America the Fat

We’ve become a nation of fat people. It’s sad. And it’s disgusting. If you’re fat, it’s your fault. It’s a moral failing. Gluttony is correctly named one of the seven deadly sins, as morally despicable as greed or wraith. The math is simple: eat more calories than your body can burn and you end up fat. Losing weight is equally simple: eat less, or burn more calories.

Almost thirty percent of us are obese, not just fat, obese. Roughly 75 million Americans. And year-by-year, the number is growing (by about 1% a year – faster than most of our savings). How fat are you? Here’s how to tell: multiply your weight in pounds by 703 and divide by your height in inches, and then divide by your height once again. If the number (called Body Mass Index, or BMI) is over 25, you are overweight; if it’s over 30 you’re obese; over 35 is severely obese, over 40 morbidly obese, and over 50 – call it “super obese.” First super-sized food portions, and now super-sized citizens. Is this a great country, or what?

As if being fat weren’t enough, we lie about it. Or we might more kindly call it cognitive dissonance. The average American woman now weighs 165 pounds – a far cry from the images of feminine desirability bombarding us every day. Back in 1947, a size 10 was made to fit a woman with a 32.5 inch bust, 25 inch waist and 35 inch hips. We now call it a “size 2.” Particularly distressing is the trend: women in the 60-74 age group have had an average gain of almost 18 pounds since 1960; those 18-29 have gained significantly more, being, on average, 29 pounds heavier. Alas, those skinny-hippy days seem gone forever.

Men are having no trouble keeping up, but the trend is less surprising – older means fatter. Twenty to forty year-olds have gained 20 pounds since 1960, forty to sixty year-olds around 27, and those older an average of 33 pounds. The overall average weight of an American male is now over 190 pounds. Pants with a 30 or 32 inch waist go begging at local thrift shops.

However, the real crime is not what we have done to ourselves but what we are doing to our kids. A third of them are fat, or worse, up from around 1 in 10 back in the 60s. You don’t have to take my word (or the government’s), just stumble on down to a local school yard and watch the kids at PT or recess. It’s enough to make you cry. The average 16 year old has a BMI of 24. In other words, being fat is on the verge of becoming the new normal. The price they’ll have to pay will be considerable.

Carrying excessive weight when young will shorten your life-span, not to mention an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. But the more immediate costs are reduced opportunity and a less active life, social ostracism and self-disgust. Surely, any parent would want better than this for their kids.

Sadder yet, it’s a class thing. Being poor means being fatter. As does belonging to a minority or failing to graduate high school. Perhaps education and knowledge have something to do with it, but I’m more inclined to believe it’s because it costs less money to buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal than the makings of a salad – not to mention less time. Add in lower opportunity for physical exercise.

I can speak with some authority on this subject because I’m obese – make that severely obese, seemingly aiming for morbidly so – and I’ve struggled with weight all my life. I was a chubby school kid back in those old “1 in 10” days. Even with intense physical activity -- college wrestling, marathon running, bicycling across the country, nordic skiing thousands of miles – the best I could usually manage was being border-line overweight. I’ve spent more than 60 years living with the disgust, lack of self-confidence, and social consequences that resulted.

And now that age and a bad knee have curtailed physical activity, I’m rapidly progressing through increasing stages of obesity. Oh, I could blame it on genes, or glands or franken-food, but it’s really much simpler than that: I eat too much. As do a majority of my fellow citizens. Eating is the pleasure that never fails, always there and always comforting.

Ben Franklin said, “I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.” But I notice he didn’t lose any weight ether.
Al