The Role of Obesity
by The Icon Diet Reader
zone3
You would have to be a hermit
not to know about the dramatic rise of obesity levels in North America.
Health issues have been plastered around the media non stop for the better
part of the last five years. The problem is that for the most part the
message has been falling short of its mark. There are more obese people in
2004 then there were in 2003. The number of diet related health
complications is growing and children are ballooning at a rate comparable
to their adult counterparts. On the flip side, the health industry has
been showing strong signs of growth, with one in four women and one in
five men on a diet at any given time. While times have been tight
financially, people have been opening up their wallets in record numbers
to by fitness products and gym memberships.
So the bottom line is
that while people are actively aware of health and fitness concerns, and
are spending more then ever before on products and services to battle poor
fitness, North America as a whole is getting fatter. It seems like a
contradiction but it is the truth none the less. For one thing, the most
people try to fix their health and then give up because it is too
challenging. Often they lack the support from friends and family or even
the proper skill set to be successful.
However, that being
said, North America is in a bad way when it comes to health. We are a
society that allows itself to binge to a point where obesity is considered
an epidemic. Historically epidemics are things that rage outside of the
ready control of human kind. When we typically think about epidemics we
think about cholera, typhus or even ‘the plague' – bubonic fever. In North
America we have allowed our own poor habits to become an epidemic. It is
really a shameful situation. We are simply eating ourselves to death. It
is so serious that we have declared a war on fat. A war, on fat. Somehow
by drawing on images of fighting, of military might, of violence, we will
be able to battle obesity.
Are we that soft (no pun
intended)? Can we not take responsibility for our own actions, including
what we put into our bodies? Recently there have been lawsuits filed
against fast food establishments that charge them with knowingly selling
harmful goods. The lawsuit does not surprise me, after all it's the
American way, it does surprise me that we are willing to acknowledge that
we cannot feed ourselves safely. That is, by assuming the position of a
victim we allow someone else to be responsible.
In North
America, the sad truth of the matter is that we have managed to take the
normal daily necessity of eating and pervert it into a national killer of
epidemic proportions. We are, as a society, beginning to ask why this as
happened. Fingers are being pointed at corporations who used processed
foods to enlarge their bottom lines at the expense of health, at the
creation of ‘big box' food companies who saturate the media with their
products inciting us to eat, at the government for being so passive and
allowing obesity to become such an issue, at budget cuts that see physical
education programs taken out of schools. Everywhere you look you can find
a guilty party.
While all this seems to make sense - after
all you can start healing after you find the culprit- this mode of
reasoning deprives us of our individuality and our integrity. If we allow
others to be responsible over such base matters as our eating, then what
we are really doing labeling ourselves as incapable.
Yes,
obesity is an epidemic. Yes, drastic measures should be taken to stem the
growth our waist lines. However, the only one to really blame for this is
ourselves. Accept in a very few cases, nobody forces you to eat anything.
What you eat is predicated on choice alone. Make a choice and choose to be
healthy. Take responsibility for what goes into your body. Be capable of
guiding your own health and well being.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Icon Diet offers a step by step weight loss program to help
people lose
weight quickly, naturally and effectively. Visit the site by going
to... http://www.zizzoo.com/guides/loseweight/index.php
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