Like global warming the evidence is in --- we’re girthing up at an alarming rate.
“People who are 100 pounds or more overweight are the fastest-growing group of overweight people, researchers reported…” - Reuters.
With continued trips to the trough we risk losing sight of our feet, for good.
Experts predict that nearly 100-percent of the North American population will be overweight in our lifetimes. Currently 67-percent of the adult population is overweight --- leaning towards obese.
It’s not only a Western phenomena: for the first time in history, fat people equal the underweight globally and just as people are dropping dead from starvation, others are literally eating themselves to death. “Globesity” has reached epidemic super-sized proportions.
Is it time to place blame? Find a scapegoat?
Mmm… curried scapegoat!
Before we point our stocky fingers at the gluttonous culprits, maybe we should go to the mirror to do a little soul-searching…
It’s easy to blame: restaurants, technology, the internet, portion sizes, friends, family, vending machines… Society seems to resist taking responsibility (perhaps a product of divorce). Our hectic lives have made bringing home the proverbial bacon a challenging feat. Technology is taking children off the playing fields ---- placing them in front of the computer, playing games with ephemeral friends. A product of a increasingly virtual world.
A main aspect of our expanding waistlines is the fact: We’re only doing what we’ve been told to do. We’re brilliant consumers --- of everything! Food is no exception. We’ve gobbled up the slick marketing campaigns and eat, eat, eat… until we find ourselves depressed and then we continue eating for comfort’s sake. Life has left us reeling and we can’t slow down or we risk being passed by the Smiths.
We eat at our desks, in front of the TV, and we eat pizza while walking down the street. Rarely do we sit down as a family anymore for a leisurely dinner --- sharing life as part of the menu.
Instead, we’ve eaten so much that the fashion industry has changed medium to small and large to… Food and dieting is big HUGE business, tipping the scales: over 23-billion dollars has been spent on dieting in the States this year. While at the same time: approximately 22-thousand people die of hunger everyday, globally.
Food for thought:
Fat seems to be an epidemic of the Developed World. We’re constantly being inundated with stories of global warming, war, etc… Could the associated fears have triggered something in our psyche prompting us to eat before the Developing World catches on? Are we preparing to hibernate?
Come along with me and let’s step up to the blame buffet for a moment (sneeze guard optional):
We truly have become a society of blame, blame, blamety, blame… haven’t we? Why accept responsibility, for anything, when we can dump all of our shortcomings on others? Can’t function, uncle Chuck touched me when I was little… so I’m gonna sit on a street corner, mope around, and panhandle. Can’t function, one of my teachers was hard on me, have to eat, cause I couldn’t drop and do twenty. The world is tough, can’t function, can’t function, can’t function, can‘t...
The blame parade intensifies when it comes to getting large. The food manufacturers, the portion sizes, trans fats, computers, a gene, a thyroid condition, my friends, television, I’ve given up stroking the bolt upright, loping the mule… I must eat my esteem has taken a beating… life is too hectic… food is everywhere… argh…they want us to eat, to consume.
All valid excuses… that’s right, excuses. With few exceptions --- that’s all they are. That’s not to discount traumatic events that alter life’s course and need the attention of professionals, however, those too are steeped in depression with far reaching psychological roots. Life, pardon the expletive, is fucking tough. A message for survival: it gets tougher if your heart has to put in extra effort keeping you alive. A blockage here: that’s okay, we’ll reroute the flow. Another blockage: sweat breaks on your brow, a road crew is called in, another rerouting. Another blockage: what’s that… you’ve dropped dead. Who’d you blame now?.. Oh yeah, can’t blame… I’m dead.
Therefore, regardless of the reason/excuse, the only one who can take responsibility for the death march of the food brigade is you. We can continue to blame… to do research in an attempt to find those responsible. We can try to get on a reality show to try to become the biggest “loser”. Or we can simply eat a vegetable, some fruit, and smaller portions. Change our lifestyles instead of letting others change it for us with marketing campaigns. Or die.
It’s that simple, the choice is yours: Door number one: die fat and depressed, bloated with comfort food. Door number two: moderation, variety, exercise, and live a long vibrant life, filled with love, sex, happiness, and a view of your…
I’ll save you the headache of filtering your way through the gamut of research, the reasons the world is getting fat are as follows:
We’re just doing (eating) what we’re told. We’re perfect little consumers. We’ve left others in charge of our lifestyle choices and we’ve taken the easy artery clogging routes.
