January
20, 2006
The Battle
of the Bulge
America
is fighting a costly war against terrorism abroad
while beset at home by the continuing battle of
the bulge. Some cynics, if not pessimists, go to
the extent of predicting that the internal strife
and the attendant physical decay of the society
might pose a severer problem for the nation to carry
its qualities of excellence, its sole super power,
“el numero uno” status into the next
century.
Fact of the matter, however, is that the society
is largely cognizant of the severity of the problem,
and that is what really counts considering its innovative,
problem-solving faculties.
Right now, the scenario is replete with contradictions.
You notice numerous people –both men and women-
jogging on sidewalks, many more working out in gyms
or at home to remain fit and trim. Yet, within the
vicinity of the gyms you will find fast-food vendors
dispensing briskly their fatty food. Both the gyms
and the fast food chains do roaring business. Then
there are the diet advisers, the clinics offering
liposuction, stomach-stapling, intestines bypass,
and some joints giving “scientific”
massages, steam baths, aversion to food therapy,
hypnosis, behavior modification techniques –all
designed and guaranteed to reduce the body bulge.
An American’s self-image and self-esteem suffer
if he/she does not look like the models and movie
stars who constitute the ideal. It is for aesthetic
reasons that most of the people yearn to be fat-free.
They become suckers for weight-loss industry –a
$100 billion business now.
Yet, year after year, the weight gainers seem to
outnumber the weight-losers. The average American
is fatter now than at any other time in history.
Statistics show that between 1960 and 1980 the percentage
of Americans considered over-weight stayed fairly
constant at about 24 percent. In the decade of 1990s
the ranks of the over-weight swelled to one-third
of the entire population. Over the past decade or
so, the percentage has gone up further. Estimates
now go as high as 60 percent.
Three main reasons for this come to mind immediately:
1) an American is less physically active now than
at any time in the past; 2) he opts to fight the
battle of the bulge by reducing his calorie intake
instead of increasing his calorie expenditure through
exercise.; 3) dieting in a couch-potato lifestyle/culture
and easy access to high-fat food, promotes the very
thing it is supposed to cure -obesity.
The only exercise some people get is: jumping to
conclusions, side-stepping responsibilities, running
down friends, dodging issues, passing the buck,
and pushing their luck. In a modern house as much
as in a modern car, a switch regulates everything
except the accumulation of fat at the girth. There
may be destiny which shapes our ends but our middle
is our own ‘chewsing’. A person realizes
that the time of dieting has come when his belly
walks a yards ahead of him.
Countless studies show that people generally indulge
in a yo-yo type dieting, a sort of rhythmic loss
and regain of weight. It culminates not just in
weight regained but an additional weight being put
on. For, the human body is not infinitely malleable.
It is not a simple input and output machine but
a complex, living organism. Calories don’t
count, they simply multiply. You can’t therefore
redesign your body via a simple calorie-consumption
and burn-off equation.
A fat man went on a diet but lost nothing except
his sense of humor; now he has to eat his own words
without satisfying his hunger. Most middle-aged
people would be happier if they had less weight
to throw around.
Insurance and fashion designers have played a leading
role in creating the fat-phobia. The fatter a person,
the higher his/her health insurance, and the lesser
the possibility of the person fitting into the designers’
idealized dresses. Medical profession lends support
to the insurance industry. Thus the powerful combination
of health and vanity concerns have turned the Americans
into converts to the new ideal of thinness. Overweight
is now regarded as America’s number one health
hazard. Fat-phobia is drummed up so much that being
overweight stands next only to treason. Now when
you hear the shout “Take it off”, they
are referring to weight.
I have received in today’s mail, the Reader’s
Digest for July, 2002. The cover page carries the
banner “SHED POUNDS With This Everyday food”.
The full story on the inside pages presents “scientific”
evidence that fat-free milk and its products can
make you shed the excess weight. Also received in
today’s mail is a pamphlet issued by the Federal
Consumer Information Center. It lists five new publications
on exercise and diet –three are offered free
and two at nominal prices. Another item received
in the same mail is a one-page advertisement of
“The Leader in Online Medical Websites”
offering eight different weight-loss diet pills.
Dieting makes you go through life wanting something
you can’t have and having something you don’t
want. The toughest part of dieting isn’t watching
what you eat, it is watching what your friends eat.
The problem of girth gets out of control once a
person reaches middle age. As Bob Hope once cracked
“Middle age is when your age starts to show
around your middle”. Another wit put it this
way: “Middle age is when your narrow waist
and broad mind start changing places.”
By the time a person is wise enough to watch what
he eats, he is too old to see clearly what is on
his plate. That is when work seems a lot less fun
and fun seems a lot more work. The middle age expansion
brought a couple so close together that every time
they got into their little car, they got stuck into
it and had to be pried out with the help of pedestrians.
The life span of man is slowly lengthening. Scientists
can make our bodies live longer: we are the ones
who make them broader. Latest research indicates
that obesity is hereditary, parents get it from
their kids. The thing that impresses me most in
America, said the Duke of Windsor, is the way parents
obey their children.
A two-year old was too fat to even stand up. When
asked sarcastically “Hasn’t that big
boy of yours learned to walk yet?” the doting
mother replied: “Right now he is busy learning
to drive.”
An American saying contends: A fat man is no good
in war; he can neither fight nor run away. The American
war in Afghanistan has spared the senior corpulent
officers from such ridicule as it was fought mainly
by the armies of Northern Alliance with the help
of American technologies of 21st century against
a hodge-podge of 19th century fanatics.
Experience shows that fat men may or may not be
good fighters but they have generally a jovial nature.
Their air of jollity endears them to young and old
alike. American women too have a keen sense of humor
– the more you humor them, the better they
like it.
America has never lost a war but its ongoing battle
of the bulge is following a different graph. The
health hazard is assuming the dimensions of an epidemic.
Leaving it to private enterprise and big business
creates a situation replete with conflicts of interest
and a continuous increase in its intensity. That
is what we are witnessing now.
