Obesity Epidemic

I think it can be assumed that obesity creates health problems like acid reflux disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arterial plaque, blood clots, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, hormone imbalance, joint problems, osteoporosis, tooth decay, halitosis, skin infections, pulled ligaments and muscles, fallen arches, and limited ease of movement. 25-40% of Americans are obese by the FDA’s testing; and up to 64% are overweight. What overweight and obese mean are sometimes seen as highly speculative. Obesity and overweight are supposed to be determined by a person’s BMI score but the word obese is now being used for people, who 20 years ago, were considered overweight. Nowhere can I find where the FDA has changed its BMI standards so why the discrepancy? Is this just a hysterical escalation exercise? A BMI of 30 or higher (for your height, gender, and age) is considered obese. Doctors are encouraged not to trouble patients with overweight, just with obesity. By then, isn’t it too late? Shouldn’t they have tried to prevent it? Plus, there are many different types of bodies, some more muscular than others, so why does the BMI not take that into account and give an assurance of leeway in its system?

So, many people in America are obese. It seems to be generally accepted that we have an epidemic, systemic of our food processes, sedentary lifestyle, and over-consumption. Models have also become thinner as we have become fatter. Is this because Americans feel bad about themselves and give up trying to be an ideal by overeating or because societies always glorify what it is not (like the bourgeoisie of France loving corpulent bodies while the peasants starve)? Or is it because excessively thin models are the only socially acceptable way to keep women “in their place?” Whatever the reason, the ideal woman has become what most are not. Eternal youth is chased by the majority of the population-women over 40. Youth was when women were thin due to a more active lifestyle and metabolism calling to mind memories of a happier time, perhaps?

Whatever the reason for the thinner models, the majority of Americans are overweight. Men and women alike are equally affected. When it comes time to treat the symptoms of obesity, pills are used as it is very hard for people to change their lifestyle and eat and move differently. There is no way known to successfully enable people to change their habits, but say you could cause will power to surge? What diet would you use to lose the weight?

These are just some of the diets recommended as most healthy to the American public: only protein, high protein, everything in moderation, vegetarian, vegan, organic, juiced, no red meat, all red meat, no dairy, no sugar, eat all you want of certain foods only, eat certain foods and exercise x amount each day, drink only water, eat twice as many vegetables as other groups, cut out starches and carbohydrates, calorie counting, grapefruit fasting, fasting lite, fasting extreme, eat less of whatever you want, vitamin regimens, and basing your foods on the region your ancestors came from. Obviously, how can a patient ever know which one to choose? Even if your doctor tells you to do one you might think maybe another one would be easier or might be healthier. So you go back and forth, or stick with one only to realize it makes you sick. The FDA uses the food pyramid, which in itself can be confusing or vague. What in the world can obese people do? They love food and are addicted to it, they are not used to exercise, they are told they must change everything NOW, and then they look to find the right diet and are faced with a barrage of conflicting “facts” and overly generalized or overly specific information. THEN you get the videos of the horribly mistreated animals and “pink slime.”

Obese people are sick, mentally exhausted, and confused. Why then do people wonder that they don’t lose weight? Fat people think about how to lose weight all the time so when THEY can’t wade through the diet information you know there’s a problem. The doctors who wrote the diets don’t have a life or death situation to fight-obese people do. They are in a losing battle unless they can pick one diet, hope it is the most healthy one, and use all of the will power they have to stop eating too much of the “wrong” things. One wonders, isn’t there some therapy to get them not to WANT to eat too much? The answer-none of it works. Our bodies need food and you cannot help a food addict because they can never forgo their drug and live to celebrate sobriety.

People overeat for many different reasons but all of them become addicted in some capacity to one or more parts of the overeating process. Obese people feel like they are defeated before they start, especially because they try to diet all the time and fail daily at the goals they set for themselves.

Go ahead and judge us. Tell us it’s a question of will power and knowledge. Tell us we are disgusting and killing ourselves. Tell us we are lazy and make too many excuses. I wish I could put you in my shoes for a day and see what you say then.

Of course, all of us fatties could be completely able to lose weight and all of this talking about it and giving excuses IS avoidance. But that is the problem, isn' it...I don't seem to KNOW anything.

