One Last Thought, for the Road is Calling Me...

[lwood]

According to yon article from the Guardian, which seems to be relatively free of hype and bias, obesity is just a way for The Man to hassle folks.

Definitely worth a read. Warning: it's in the UK, so weight is expressed in quaint terms like "stone."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html

The last paragraph:

For upper-class Americans in particular, it's easier to deal with anxiety about excessive consumption by obsessing about weight, rather than by actually confronting far more serious threats to our social and political health. We may drive environmentally insane SUVs that dump untold tonnes of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere; we may consume a vastly disproportionate share of the world's diminishing natural resources; we may support a foreign policy that consists of throwing America's military weight around without regard to objections from our allies - but at least we don't eat that extra cookie when it's offered to us.

-- Lorrie

Comments

[velcroswench.livejournal.com]

Fair and unbiased are two words I would definitely not choose to describe the Guardian.

But to each their own. ;)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

You're right -- however they were quoting someone else who at least seems to have more factual ducks in a row than most.

-- Lorrie

[ravan.livejournal.com]

I still remember the day, about 15 years ago, when I walked into a clinic to have some tests run for work (Annual physical). The first thing the stupid nurse said was "Oh, you're fat. Let's take your blood pressure, it's probably high." pump, pump, pump, hiss, puzzled look, pump, pump, pump, hiss "110/80, normal. Uh, well the blood draw will probably show high cholesterol..." she finished in a oh so confident voice. When I got my results back a week later, my cholesterol was low-normal.

I have not been on an official "diet" since I was kid. I did have a period where I weaned myself completely off of refined sugar - that is the greater diabetes risk, if you have a family history of it, which I do.

So yes, the diet industry is a racket. A daily walk is better for you, and doesn't cost anything.

[mendou.livejournal.com]

Better than a racket. It is a cog in the great machine that keeps us insecure and imagining that we are poorer, uglier, fatter, more unpopular, more sick, and more alone than we really are.
But any one of those is an easier pill to swallow than the idea that we are rich, beautiful, healthy, loved, well, and surrounded by people whose experience we can share and thereby come to better understand the world around us.
It's usually easier to believe the bad stuff, especially when the bad stuff absolves us of responsibility. The revolutionary act is being confident.