I found this article, Overweight workers say they’re often overlooked. The article is trying to make a case to add weight discrimination to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Weight is the one thing under your control. You can’t change your skin color or your age. You can change your sex, but only after a lot of work and surgery. You have the ability to manage your weight. When you abdicate control of your weight to the TV and billboards, no wonder you’re overweight in no short order.
People should be ashamed if they are overweight. The sad news is many people who are ashamed they are overweight retreat into the very food that made them fat in the first place, exacerbating the problem. To put the blame on anything but yourself is known as transference. It’s like a tennis pro blaming the racket for his losing the match. Which is why we are seeing lawsuits against McDonald’s for people being fat. The only thing Mickey is guilty of is really good advertising.
We are programmed to like fat. It gives you the highest calorie per weight ratio out there. And when you are a hunter-gatherer who might get only one substantial meal every couple of days, fat is where it’s at.
But today we are a culture who lives at McDonald’s. Every item there is high in fat and calories. Even the salad has a ton of calories if you drown it in Thousand Island dressing. It’s okay if you have a meal there once a week, that’s known as moderation. But Americans today don’t know what moderation means. We are constantly barraged with ads about food. And so we are programmed when the slightest bit of hunger surfaces, we go and have a Big Mac Meal, super size the deep fat fried potatoes and the liquid sugar soda. Extra Mayo and cheese please.
A weight problem occurs only when you eat more food than your body consumes. I know the answer isn’t as simple as that, but that is the fact. If your activity level is zero and you eat 5,000 calories a day, you are going to be huge in no time at all. The only good thing about my depression is that I frequently skip meals. I’ve lost 30 pounds and want to lose at least 10 more. I don’t recommend the “depression diet” to anybody.
I recently came into possession of some Ritz “Butter and Garlic” crackers. Someone gave them to me, I would never have bought them on my own. When you look at the nutritional information on the side of the box, it says: Calories per serving: 80 not too bad Calories from fat: 35 that’s only…Let’s see…44% FAT Serving size: 5 Crackers. 5 crackers? 5 crackers! 5 stinking crackers! Nobody eats just 5 crackers! Of course, you don’t eat just 5 crackers, you usually eat an entire sleeve, which is about 35 crackers. That comes out to be 560 calories. And that’s just a snack. 560 calories is supposed to be 25% of you’re total intake for the entire day! Put that on top of three super sized meals and no wonder this country is so overweight.
Weight control falls under the Conservative ideal of personal responsibility. If you’re overweight, it will take a lot of time, effort and sweat to get back to a healthy size. And when you achieve that goal, you also gain something else. Good, solid, deserved self-respect. Self-discipline. The ability and confidence to solve any problem ahead of you. That makes it all worthwhile.