by Pennie Pyle

Created on: December 28, 2009   Last Updated: December 29, 2009

So many Americans are over-weight or grossly obese in this time of “The Information Age”.  What video games, movies at home, wide screen televisions and computers have also brought to the average American home besides “the world” is a world of fat people from lack of exercise and bad eating habits.  Going to a gym or joining a dieting club (Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig) is not possible for a large portion of Americans that make up the “too fat” population.  That portion of the population is the poor and the “Working Poor”.  The “Working Poor” is defined by the US Department of Labor as “persons who, during the year, spent 27 weeks or more in the labor force during the year (working or looking for work), but whose incomes still fell below the official poverty level.  These individuals represented 5.6 percent of all persons 16 years and older.”

[1]  That percentage translates to 7,836 persons.  That does not include anyone under 16 or over “retirement age”.  This7,000 persons also does not reflect people who were NOT working or looking for work … that number of poor for 2004 was a whopping 37 million people!  That's almost the entire populations of New Jersey, New York State, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts combined!  According to the International Health, Racket &Sports club Association/ASD Obesity-Weight Control Trend Report (July, 2004), there are 58 Million Overweight; 40 Million Obese; and 3 Million morbidly Obese people in the United States.  Further the study found that 78% of American's are not meeting basic activity level recommendations.2  We've become a nation of couch potatoes!  Or more correctly computer/video game chair potatoes.

Now the IHRSA report was heavily slanted toward the use of Health Clubs but the census statistics prove that joining a health club is out of range for nearly a third of the American population and what of the poverty level and below people who live where there aren't health clubs?  Like on Indian Reservations, or in the “boonies”?  We don't have to spend hours with an axe chopping fire wood, just pick up the phone and have the oil man or gas man deliver.  We don't have to go dig a new outhouse every six months, just call the septic tank guys to come clean it once a year.  And if you live “on the grid” it's

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