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 far into the future.
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 fares. 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. But, during the 1990s the ranks of the over-weight swelled to one-third of the entire population. Since then, 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 without giving up the couch-potato lifestyle.
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 has 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.
Pick up any magazine, you will find at least on article advising you on how to lose weight. The Federal Consumer Information Center too sends you free its publications on exercise and diet. One setup has offered 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 21 st century against a hodge-podge of 19 th 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.
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
