Fat Issues · 3 July 2008, 23:21 by trickykid
The United States has to be the largest country that probably has the biggest ratio of gyms per number of people. Yet we are also the fattest country in the world. There’s a serious problem growing and people need a wake up call.
I bet I could name about 10 or so gyms within probably a 5 mile radius just near my own home. They’re like Starbucks, you can spit randomly outside and hit one most likely. I think they out number churches and liquor stores now. But why are Americans so fat?
I think one problem is what people feed themselves and their own kids. There’s easy accessible foot joints like fast food that is probably one of the main causes. Another cause I think is carbonated soft drinks. I’ve also read the links between kids who drink juices compared to milk and water.
Personally, my wife and I have sworn off fast food joints. They’re just dirty, unhealthy and down right gross when you think about it. We also limit what we drink. I’ll drink a soft drink every so often but 95% of the time it’s water, other than the coffee I’ll drink in the mornings. People often give me a weird look when I say I won’t eat fast food. It’s also the same stare when I tell them I don’t eat red meat or pork. And I’ve drastically cut back on turkey and chicken as well. I don’t think I could ever be a full vegetarian but I do think I could easily get rid of chicken and turkey, only eating seafood and fish as a real meat source.
This could be a very long post but it’s just something that usually crosses my mind when I see an obese person parking in the handicap spaces probably because they’re just overweight, what I see people buy while grocery shopping and all the junk they buy, etc. There’s a lot of things that involve why people are obese but for the most part, in my opinion, people can only blame themselves if they are overweight. I think fat people without a true genetic disorder should have to park as far away as possible at shopping centers or stores so they get that extra exercise they desperately need. Sounds mean but hell, they’re apparently not helping themselves so someones got to do it for them.
I guess I just don’t understand how a country could be equipped with so many work out centers and gyms but yet we are the biggest, laziest, worst eating food nation in the world. They keep saying our life expectancy keeps going up but I have a feeling soon it’s going to get shorter and shorter.
Hopefully none of my readers are heavily obese, if I offended you, tough shit. Put the Twinkie down and think before you eat. It is possible to stay in shape without actually doing anything. I’m not in the best of shape myself but I’ve actually been losing weight with a combination of what I eat and the exercise by doing yard work, etc. But don’t worry, the super skinny people that look unhealthy as well disgust me as well, they should eat more.
It’s funny though, when we take out oldest kid to the doctor for his checkups, they always say he’s not at average weight. They always tell us he should be 5-10 lbs heavier. We tell them no, those kids are just fat, our kid is healthy, eats well without candy and sugar all the time along with only drinking milk twice a day and water the remaining.
I think the car has to take a huge amount of the blame. It becomes easier to drive a couple of hundred yards than to walk it. Once you start thinking in terms of convenience, you stop going out to shop and do it all online, instead of popping round to see friends you call or email them. We are just so used now to having everything come to us rather than us go to it.
An interesting experiment would be to attempt to go a whole month without using the car – take public transport or walk or bike to work/shops/wherever. If everyone did it and did it long term, using cars only for certain things where it’s not practical to do without, we would begin to see a lot more business return to local towns.
• ray 4 July 2008, 04:00 #Yeah, cars I can see as a reason as well. But not for everyone. With the rising gas prices, it’s getting harder and harder for the border poverty line income people to drive. Most didn’t have cars to begin with and there are just as many obese poor people as rich people.
Personally I would love to have a good public transit system here in Austin but it just doesn’t exist really in Texas. No public transit goes where I work and I have to make frequent trips 60 miles further north to Ft. Hood Texas (Yeah, military base).
Although, if I still had my last job, I was maybe planning to buy a bicycle and could have taken the bus easily. It was only 5 miles away, friendly streets roundtrip for bicycles. On rainy days the bus would have worked, there’s a bus stop is literally at the end of my street, about seven houses down.
• drew 4 July 2008, 07:52 #Hopefully the fuel crisis will trigger a movement for bringing back healthier modes of transport (in every sense of the word) like cycling and walking.
• hari 4 July 2008, 23:19 #Well, SUV and other gas guzzler sales here in the U.S. are plummeting. I saw a 40-50k Cadillac Escalade with a sign on it for sale asking 15k or best offer the other day. It was used but probably only a few years old. Without gas prices, this SUV resale should probably be in the 30k range. No one wants these SUV’s anymore, it’s great, I’m tired of them everywhere on the road. Most people who had them don’t even need them anyways.
• drew 5 July 2008, 08:43 #Great post. It is so true about the gyms. There seems to be one every couple of miles and most are HUGE. I think however, the number of gyms are in response to the problem you wrote about. There is a great demand for anything that would get you fit. However, life here in the USA cannot be compared to anywhere else in the world. I find it so time consuming to cook and wash dishes. Fast food seems to be the answer to our busy schedules…plus it is cheap. Luckily I play sports. If I didn’t I would be fat too. My point is..that our culture here in the states requires us (those with average metabolisms) to work hard to maintain our weight. In other countries…due to transportation, more relaxed lives, etc. People don’t need to work to be in shape…their way of life allows them to automatically be fit. — I just had Wendy’s…so I needed to defend my guilty conscious :p —
• GEM 5 July 2008, 18:33 #Commenting is closed for this article.