Friday, September 05, 2003
Fattening up Italy
In a newspaper interview published this week, the health minister in Italy's right-of-centre administration, Girolamo Sirchia, announced that he would be doing what he could to reinstate Friday as a day of fasting throughout Italy.
"Apart from being an ancient religious tradition, the weekly fast is a useful health measure," Mr Sirchia told the daily La Stampa. "It has a scientific basis. It helps to purify the system of the effects of an unhealthy diet."
At all events, the argument for doing something is persuasive - and nowhere more so than in Italy where, as in Spain and Portugal, people have been abandoning their traditional, healthy Mediterranean diet in droves. Despite the dependence of Italians on such high-calories delights as pasta, salami and ice cream, portions used to be generally small and the consumption of animal fats low.
In recent years, the spread of fast food outlets and the growing popularity of skipped breakfasts, snatched lunches and overly generous dinners have nudged the country's obesity statistics into the red.
Does that last paragraph sound like any other country you know? As American culture spreads, so do the waistlines.
posted by chris at 10:25 AM
------------------
|
