A new book came out today – “The Fattening of America”
Author – Eric Finkelstein says that people are choosing the obese lifestyle. He basically says that we’re a gluttonous nation and that’s what happens in rich countries. Reminds me of a scene in Fantasia where the fat king is eating and drinking himself silly. But I think he’s wrong.
I think people choose to stay obese because they don’t know how to live any other way. Diets fail them amost every time, and no one has been there to show them a better way of eating and living. That’s exactly why I wrote High Energy Eating.
And even still, a lot of people choose to keep eating the stuff that tastes bad and is making them fat and sick, so I suppose to a point the author is right.
One of the women interviewed about it said “But you can’t say if you quit going to the drive-through, exercise more and eat more vegetables, you’ll lose weight. There are so many more factors involved.”
Huh? You’re kidding me, right?
That does give weight to Finkelstein’s arguement that many Americans “will likely continue to choose a diet and exercise regimen that leads to excess weight, because losing weight requires too many lifestyle sacrifices,” his book warns.
In reality, the only real sacrifice is giving up packaged foods and learning how to cook quick healthy meals that actually taste a lot better. Ok, and maybe some TV time to actually get some exercise. But exercise can be a lot of things that are probably more fun than bad TV.
Think about it. Don’t you like home-cooked meals better anytime? And if you could learn how to make great tasting healthy dinners that don’t taste like cooked straw in 15 or 20 minutes – is that really a sacrifice?
Unfortunately, a lot of people think so, and they will choose to continue eating what they’re eating.
But I’m also starting to suspect that there is something addicitve about the corn syrup, chemical, and fat laden foods that makes people unwilling to give them up. It’s certainly not the taste. They’re totally gross. And it’s not that they really save any time. In the time it takes you to make Hamburger Helper, I’ll have made pork chops, salad, sweet potato, and some fruit.
I think people do choose not to change. I mean, For all of the people who say they want to lose weight, there’s not a whole lot of losing weight going on, is there?
And it’s not that you can’t. I know lots of people who’ve lost weight and kept it off. There was practically a whole issue of People magazine recently, filled with stories of people who’ve lost weight.
Imagine how that must feel. To be able to lose in some cases, hundreds of pounds. To be proud of your body. To live life again.
So why don’t people do it? Probably for the same reasons some of us haven’t quit smoking. Just not ready to do it yet even though you know life would be better if you did. Humans are so weird. Like Spock says – “That is not logical.”
I guess Finkelstein is right. It’s a choice.
Carole
a.k.a. – ‘Mother’