You Want Fries With That?
Go to a public place where you are comfortable. Now park your butt for a half-hour. Observe and take notes. The place can be almost anywhere — shopping mall, inside or out, school, city park, street corner, restaurant, busy parking garage, supermarket. Anywhere you might find a broad cross section of your fellow humans. For our purposes, a health club or spa will not yield an unbiased sample, so best to avoid them. Besides, you never know when some of the people that frequent those places might be contagious. You certainly would not want to develop any firm abs or rosy cheeks. Terrible, tragic conditions!
Now, just sit and relax — bet you haven’t done that in a while. Watch the folks coming and going, or hanging around. Without getting unduly technical or accurate, make mental or pencil or digital notes on how many of the people you see are trim, fat, or way fat.
Over the past couple of years I have gained about 15 pounds, mostly around the middle, above what had been a very stable and ideal weight for me for many years. With my height and frame, 185 is about right. Hovering around 200 is not comfortable or healthy and I know I must lose it. You would probably not label me as fat, but the little roll around the middle is definitely noticeable. You might say that I am slightly overweight. I am wearing the same pants waist size, but I notice how uncomfortable they have become and how glad I am to peel out of them and into sweats at the end of the day.
While preparing for this essay, my regular blog reading led me to another that has done far more work on the subject than I intended. So I’ll just point to it, steal it, and say merci to dus7 at Come Speak To Me 2 for her work and post titled Round is a shape. dus7 has done a credible job of pulling together studies, statistics, trends, and related information. The interpreted results from one study indicate that “6 out of 10 American women, 7 out of 10 American men, and 3 in 20 young people are overweight.”
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My own observations are quite similar, though I do not see much difference between men and women, both being at about 75%. I would also raise the percentage of young people to as much as 25%. Of course, the figures (pun) will vary a bit depending on your venue of choice. Your mileage may vary…
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dus7 also includes information and links on the reasons for our fattening populace and what can be done about it. These are simple rules we learned in 3rd grade health classes, but far too many of us fail to practice:
- Eat right, both quantity and quality.
- Get plenty of exercise.
We are a nation of fat people just waiting for a heart attack to happen. The problem, as widely reported in various media, has reached pandemic proportions. Think of the burden this places on our already out-of-control health care system over the next generation. The trend must be reversed, and each of us is responsible for ourselves. No one is going to do it for us.
A simple place to start would be to stay out of fast-food places completely. If you must go, have a salad or baked potato (not loaded) or something else from their lean menu, never say yes when asked if you want fries, and never biggie-size it.
Well, I worked up quite an appetite putting this together. Think I’ll whip up a big batch of pancakes and sausage…
9 Comments so far
Hi Winston,
I’ve got a whole page on losing weight.
It is however in German. If you can read German, go to http://home.egge.net/~savory/abnahme1.htm
Stu
Wow, TY, Winston, for the link. Nutrition is one of my personal hot button issues, and back in the 70s I was inhaling everything Adelle Davis, Prevention magazine, and others wrote. My now grown kids are pretty healthy, too! But it seems we as a society have just let it all go since then. There’s that element of trust, for one thing - we think everything in the supermarket is edible, that the offerings of fast food ‘restaurants’ are actually food, and that if everyone else is doing it (eating too much, etc.), it must be okay. None of these are true IMO.
About four years ago I lost 20 lbs. for other reasons but liked the feeling and have kept the new weight level ever since.
Oh, and I’ve been wanting to tell you that I like the lily on your heading.
Stu, I’ll have to wait for the Southern English translation.
dus7, hope you don’t get too attached to the lily as I will be changing it to something a little more “me” when time permits and the stars and planets align just right.
Quick Hits…
(to borrow a phrase) A heavy issue — observations of overweight Americans.
I can relate, Winston…
You wouldn’t think me fat to look at me, but truthfully I need to lose 15-20 pounds. I look slim compared to alot of folks I know! I think the teenagers I drive past when school is getting out are looking a lot fatter than my friends and I did 20 years ago. I don’t eat fast food, and watch my portions, even occasionally exercise. I worry about those that aren’t even doing this much. It does seem the slowing metabolism as we age requires more care to control weight gain.
FWIW, a Vegan diet will lose you about a pound a week AFAIK.
I worry about those that aren’t even doing this much.
Don’t. It’s not your problem.
Very interesting piece. People get very touchy when it comes to any discussion dealing with money, weight, religion or politics. My dad was obese a few years ago, he retired and was diagnosed with diabetes. For him, that made all of the difference, he began to change his eating habits. Did he listen to anyone before? No, only with the notion that he might become insulin dependent did he do something about it. Now you have given me an idea for my blog. Thanks!
I have always exercised, eaten healthy foods, and religiously visited a doctor once a year. When I was diagonsed with cancer years ago, all I could think of was if I was going to die, why hadn’t I had all those malts and fries I turned down and why did I spend so much valuable time in the gym instead of being with my family. It sucked.
That bitterness didn’t last long and I still exercise and although I am ten pounds heavier than when I turned 2o fifty years ago, I am in excellent health. Old habits die hard and I am seldom found in a fast food restaurant and I still work out four times a week.
I look around at our children (my great grand-daughter included) and wonder what is going to happen to them. Obesity is epidemic and I don’t see people willing to change much.