by Chris R.W.

Created on: October 13, 2009

Yes, obesity is a problem that needs to be addressed. Yes, there is a growing rate of obese people in the world. These are undeniably true, and indeed should be confronted. But the claim that this is an epidemic is a hype that has inflated to a degree much higher than the implications of obesity, unset by two factors, nostalgic misinformation and societal pressures.

Obesity hype followers will give you a list of reasons why we're facing such a frightening epidemic of obese people in the world. One of them is rooted in nostalgic, good old fashion memories of lifestyles that seem sunnier than they really are. They will tell you that back in the old days, they came home from work or school and sat down to a wonderfully fresh, healthy meal prepared by their loving stay at home mother. I challenge anyone to spend 10 minutes flipping through a few "Old Fashioned" cookbooks and come back to still support the assertion that people in past days ate healthier food. Because, they didn't.

Looking through any "Old Fashioned" cookbooks of any types of meals will find lots of fat, butter, lard, and sugar in every recipe. The base of a meal for the larger part of human history was meat and carbohydrates. No, a hundred years ago food didn't have all the preservatives and modifications, greases and frying oils, but it still was fatty and filled with carbohydrates. But a hundred years ago people didn't have anywhere near the kind of access we have now to foods of every kind you can imagine. Now, you can pick any type of vegetable, fruit, meat, nut, bread, etc, and have it at any time you desire, for any meal of the day! They simply didn't have that option back a hundred years ago; they had to eat what they could afford and what was local at the time. This means there was never a wide variety of fruits and vegetables around, and meals were centered on fatty meats and carbohydrates.

Secondly, old-fashioned dreamers will tell you that people "now days" are so much lazier than the good old days, and it's the inactivity that's the problem. Thing is, people alive now have so much more to do to sustain there lives than those a hundred years ago! Our educational requirements have been increased massively, forcing older students in higher universities to juggle their grades and a part time job to keep from going into a hopeless debt. Working parents have 40 hour plus careers per week, while driving their children all over town to school, practice, lessons, and whatever else their children

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>