Vice-Regal Saint: Prince Charles: Ban the Big Mac
With the story in the news about British social services threatening to remove a grossly overweight eight-year-old boy who weighs four times the healthy weight from his mother, the Prince of Wales has now stepped into the breach, calling for McDonald's to be banned.
As he attended the launch of a public health awareness campaign at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi he asked nutritionist Nadine Tayara if she had "got anywhere with McDonald's, have you tried getting it banned? That's the key."
A Clarence House spokesman who was travelling with him issued a statement saying that "The Prince of Wales has for a long time advocated the importance of a balanced diet, especially for children. In visiting the Diabetes Centre today, he was keen to emphasise the need for children to enjoy the widest variety of food and not to eat any particular sort of food to excess."
This isn't of course the first time that Prince Charles has stepped into the debate about food, having previously attacked the amount of genetically modified food being produced which has put him at odds with the British Government.
Funnily enough, Princess Diana would often take Princes William and Harry to the McDonald's restaurant opposite Windsor Castle....
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10 comments:
Obviously he was joking.
I hope he doesn't have any authoritarian tendencies: he'll certainly be frustrated when he realises he'll never be able to exercise them.
I actually don't mind the grand old Prince speaking out on moral issues, particularly given his conservative instincts, and particularly given the predominance of Hollywood morals in the media. But there is a point where the moral becomes the political and that's where all royals need to be careful. Talking about personal health issues does not, in my opinion, come even close.
That being said, the Queen has been even more wise to maintain a stiff lip, never grant an interview and keep monarchy's distance. Between the two approaches, I prefer the Queen's, but not to the point of criticizing the Prince's.
This is one of the few issues where I must disagree with the Prince of Wales. It would be one thing to urge consumers to practice healthy prudence in their food choices, or to urge food establishments to post nutritional information about their products. But to urge an outright BAN on McDonald's (or cigarettes, or alchohol, or any number of other "incorrect" products) smacks of the nanny state. There just comes a point where individuals have to be allowed to make poor personal choices...and then live with the consequences of those choices.
This comes into the same category as Prince Philip's supposed "gaffes", which are nothing but media beat-ups. It was a throw-away comment, if not a joke, designed to enter sympathetically into the concern of those he was meeting, not a political statement.
Indeed, Swift. I've noticed the same pattern.
Friends, this is was not a joke. It is totally consistent with the Prince's other public statements. The plain fact is that Charles is a total eccentric and an eco nut. Thankfully, the women in his family tend to out live the men, thus we can hope that he will never be king or that it will be for a brief period of time. Further, it is fortunate that the UK is a constitutional monarchy, thus, he will not be making policy. Granted that McD’s food is fairly vile (though the breakfast food is tasty if one is running behind schedule in the morning) never the less it is no more unhealthful than the fare at a fish and chips shop. That his Highness thinks he should be in charge of deciding what his subjects eat, shows how far we have fallen as a civilization.
Have to disagree with Swifts's view that "It was a throw-away comment." From what I picked up from the various articles about this, he clearly knew he was in the presence of reporters and fully expected this to have been picked up.
He of all people is wise enough to watch everything he says wherever he is.
Whither the Beefeaters?
Shed a tear over the chilling corpse of the Mother Country. A King should not be a ninny.
Burton
I don't see this is hugely different from "Something must be done", which is what the Duke of Windsor used to perambulate about and intone when he was Prince of Wales.
Actually, that's not entirely a comfortable parallel, is it?
No, Swift, it isn't. But it's probably an accurate one.
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