Americans Are Fat. What Are We Gonna Do About It?

I watched the HBO original documentary series, The Weight of a Nation this week and felt it was informative, entertaining and scary. A few things entered my head as I was learning the facts about the growing obesity epidemic in the United States. 


1) Why is gay marriage even an issue? We are so fucked.
You know how in Game of Thrones there are these pseudo kings and queens trying to gain control of the seven kingdoms or take revenge of the wrongs inflicted upon them by the Lanisters? But really, that's all futile and stupid because the Wildlings and citizens of Winterfell constantly remind us that winter is coming...? Well, that's what I think of each time we decide to focus on something like women and gays. Because those two things seem pretty obvious and non-issues in my mind (like, d'huh, let them get married and d'huh let them take the pill), but since the powers that be are able to exert some control over them, we decide that these things are really big deals. In the meantime, we are slowly engineering ourselves out of existence. 


2) I don't think that the media propagating the "thin ideal" is really an actual problem in this country
With over 60% of the population either overweight or obese, something tells me that magazines showing thin models and actresses is not actually affecting a whole lot of people (save the models and actresses who are starving themselves). Don't get me wrong, anorexia is a real problem, but 60% of Americans are not anorexic. All that stuff about real women having curves blah blah blah, make me feel better cause I'm fat, is just that, a way to make fat people feel better. I'm not made of stone. I totally understand the human struggle with weight. No one is immune to it. Some people are born thin and therefore don't have to worry, and some people are born heavier and struggle their whole lives. I do really sympathize with this, but I also think that the way people talk sometimes, you'd think that the only problem we have is that society glorifies thin people. This seems beside the point. More and more Americans are pre-diabetic or diagnosed with type II diabetes. And more and more of them have heart disease or liver problems related to weight. In pure productivity and financial terms (if you're made of stone), the more overweight this country becomes, the more costly it will be for our healthcare system to deal with the consequences and the less productive we will be as a nation.  


3) The weight issue got me thinking about the extinction of the human species
It is amazing to think that we humans are mostly responsible for our imminent demise. Every scientific wonder we've ever invented has been abused thanks to our natural tendency for addictive behavior: the industrialization of agriculture, weapons, technology, and as my friend Bashir puts it, the white man's poison, high fructose corn syrup. We can't control ourselves and because of it, we are killing ourselves and the earth. Awesome.


4) This documentary reminded me of trips I took with my family across America
Like most families, we spent many of our vacations traveling to places of interest and seeing new stuff. We've been on many road trips together and fought over whose turn it was to sit in the dreaded middle seat (It's Sophie's turn to sit in the middle). Every time I leave the womb of a coastal city and set out on the open road, I am stunned by the number of overweight people I encounter at rest stops and gas stations across the Uniter States. I get this uneasy feeling not unlike that of being in a parallel universe. It's not like I'm in a new country and I'm feeling culture shock, these people speak my language and are roughly like me, but my god, 95% of them are fat and act normal about it. It's like that movie Wall-E... Is this our fate? 


And in conclusion, I'd like to end by saying that I think there are too many humans on earth. Thank you.