German children face obesity remedy

Sunday, Sep 5 2004 Beijing Time

The majority of German adults, and one out of every three children is overweight -- and nutritionists say the blame lies with the unification of Germany 14 years ago, reported Saturday's China Daily.

The nation that coined the phrase "I love to go a-wandering" has become a nation of couch potatoes, who spend record sums eating out, who watch cookery shows on a dozen TV channels and who prefer to drive to work or school rather than walk.

The old days when few people had cars, when bananas and other "exotic" foods were unavailable and when people supped on bread, wurst and potatoes and chocolate at Christmas and Easter, are long gone. A century ago, Germany was known not only as the country that invented the kindergarten, but also as the country that invented health spas and that popularized hiking and gymnastics.

Every town used to have a "turnverein" or gymnastics club that served as a kind of informal town hall and social gathering place for all ages. So older Germans could scarcely believe their ears when the government recently unveiled plans for diet and exercise programmes for the nation's young people along with possible restrictions on advertising and availability of fast-food snacks and sweets.

But the ambitious plans were immediately condemned by conservatives and liberals alike, who cautioned that the plans smack of Nazi-era youth training drills and prescribed lifestyle regimens.

In an appeal before the Bundestag parliament, federal Consumer Minister Renate Kuenast said 34 per cent of all children under 14 weigh too much for their size and age, and eight per cent are clinically obese. Those figures come only days after another survey showed that a third of all German teenagers smoke cigarettes - one of the highest rates in the industrialized world.

"This may be the first generation in German history to die before their elders due to lifestyle-related health problems," said Kuenast. She was quoting figures by the Robert Koch Institute which also show that two-thirds of all adult German men and over half of all women are also overweight.

Ironically, the Robert Koch Institute statistics point out that that this is the first generation of post-unification Germans who have been able to eat all they want.

Older Germans still remember war-time deprivations and the lean years after the war when rickets and other malnutrition-related conditions were not uncommon among children.

Many East Germans faced food shortages before 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. Now they, and their western cousins, are being confronted with the fact that they have over-indulged for the past 15 years.

"It is time for us to forge a coalition for nutrition and exercise," Kuenast, a Greens politician, said in issuing her appeal for a leaner, fitter Germany.

She envisions a coalition of "volunteer efforts" by the food industry, television advertisers, school administrators and nutritionists to reshape the way young Germans eat. "We want to promote food products which are healthier and lower in calories," she said.

"We need to promote mandatory physical education in the schools, something that schools in recent years have been too lax about." She also called for restrictions on advertising snacks and sweets on TV shows catering to young audiences.

For critics, however, this all sounds too much like Adolf Hitler's infamous rallying cry: "German youth must be as tough as leather, as swift as greyhounds and as hard as Krupp steel."

"This is all a lot of populistic claptrap," said Hans-Michael Goldmann of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

"The whole thing raises an eerie spectre, especially talk about mandatory PE. And intimidating manufacturers into 'doing the right thing'. It frightens me."

Conservatives warned of creating a costly new bureaucracy. "This is all going to cost taxpayers more money, I can just tell," said Ursula Heinen of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). "The whole idea is too intrusive and too expensive."

But Kuenast's Greens party supports her plan. "The conservatives are engaged in the stubborn denial of reality," said Greens parliamentarian Ulrike Hoefken. "What's at issue here is saving young people from the deadly clutches of cola and hamburgers."

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