Would You Like Fries With That?

Watched "Super Size Me" a couple of days ago and found it educative and highly entertaining but also quite chilling.

A while ago I had a long conversation with my uncle about the whole issue of obesity and how it's absolutely ridiculous for it to be declared a national crisis etc etc. I'm of the view that barring disease and genetic predisposition to obesity, what you eat and how much you eat is a matter of personal and parental responsibility and should not and need not be dealt with by passing legislation and using government resources. My uncle had a different opinion and thought that if the problem is of the scale that the US is experiencing now, the government needs to step in and control it, much like China and India are doing with the population explosion and South Africa is doing with AIDS. I suppose I do see his point, but I still think it's incredible that there is a such a hue and cry over something that really can and should be taken care of at home.

People say portion sizes are too big in restaurants (and they are). Well, eat some of it and pack the rest and take it home - practically every restaurant allows doggie bags except all-you-can-eat buffets! And if you're fat, you should be steering clear of those anyway.

They say fast food is too cheap and too tasty to pass up. True, and I crave it too from time to time, but I can't imagine eating fast food three or four times a week let alone every day like some people do. And no matter how cheap it is, it simply cannot be cheaper than cooking at home.

People even complain about the all the soda vending machines, cookies and candy that pervade schools, offices, supermarkets, shopping malls. Well, WALK PAST THEM man, have you no spine??!

And how do people fix their problems? Exercise? Nooooo that's almost a bad word. Dieting? That's something that few people actually do for any length of time, and the people who do diet are usually people who're already responsible enough to not be morbidly obese.

No, the majority of the really fat (sorry, "large" or "horizontally challenged") folk try miracle cures like diet pills or gastric bypass surgery. Ah, gastric bypass... can you believe that there is now an entire branch of surgery devoted to such procedures? It's called bariatric surgery and is now one of the most lucrative specialisations, along with plastic surgery. In fact one of my cousin's friends and one of three final-year surgical residents in his class, is now in Florida doing just that and will probably be making upwards of $350,000 a year in a little while. This, by the way, is a man who, in his original statement of purpose, spoke humbly and glowingly of doing volunteer work in underprivileged countries.

To put things in perspective: about two-thirds of the population is overweight. Chicago is, I believe, the third-fattest city in the US. And of the two girls who sued McDonald's and started a chain of events that resulted in "Super Size Me," one was fourteen years old, 5' 1" tall and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. The other was nineteen, 5' 6" (about my height) and two hundred and seventy pounds (about double my weight!)

During the Olympics an NBC reporter was asked why Americans do so well in the sprints but fail to perform at anything over 400 m. His response was, well if an American had to go anywhere more than 400 m away, he'd get into his car and drive there. It may be funny, but it really is true. And that is the real reason behind the obesity epidemic. or as i like to call it, the "fat frenzy." Politically incorrect? What're you going to do, sue me?