Fat is the New Thin

Last night the Biggest Loser was on NBC. And although I’m feeling slightly embarrassed to admit that it’s one of my favorite reality television programs, at least there are only five of you reading this blog who now know my dirty little secret. In my defense, the contestants on this show are actually doing something positive—losing up to a full person worth of weight or more and getting healthy the hard way (aka: diet and exercise) is to be applauded.

But during this season’s premier, as I simultaneously gawked at the three people who weighed A QUARTER TON while shoving Magnolia cupcakes down my throat, I started to really think about obesity outside of the entertainment value of watching fat people haul ass to get fit. I mean, it is, after all, an epidemic. Forty million people in America are afflicted—way more than the measly swine flu everyone is in an uproar about—and yet nobody is running scared. Would we be more frightened of obesity if it was contagious?

This week I tried to observe just how bad it is. And boy, is it bad. People on the train who barely fit in their seats (one woman across from me had to sit in a reclining position because of her mounds of flesh and chins…chins that surely collapse her airway while sleeping, causing sleep apnea), movie goers whose cheeks spill out and under the sides of the chairs, children who already weigh a few hundred pounds (who is feeding them?), and a scary abundance of motorized scooters meant for the elderly or disabled but used by obese people to get around more easily (and not have to walk). And all you have to do is go to any Walmart to see a line of obese and overweight Americans in all of their splendor.

Perhaps I sound cruel, and if so, forgive me. My father is a “weight-ist” who has been drilling into my head since I was a child just how terrible obesity is. Once in the car he shouted “There goes the fattest ass is Mount Kisco!” to a poor pedestrian walking by. He later saw it was his cousin. All jokes aside, and forgiving my father for this hang-up, what the hell is going on in America to make us so flippin’ fat??

1. Bigger is Better: We think it about our cars, food portions and houses. Why not about our bodies? We’re the country that proudly came up with the SuperSize concept, after all.

2. Fast Food Nation: Across America, “real restaurants” (locales that only exist in one place and serve fresh, cooked-on-the-premises products) are an endangered species, while opportunistic fast food chains and strip malls continue to sprout up, targeting children, busy people and low income families. And now that New York provides calorie counts, I am flabbergasted by what is in some of the food I grew up on (Friendly’s for example, where one is hard pressed to find any dish under 1,000 calories [half of your daily intake!]).

3. Go Gluttony!: Instead of condemning it, we celebrate it in shows like the Food Network’s Man v. Food.

4. Clueless: Personally, I had no idea I was drinking 400 calories when I ordered my daily Chai Latte, and I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not alone. Every season on the Biggest Loser, when they show the contestants how much sugar they typically ingest in one year (with their SuperSize sodas and the like), they are shocked to tears. We just don’t seem to know any better.

5. Laziness: According to the American Heart Association’s Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2010 update(1), inactivity is one of the main things weighing America down (no pun intended).

6. We’ve Let Ourselves Go: A 10-year longitudinal study on women’s health from the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland(2), claims that women begin to gain weight when they get married and have children, more so than single women. A women’s health specialist commenting on the study suggests that single women are thinner because they are still trying to attract a mate. (Looking at some husbands I know, I’d like to wager a bet that men pack it on just as much as women when they’re comfortably “settled”). But just because we’ve met someone, does this mean we should stop caring about our looks and health? Why define ourselves by our marital or relationship status? How many pants sizes do we change before we realize we’ve stopped giving a crap?

7. We’re so busy: With work, partners, kids and Facebook’s Farmville, we have no time to cook proper meals and go to the gym. But is that really true? There are plenty of easy, fresh and healthy recipes (check http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/RecipeIndex) that would take less time than defrosting those french fries. And insurance companies and businesses would do good to think about installing prevention measures for busy employees as an incentive to make time (points for good health, installing gyms in the workplace or offering discounts at local gyms). They would save a lot of money in obesity-related illnesses and missed days of work (and so would we!).

8. I’ll Just Get Gastric Bypass: Instead of working on weight issues the old fashioned way, more and more people I know seem to be opting for surgery as an “easy out”. It’s not easy…aside from the mortality rate from gastric bypass (about 1 out of 350 people), this procedure comes with a slew of complications (anemia, early osteoporosis, “dumping syndrome”)(3). There is no magic pill, we actually have to get off the couch and do the work(4).

9. We Feel Entitled: We’re free to be fat!! How dare airlines charge us for two seats! ("Fat rate, or flat rate, ma’am")(5). Who cares if the poor person next to us is tittering on the arm rest from lack of space?

10. It’s the Norm: Fat is the new thin. It’s not something to be ashamed about when everyone around you looks exactly the same.

I’m sure I’m just grazing the tip of the iceberg with the reasons Americans are fat, and it’s all been said before, but I just think we really need to start giving this disease the respect and fear it deserves. It’s important, it’s deadly and it’s spreading at an alarming rate. Put it up there with anthrax poisoning or freaking Ebola! We should all be running towards the gym! Alternatives to joining the gym could be yoga classes, kickboxing (added bonus, anger management), outdoor fitness (http://www.gymintervention.com/), conservation volunteering, cycling or anything else that you enjoy doing (so as not to give up at the first drop of sweat).

Resources
1. AHA’s Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2010 update
(http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3018163)

2. Brown WJ, Hockey R, Dobson AJ. Effects of having a baby on weight gain. Am J Prev Med 38(2), 2010. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/175050.php)

3. Gastric Bypass Surgery: Risks. The Mayo Clinic.
(http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/gastric-bypass/MY00825/DSECTION=risks)

4. Health Club Pays Off! Man Loses 100 Pounds in One Year.
(http://www.thatsfit.com/2010/01/11/health-club-pays-off-man-loses-100-pounds-in-one-year/)

5. Obese have right to two airline seats.
(http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4AJ8G020081120)