the article:
Society needed to address the particular pressures on young women, who no longer had time to eat healthily or exercise adequately. "It's the whole struggle of juggling increasingly demanding sedentary work with finding time to cook and exercise," Professor [Christina] Lee said. "Women want education, they want a professional, meaningful job and they want a husband and children. It's up to policymakers to find a way for women to do those things without their health collapsing."

PISH TOSH! Rubbish! ABSOLUTE bollocks!

Could this woman speak out of her ar$e any more!?

No time to exercise. No time they say! We have families! We have jobs! We have studies! Oh so painfully true when you want to use that all as excuses... but you know what's scary?

You do have time. Before I bought my exercise bike, I seriously thought I had no time for exercise at all. My days and nights were packed with stuff to do (ah, the joys of cleaning the house and all of that). Or so I thought. But now I've changed some things around in my schedule, deleted some of the time-wasting stuff and have freed up at least an hour for exercise each night.

Ahhh, endorphine boosting, muscle challenging, life enriching exercise! Seriously, I love it. And there is definitely no such thing as being too tired for exercise, because once you get started on it, all of the oxygen goes wild and even if you can't do as much, you can still do some. It won't make you thin overnight (much as I wish it could... *le sigh*), but you do notice the differences after a while. Just takes perseverance. And, of course, finding an excersie program you like. Aerobics might be your thing. Or rowing. Or jogging. Or weights. Whatever, you just have to find that special thing that suits you.

And it's not that hard to cook a quick and really healthy meal. It's simple to whip up a good pasta with a simple tomato sauce, some salad and a few steamed veggies and takes less than half an hour, even if you're making the tomato sauce from scratch. Or you could bake some potatoes and chuck in some other veggies and have some fish or other meat, if you're meat-inclined. Whip up a roast veggie and couscous salad. Do a healthy lasagne (none of that awful white sauce crud). How about a stir-fry that's simple and non-oil ladened? Or a salad sandwich if your brain really can't manage any of the other stuff. Not that difficult.

You don't need the damned government to make us become healthier. Policymakers finding ways for women to do those things pish tosh. Make a damn schedule. Buy healthier food. Go walking with your family or friends. Go for a walk on your lunch break. I dunno... just don't expect other people to do it for you, because that just won't work. I mean, a government policy isn't going to make you thin unless Amanda Vanstone is personally going to come around to your house each night and force you to go for a half-hour jog, all the time following you with an electric cattle-prod to zap you mercilessly if you fall below a minimum rate of 10km/ph.