I’m afraid Don Sturber would retract his retraction if he visited any Wal-Mart in Ohio. For that matter, virtually anywhere in Ohio. There are hugh plowpeople in the heartland.
People say, “look at people in your class yearbook and see how thin kids used to be,” and I did just that yesterday, which is why my mind is on this subject. We are moving and the big box of memorabalia came down from the rafters.
Anyway, the kids in the 70s in my high school and jr high look just like the kids around here today. We had some fatties back then, just a few, and some who were a little chunky but looked healthy, and then lots of thins. Just like the kids I see walking around here when school lets out.
If you read Surber’s article, the average weight gain since ‘93 has been about 9 pounds, and of course the population has aged. So it would hardly account for an unusual amount of people waddling at Wal-Mart.
This is a true story..I was waiting for a table at a seafood buffet at one of the casinos. Right in front of me was a table with five of the fattest women I had ever seen. TWO OF THEM WERE USING OXYGEN AND IN WHEELCHAIRS. The shells from the crab were falling off their plates onto the floor as they were stuffing their fat mouths. I got so disgusted, I told my husband I had to leave. I was almost crying..I looked around me at the fat people smoking, gambling, drinking and eating and I thought "is this what our soldiers are dying for?" I know it's not really like that, but for that split second, I was absolutely mortified...and still am when I think about it.
Am I being judgemental? Yout bet I am. I wish more people were judgemental. I credit the death of shame for some of our weight problems.
Seriously. Maybe the technical term “obesity” doesn’t apply, but there are a lot of lard-asses out there.
He’s not saying there aren’t fat people in this country. He’s saying there isn’t some massive epidemic health crisis. And he’s right. Most of the “data” they use to declare this “epidemic” is the BMI chart, which if you’re not a 35 year old male of average bone density and muscle mass is complete junk.
There’ve always been big people in the heartland, it’s the diet. They eat either farm food or Chicago food and neither is real good for the waste line if you get a lot of exercise in your daily routine. Of course both diets were built by people who did get a lot of exercise in their daily routine, but now life is a lot easier for most of us.