HEALTH and safety–the devolution of society

HEALTH and safety – the devolution of society – what the hell does this have to do with cats?

We don’t often publish posts on this blog about the HEALTH aspects of OHS, lots of articles about the brain and psychology but perhaps we should focus more attention on our bodies – after all they are the life support systems for our brain, perhaps responsible for more of our unconscious decisions than we appreciate (ie “gut feel”) and as they say: “healthy body, healthy mind”.

I’ve written a few articles (see: What are we doing to our kids) and made a few comments on articles about the concerns I have with the nanny state and the current health and physical condition of kids I have been involved with both as member of a junior sporting club, through my own kid’s school and my social circles. Motor skills that I once thought were inherent such as the ability to climb, throw and run seem to have deteriorated dramatically. Kids no longer seem to have the same energy as we once had. Walk through a shopping centre and you will see the signs of obesity as a multi generation problem. At times I have felt like a bad parent because my kids didn’t have one of many allergies or intolerances – I simply can’t remember those things being as common when I was growing up.

Whilst no expert on any of this, there is no doubt that technology and other indoor distraction plays a role in this devolution but I also think that diet is the other major contributing factor. Kids are eating more processed foods than ever before. I was listening to a radio program yesterday where they were lamenting the poor nutritional value of much of the food in the non-fresh supermarket isles. “Low fat” products must contain extra sugar, salts, artificial flavours and colors etc in order to make them palatable.

Today, John Toomey, who is Member of Program Advisory Committee at RMIT University School of Health Sciences, sent me a link to a video made by Dr Francis Pottenger in the 1930’s!. Dr Pottenger, whilst working with laboratory cats to test the potency of the adrenal extract hormones he was making, observed that cats fed on a diet of cooked meat scraps had quite a high post operation mortality rate compared with those fed fresh meat. He then began a 10 year experiment, involving over 900 cats to test the results of feeding cats various processed foods such as pasteurized milk, condensed milk and cooked meats. The results are both amazing and scary – watch the video and see what happens to energy levels, alertness, motor skills and general health of the cats both short term and through generations.

John has written some really interesting articles on the subject – I am totally intrigued now: