10 times2 THE TIMES Thursday September 20 2007 THE TIMES Thursday September 20 2007 times2 11 Dr Thomas Stuttaford Q&A INSIDE Campaign Angelina Jolie reveals Let’s all go pear-shaped a mighty talent 15 to stop lice Ken Russell: how to screen make a sleeper hit 17 timesonline.co.uk/film timesonline.co.uk/health EVERETT / REX FEATURES CAMERA PRESS/JAMIE KINGHAM where the excess weight is carried A reader from Oxfordshire has in fat. The BMI equation is even written to complain that no more difficult to interpret in child- sooner has a new school year ren, in whom the percentage of fat is started than her eight-year-old different and varies when their hor- has again caught lice. So has his mones proliferate in puberty. The younger brother. Is there any way generalisation is that those who that she can prevent both ‘Darcy In an age of obesity have an early puberty will end up fat- becoming infested? ter and shorter than those in whom and anorexia it’s it is late. Professor Andrew Prentice, the At any time one in seven young vital to understand head of the MRC International Nu- children’s scalps support lice. Now a trition Group at the London School campaign has been launched to beat the best shape of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the insects. Its clarion call is, “Once a said that children who were at a less- week, take a peek”. It is based on simply and composition er risk of the effects of obesity tend- research carried out by the School ed to be those of average size when and Public Health Nurses Association for our bodies born and later grew at the same rate at the Medical Entomology Centre efore the First World War as their contemporaries. Trouble near Cambridge which involved Karen Blixen, the re- was more likely when children were interviewing 4,000 parents. nowned writer on Africa, born small but later grew faster to The research showed that lice was an art student at the catch up and in the process became develop resistance to too fat. Professor Prentice also dis- BRoyal Academy in Copenhagen. She long-established insecticides, some won’t die’ cussed the influence of racial differ- was determined to lose weight as she of which have unacceptable equated a lean figure with being in- ences in the determination of the BMI and its likely influence on side-effects. It also revealed that teresting and bohemian, like her aris- parents no longer think it their Colin Firth tells TIM TEEMAN about teenage tocratic cousins. Conversely, obesity health. A raised BMI didn’t repre- sent, for example, the same risk for business to search for and rebellion, taking drugs and his plan to represented the bourgeois solidarity eliminate lice but think of this as a that she was trying to escape. So South Asians, Caucasians and Afri- job for schools. Hence the “peek” keen was Blixen to become thin that can Americans. Different races finally rid himself of his doppelgänger one morning she threw her lunch- stored excess fat differently and the slogan. Sixty per cent of mothers time sandwiches that her mother ff Colin Firth goes, dart- of me finding out we weren’t immor- assumed that the school took made out of the train window. ing around topics as tal in my family.” responsibility for checking hair for Karen Blixen, who was a bit A rugby player’s BMI unexpected as taking The family returned to the UK chubby-faced in early adolescence, is medically less lice and one in four thought that drugs, screwing up at when he was small and Firth strug- now became slim — and a depres- schools still had regular Oschool and flawed parenting. It’s gled to fit in schools in Bath and sive like her father, who later com- important than an louse-checking sessions with a odd for such a famous actor to be so Essex. “Accents were an issue,” he mitted suicide. Blixen’s house out- school nurse. A third said that as candid, and even odder to find a star recalls, grimacing. “It was a shock to side Nairobi is now owned by the overweight woman’s they didn’t know what to look for, it better looking off screen than he is hear aitches being dropped. I felt Kenyan state and is open to the wouldn’t be much good if they did on — old-school rugged, softly spo- like a freak speaking with the accent public as a museum to commemo- location of the fat stores was impor- check, and nearly 50 per cent ken and mahogany-brown after film- I had. So I changed it and only rate her life. Photographs there tant. It is now generally known that admitted they didn’t understand ing the big-screen version of Mam- started to speak like this when I was show that, although the slimness it is better