Obesity - there's lots of talk about it. Everyone is so concerned with how fat we are as a nation that it's become a moral issue and it doesn't seem to be going away. Quite the contrary - it seems to be getting worse!

We all talk about "good" foods and "bad" foods. We go on all types of faddish diets where you can only eat this particular food group or another. Some people are vegans, some binge on food and some starve deliberately. There is even an add on the TV for going on a "rapid detox diet" - which simply means starving yourself for a period of time to feel "cleansed". People have intolerances or allergies to this food or that and maintain special diets.  The media is full of adds giving plenty of mixed messages either telling us to eat some "junk food" or eat "healthy"! Diets, junk food, healthy snacks, bad snacks, billboards on the side of the road, magazines... no wonder everyone eats too much! We're sensorily inundated with food thoughts everywhere we go.

The bottom line is we are so lucky in the developed world that we can indulge in any food-fad or whim just as we please. We have such an embarrassment of choices with food that we have become food obsessed. It had to have ended up as a moral issue!

But, is it really just that we eat too much? Is it really as simple as cutting down on food, eating healthy foods and getting more exercise? 

I think obesity is a symptom of a much bigger problem. It's like any addiction and the over-eating lies at the surface of something much bigger.  That's why we aren't doing very well in addressing the problem. It's far bigger than just individual people being "fat" and being denigrated for it. It's far bigger than the individaul struggling with a food sensory overload. I think it's a cultural issue.

Seems to me that our over-eating reflects everything else in our fat, developed, wealthy culture. We get too much of everything and so we take too much of everything. Our houses and cupboards are fat with electronic gadgets, clothes, trinkets, knick-knacks, cars and credit. Let's face it - we're obese and greedy in just about every aspect of our lives. The fat body is just the external sign of our overwhelming need to "eat" every latest fad our money can buy.

As a culture, we think obese and live obese and this over-use of all resources is all part of "global warming". It's not just carbon emissions that's the problem - it's us and our fat lifestyles.

In the posts, older folks like myself, dwell longingly on those days when we came home from school and rode bikes and helped with the chores. The reason we did that was because if we had a TV it was black and white and there probably wasn't much to watch on it anyway! As for chores, we had to help out because there wasn't a surfeit of gadgets. We weren't "fat" back then in most aspects of our lives because there just wasn't that much to have. The only fast food we got was a toasted sandwich for dinner on Sunday night while Disneyland was on the black and white TV.

I don't find these reminesces in any way interesting except to know that our lean bodies back then had more to do with our lean culture.

We are a fat culture and until we address our total cultural over-eating in every aspect of our lives, we will remain externally fat.

What do you think?

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