The Chavez Diet: Venezuelans urged to lose weight

[struggle4progress]

... President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Friday that "there are lots of fat people" in Venezuela and advised his supporters to exercise and eat healthy to trim their waistlines.

"I'm not saying fat women, because they never get fat," he added. "Women sometimes fill out" ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jqut8PZYp5pKvFtIweSXvvi1WhXgD9BV1GUO1

[Braulio]

1. Chavez is right

Although there aren't good recent statistics on the incidence of obesity and excess weight in Venezuela, older statistics do show a tendency for many Venezuelans to get fat. This in turn increases problems such as heart disease and diabetes. Given the sad shape of Venezuela's health care, a lot of their problems would be reduced if they reduce diabetes incidence.

However, Chavez would be more believable if he lost weight. He does look a bit chubby.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "the sad shape of Venezuela's health care"--It is not easy to provide health care to

millions of people whom previous rightwing "the rich get richer" administrations have utterly neglected in every way--including access to basic health care (let alone high end health care), education, even basic literacy, clean water, sewage facilities and other infrastructure, decent housing, jobs and hope (a vital component of health). Then there is the education of doctors and health professionals--utterly neglected. The creation of local community health centers--zero, zip, zilch. The provision of a basic, bottom-line diet against starvation for the poorest of the poor--the rich elite couldn't have cared less about them.

Just imagine a succession of Bush Juntas over many decades. The Bush Junta pretty much destroyed this country in two terms. Imagine what it would be like if we had never had an FDR or "New Deal"--for the Bushwhacks to attempt to dismantle--and instead had had a succession of Bush Juntas over the last century. No social security. No medicare. No clean water/sewage control for much of the population. Public works serving only the rich. All the riches of the country going into a few pockets, and everybody else desperate--one paycheck away from homelessness, or on the streets already, trying to eke out an existence as a street vendor. Imagine a Great Depression lasting for decades while the rich lived well off the country's main resource, oil, and gave the rest away to multinational corporations.

This is the situation that the Chavez government faced when they were voted in, in 1998--complete malfeasance, on every front, going back many decades. A health care system had to be built from nothing in most places. An agricultural system, for food security, had to be built from nothing. An educational system--and basic literacy programs--had to be built from practically nothing. Local manufacturing, job creation, small business support, pavement, streetlights and flood control in many places, and on and on.

WE had an infrastructure TO be dismantled by the Bushwhacks--our school system, libraries, parks, highways, hospitals, clinics, manufacturing base, pensions for the elderly, socialized medicine for the elderly, basic welfare, professional policing, emergency services, tax system and much more--created by the "New Deal" and subsequent "New Deal"-like projects--were all THERE, to be looted and destroyed by the super-rich. Not so in Venezuela. They lived off the oil and cared for nothing but their Jaguars and their Gucci bags. So, forebear on the snotty remarks--"the sad shape of Venezuela's health care"--and if you are a U.S. citizen, answer me this: Is it better to TRY to provide health care to ALL--however imperfect the system may be, and whatever birth pangs the system may go through--or provide NOTHING--NO health care for the great majority of people, while the rich have tummy tucks, second livers and hearts, and the whitest teeth money can buy?

What is YOUR prescription for Venezuela's health care system, by the way? And what is the source of your information that it is in "sad shape"? Were the poor who now have basic health clinics in their neighborhood, that they can walk to, consulted about what THEY think of the health care system? Or only doctors with dreams of fabulous riches in Miami?

The English, Canadian, French, Scandinavian and other free, universal health care systems have been utterly reviled, slandered, lied about and made fun of, by agents of US health profiteers since I was young (1960s). Not one positive word have I ever heard, in my entire life, from our corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies, about these very successful, universal health care programs. Why should I believe similar criticism now, of an effort by a 'third world' country to provide universal free health care?

Maybe your criticism of it is valid, maybe it isn't. There has so much utter bullshit about Venezuela in our corpo-fascist press, that I would need to know and evaluate the sources. But if it is true--that parts of it, or all of it--is in "sad shape"--what do you recommend? And if you are a Venezuelan, why aren't you recommending it there? Why are you criticizing it here, in a mostly U.S. forum? How would YOU provide universal, free medical care to millions of poor people who have never had it before? What is YOUR plan?

[ChangoLoa]

3. Pure fantasy

"access to basic health care (let alone high end health care), education, even basic literacy, clean water, sewage facilities and other infrastructure, decent housing"

"Just imagine a succession of Bush Juntas over many decades"

"A health care system had to be built from nothing in most places. An agricultural system, for food security, had to be built from nothing. An educational system--and basic literacy programs--had to be built from practically nothing. Local manufacturing, job creation, small business support, pavement, streetlights"

...

Please, check the history of Venezuela. You will understand that Chavez administration is far from being the champion in the matters you're mentioning here.

If you want to check the stats about the number of hospitals built, schools, universities, sanitary infrastructures, roads, dropping of illiteracy rate, improving of life expectancy, reduction of income inequality and poverty, house building by the state, growth in manufacturing and agriculture... try to take a glance at our 1958-1980 period.

The neoliberal pre-Chavez period is an 8 year period, not a period that lasted for "many decades".

[Braulio]

4. I believe it has been 10 years of Chavez governance, right?

You're running out of time to make excuses for the high crime rate and lousy health care system. It has been 10 years, and the government has spent A LOT of money buying weapons, giving money away, and otherwise wasting resources.

The problems facing Venezuelan health care are not that complicated, they're caused by government neglect and their insistence in creating a parallel program run by Cubans which is really intended to provide Cuba with a subsidy.

While I'm at it, the crime issue is believed by 82 % of Venezuelans to be worse now than it was before. And crime is impacting the poor a lot more than the rich. This is one reason why Chavez' popularity is dropping. He can throw cash out in handouts, if oil prices are obscenely high as they were last year, but with $75/bbl oil, the cash isn't there to cover up the problems he has ignored for so long.