at all times of life to be that there was a need for anyone to ma Mia! in Greece. The 47-year-old in the sixth form.” she strived for produced some ele- pear-shaped than apple-shaped, far check regularly. When asked how actor didn’t like Abba: “Like most He lived in America for a year gance in youth, in later years the better to have fat on the thighs, often they thought their children’s boys it wasn’t my thing. I was 14 in when he was 12. “I feel quite strong- weight loss was excessive and she shoulders or buttocks than around hair was carefully scrutinised, 50 per 1974 and fancied girls to death.” ly about anti-Americanism. I share was prematurely aged and with- the belly. Equally, if not more impor- Firth’s confessional mood echoes people’s grievances about the cur- ered. A museum curator said that al- cent of parents thought that it was tant, is the amount of fat carried in once a month. In fact, children’s hair his role as Blake Morrison in the rent Administration but I remember though Blixen had other health the abdomen, where visceral fat film version of Morrison’s autobio- my father and I watching the Water- problems her death was attributed should be carefully tended weekly. hangs from the mesenteric tissue at- graphical memoir And When Did gate hearings. Here was a country by some to anorexia. The conclusion of the research, tached to the stomach and guts. The You Last See Your Father?, which arraigning its own leaders. America Dr Susan Jebb, of the Medical Re- summed up by Christine Brown, the adipose (fat) cells of visceral fat pro- evoked the relationship between has a fantastic history of dissent.” search Council’s human nutrition re- nursing adviser to the Medical duce much of the biochemically Morrison and his domineering Something went awry in Firth’s search unit in Cambridge, warned a Entomology Centre, was that lice active molecules known as adipok- father, Arthur. In this moving, quiet- teenage years. “I loathed authority conference on obesity held in Lon- were now so common that nobody ines. When the adipose cells be- ly powerful film Firth and Jim but was frightened of it. My rebel- don this week that parents, schools needed to be shy about them. come over filled with stored fat the Broadbent, as Arthur, have just the lions were sneaky, passive. I didn’t and doctors did not attach enough Children’s heads should be checked Karen Blixen in 1935 — her death has been attributed to anorexia cells secrete adipokines that can right kind of double-edged intimacy. smash windows or get into fights — importance to encouraging children have dramatic effects on insulin re- regularly by parents and a lotion to achieve a weight that is in the Arthur couldn’t be more different if I did I was strictly on the receiv- difference depending on their gen- than their contemporaries. sistance and production, the cardio- used to treat them to which lice from Firth’s “quiet, unassuming” ing end. Like Blake, I took refuge in healthy middle range for pre-adoles- vascular and metabolic systems. der. Overweight girls continued to However the body mass index don’t develop a resistance. Hedrin, father. “But I was a surly, preten- books with the hope of getting laid cents and adolescents. Achieving The proportion of someone’s gain weight, whereas boys, although (BMI), is calculated or expressed, first introduced in 2005, can be tious adolescent, like Blake’s por- by name-checking Dostoevsky. It this would lessen their chance of suf- weight attributable to fat, although and whether it is applied to adults bought over the counter. It contains trait of himself. My father and I wasn’t Hardy or Austen for me, but fering from cardiovascular disease they lost a bit, remained heavier all important, is rarely calculated, al- Dimeticone and Cyclomethicone 5; were not close in a cosy sense but I Camus. I grew my hair long, pierced or metabolic syndrome with its asso- or children, it gives the same though it can now easily read off the these don’t act as a chemical poison, ciated diabetes type 2, high blood message: that average weight is relatively inexpensive Tanita Body am as connected with my father as my ears and then got slightly strand- pressure and several other factors I increasing alarmingly. International Composition Monitor. This look have no serious side-effects and Blake was with his. The difference ed by the punk thing.” when adult. An aggressive or jocular figures show that children need spe- like a set of bathroom scales, but it only occasionally cause skin is my animosity with my dad was He loved music and joined “a not left behind in my teens.