Inactivity Does Not Explain Canada’s Obesity Epidemic | Dr. Sharma's Obesity Notes

"And now comes the surprise: overweight and obese kids and adults are only marginally (if at all) less active than their “normal” weight counterparts."

and

"In light of these data and the tremendous negative emotional and physical impact of weight bias, I stongly believe that discussing inactivity (or exercise) in the context of obesity is not only obfuscating the issues but also a major distraction from addressing the real causes of the problem."

Read more here: Inactivity Does Not Explain Canada’s Obesity Epidemic | Dr. Sharma's Obesity Notes

Body as a sick engine

I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.
And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.
I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self
and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help
and patience, and a certain difficult repentance
long, difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself
from the endless repetition of the mistake
which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify. – D.H. Lawrence

Obesity is commonly understood as an illness. Here I want to superimpose an interpretation of Lawrence’s poem that may not be accommodating of  his intention but I think there is room in his obscure language to make this available.

If as in a Cartesian sense the body is a machine, it makes sense to think that there must be possible to arrive at the idea of optimally running machine. Obesity from the point of view of optimum mechanical efficiency should be considered as an illness. But Lawrence is actually trying to reframe the idea of illness. Here illness is connected not to an improper function of the body/machine. Illness is connected to ‘wounds to the soul’ which he suggests take a ‘long, long time’ to recover from. So then obesity is not an illness of the body but of the soul. This is even worse. This turns into: “I am obese – I have an ill soul.” This is a short step away from: “You are obese – you are a bad person!” But something else is available here in Lawrence.

He suggests that these soul wounds require a ‘certain difficult repentance…of life’s mistake’. So perhaps if you are obese Lawrence would say that all one needs to do is repent of your mistakes – not of the body but of the mind and soul. So far we have covered the dominant rhetoric of the plenty of the weight loss as self-help programs (i.e. Weight Watchers, Weigh Down Diet, even Curves). Think right – eat right – be thin -they tell you.  But it is also the ‘freeing oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.’ So what is this socially sanctified mistake that Lawrence is talking about? It is quite possible that Lawrence had a specific social problem in mind that was systematically opposed to healing. But he seems to have avoided being too direct in his accusation. As a result the poem is open for this: the endlessly repeated mistake that individuals must free themselves from is nothing less than seeing the body as a mechanism.

So what?

Perhaps if the body isn’t a mechanism then we can stop moralizing the body. Maybe we can stop using the body as a marker to determine which individuals are evil and which one’s are good. Maybe a better idea of illness can be recaptured. Maybe the common judgement of lazy, gluttonous, dirty, or careless can stop being the moral tags affixed to bodies that stand outside of the arbitrary way we have thought the typical body should look.

disclaimer: I am not in anyway trying to be an apologist for Lawrence. I doubt there is much of his ideological perspective I could endorse.

the invisible fat man

I want to be very careful here. It seems that racism is a distinct (and more horrific) form of bigotry. The oppression of non-whites is hardly something to trivialize with a comparison to other forms of discrimination. I do think it is possible to extract from the field of racism a particular nuance of the human experience of positional violence. I know violence seems like an overly loaded term in this space. It is appropriate if only to suggest that the act of reducing the other to something less is in itself a violent act where power is exercised to control the other. With all due respect and deference since I am a after all a white man I want to suggest a comparison that might get at a peculiarity at work in the field an us / them formulation.

In racism there is the black person and the white person. In body-sizism there is the fat person and the thin person. Black is to fat as White is to thin. This comparative equivalency is only really positional and not actual lest we fall into the dismissive problem stated above.

In order to think about this comparison let us turn to Frantz Fanon who gives us theory of how language situates and reduces the black person to a position of depersonalization. Fanon in the introduction to his first (and my favourite work) book Black Skin White Masks posits the way language works to reduce the black.

“To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization…The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter-that is, he will come closer to being a real human being-in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language.”

Fanon is suggesting that the adoption of a language situates the individual to a restriction of identity as a subject. I think this should be fairly clear for anyone who has tried to master a second language since what becomes immediately apparent is the way the new language forces a different perspective, thought process, etc. The better one can speak the language the better able the individual is able to negotiate the essential elements of living within that culture. The accent is what gives one away as a foreign speaker – it keeps one at a distance. Distance might be negotiable but what Fanon suggests is that ultimately this restriction – the act of supporting ‘the weight of a civilization’ is an act of complicity toward a denial of the black person’s real identity as they strive to take on the whole cultural aesthetic of white person.

