Poor John Steenhuisen: not only has he been caught using his official credit card for personal purposes, but he is also exposed for allegedly ordering snacks via Uber Eats. To add insult to injury, this at a time when people began noticing that he has gained a significant amount of weight.
Oh, what fun we had, turning him into a living caricature. Fat cat politicians featured often in the drawings of Punch magazines of the 19th century, but now we have cell phones and memes. Steenhuisen became a living cartoon. We laughed, we jeered, we shook our heads at the irony of it all. The starkness of the image of the politician growing fat off taxpayers’ money was too iconic to ignore. We fat-shamed for a good cause.
Why are our politicians so fat, though? In South Africa, we have a popular view of ANC cadres and supporters having their fill of chicken wings at rallies, where fast food has become a form of bribery. The infamous ‘boep’ is a trademark accessory on male politicians of all cultures, signifying not only a full belly, but possibly a stuffed sofa.
“Politicians are unhealthy, and not just their views,” says Garth Zietsman, statistician and researcher with a special interest in longevity.
“Hours every day sitting in meetings or parliament, plus ordering convenient, high-calorie food, add up over the years. Stress also plays a role.”
Indeed, it is hard work spending somebody else’s money. There are no stats available on whether politicians as a group are more overweight per capita, but 50% of South Africans are overweight or obese. It might be that we notice it more in politicians as they are under much closer public scrutiny, and the moral finger-pointing is too delicious not to have a second helping.
Another factor that might be contributing to our closely watching politicians is that, for the first time in history, more people are dying from eating too much than too little. Diseases relating to obesity outnumber starvation: diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, and some kinds of cancers are all related to obesity or are caused by adiposity.
The cartoons of the 19th and 20th centuries depict the corpulent captains of industry with money bags as large stomachs, while ordinary citizenry is shown as scrawny. It illustrated the great divide between the elite and the common man in terms of income and, therefore, food supply. Nowadays, even ordinary people are overweight, though. It is not just the chief of the village who gets the pick of the best food, it is all of us – delivered to our door or parliament seat. Most of us can do with losing some weight.
Which one is the best?
So, if weight loss is on the New Year’s resolution list, which one is the best; vegetarian, carnivore, Weight Watchers, intermittent fasting or Ozempic?
Zietsman says there is a clear winner: “The one that will work the best is – the one you will stick to.” He says the stats show that all of the different eating plans show similar weight loss patterns, including putting most of it back on again.
“In terms of weight loss, plant and animal-based eating plans show similar weight loss, but the ones including some plants have a small edge in the long term for health. The Mediterranean diet has consistently been shown to have the best results in terms of health and longevity. The key is variety, small portions and no snacking between meals.”
For some people, the simplicity of a meat-based diet and the unlimited portion sizes will be a good fit, while others thrive on the varied choices of a Weight Watchers plan, combined with discipline and calorie counting.
The intermittent fasters get a kick out of the sense of impulse control, and the people on Ozempic simply turn the cravings off chemically. All of these methods work and have similar recidivism rates; people put the weight back on the moment they stop adhering to whatever plan they were on. The reasons for this are complex:
“Genetics play a major role,” says Zietsman. “So does culture, environment, affordability, hormones, emotional states, and fitness levels. Willpower and motivation do not have as much to do with it as we think.”
Too time-consuming
It seems unlikely that stationary bikes will replace benches in parliament. Similarly, the days of running barefoot for many days to vanquish your enemy in hand-to-hand combat like Shaka did are unlikely to return, as this is simply too time-consuming as a form of aerobic exercise.
Running your campaign from the porch on your farm while managing your yard duties, as US President James Garfield did, is also not possible. Steenhuisen operates in an environment where fence-sitting, posturing, and floor-crossing will have to do, while trying to make time for extra-curricular workout routines, like the rest of us.
“Stress also plays a role in weight gain and longevity, as do good-quality social connections,” explains Zietsman. If the DA and the ANC got along better and played nicely together in the GNU, it would be healthy for their bodies and the country. How one instructs a politician to ‘worry less’ about the state of the nation is tricky, as we are constantly castigating them for not caring enough!
In the words of economist Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.”
It might be prudent to be a little more compassionate over the plight of the politician, but not too much.
In a strange turn of events, since the Punch cartoons of the 1870s, the rich are now becoming super thin.
Being thin by choice is now a status symbol. Rob Hersov, local billionaire, social commentator and former politician, is on record as having taken Ozempic, losing 10kg in two months. Elon Musk was on the drug and lost a lot of weight, after being mocked by his friend, Donald Trump, for being ‘very, very fat.” Trump himself is rumoured to have taken the drug but denies it. As Nancy Reagan said, “You can never be too rich or too thin.”
In terms of healthy policy, Zietsman says stats favour free market policies: “Economic growth is consistent with open markets. More upliftment means less poverty and crime. Focus on liberating the market by decreasing government influence, then everyone benefits.”
For Steenhuisen and co, a good diet for the new year would include cutting some carbs, together with some red tape, starting with eliminating fast foods bought with your work credit card, perhaps. Some free enterprising individual can start a healthy food delivery system to the government, including hefty portions of humble pie, eating your own words for breakfast, plus a compulsory spending fast twice a month.
Exercising our rights
To the rest of us, vigorously exercising our rights, while granting others the same, is a good start. Add a dose of tolerance and understanding that South Africa is a complicated place with complex trade-offs.
Lastly, and this will be the most difficult, make some allowance for the possibility that most politicians are, at least some of the time, doing what they think is best under difficult conditions. They have a lot on their plates, and it is not only slaptjips or pap.
[Image: Ursula Gamez on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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