Twenty years ago, when Ireland was supposedly going down the tubes, the term "fiscal rectitude" was all the rage, writes Fintan O'Toole..
The Galway TD Frank Fahy found it a little hard to get used to and referred for a while to "physical rectitude". I was reminded of this recently when the question of obesity came on to the agenda. Much of the discussion on the subject mirrors the way we used to talk about the public finances
Back then, "fiscal rectitude" was all about output (government spending) and never about input (tax dodging). Now, "physical rectitude" is all about input (burgers, fizzy drinks) and almost never about output (exercise).
The problem of obesity is very real, but it is also surrounded by moral panic. We might, for a start, scotch the myth that Irish people gorging themselves is a new phenomenon. We tend to imagine that the great historic food problem of the Irish is famine, and that it is only now that we are experiencing the problems of feast.
I came across a book by an American doctor, Thomas Nichols, Forty Years of American Life, published in 1864. From his experience of treating Irish patients, Nichols writes: "The great mass of the Irish people, of the class that emigrates to America, live in Ireland chiefly on potatoes, oatmeal, buttermilk - on a simple, and an almost entirely vegetable diet.... They land in America with clear, rosy complexions, bright eyes, good teeth, and good health generally. They are as strong as horses.
"They find themselves in a land of good wages, cheap provisions, cheap whiskey and tobacco. Flesh meat they have been accustomed to consider the luxury of the rich, and they go for it accordingly. They eat meat three times a day, rudely cooked, and in large quantities.
"Whiskey, of an execrable quality, is plentiful and cheap; so is tobacco, and they drink, smoke, and chew abundantly. They grow sallow, dyspeptic, and lose health, strength and spirits."
These indulgences, he wrote, carry "so many to an early grave". Give or take a pepperoni pizza with double cheese here and a bottle of Chateau Lynch-Bages there, we are now repeating the experiences of our emigrant ancestors. They went from a spartan but relatively healthy diet to sudden abundance and learned to stuff their faces without restraint. Now that we have what one of my elderly relatives used to call (as the ultimate statement of luxury) "America at home", we've been doing the same.
Just because it's happened before does not, of course, make it okay. But it does suggest that the current unhealthy relationship with food and drink is not just an individual phenomenon. It's a social and historical development. But you wouldn't know this from much of the imagery that surrounds obesity. The problem is treated merely as a personal failing, a private slobbish sin. Personal responsibility certainly matters, but without understanding the social and political context, there is little point in hectoring people about burgers and Coke.
By placing the burden solely on individuals, we don't just ignore the power of the junk food industry and its massive advertising budgets. We also focus almost exclusively on one personal side of the equation - the food and drink that individuals consume - and neglect the other side: the energy they expend in exercise. And exercise, as it happens, is a much more public question. In an urban world where few people do heavy manual labour, exercise is about public questions of space, transport, facilities and, above all education.
Thus, while we criticise parents for driving their children to school (a private sin) we pay little attention to the physical education regime in those schools (a public responsibility). Some politicians, such as Fine Gael's Jimmy Deenihan, have worked hard to draw attention to this issue. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science did a very good report on the subject two years ago.
It pointed out that physical education "has never... been singled out as worthy of serious investment or concentration either in terms of resources or planning. Facilities such as gyms, even when they are present, are all too inadequate. The primary sector has been particularly neglected and massive investment is urgently needed before much of the curriculum can be fully implemented. Many primary schools do not have access to a gym. Many primary schools do not even have a general-purpose room, which could be used in place of a gym. Indeed there are instances where general-purpose rooms have been provided but have been reconverted into classrooms because of pressure for space."
Needless to say, the urgent needs identified by the committee have not met with any urgent response. There have been grants for gym equipment for secondary schools, which are fine, but not much use to schools which don't have a gym in the first place. PE is still hugely neglected at primary level and squeezed out at secondary level by exam pressures. It's much easier to blame parents for letting their kids stuff themselves with crisps and play with their X-boxes. But until we're as willing to invest in "physical rectitude" as to decry gluttony, there's fat chance of dealing with obesity.