It occurred to me few years ago that the same fanatical, social watchdogs who were then after "sinful habits" would be looking for something or someone else to attack just as soon as that issue had reached its apex? I also mentioned at the time that it would be obesity, or the few extra pounds you're carrying that would get their attention? Well here we are and that's exactly what's going on. The fat police is here.
The national media is peppered with news from the American Heart Association and Obesity Researchers about the current 'Obesity Epidemic' and its ultimate deadly results. All this yammering has me convinced that there is a gaggle of kibitzers without a life that want to run yours.
Granted the loss of a few pounds couldn't hurt most of us, but let us not forget that it’s a personal choice. Loose them if you want to, but don't let yourself be trapped in a state of guilt by people who are just loud enough to get media attention. And what about television advertising? Let your imagination run with this and you will be giggling yourself to sleep at night visualizing a national blubber meltdown.
Now it's official - Obesity has firmly joined the American Heart Association's list of Major Risk Factors that would be an upgrade from prior lists that mentioned obesity as a 'Contributing Factor'. What were they thinking for the twenty or so years leading to this point? Should we be shocked at the news that now it has reached widespread proportions, and that fifty four percent of all American adults are just too fat. In a country where bigger has been lauded as being better for half a century are we surprised?
Aside from the fact that personal responsibility became an endangered species a quarter of a century ago, lets examine some of the contributing factors of this condition:
Ø Every other television commercial is related to food or gratification through ingestion. The average adult watches some five hours of television each day.
Ø Grocery stores have been perfecting their point of purchase marketing techniques for three decades.
Ø Children as well as adults have traditionally used food as an emotional crutch.
Ø We're all too ready to accept fat as a disease, that way we won't have to think about or decide on an exercise program for ourselves.
The experts also say that if intervention began today it might be decades before we would see substantial improvements. Intervention? By whom exactly? And how do they propose to intervene? Hire guards to stand outside convenience stores to rip snack food out of your hand? The problem is that we cannot point to food as an act of sin perpetrated on us by Betty Crocker and her coffee cake minions. Not even the potato chip commercial “Bet you can’t eat just one”, is guilty of evil intent.
According to one such expert, "It's really the environment that is causing this epidemic of obesity." He states. Of course it is because we all know that "Fast food places create too many opportunities to eat and too few to promote physical activity."
How about not stopping to eat there?. Excess fat is not an infectious disease; you cannot catch it from your relatives or friends. Fat is the direct result of what and how much you shovel into your own mouth.
If you want to subscribe to the disease theory, get a good lawyer. You could be the first person to sue Hostess for perpetrating Twinkies and other convenient junk foods on us for all these years. Just don’t wager your instant mash potatoes on the idea that the food industry will buckle as quickly as the those other companies did.
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