Obesity
12:40 AM April 6th
There are many touchy subjects. Many things you can't, and probably shouldn't, make light of. Things like cancer, and sexual assault. Things that nobody asks
for, and nobody deserves. Issues like
obesity and the national debt, however, I can and will touch on, because it
doesn't just happen, it takes years of poor decisions.
From those who are slightly
overweight, to those that are risking life and limb for the sake of a Twinkie,
nobody likes being told they need to lose weight. There are many excuses used as defenses in
the war on the world's food supply. Though there are those who really do have glandular problems, resulting
in excess weight, 99% of the time I can tell you what your excess weight
isn't. It's NOT water weight, you're NOT
"big boned", and it absolutely is NOT society's fault. You need to put down the fork, and go for a
walk. I'm my own example, in this case. During the 2 or so hours I spent
writing this article, I had the urge to stuff my face with a snack, as we all
do from time to time. I could easily
have grabbed some celery, or a rice cake, and thought nothing of it. But celery is for rabbits, and eating a rice
cake is like eating a Styrofoam puck. I
instead grabbed a piece of apple pie, and scarfed it
down without a second though. I did
this, because, and I’m thinking radically here, I figured I'd take the dog for
a walk, or take a basketball to the park later on. What a concept.
Of course, it's not always that
simple. There can be deep-rooted
childhood issues, or the aforementioned glandular problems. But glandular problems are rare, and you
can't have deep rooted childhood issues if you're STILL A CHILD. When you grow up and move out on your own,
or get into your late teens, it's up to you to make healthy choices. But when mommy's doing the grocery shopping,
and she's so obese she can't fit through the door with her armload of pop-tarts
and doughnuts, you're not off to a good start in life.
One thing many people neglect to bring up is the economic side of
it. Not the cost to society, but the
fact that we can AFFORD to have so many people eating so much, they're risking
their lives. In many 3rd world
countries, it's a testament to a parent's wealth, if they can afford to have a
fat child. If their child waddles
instead of walks, they're doing ok, while in this country, it's considered a
huge problem. I am in no way condoning obesity, but it's another indication of
just how good we've got it. People in
China have often times in the past resorted to eating shoes when the food
supply ran out, but your Lexus won't start, so you take it out on the
kids. Life is tough.
All joking aside, obesity can be a real problem, there's no getting
around that. In this country, we've got people so fat they can't even roll
over! There are people in this country so fat, the
fire department has resorted to knocking out walls, and using piano stretchers
to carry them out. A
piano stretcher. A quick trip to
Google tells me that a piano can weigh anywhere from five hundred to a thousand
pounds. A THOUSAND
POUNDS. How does one get that
big? It’s unfathomable.
There is no one scapegoat you can blame for this epidemic. That is to say, there is nothing that can
solely be blamed for this problem. As
with many problems, it's a combination of many factors. As much as people like to blame technology,
I'd like to believe the benefits far outweigh the cons (no pun intended). If I were doing this up on a typewriter, I'd
have gone through an obscene amount of paper already. But instead, I'm writing
it on a laptop, listening to Rush and thanking whomever it concerns that I'm
not stuck using a typewriter and a bottle of Whiteout.
People are apt to blame junk food, which, admittedly, does make a nice
round, fat, easy target. But junk food
didn't arrive with computers and videogames. Fried chicken and Coca-Cola have been around for far longer than the
obesity epidemic has "ravaged our youth". Again, it's a combination of several
different factors that contributes to this issue. In the interest of good journalism, I did
some research and worked out how much of a can of coke is, in fact, liquid
sugar. The results are as follows.
There are 39 grams of sugar in a can of coke
1 ounce = 28.349523 grams
One can of Coke is about 12 ounces, or 336 grams
336 grams / 39 grams of sugar = ~8%
Just under 10% of Coke is sugar. Doesn't sound like a lot,
till you think about the amount of coke a person might drink in a week. Diet Coke is no better. Aspartame, the sugar replacement in Diet
Coke, is illegal in nearly every other country in the world, but we still
consume it by the truckload. As a side note, Coke was simply the easiest to
find information on. The odds are good
that most other soft drinks are just as bad. Going back to what I said before,
Coca-Cola has been around since 1886, in one form or another. It's not the
cause of this issue, in and by itself. Again, it just simply isn't possible to pin the blame on one factor.
As far as I know, there is no solution on the horizon, no magic elixir in the works that will solve all our problems. It will take hard work, and education of the masses, to begin changing the way we live our lives in regards to food.