We Are No Longer Just "Pleasingly Plump."

Gone, it seems, are the days when being in shape was in vogue. In contemporary American society it is evident that a growing percentage of us are allowing ourselves to grow past fitness, shapeliness and pleasing plumpness to overweight, fat, grossly fat and, inevitably, disgusting obesity.

Do not let yourself be misled. If you have already become deluded, start facing the unwelcome truth. Obesity is unsightly, uncomfortable, unwieldy, unhealthy and life threateningly.

In this country, more and more people are becoming afflicted with illnesses and life threatening conditions because of obesity. If we are not yet among them, we are very, very fortunate.

More and more people are dying annually because of conditions associated with being overweight, or obese. Some of us get sold on false, damaging diets. Some of us get convinced to buy into dangerous exercise programs.

In retrospect, we are such fools. We are not born with food addictions. We develop them after exposure to unhealthy foods that taste so good and so delicious and make us feel so good that we just can't, or won't, stop eating them.

This does, of course, include things that we drink. Among the most damaging products that we ingest are those terribly, terrible canned and bottled drinks that we become addicted to as early as infancy

I don't know where they could be flushed away because our oceans and waterways are already so polluted that they might never become pristine again.

Perhaps these "drinks" should be poured down the throats of the criminals who continue to get filthy rich producing and selling them. Certainly the production of these so called "Soft Drinks", that are in reality hard killers" of our bodies, needs to be terminated.

I believe that there are many of us who are influenced, or led in wrong eating directions by parents, siblings, or "friends". I believe too, however, that we all experience times when we could take control of our situations, if only we would.

In my own experience, I know that there are many, many times when I make a conscious decision to keep on eating. I don't believe that I am the only one, or one of just a few who often willfully decides to keep on stuffing my face, when I know that I should stop.

Despite the urgings of perverse purveyors of junk foods, we could make better choices of what we eat, if only we would.

Isn't it true that from early adolescence on, no one successfully tells any of us just what to eat? We make up our own minds. We consume what we want, whenever we want to, in whatever amounts that we want to.

Unfortunately, for all of us, the Food and Drug Administration and our medical and nutrition professionals have let us down and allowed harmful additives and grossly excess amounts of fats and sugars to continue to be inserted into many of our foods.

We, however, do not have to allow our bodies to continue to be victimized because of their malfeasance. Currently, Oprah Winfrey and others in the national media are consistently making efforts to warn us and advise us about what we should and should not allow into our bodies.

Once we are past childhood, when it comes to eating, we really can "just say no" to what is harmful and yes to what we know is right for us.

Wouldn't it be a beautiful, healthy state of affairs if "slim" came back in and "pleasingly plump" again replaced fat and obese?

Learn more about this author, Calsue Murray.
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