Fight the flab, beat the bulge and count the calories. We’ve all heard the mantras of the weight-loss brigade and I can bet nearly every one of us could quote our height, weight and body mass index without giving it much thought. For example, I’m … no, I’ll reveal that little secret later.
But in recent years our weight, and our right to choose whether or not to change it, has stopped being a private issue and has moved into the realm of public policy. With headlines screaming: ‘Obesity could bankrupt the NHS’[1], the government and health authorities are working overtime to change the nation’s waistline.
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Welcome to my site - I'm Fiona Veitch Smith, a freelance journalist, author, playwright and writing teacher. This site contains thoughts and articles I've written on a range of topics. I hope you find them useful.
Tainted Gold - Olympic scandals and triumphs
As I write this, the Olympic Flame has just been lit opening the 29th Modern Olympic Games. The first Olympic flame was lit at the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928 and the Torch Relay was added to the ceremony in Berlin, 1936, at ‘Hitler’s Olympics’. It was not in the original vision of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, in 1896, but he welcomed it as a powerful religious and artistic symbol that could be used to educate people in the ideals of the Olympic movement.
Image courtesy of Rick Sforza
These ideals, according to the Olympic Charter, are to
Nothing wrong with that, you would agree, but as the pro-Tibet demonstrators would have us remember, there is a huge gap between that ideal and the practise of the host nation in its occupied territory.
Continue reading ‘Tainted Gold - Olympic scandals and triumphs’