As long as chemistry keep offering us easy options, we'll keep taking the pizza, writes ANN MARIE HOURIHANE
A NEW drug threatens to revolutionise our society, and to change everything we hold dear. This drug has already swept through America and other parts of Europe, and is now making inroads into the upper echelons of Irish society. Somebody better tell Paul Reynolds. Welcome, Xenical!
Xenical is the prescribed equivalent of alli, a diet pill which is sold over the counter. But Xenical is twice as strong as alli, and its use in Ireland gives a lie to the old saw that obesity is the problem of the poor, the uneducated and the underprivileged. Xenical is more expensive than alli – €98.70 at our local chemist, for a pack of 84, which is a month’s supply. Alli is €37.99 for 42 tablets, or 14 days’ supply. So even the Garda Press Office cannot overestimate the street value of either substance in its customarily generous fashion. Prosperous fatties are teaming up with the Irish medical system to get Xenical on prescription from their general practitioner. They can therefore claim it back against their tax at the end of the year. Come on, you gotta love this country.
But the best part about Xenical is that not only is it much stronger than alli – they are both versions of the lipase inhibitor, orlistat – but that Xenical works an absolute treat with, as my impressively slim friend put it, “borderline zero-supporting activities”. In other words, while you are still eating and drinking for Ireland. This, truly, is the way of the future. You can lose weight while having the run of your teeth. It’s the easy way out for fatties.
Not that my friend was ever a fatty, she was simply experiencing a mild version of middle-aged spread. She has now lost half a stone by not taking this medication properly – she is a sporadic taker of pills – and still looks terrific. She claims to have made no modifications to her lifestyle at all – “Divil a bit,” she says cheerfully.
Her husband is much less fun on the subject. But then he has lost 9lbs in six weeks, taking Xenical in a more methodical manner. He doesn’t quite say “use as part of a calorie controlled diet” but he comes pretty close. He is a diet goody-goody. For example he says that he is exercising for six hours each week, which is a lot where we come from ( we come from the television room, actually).
This is not an altogether pretty story. Both Xenical and alli work by blocking the absorption of fats The fat is then excreted through the bowel, and bowel function becomes a lot more rapid. Depending who you talk to this leads to either 1) significant weight loss; 2) miserable diarrhoea and faecal incontinence – the famous “alli oops” effect; or 3) both.
You might not believe that rational adults would volunteer for this experience when they could lose weight simply by controlling their calorie intake and taking aerobic exercise. But you would be very wrong.
It has just been revealed that one in five Irish adults is obese, and we have to start wondering when we are going to become rational about food. We have to start wondering when we are going to abandon the pizza and learn to love lettuce leaves and mineral water. My guess is that the answer to these questions is
. . . never. Modern life has brought gluttony to the majority, and with the gluttony came a moralising attitude towards food and eating that was never present before.
This is what one of the internet review websites had to say about alli: “This is a pill for the desperate who want now what they should have to work for.” Oo er, missus. There you have the lash of the schoolmarm. Unfortunately the nation’s weighing scales demonstrate that the lash of the schoolmarm does not work when it comes to getting us to control our eating.
On the other hand alli, at any rate, “punishes” any excessive intake of fats by visiting the unfortunate gorger with diarrhoea. No wonder people alter their eating habits while taking it.
As a country our talent for moderation is muted, to put it charitably. Our young women are heading for the 20 stone mark – now is not the time to wait until our palates have been educated enough to hate fattening food.
In any event our palates are never going to be educated out of loving fat; fat trips the pleasure centres of the brain like no other food.
So Xenical may turn out to be the drug of choice for modern Ireland. It is a chemical strait-jacket, in its own way. It is a short cut for fatties, although it may not exactly take us along the scenic route. It operates a pretty basic version of digestive crime and punishment. Culturally Xenical and Ireland are a good match. Xenical appeals to our national love of getting away with it. It may be disapproved of, but in reality the Xenical ship has already sailed, and large sections of our large population are already on it.