Popcorn gets a calorie X-rating

Rarely has the news been so shocking.  Well – maybe the furore created by the revelation that Sugar Puffs had a high sugar content comes close… but the news today is that the muck people buy in cinemas is not exactly healthy.  Popcorn, would you believe is high in calories.  And the food police known as the Food Standards Agency thinks we should all be told.

Well there is slightly more to it than that of course.  Cinema-tubbies are buying popcorn by the bucketload.  And as they are sitting on their backsides for hours on end whilst stuffing their faces, it is indeed an open invitation to put on a little weight.

But maybe, just maybe, the papers have got the wrong end of the story here.  Isn’t it just a little more shocking that cinemas see it as a good idea to sell popcorn and fizzy drinks in the first place?  I mean these are the same people that tell you not to talk or use your mobile phone… then sit you next to a bunch of fatties crunching away on  bucketloads of  popcorn and slurping on pint after pint of watery cola.

It seems to get even worse once the film has started too.  After all, that is when the last dregs of cola have to be noisily sucked through a straw.  And the nasty, hard crunchy bits of popcorn have to be munched.

I guess we shouldn’t be too cynical.  Apparently government figures suggest that two thirds of adults and a third of children are obese or overweight.  But maybe the answer is for them to eat less and exercise more.  I am not sure that telling lazy people who eat too much is going to stop them guzzling cola or eating popcorn.

And this is surely the nub of the matter.  The government seems unable to do anything but tell people what to do and when to do it.  And if the films on show were a bit better…people wouldn’t need to force-feed themselves with popcorn.