We’re depressed. (23-billion spent on dieting). An excellent category for a scavenger hunt may be: find someone over 20 who hasn’t at some time said, “I need to lose a few pounds.”
And, that’s about it… argue if you must. Blame if you will. X-large will soon become small if you do.
“Just one more bite. It’s wafer thin.”
“Fuck off! I’m full.”
A last taste of calorie reduced desert: Earlier when I mentioned the Developing worlds psyche, I was kinda kidding. Eating for survival, that sounds ludicrous. Is it?
Unlike the wild where animals survive on instinct, man is supposed to be full of reason and logic and gummy bears. Haven’t we all become obedient sheep? I know it is an abstract concept. Does the average man make his own decisions? You may be asking: what does this have to do with expansion through food?
Bear with me.
We’re fat, yet, we keep eating. We kill others cause we’re told that it is for our survival, without really understanding the reasons why?.. or having a hatred for those we’re killing or even understanding what they believe in. We hate because of color, sexual orientation, and the neighborhood others live in. We buy what we’re told. We attend the same schools. Watch the same television. Independent thought is lauded as long as it falls in line with the powers that be. If you listen to the message that has been sent our way: we’re supposed to divide and conquer, to hate, to profile the enemy, and to protect our rights from those who are, “out to get us”.
Don’t believe me?
The Chinese were given opium and when they became drug addled and divided, their ports we‘re stolen right from under them. Now we fear that they’re recovering and may be out for a little payback, in the form of consumption… wait a sec, we’re not done consuming, yet. How dare they want the same luxuries?
India... a similar story. Oh well… they provide us with cheap products.
We brought slaves to America, stripped away their identities, their history, divided them, took away hope, raped, pillaged, assassinated, introduced drugs… and, you fill in the blanks. Yet, we pretend that racism “is getting better”. Please!
Still claim to be logical and not like a wild animal, surviving on instinct?
By the way, I truly believe, consumption is a product of depression and we’re being ushered down the consumption path by greed. Crazy? Maybe. It’s just a thought.
As those who suffered through the before mentioned indiscretions rebound… a new market place was needed to sell products to. Where’d the corporate world find this market? Right before their eyes. Us. Time to drug us: prescription and illicitly. Distract us: sports, celebrities, and a hectic life schedule, leaving us all too spent to see what really is coming down the pike. Deposit us in fear: global warming, bird flu, obesity stats, hurricanes, English parents killing their children, the news, reality… etc. And, divide us (a product of the previous): divorce.
If we’re confused, tired, living in fear and divided, we become perfect consumers.
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“Timmy what did you learn in school today? How was math? Science?”
“I learned to be afraid. I learned others are out to kill me. Me and my friends have started to profile others… the outcasts, the nerds, the people with different skin. I’m so glad that you’ve given me a bulletproof backpack, Daddy.”
Racism, hatred and fear live on! Way to go world. Wait a second, it’s a “need”, you’re not trying to cash in on fear and create more… I’m so sorry, I misinterpreted your intentions. Kids “need” bulletproof backpacks. Something’s wrong with you… us. Fuckers.
So, guess what, I eat… this world sucks. That’s part of the lesson plan if you listen to those trying to stick their greasy little fingers in our pockets by creating “need”. If we buy in, guess what? Bye, bye logic, let’s give into instinct.
And thus, more depression, leading to the smorgasbord of life, and perhaps, just perhaps, an instinctive gluttony in an attempt to survive. Like animals who use up every resource until extinction or till man alters their playing fields leading them to a premature exit; Could man simply be following the same formula? Could man instinctively be eating everything on the table because of fear and inevitably one day become famished because we’ve become so large, so overpopulated, so fuelled by greed and hatred, that there is nothing left to consume. Except of course, for those of us who are fuelled by logic and reason, they'll get to retreat to fully stocked bunkers.
I know when I’ve packed on a few extra pounds, it’s not my fault, someone else raised the fork and pried open my mouth, force feeding me. After a few days of binging I start the logical quest for thin: “This will be the last burger, last cola, desert, whole chicken, box of chocolates, bag of chips, I’ll eat… tomorrow, I’ll hit the gym and work it all off ---change my lifestyle.” Screw that, I’ll just buy some heavier forks.
Anyway you slice it, it’s a serious problem and our health depends on finding a solution. A simple starting point: Sitting down as a family for a leisurely dinner, sharing life.
Or: Put down the fork and assume some responsibility, unless, you don’t like your toes.
Lindsay is a Vancouver based author. For information visit http://www.seedenterprises.com/