Turning back to food, I have already talked about how theorists have framed food as a system of signs that operate like a language. Food and eating is a way to communicate. Eating in a certain way is a way of producing identity.

Fanon again describes the project of coming out from under the restriction that language can impose on the racial oppressed black.

“We shall have no mercy for the former governors, the former missionaries. To us, the man who adores the Negro is as “sick” as the man who abominates him. Conversely, the black man who wants to turn his race white is as miserable as he who preaches hatred for the whites. In the absolute, the black is no more to be loved than the Czech, and truly what is to be done is to set man free…Mankind set free of the trampoline that is the resistance of others, and digging into its own flesh to find meaning.”

What Fanon is interested in is not just having the black person find vindication or revenge on the oppressor but instead to escape the entire system that allows this kind of oppression to exist and flourish. The point for the black person is not to achieve the position of the white it is to smash the whole thing to pieces to get at freedom. Fanon is alerting us to the fact that there is something deeply problematic about the function of distinguishing ourselves against another as something superior.

From here it is interesting to think about food again. If eating is a language than the supermarket is like a sort of dictionary. It catalogues the ‘words’ that are available for us to use to talk with the ‘language’ of food. And just like a dictionary a supermarket seems to provide a comprehensive catalogue of all the available words that we can use. (How many times have we heard in grade school: If its not in the dictionary then its not a word – of course in that there is no accounting for Sarah Palin’s “refudiate”) So when we head down the peanut butter aisle we think we are choosing from all the available kinds of peanut butter available – they are all there side by side. Chunky, Crunchy, extra Chunky, smooth, extra smooth, natural, organic, light, reduced fat, etc. – they are all right there together. But what we quickly and intuitively come to know is that although this seems like real choice – it is only actually a limited choice. There must be other peanut butters out there – they just did not make it on to the shelf. This illusion of real choice operates in the same way that words operate in a given language. There seem to be a limited amount of words available to use within a language to express what we want to say. So too it is with food and eating.

If the black man is reduced in speaking another language is the fat man reduced in speaking a different language. If I as a former fat man begin to speak in the new language of ‘being/becoming thin’ what do I do to the fat man. I say that the fat man was not as viable as the new thin man. I want to be thin so I choose to speak in a new language of food. I eat less. I eat the ‘right’ foods to keep me thin and make me thinner. All the while my former fatness betrays my accent in the new language. I have no way to express the way food made my former identity with the new language I am speaking. It seems ironic and even heretical for me to suggest to my son to make some microwave popcorn for him and his friend when I know that this is not the language I am supposed to be ‘speaking’ (and as a father I should not be teaching my kids to speak in my mother tongue). But as a fat man I was able to say things with food that I can’t say now. I used to be able to have ‘words’ telling cooks how awesome their food was by helping myself to seconds and thirds. There seemed to be a way that the mere fact of me being large was able to function as a verification of goodness of food. Now as a thinning man I am left without a voice – reduced. At every turn I must also deny the existence of the old fat man even though the flaps of skin are still hanging well below my belt. I am scrutinized and worried over. How many times have I already heard, “I hope you won’t waste away to nothing.” How ridiculous is that – there is a long impossible road before my material nothingness is realized. But another nothingness has appeared. The invisibility of the fat man. The fat man does not speak – only the thin man speaks. I learn the right way to talk about the fat man. I feel much better now than I did then. I choose different words/food to create my identity. I am trying to become thin…you might think this the ultimate sacrilege to racist discourse but here goes…

to take liberties with Fanon…To us, the man who adores (pities) the Fatso is as “sick” as the man who abominates him. Conversely, the fat man who wants to turn his fatness thin is as miserable as he who preaches hatred for the skinny. In the absolute, the obese are no more to be loved than the anorexic, and truly what is to be done is to set man free.

