News that a generation of children are being neglected through being denied exercise is possibly the most chilling indictment yet of the Nanny State. If proof were needed of the dangers of State reliance, this story seems to sum it up.
Where do children get their exercise? Broadly speaking there are two avenues. The first is at school and the second is under the care of their parents. The rising levels of childhood obesity should shock nobody. Our society has relentlessly embraced a culture of over eating carbohydrate rich diets and at the same time has found a multitude of excuses warning against the dangers of going outside. How this is handled from here is critical because a failure to address this will have far reaching effects. For one thing, an entire generation will fail to enjoy the old age of their grandparents, many of whom were born during or immediately after the war. More worrying still is the extent to which these people will impact on the NHS in their adult lives.
A lot of discussions currently taking place on various social media seem obsessed with bemoaning a State which is failing people whereas the real problem is often that people are failing themselves. Why do we think or expect that the State can look after us any better than we can look after ourselves. This idea seems to be in vogue and for the life of me, I can't see why.
Is it so outrageous to raise the State pension age to 68? I understand the arguments. People assert that they have paid in to the scheme for long enough to expect a return as they approach their old age. Reasonable enough on the face of it. Exactly how much have they paid in though? And does this equate to the income they will go on to receive? The whole model of our State pension is flawed from top to bottom. This was clearly identified in the late 1980s. The real crime is that the State has done nothing to address this since. This is why the retirement age has been increased. Put simply, there is not enough money in the pot because the current crop of pensioners are legion and living to hitherto unforeseen grand old age.
The current crop of under exercised children will surely redress this injustice in due course. All of us with children have a responsibility to give them the best. The best opportunities for play. The most healthy diets. Plenty of exercise. None of these would have even needed to be pointed out to the parents of our grandparents because there was no alternative. Our generation is courted by an array of marketing whose capacity to repel exercise and promote poor diet is without precedent. So are today's parents guilty of neglect when it comes to the health of their children? Well, for those parents with under exercised children who are obese, the only question really is whether they are aware of the dangers. Is it the responsibility or indeed the job of the State to tell them?
Remember, this is the same State which has progressively given the green light to the growth of the supermarkets which ply us with their cleverly marketed junk food. So can we really trust the State to take on such an important role? I don't think we can but I do think the State could and should be doing a lot more in the way of awareness campaigns and public information. Given that the NHS famously free at the point of access to every man, woman and child, the State really has no choice but to get involved. If they turn a blind eye and just let this madness continue, the results will become apparent over the next generation and they will not be pleasant for anyone.
If the decision by the State to stretch the retirement age to 68 has attracted an outcry, I ask this; Why have they not extended the retirement age for Public Sector employees to the same age? The latter pay in to a guaranteed, index linked, final salary scheme which currently begins to pay out from the age of 55 or 60 depending on which branch of the sector you are in. You just don't need to be a mathematician to see the flaw in this. The truth is that the State is too fearful of the Public sector backlash if they do because it has been allowed to grow to gigantic proportions. So why have we got a country where the State outranks all else? Largely because we voted for it. Red or blue, a succession of governments have put the State at the heart of our lives. In reality, we need to be seeking to claim back our lives and take responsibility for our own futures. I for one, don't need the State to tell me.
This and previous governments have overseen the sale of thousands of playgrounds to build houses. This has been a real scandal and once again provides us all with a great advert for the State. If the State really understood the implications of poor health, they would have been seeking to expand the existing playing fields as opposed to selling them off. I could go on but the point is plain to see. We have our lives in our hands and the sooner we recognise this, the better off we will be - perhaps not financially but definitely from a health standpoint. If we seize the opportunity, 68 might not seem too unreasonable after all..
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