Fed Up

So, this is going to be my most serious post. I will try to be as thorough and exact as possible. Up front, I admit I am a hypocrite and may contradict myself, but we are all bigots and liars. I am trying to protect myself and I want to protect you. I don't want us to be consumers more than citizens. I don't want women to hate themselves anymore or be the victims of a violent and manipulated culture. Some of this you will have heard before but I want to make it CLEAR that I am going to take a distinct stand from now on-a no tolerance position on sexism. I can no longer hurt myself for a lie. 
Ads lie. They are lies. Marketers want you to buy their product and they will tell or show you ANYTHING to make a buck. Ads seem so harmless. They seem enjoyable or helpful, informative, or silly. What is really going on is an insidious brand of subconscious prepping. They are setting the stage for a lifetime customer. 
When people are satisfied with themselves and what they have, they do not want to purchase anything new unless the old breaks. If a company wants to stay in business it must create a demand for its products. The most effective way to do this is to demean what the person has and seduce that person into constant consumption of the latest and "greatest." If you want to take it a step further, you tell the customers they are inadequate and need to buy things to complete their identity and make themselves feel whole. If a customer can believe a product will make them better or sooth stress then the deal is sealed. 
The way that ads have demeaned and KILLED women is disgustingly unfair. Men overwhelmingly run the advertising industry, and rather than abuse and dupe their own sex, they have made females their scapegoat, taking advantage of their industrial power. It is the worst thing that has happened to the U.S., bar none! As a result of this sexism and inhumanity women have been hating themselves for 2 centuries at least! We should not have to suffer for this anymore and we shouldn't have suffered at all. 
If you pay attention to the ads in our magazines, on TV, in movies, and online, many more ads feature women than men. Marketers make more money on women than men. How is this possible? Women are made to hate themselves and it starts with our bodies. We are being attacked and we have to fight back! 
Our pants are sizes 0 and 00. If a man walked into a store and found a size 0 he would think it ridiculous because it doesn't make sense, yet we have to deal with the fact that a size 00 woman, a nothing woman, is the ideal. We are to be silent, vulnerable, used, needy, and the great consumer. A woman must be a skeleton with skin stretched tight against the bones, sag-less breasts, full hair, and round faces. This is IMPOSSIBLE! A size 00 should be IMPOSSIBLE! Because the ads have manipulated us to want whatever is out at the moment, over time and much practice (imagine it, we are in 2012) the ideal woman has become the one no one is, a hodge podge of morals that leave us subdued and impotent. Sex becomes only for the young/ideal. A beautiful woman becomes what all women want more than ANYTHING else in their lives because the advertisers know this is what will make them buy the most products. People grow OLD so why not make it so that they always want to look younger? They can never achieve it and will always try to! We win! 
It is sick. This has changed our health-care system in so many ways. Now the weight of the patients are more important than the patients themselves. Being ugly (fat) is worse than being poor, sick, degenerate, or unpopular even. It is worse than dying young. In fact, most older women WISH to die young so that they don't have to face the dreaded ugly. 
This is all SO ridiculous! It is disgusting and degrading. The more we see and live this shit the more it will destroy us. We have to fight NOW! For our children AND ourselves because things are getting worse. Pornographic images are always degrading to women. If you don't believe me, I don't care. All ads glorify the woman of beauty, the woman of women, the only woman allowed, the only woman wanted. No one is perfect but we believe we must be, and so hate ourselves. This is all from ads and we can stop this onslaught by boycotting the media in all of its forms. 
I am dead serious about this. No Barbie. No magazines. No movies. No television. No ad friendly sites. This has got to stop. I don't want to see ONE more image of the 'ideal' woman. I am sick of this. I don't care if I never see another movie again or read another magazine. Being sexy is important but I believe those images hurt our sexuality. Clothes are important but not so important as to make you hate yourself. The images we have come to live are killing us. The thrill we get when we see a beautiful woman has been cultivated in us, not inborn. It is a trick, a learned lie that must be stopped. 
Walking down a street I cannot cover a billboard, but I can look the other way. I am going to take a stand against sexism and consumerism. I am going to take a stand against the images I have   come to love more than myself. NO MORE! Join with me and clean up your mind, for your soul's stake. Please. Less women will have horrible, victimized lives if you do this. NO MORE MEDIA.