I was having dinner at a restaurant the other night and sitting at the adjacent table were two very fat women. In listening to their conversation, it became clear that they were very nice people. Tears came to my eyes.
In our current environment it is very easy to become fat. In fact, only two categories of people are not fat in America. (1)Those who have such overwhelming social pressures that they can reduce their consumption, people who are vain, social climbers and gay men who are horny. (2) And those who were born with skinny jeans (genes).
I have explained what makes the rest of us fat in earlier blogs. It has nothing to do with exercise or activity. I put on weight and I am in the top 1% of active people.
Also speaking for myself, I have been perfectly capable of losing weight in Weight Watchers by reducing my consumption. But I gained it back. Just as nearly everyone else in every controlled study has done.
My daughter Cynthia has half the answer: ‘if you put on weight, its for good’. (An appropriate Merry Christmas warning).
My explanation for why people put on weight: We are confronted with a Darwinian process in the food market. Food producers are constantly seeking new foods that we will find to be so delicious that we cannot restrain ourselves. New products are constantly coming to the market to tempt us.
In a society like Japan where nearly all food is traditional, few people get fat.
Until we have some pharmaceutical way to effectively lose weight, I am going to have great sympathy for all people who are obese. It is hard work carrying around that fat and there is no simple or reasonable way to lose it. It is also very difficult to avoid becoming obese.