Here is the root of it all. There is something essential in human nature that perverts the natural distinguishing that inevitably occurs between individuals. When a distinction become a sight of making one person more worthy than another – we have engaged in an act of oppression…

leaving marx on my shirt

Karl Marx was one of the first dudes to describe the idea of alienated labour. This idea of alienation stemmed from what he saw as a problem with the emerging system of production in the burgeoning industrial revolution. He look at the factories of the day and saw that the only thing that an individual actually owned was the effort or work that he could put into making a product. Whereas before if a farmer milked a cow – the milk that he got would belong to him through his effort in getting it. Now since he was working for the multi-national dairy industry (he-he) all he had to show for his effort was the wage that his employer paid him for the effort he had expended in getting the milk. The worker then is alienated or disconnected from his labour/effort.

Alienation is something I think about a lot while I am walking on the treadmill. In some ways, the effort that I expend on that thing makes me very connected to the product of my labour. I see/feel my body getting thinner and more energetic. In another way I am completely alienated from the product of my labour. There is no actual product after an hour of walking and lifting weight –except for the sweat on my shirt (which would be there no matter what kind of work I would do).

I got to thinking that these two hours a day end up being a great place to think about work, weight loss and alienation. I realized one day that this same energy I spend everyday ‘getting fit’ could possibly be used to say…work on a house for someone who doesn’t have one. I could also be using that same effort to earn money for my family. All these things might still leave me alienated from the product of my labour but at least it would be something of value in this social context.

Instead, I have decided to spend 1.5 to 2 hours everyday shaping my body according to some arbitrary standard of body image that I am willingly subjecting myself to. What does that say about how we see our bodies? What does that say about society? What does that say about me?

Watch this – but be warned its not pretty and I’m not really all that proud of it!

leaving marx on my shirt

All this talk about ‘healthy’ is really making me ‘sick’?

Weight log:223lbs

Let me begin by asking a few questions…

What makes one item of food healthy and another one unhealthy? Why do some people find chicken nuggets gross and unhealthy while the same meat (parts of the chicken) used in your mom’s chicken soup are actually used to treat colds (sort of)? How can the same material object be both terrible for your health and also able to relieve the symptoms of your illness? What are the criteria that make certain foods healthy and others not so? Is it just what ingredients are used, how they are mixed together, what sort of tools are used to make them, or could it be that the idea of what is health is actual rather an arbitrary thing? Is it possible that the idea of ‘healthy’ might actually be something we have created to make some kind of political statement? By saying something is healthy or unhealthy are we actually engaging in a sort of revolutionary project? And while being revolutionary might give us a certain swagger, what is it that we might be trying to revolt against? Is it possible that food itself becomes a sort of play thing that we use to talk about how we feel about certain forces of power in our world? Is it possible that food provides us with a foil that we use to determine our rank in comparison to each other? (For instance: “I cannot stand drinking Folgers coffee!” Is that because it tastes bad or because I am trying to make a statement about who I am in comparison to all those other hopeless addicts. Am I actually exercising what Pierre Bourdieu would call cultural capital?)

Here is another example: Friends of mine own a vineyard in Kelowna. The grapes from their vineyard are a distinct variety that produces one of the most flavourful wines I have tasted. Summerhill Pyramid Winery’s Baco Noir sells for between $25 and $35 per bottle. It seems that when Mr. Eides began growing the grapes on contract for this winery the expectation was that this wine would likely range in the $10/bottle price range. But after substantial test and showing at various wine tasting events (I’m not really even sure what that all entails) this wine received substantial acclaim which translated into the significant increase in price. So the question is: what is the real worth of this bottle of wine? The actual material contents of the wine have not changed but it seems that due to the interact of experts and a willingness on the part of the public to sustain this price the wine has increased in value. Of course it does not hurt that the narrative around the wine is a classic “Little Engine that Could” Story. But you can see how this related to the question of health? Why can we apply labels of healthy and unhealthy to foods?

Wanna have some fun with this? Check out this little quiz that I have made up to see what you think about certain foods…

Take the Survey (click here)

But while you are pondering that let me take this a step further and ask you to push a little bit further into the reasons for why we might be constructing ideas about health that are not necessarily related to the actual material matter. But that I will save till next time…

Jamie Oliver - Nugget experiment FAIL - BestofYouTube.com

I mean here you go this is the real deal baby. Food Revolution indeed. Wow if this isn't literally grist for the mill than what is?
Jamie Oliver - Nugget experiment FAIL - BestofYouTube.com

Overheard…

A relatively larger first year student who lives in residence at the university to her relatively thinner first year classmate (who seem to incessantly have a predisposition to high-fiving each other over the most meaningless trivialities), “university student breakfast” = one half of a bagel and a whole Roma tomato.

