So, there’s a novel suggestion from the government’s social policy unit – integrate into Dutch society and lose weight.

At least that is the message from the headlines about the ‘fact’ that people from ethnic minorities tend to be much more overweight than the native Dutch.
While 55% of Turks and 51% of Moroccans are overweight – just 45% of the native Dutch have put on too many kgs. But once the hapless immigrant starts mixing with the potato-eating society and learns the language properly – the weight differences miraculously disappear.
The SCP’s researchers are at a loss to explain this anomaly; is it that the non-integrated immigrant’s idea of beauty is the fuller figure? Is it because the integrated immigrant no longer sits down to huge dinners? Is it that non-integrated immigrants eat too much because they are unhappy?
Sidelines has another idea. Could it perhaps be a class issue? Class differences, in equalitarian Holland? Never! But in Anglo-Saxon countries where class is accepted, those living at the bottom of the food chain tend to be fatter.
Perhaps a comparison of non-western immigrant weight to that of the native Dutch living on social security benefits might produce different headlines.
Get rich and lose weight – that sounds like a bestseller.