You know you're pretty fat when...

you lose twenty pounds and no one at work notices. 

It’s hard out there for a plump.

I’m not sure why.  We have what we want, don’t we?  If we want pizza, eggrolls, rib eye and mashers, or carrot juice and string beans – it’s all right there.  What we bring home and shove in our faces, it’s of our own volition, yes?

If we decide to sit on the couch or go skiing, it’s our choice, right?

So why is it so hard?  Why do we suffer so?  Why are we so balled up all the time?

Yes, I know that our food system is poisoned, chock full of unnatural ingredients, and even natural ingredients restructured molecularly in unnatural ways, and I have no doubt that this causes the majority of our digestive health problems and cancers, in addition to the effects of outside pollutants and our increasingly sedentary lifestyle.  Why, when our government is so concerned about controlling our every move “for our own protection,” it isn’t cracking down on the food industry, I’ll never know.  You’d think the health insurance industry, that lobbied the government to insist we wear seatbelts and helmets, would want to save some money on its cancer, diabetes, heart, and obesity treatments by putting pressure on the federal government to make and enforce clean food laws.    

Oh, wait – it doesn’t have to.  It simply denies treatment.  Because it is our responsibility, after all, to make sure the food we buy is clean, safe, and natural (like it’s our choice to wear seatbelts, eh?).  So what if the food industry is not required to tell us what’s really in our food.  If we object and cry foul when the food industry adds shit like HFCS, then it simply lobbies its government buddies to change the labeling law to simply call it “sugar” so we can’t even make an educated choice to avoid HFCS.  Greed always wins the day. 

It is simply proof that the government cares not for its people, only for the profits of its elected officials and those officials’ friends and business partners.

So, we can only try to buy the best that we can afford, avoid processed crap that has god-knows-what hidden in it, buy fresh whenever possible and make the time-sacrifice to cook our own food, and hope that if we can’t buy organic that we are not getting something from Mexico where the pesticide laws are a lot less strict (we apparently don’t check our food supply from them that closely anyway).  At least the spotlight is on China, and we are suspicious of food products made there. 

Sometimes I think that folks are more concerned about their pets’ diets than they are about their own food.  They’ll drop $50 on a bag of gourmet organic rice and lamb dog food, but will feed their kids Cocoa Puffs.  Of course, when the kids develop hotspots on their pelt, um, I mean skin, we take them to the doctor and treat them with steroidal creams.  Only a small minority actually take the time and care to examine what in their diet might be causing the problem.  It’s just so much easier to let the doctor prescribe something—treat the symptom, not the cause.   

And I can’t help but wonder how many kids are actually ADHD – what if some of those symptoms are effects from a combination of the artificial colors, preservatives, molecularly modified fats and sugars altering their brain chemistry to the point of constant distraction?  Not to mention the horrendous overdoses of visual and auditory stimuli surrounding us wherever we go (stressors everywhere).  There really is no escaping it.  Even when you go for a walk in the national forest, you’ll come across the buzzing of overhead electrical lines (that is, if you could get your kid to leave his iPhone at home…).  But what if the major symptoms of ADHD were even in part food related?  How many families are willing to go to a pure diet?  It would mean reading every label, planning meals, shopping, chopping, prepping, and cooking, and buying very few prepared food items (or very expensive ones that at least claim to be “natural”).  You know, that would cut into your TV and computer time to make your kid all their own real food.  And then what does the kid face with their friends?  Not being able to eat the junk their friends’ parents feed them?  Rarely being able to find decent food any time you are not at home?  You’ll have a riot on your hands once your kids are past the prepubescent age, if not before. 

Yes, food issues, from baby formula on forward, are deep, deep, deep within us.  I believe they even rewrite our cells and rewire our brains.

So, don’t be so damn judgmental when you see obese people waddling down the street.  They are suffering more than you will ever know, and yes, it’s not just their will power that is to blame.  And don’t get me started on advertising, marketing, misinformationals, and the utter brain washing of the entire nation.  Sigh.