“In both philosophy and everyday life we imagine that there is a real or true self which lies deep within us. On the surface is  found the clothing which may represent us and may reveal a truth about ourselves, but it may also lie. It is as though if we peeled off the outer layers we would finally get to the real self within. But what was revealed by the absence of clothes was not the Emperor’s (of the infamous fairytale) inner self but his outward conceit. Actually, as Ibsen’s Peer Gynt observed, we are all onions. If you keep peeling off our layers you find – absolutely nothing left. there is not true inner self. We are not Emperors represented by clothes, because if we remove the clothes there isn’t an inner core. The clothes were not superficial, they actually were what made us what we think we are.” – Daniel Miller in STUFF

The point Miller is trying to make is that the illusion of an inner self might actually be illusory especially in the sense that it might somehow be distinct from its external representation. I believe another wise ONE said something like, “By their fruit you will recognize them”. This concept is not easily reconciled with the modern conception of the self where we talk about finding ourselves and seeing ourselves in a new light. But really when you think of it those ideas are actually quite odd since they clearly suggest that we somehow live outside of ourselves almost like two people. What Miller is saying about clothing – we can surely say about food especially if we follow Barthes ideas in the previous post.
So my classmate is not just trying to produce an identity the food itself is identifying her or rather it is constituting her – both physiologically and socially…
The interesting thing might be to see how indeed those food item speak. I have been known as a coffee expert – a moniker that although I treasure it somewhat I feel uncomfortable wearing – it is restrictive in many situations where people find it necessary to justify their apparently inferior coffee when serving it to me. I always say, “Listen, I seriously don’t mind drinking any coffee at all – as long as it is black and caffeinated.” Of course this is not actually true since there clearly are some coffees that I refuse to drink. But saying allows me to negotiate what might otherwise be regarded a peculiar arrogance. Or is it my way of reinforcing my social construction as connoisseur by granting a certain ‘grace’ to my hosts in drinking their beverage? And what might happen if after losing all this weight I can no longer lay claim to the that same status?

Weight log:227lb

Why put a sociologist on a diet?

Weight log: 228lb (that is what I was on Monday so…)
I’m not claiming to be a sociologist (I believe a certain secret handshake must be learned before that is the case) but the title is another way of asking why we should look at the issue of weight loss, food and diet from a sociological perspective. While I’m sure it requires little thought to imagine why sociological investigation might be useful in this field, it is also plainly obvious that this field has been managed almost every other field and discipline. Beardsworth and Keil lay out a pretty good basis for investigation. Sociologists may have overlooked (and this is likely overstated since people like Levi-Strauss have been engaged in this type of investigation for a while) this field since the focus has been largely on posing social questions that resist natural phenomenon as being able to explain social nuances (p.171). They also affirm that the field has belonged to other ‘disciplines’

much of the writing about dieting, fat and body image appears in popular magazines and other media out put. Where these images emerge in the academic literature, they are discussed by nutritionists, medical researchers, psychologists… (p. 175)

I think this is an important distinction because I am interested in uncovering a discursive analysis of the objects in this field of study – so knowing who owns the right to talk about this topic is an important starting point. The authors suggest four puzzles that might be useful to investigate for sociologists…

the first is the knowledge that, as food supplies become both more secure and more plentiful, a substantial proportion of the population is on a diet with the aim of achieving weight loss and so are trying to avoid eating the range and variety of foods now available…

This makes me think of one of my regular customers who I had a conversation with this morning at market. She told me that she was dieting and was using our Saskatoon juice as a vital supplement to her dieting strategy. She was using a protein powder of some expense apparently and was adding our juice to it – for flavour but also because she believed that the juice was nutritionally beneficial. Our juice is not exactly cheap. I couldn’t help thinking that while there could be many options she could choose from to construct a weight loss diet she was using especially expensive products to achieve her goals. I couldn’t help thinking for the same amount of money that she was spending monthly on supplements and our juice – my wife and I were sponsoring four children through World Vision. We walk through supermarkets and turn down slightly bruised apples because we can while other people in the world would find that produce perfectly fine. But not only that we CAN choose rare and exotic (okay so Saskatoon juice is not exactly exotic (but then again watch this (35:00)…)) food products but we can use them to make ourselves less obese. There is something peculiar about that and worth investigation.
As I pulled through the McDick’s drive through sucking with all my might on my milkshake, I grew incredibly disappointed. That milkshake consisted of 1/3 of my caloric intake for the day. I spent 16 minutes in line waiting for what proved to be a lot less satisfying than I would have wanted. But then I reflected on how unconventional my weight loss program has been. I certainly have eaten a lot less than I used to but I have not really anything exotic – except perhaps for that little banned pill I am taking…

