don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

America is number one -- if there is a contest to be the world's fattest nation. Even after 141,000 gastric bypass operations in 2004 and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on diets and medications, more than 15 million adults in this country are morbidly obese and 80 to 100 million (64 percent) are overweight. Some observers fear that lean, fit people will soon be placed on the endangered species list. 

Why are we so fat? I want to offer a simple explanation. It's because fat people eat too much. Simple as that. 

I just completed a double blind, cross-over trial of a horizontal, vertical, dignified and imaginary nature and discovered not one American has ever become fat without eating too much. Furthermore, not a single American ever failed to lose weight by eating too little. Why have others not discovered this or, if they knew, told the rest of us? As Yul Brynner once remarked (as king in the Broadway musical The King and I), "Is a puzzlement."
 
Of course people vary in all kinds of ways that affect weight, such as metabolic rates, exercise levels, caloric needs and genetic realities. Some folks can eat a lot more than others and, other things being the same (exercise levels, for example), not become overweight. Life is not fair. Bottom line remains this: If you are fat, you have been eating too much, even if, in some cases, you consume less than most non-fat people. For you, it's too much. Again, fair has nothing to do with it. 
 
Once overweight, it is hard to recover; few can maintain weight loss at healthful levels for the long haul of a lifetime. To lose a single pound, you have to run a deficit of about 3500 calories. Imagine how difficult losing and keeping off ten, fifty or 100 pounds can be. Unless wellness becomes a full time focus, almost a passion if not an obsession, who can manage it? Not many, as simple observation anywhere that crowds gather makes painfully clear. "I can't do it" should replace "In God We Trust" on the national currency. This new slogan would have two attractive features over the current version: It would not violate church-state separation, as our Congress and president are wont to do, and it would not be a lie. 
 
One consequence of the fact that Americans are not absolutely clear that being fat is due to eating too much is that they continue to live in ways that contribute to remaining overweight. That is, they continue to eat too much for the amount of exercise they get and other factors that affect their weight. This disconnect between eating too much and being fat means they will continue to get fatter and fatter as the years go by. 
 
Being fat is deadly enough in terms of disease, high medical costs, premature deaths and so on. It also depreciates the quality of life. Repeated attempts at weight loss that lead to failure cause feelings of inadequacy, loss of self-esteem, added stress and so on right through the litany of human misery. Fat people are victims of discrimination. As kids, they are less popular than they otherwise might be. Their social life suffers, they can't do as well in sports and games and they know they don't look as good as others not so disadvantaged. (How many fat homecoming queens have YOU seen?) It's a downward spiral, the consequences of which are much underrated, in my opinion. 
 
Can anything be done by health educators, employers, government, social agencies, doctors, evangelists (I threw that in for laughs) or other elements of society to improve the lot of fat people, or create the conditions that would improve the chances that fat people themselves might improve their own situations by succeeding at losing weight and keeping it off?
 
That's the topic of the next essay, "Cures for Fat People." 
 
Slim or fat, always try to look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the PHYSICAL DOMAIN under the skill area of nutrition. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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