PLUMP?
Pre-holiday studies available show that one-third of the American
populace is now officially listed as “obese”.
This trend has been becoming more and more apparent in recent years especially among young boys and girls.
The fact that we are a fat nation is evident every time you see a street seen pictured on TV or in print, people of all types rushing back and forth and not realizing they are being photographed. The boobs and butts are bouncing; hips are leaping and hitting other hips and widely spread and heavily clad feet are balancing a load of lard that make them both wary and weary of any movement. Pot bellies are prominent and belts and pants bandsare fighting a one-front war are not winning.
The walking we do is limited.It’s a necessity required to move us from on place to anoher for sitting. For older people, that is one of the problems, not enough walking or exercise of any kind. For youngsters, the culprit most frequently named is too much television watching. The term “couch potato” is now a part of our language and the lack of exercise is telling on our youth in rather costly ways. Fast food consumption comes in as a close runner-up with both young and old alike.
The fact that fat has become so visible should, one would think, be alarm enough to alert all of us to the process which is leading to untold amounts of medical expense and physical suffering in the years to come. Overeating is at the stage where it is very much the same as having a disease of some sort.
We eat too much and too often. We feel we must snack when we are reading, watching TV, at the computer, driving, arriving at almost any location where vending machines are nearby and loaded with chips, candy, peanuts and other such lures. It takes a twelve-ounce bottle of any soft drink to wash it all down, too. Better get two. You’ll need one in the car as you ride along.
We are making food choice largely by habit or visual examination but seldom pay any attention to the nutritional qualities of the foods we buy or prepare. Since we are also a nation led by fads and fantasies there is a marked tendency to do whatever seems to be in fashion at the moment...if a new form of Taco is available eat it often if only to show our are hip to the times and right among the doers of this nation.
Much of the fat being produced in abundance now is being created in the educational areas of the county. Not only do schools operate “cafeterias” and “lunch rooms”, but they have set up a network of vending machines to feed the elementary-high school-and college kids between classes or on any absence from a class. The unit they study each year on nutrition and healthful foods and eat habit is far too short to meet the need for guidance in food choices. Cooks and other kitchen workers have been handicapped for years in being required to make use of government surplus food shipments in tiresome duplications. They give up seeking new ways to prepare such foods and the children get tired of having the same things again and again.
We foster glossy studies on types of fat and other features of foods and engage in multi-million dollar weight reduction plans and schemes by the score or more. The effort is on the wrong end of things, you might say. We are exerting ourselves at spending our money to get rid of extra weight while failing to address the basic causes of the continual increase in poundage.
If we, as adults, continue this trend we are remiss in caring for our offspring to the best of our abilities. We are asking for trouble on all sides by continuing to be lax in our own diet control and in that of our children. It is past time to wake up when we are being warned by what we see...one third of us now classed as "obese" to put it nicely. Fat, that is
F-A-T..."fat."
A.L.M. December 10, 2002 [c720wds]