the second is the awareness that, as the average body weight increases in the general population, the preferred (perhaps even ‘ideal’) body image (or shape)…emphasizes the slim, the slender and the underweight.

Could there be some valuable class analysis lurking behind this – hmmmm?

the third is the fact that the second half of the twentieth century is associated with a rise in eating ‘disorders’…The fourth puzzle is highlighted by the data which show that most if not all. of those involved in dieting…are women, that is, the people who are normally responsible…for the selection, preparation and serving of food. (p.174)

So this is a gender issue. Of course it is. I should be so lucky as to have chosen an issue that is after all a women’s issue. Right? I mean come on. Do you think it is easy exploring this femininity? I mean I thought I would become more of a man by losing weight? Now I find out that taking over the cooking/shopping duties and losing weight at the same time is actually a woman’s problem. Well what’s next – hot flashes….I’m jesting okay…

Healthy vs UnHealthy

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Rules of the Church Potluck

God may have rested on the 7th day but I’m pretty sure that the night before he told the woman, “hey, we’re havin’ a potluck tomorrow!”
Having been to a few potlucks in my short 40 years I have decided to lay down some essential laws pertaining to the potluck…
1. Children should be highly supervised by experienced adults (preferably the crotchediest woman on the church serving committee. Potlucks are invariably a feast for the eyes as well as the belly. Filled with the legends of potlucks dancing in their heads children are liable to take much of the precious potluck food which will sadly go to waste once they have sat down and return to their normative gustatory peculiarities.
---Corollary: Parents whose children do not finish their plates are obliged to finish their children’s plates also... even if they did take the mystery meat by mistake.
2. Two meatballs is an acceptable serving size at a potluck. ‘Overachievers’ will be prosecuted by the church board at the next meeting.
3. When considering which dish to bring to the potluck BANISH any thought of what might be the healthiest or most weight conscious entrée to prepare. Make your food as rich and full flavour as possible. Remember that Church Potlucks are intended to bring parishioners closer to their Maker so do your part by clogging their arteries as much as possible so that they might meet Him sooner.
4. It is critical to recruit a threatening tactical unit which will ensure that the youth of the church do not sit closest to the desert table. These young ones are just clever enough to have figured out the benefits of potluck without having the courage for the restraint needed to ensure the safe potlucking for the whole congregation.
5. THERE SHALL BE NO PREFERRENTIAL TREATMENT in allocating place in the line. The end of the pastor’s prayer shall be considered the starting gun – at which point it is the right and responsibility of each individual to make their way to the food line.
---Corollary: Some might suggest the pregnant women and the elder be given advantages in the line. This is potluck heresy. Consider that the elderly can make full advantage of canes and walkers to secure their place in line and pregnant women are ornery enough to get to where they need to be without some special jump-ahead-in-line pass.
6. Remember that your plate has a finite surface area and will snap when loaded in excess of 14lbs of food. You will be asked to clean up your own mess and there is no excuses acceptable that contend that food items have “run together on my plate!”
7. If you can skip out of the church gym there must not have been enough food – ask the pastor to preach a message on the topic.
8. If you waddle out of the church and barely make it to your couch for meddah shlope - You shall send an encouragement note to the evangelism committee telling them how good a job they are doing.
9. Potluck Serving ladies (and these days more and more men are attempting to take on this role) shall be nominated by the deacons and shall present their testimony to the membership meeting. Any evidence that the serving crew has intentionally reserved or orchestrate the placement of the food dishes to advantage their own repast shall be excommunicated (unless of course it can be proven that they always bring meatballs).
10. In-experienced potluckees (those who bring the potluck meals) shall not be compensated for improper labelling of their own cookware.
11. There is a proportional responsibility on the part of the potluckees who bring the most popular dishes to share their recipes given an appropriate compliment is given followed by an equally appropriate incredulous, "is it alot of work to make?"
---Corollary: Having had a wildly popular dish's recipe shared with you - YOU SHALL NOT bring it tot he next potluck and usurp the position of favor afforded to the reigning champions of previous potluck.

this is rich

thanks to my new found blog pal Dave over at the naked pastor I got jolted onto this site.
And oh baby I could not be happier Me and my 'first lady' are really eager to check out the Sampsons Health and Fitness Center. The only thing I am wondering about is whether the deep massage includes getting your eyes gouged out as a part of the registration fee. But hey I'm thinking free haircuts.... Right????!

