Posted on 09/18/2003 7:32:23 PM PDT by Nachum
Sept. 15 — You may have heard that America is fat. You may have heard that nearly two-thirds of us are overweight and 31 percent of us are obese. You may have even heard last week that the Department of Agriculture will soon decrease the number of calories a person should eat every day, an admission that there’s no point in designing diets for the healthy average American when the healthy average American no longer exists.
WE MUST BE fat. After all, Katie Couric did a two-hour special on it on Friday night. And even Dr. Phil, who previously spent his time shrinking heads, has moved on to shrinking bodies.
That’s why I was so happy to see that my favorite academic publication, the American Journal of Public Health, had devoted its entire September issue to why Americans are so freakin’ fat.
If you guessed, “Because we eat so freakin’ much,” guess again: The supersized portions are only the half of it.
You may not be a regular reader of the august AJPH (and when I say “august,” of course I mean, “widely unread”). That’s understandable. There’s not a hot celebrity on the cover or articles that offer new details of why Ben dumped Jen. Second of all, the writing isn’t too stylish. For instance, they keep using academic terms like “the built environment” when they really just mean houses, roads and neighborhoods.
But this issue is chock full of reasons why we’re a flabby nation:
1. We’re the only animals on the planet that live in communities that make us more obese. We’ve built suburbs (“the built environment”) so spread out that people must rely on cars because walking or biking simply isn’t an option. Many developers today don’t even bother to install sidewalks and some communities intentionally build new schools on the edge of town, hindering children’s ability to safely walk or bike to school (whatever happened to President Bush’s “Run No Child Over” education reforms?).
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Convenience, primarily.
If it is arrogant to want to live a semi-healthy lifestyle and to take care of the body that the Lord has given us, then I confess. I am also plenty courteous. The incourteous people are those who stuff their faces to the point that they can't walk more than 50 yards at a time and then whine to their doctors that they need handicap stickers on their cars, thus taking up the handicapped spaces that rightfully belong to those who have medical problems that are not of their own making.
If you think taking up a handicapped space from a crippled vietnam vet because you like to stuff your face to the point that you can't walk is courteous, then we are at an impasse.
I suspect that health class is more concentrated these days on how to install a rubber on a banana, never mind the fiber and potassium benefits of the banana.
Boy, do those words ring true with me. Recently I went on a business trip to Connecticut. The hotel I stayed at was on the main drag and when I went out for my 5AM walk, I literally took my life in my own hands. There were no sidewalks most of the way and I had cars and trucks zipping by just inches away in some cases. They aren't looking out for pedestrians, especially at that hour.
I now walk 5-7 miles a day minimum and fortunately I have found many off-road places to walk in my area. There are tons of scenic walks, I'm talking hundreds of miles of trail, within a 10 mile radius of my home. These are places I never knew existed in my former lard-assed life. Right outside my office at work are trails that lead through heavily wooded forests. I was amazed when I discovered that I could use my lunch hour at work to walk through secluded ponds and bogs and thick woods.
But the closer you get to the big city, the tougher it is to find places like that.
Well, if you would explain to me what disease it is that Oklahomans suffer from that Swiss people don't, then I will concur with your statement. Of course, you can't.
Our remote ancestors ate whatever they could get and what they got was not a lot.
As mankind moved from hunter-gatherers to farmers and herdsmen our food supply became more reliable. But those folks had to work hard for their food and so they remained trim (for the most part).
Now we have harnessed technology and put it to work making more food than any civillisation on earth has ever had.
And we don't have to (physically) work so hard for that food.
For all the stress I endure on the job it is not all that demanding physically.
So, if I don't moderate my food intake or excercise in my spare time, I will balloon.
As it is I have hit a sort of happy medium, but I could still shed a few pounds and be better off for doing so.
We have a guy that walks in the dark in my neighborhood (no streetlights) at around 0600 hrs. Unfortunately, I work nights sometimes and I have to be very careful not to run him down when I'm coming home from work dead tired at that hour. So far, I've missed every time. :)
I now walk 5-7 miles a day minimum and fortunately I have found many off-road places to walk in my area. There are tons of scenic walks, I'm talking hundreds of miles of trail, within a 10 mile radius of my home. These are places I never knew existed in my former lard-assed life. Right outside my office at work are trails that lead through heavily wooded forests. I was amazed when I discovered that I could use my lunch hour at work to walk through secluded ponds and bogs and thick woods.
Good job! I don't put that kind of mileage on, but I do put on 1.5-2.0 miles most every day on top of my normal chores. In this hood, I tend to do my walking during daylight hours. I occasionally hit the trails, and I enjoy that immensely.
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