This really shocked me when I read about it yesterday. I’m Australian and I guess like many have been living In Denial. Like most people, you notice subtle changes in people but I can honestly say that I hadn’t noticed a dramatic increase in obese people walking around our cities and towns.

Australians are by very nature a competitive people. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we love to win. We love nothing more than coming first. The thing we love the most is the very idea of beating the USA in sports and pretty much everything else. I can admit right now that come the Olympics, my American partner has a rough time. Lines are drawn, on the couch. We sit opposite and cheer loudly for our countries. Often (pretty much always), the American’s win. At the beginning, I take it with good humor. After all, their athletes work just as hard as ours. By the end of the Olympics however, my bright and sunny disposition is replaced with simmering anger. I get pretty agitated, no more smiles, no more humor. I want blood. Not my partners just gold blood.

But I digress! Back to Australia being the fattest nation on the planet. It is terrible and I wonder why Australians aren’t getting the message. I really hope that some of you find your way to indenialhealth.com and can see that you are not alone. I’m guessing you already know it though if you have read a paper or watched TV today.

But on the bright side, we finally beat the Americans at something! We now have more fat people than they do! Wow, what an incredible feeling. We BEAT THEM! Woohooo! Gee, winning doesn’t feel like I thought it would, infact – I feel….sick. Winning doesn’t feel so good this time. I really want to lose, please fellow Aussies, start losing!

Welcome to our new domain!

For those who missed it, interactivehealth.com.au is no more. You can read about it here.

InDenialHealth.com is now up and running, we hope you like our new name! It wasn’t a particularly difficult decision to go with it either.

Diets, weight loss, cholestrol, heart disease and age are some of the motivating factors in a persons decision to get fit and healthy. For some, their journey will be successful but often, maintaining their new found bodies and committment to a healthy lifestyle fades. For others, they face a lifetime of trendy diets and stints at gym’s. Weight loss and fitness are achieved but the reality of maintaining can often fade with time.

Take me for instance. I wish I was a gym junkie and I really wish I didn’t love rich food, but I do. So, with this realisation I figure there are two choices to be made. Quit and just eat everything I want when I want and sit on my bum all day doing nothing to work it off, or try and strike a balance with the foods I love mixed in with all that healthy stuff and find ways to work it off that won’t bore me to tears in a few months.

So this is where InDenialHealth.com comes in. We know it’s a struggle and we appreciate and understand where you are coming from because we feel exactly the same way!

Sometimes being healthy is annoying, challenging, smelly and rather disheartening but we are here to say, we know how you feel and we hope you find our new site full of helpful information that gets you going in the morning with hopefully a positive outlook.

So happy reading, please feel free to share your stories with us. You may like to visit Ann’s World, our new weekly column from, you guessed it, Ann and her journey to better health.

Sally :)

Word from Australia this morning that Government officials are meeting with fast food executives to discuss trans fats.

While no mention of a ban has been made, the Consumers Association during an interview on Channel 7′s Sunrise programme said that banning would be the ideal outcome.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I doubt no major announcements will be made but I think the pressure is starting to increase. Especially after a study came out yesterday showing that 1 in 5 children under the age of 4 are either overweight or obese.

Related Links

Trans Fats Stories

This seems to be happening all to often. Just off the top of my head, I remember there being a spinach and carrot juice contamination outbreak late last year resulting in deaths and many very sick people.
In Australia last week a man was fighting for his life after eating an instant microwave nachos meal. This page gives you a recent Salmonella Outbreak hisory.

Now there is a salmonella tainted brand of peanut butter that killed an elderly woman last month and an elderly man from Chicago.

At least 300 people so far have become ill after eating the peanut butter.

You really have to wonder why this sort of thing happens given the variety of Government health laws that cover food production.

The more I hear about these things, the less confident I become in the quality of foods being sold. I’m already one who avoids eating buffets and salad bar food but I don’t often think about canned or jars of food. The problem is that you can’t even tell by looking at or smelling these products whether they might be bad so it’s like russian roulette.

The Philadelphia City Council has unanimously voted to ban the use of trans fans in most dishes served in Philadelphia restaurants.

The ban will come into place September 1 and will prohibit restuarants from cooking in trans fats and serving spreads that have trans fats in them.

This follows the recent ban put in place by New York. Read original post here

The ban has officials stating that they hope to see as much as a 6 percent reduction in coronary heart disese.

Related Posts

Ihealth – Heart Disease
Ihealth – trans fats

News from Australia today that McDonalds has paid Aus$330,000 for the National Heart Foundation to endorse 9 of their new health choice menu items.

For those of you who don’t know, a National Heart Foundation healthy tick on food products means that it’s a healthier choice for consumers. Corporations pay for this tick and the food is analysed by an independent body.

I won’t go into my own personal opinions regarding McDonald’s, you can read them here ;)

Of interest though is the discussion that has started on it. The Age from Australia has a good thread. It appears that alot of people aren’t fans of McDonald’s or their business practices. You can read them here

I first heard this news story on the radio this afternoon.

A man from Rockhampton in Queensland has been banned from his local club because of wearing a shirt that doesn’t cover his belly.

Mr Johannesen who is a regular at the Bluebirds United Sports Club received a call notifying him that several complaints had been made about his choice of clothing and that he should stay home rather than embarrass himself.

Mr Johannesen said “It’s just been overwhelmingly discriminatory. I’m just totally disgusted”.

It is interesting that women can walk around with their stomachs showing, and let’s face it, alot of us have wobbly bellies, and you rarely hear of us being banned from establishments. It’s a bit surprising because generally, men get away with being overweight more than women. What’s up with that?