About my weight:

It seems that every weekend I gain back some of the weight I lost the week before. So this week I am setting my target at 7lbs.
Some people have asked what I am doing to lose weight. Here it is:
-significantly increased water consumption (target: 4L/day)
-reducing junk food consumption at every chance (sometimes this is sort of unavoidable because of being a youth dude)
-not eating after 7pm (again youth ministry affects this somewhat)
-spending a minimum of 35 minutes on the torture machine.
And last but not least…
-as I spend time on the tread climber there are many moments that I want to quit. So each time I feel that way - - - - I talk to God with a request…
“allow me one more day with my family…”

less

8lbs after almost 2 weeks.

on being fat...

I’m not one to make a big deal about my over-weighted-ness. Actually, most of you will know that I feel quite comfortable with my rotunded-ness. It may come as a surprise to some of you that I would want to comment about this topic then…
Recently, I have noticed an extraordinary amount of attention being paid to obesity. The news media all seem to keep the topic in ‘the starting line up’ of their national news casts In much the same way that anti-smoking ‘stories’ dominated the news in the late 90’s (smoking still gets some airplay). It’s not just the frequency of the topic that is similar to the anti-smoking phenomenon: the style and content of the stories are very similar.
If you pay attention to these stories they typically show blubbery bodies waddling down some downtown scene-scape while scrolling statistics about the increase in obesity, fast food consumption and related health concerns due to obesity. The message of these stories is quite clear. Take the story of the 200+ lb 8 year old in England. (What reporter would get away with writing a piece like this about hiv/aids?) Here’s a case where the media has latched onto an extreme case of obesity for its inherent shock value and then use it to reinforce the message of the piece which typically includes a thinly veiled chastisement of poor eating habits or sedentary lifestyle. Basically in one fell swoop the message is that these lazy #$%^#$% should get off their couches and out from behind their computer screens and do something.
I think it is admirable that public opinion is seemingly concerned about the well-being of overweight people. I mean wouldn’t it be great if we could all stop being fat just like all have stopped smoking?
The problem is that obesity is a categorically different problem than smoking is.
My ideal body weight is somewhere around 175 lbs. I am well over that. There was a time in my adult life when I was close to that weight. I maintained a weight of about 185lbs for three years by following this formula: Strenuous physical work (concrete) 12 hours daily + only one meal a day. You think I’m joking but it’s true. When I look around at my friends, and I compare what and how much food I eat I quickly come to a few conclusions. I typically eat a lot less (quantity) than my thinner friends. I eat relatively the same or better quality of food – mostly thanks to my wife – than my thinner friends.
I have dealt with personal guilt because I thought that perhaps my weight problem was directly a result of my lack of self control. Now I am not going to claim that I am a very self controlled person when it comes to food but it is clear that I am no less controlled than some of my thinner friends - no names.
I have seen how powerful the weight issues have been for some people – affecting so many part of their identity.
I know people have many varied reasons for losing weight. Conforming to some socially acceptable body shape is in may mind one of the worst reasons. Giving your body a better physical condition is in my mind really about the only one that holds legitimacy.
I think that if health would be the real public ‘concern’ we would be talking about this topic in other ways than the ones that are prominent now. Instead of inducing guilt for inactivity and herding people off to the price gouging fitness boutiques why not talk about reducing the sedentary nature of our very culture. And why don’t we have investigative reporting on how my buddy down the street can live on nothing but junk food and still come out with a better cholesterol level than I do?
It’s stupid to call it a conspiracy but… follow the money. $35 billion + in the USA alone tells me that there might be a significant economic impact if we all were suddenly to be content with our shape and fitness level.
Enough
As of day I am 5lbs lighter than last week at this time. I hope it stays off…