Weighty Thoughts

Did a little research this morning purely out of curiosity about the rising percentage of overweight Americans. In six or seven websites I discovered a lot of recurrent information:

• The percentage of overweight and obese Americans is rising at an astronomical rate. In one two-year period ('02 to '04) the percentage nearly tripled.
• Being overweight contributes to a variety of health problems including Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
• For every pound of fat you put on the body has to develop a mile of capilaries for the blood to service that area. It puts more strain on your heart.
• Weight gain is directly associated with poverty (fatty foods are cheaper than healthy foods), race (blacks are at a higher percentage being overweight, and latinos are pursuing them), and lack of education. I was sidetracked by poverty statistics for a while and found some disturbing -- but true -- information.

I am a counselor for people with persistant mental illness and substance abuse problems. Weight gain is a constant issue. Some psychotropic medications have weight gain as a possible side effect. Most of the clients are poor and rely on the food bank or whatever they can minimally afford. With depression it's hard to care about one's health. Despite these things, though, there is something they can do: exercise. Yet it's like pulling teeth to get them active. I've had a couple of clients over four hundred pounds.

Lack of education about nutrition is often cited on the websites as a cause of obesity. This has to be taken with a grain of salt. It's usually nutritionists making this judgment and they're reflecting their area of expertise and concern. And if you think about it, we know far more about nutrition now than we did a hundred fifty years ago, and they had far fewer weight problems then. The also had no power tools, microwaves, TV's, radios, automatic washing machines, cars, or tractors. When I tell people I don't watch TV they look at me as though I were un-American, but I find that I have time to do more active things. And even though I bought a weed whacker a few years ago I've maybe used it five times. It seems more responsible, and a whole lot quieter with no pollution, to cut the weeds manually. The best illustration is in the fall when I'm raking my lawn and a neighbor a couple of houses away is using a leaf blower: he must weigh three times what I do. And will probably die a lot younger. Between now and death he will probably never climb to the top of a mountain like I do, not experience the charge of elation walking in the woods and enjoying my body's ability, and though I hate to envision it he may not be able to perform sexually as well as people more fit.

Just as an aside, don't you think we'd have gotten somewhere with the multibillion-dollar weight loss industry and pharmeceutical aids? At what point do we say they don't got it?

Not that I'm a fitness junkie or weight nazi, but I just enjoy a lot of things because I'm thin. I'm able to. And it's sad that a lot of people slow down and put on weight. I'd love to take long walks with them.