Australia is a really odd nation. While we lap up shows like “The Biggest Loser” and have a rich sporting history, and perfect weather for getting out to the beach and exercising, in 2008 Australia became the world’s fattest nation. At that time, a report found that 26% of Australians were Obese.
Today, I read a news report that KFC were releasing “The Double” – a burger without a bun that has twice the cheese, twice the bacon and twice the chicken. It comes up at a total kilojoule count of 1939kJ (412 Calories) for the original recipie, and 2515kJ (535 Calories) for the Zinger burger. If you have the burger as a regular meal (which would be the most commonly requested), the chips add 1137kJ (241 Calories) or for a large chips 2403kJ (511 Calories). So this burger, in a meal ranges between 653 and 1046 calories. For a comparison, Males aged between 19 and 30 – to whom this burger is advertised towards should aim to consume 2400 calories a day if they are not doing any exercise. For me, as I’m trying to lose weight, I aim my meals to be around the 300 calorie mark.But it’s not just the calories. You’ve also got to take into account the fat (22.3g and 35.7g respectively for the two burgers), which for the Zinger Burger is about half the recommended daily Fat intake for an adult. In fact, the only good thing about this burger is that it doesn’t have a bun, which would certainly shoot the kilojoules up.
Yet, despite knowing this, take a look at this image, of a survey run at the bottom of this Sydney Morning Herald article on this burger.
At the time I grabbed this screenshot, 47% of 15474 voters approved of this burger. If this poll was representative of the Australian public (which it isn’t) that would be 11 Million people who think that this burger is acceptable.
Australia has an Obesity problem. The difficult thing is that it’s not just going to be a change in the food that fast foods give us that is going to fix this. It’s change in attitude, a change in mindset, from the entire nation, to help and support each other as we try to lose this dishonorable title of the World’s fattest nation.
Ben Clapton 