I was reading the last issue of US News over the weekend, and their special report was on the obesity epidemic in the US piqued my interest (It also pushed one of my buttons, in that that is a subject about which I have ranted before). The authors make several very good points, the most important of which is that obesity is a disease.
Yes, Americans don’t get enough exercise. Yes, Americans eat too much junk food. Yes, lack of exercise and junk food do contribute to the problem of obesity, but that doesn’t mean they are the entirety of the problem.
In the U.S., weight is seen more as a morality issue than a medical condition, with personal judgment automatically passed upon those who are overweight. Society automatically assumes people are overweight because they can’t control themselves, or because they are lazy. You know what? That’s bullshit. Unfortunately, it’s a bullshit idea that will remain as long as health standards are based upon the narrow ideal of beauty common in the U.S.
Skinny does not automatically equate with healthy any more than being heavy means the person is unhealthy. If someone is heavy, but they exercise and eat right, then I cannot comprehend why society feels that we have the right to look down upon that person. If someone is skinny, they may well be less healthy, yet being too skinny is almost never looked down upon in today’s society, but is instead idealized.
I am completely average as far as weight goes, but I’m smart enough to know that my weight has much more to do with genetics than it does with my personal choices. I have a fast metabolism, high energy, and a preference for fruits and vegetables over junk food. I got lucky, and I know it. My weight and body shape are no more a moral issue than my curly hair, but that’s not the impression one gets listening to most discussions and debates about weight and health.
At one point, years ago, I was too skinny. I was smoking too much, I wasn’t eating, and I was running myself into the ground. I felt terrible most of the time, and you could count all my ribs, yet the women with whom I worked would invariably tell me that I looked great, that they wished they were as thin as I was, etc. (Luckily, I had friends who were willing tell me that I was too thin, that I looked terrible, and that if I didn’t eat something there would be Consequences.) The point of this is that I was not healthy, and no one should have looked at me as someone to be admired, but there is was anyway. Society doesn’t have much of a clue as to what healthy looks like, and doesn’t much care. This is terribly wrong, yet nothing is being done to change it.
Yes, if Americans got more exercise and made better food choices, we would not be having the obesity epidemic we are today, but let’s face it, when we go to work, we no longer work, but instead spend our days at desks, or doing other sedentary activity. Foods that are readily available, such as the fast food, tend to be unhealthy. American society has changed to a society where activity and time are limited, and this encourages neither an active or a healthy life style.
Yet we continue to act as if obesity were a moral failing, instead of a symptom of the changes inherent to our technological white collar society.
Can we change these things? Probably, but it’s going to take more than suing some fast food companies. To really change things we’d need to rebuild some things from the ground up. Make schools within walking distance of where kids live, and make sure that the walk to and from school is safe. More physical education, more going outside and playing, less TV and fewer video games. Make healthy food as easy to get and eat as junk food. (Next time you’re in a restaurant, compare the prices of milk or juice to that of soda, and then remember that you get free refills on the soda.) Encourage people to get out of their cars and walk places, which means not just building and repairing sidewalks, but making sure those sidewalks are cleared in bad weather.
If we as a society are unwilling to make those changes, then I do not see how we can look down upon those who are heavy and blame their problems upon their unwillingness to make changes. Especially when those changes may have very little to do with personal choice, and everything to do with they genetic hand they were dealt.
