The Law of Fat and Effect

In case you missed a recent British study on the causes of obesity and the resultant damage to society: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21340725/from/ET/wid/11915773?gt1=10514 I will give you a very quick summation: Being fat is not your fault.

Hooray! Three cheers and a bucket of hot wings! Finally, the scientific community has conclusive evidence that the porcine amongst us aren't the conductors of their own fat orchestra.

Really... Well then who is to blame for XXXL shirts and "appetizers" large enough to feed six adult Somalians? What chthonic agent then is to blame for clogged arteries in teens and asses that require an airline seat for each cheek?

You guessed it: GLOBAL WARMING.

Turns out all that trapped heat has expanded our energy absorbent bodies and, like a kettle left too long on a burner, we're all about to explode! Run for the hills!

Okay, calm down. I just went back to the article and re-read it to check and make sure that the word "global" didn't have two "l"s, and it seems I got something wrong. Actually, I got everything wrong and the real culprit is much more logical and true. You see, SOCIETY is to blame for society becoming overweight.

I wish I had made the second reason up.

Apparently a group of well-paid, bespectacled geek-types have come to the conclusion that overwhelming forces in our nebulous culture make it impossible to avoid gaining weight. The very act of "storing" food in your home, where cave men did not posses such stockpiles of calories, make obesity not just likely, but inevitable. Throw in advertising of food, fast food availability, corn syrup in our drinks, and it's a damn miracle we aren't ALL 400lbs.

It's not your fault, see; it's everyone else's.

"They" did it to you.

Now all we need to do is pass a few hundred laws prohibiting the sale, manufacture, consumption, and desire for sweet and fatty foods and presto! Thin Earth, here we come.

Except that of course that will not happen. The truth is that WE are society and WE are actually individuals that make a million choices each year that affect our own health. Just because we can order an extra large six-cheese deep-dish pizza and have it delivered fresh and hot to our door doesn't mean we should. And it certainly doesn't mean we should eat that whole delicious melty goodness alone. We have the choice now to eat bean sprouts and soy curd if we think that will keep us alive longer.

The point is that we have those choices. As soon as any government declares that we cannot think for ourselves and our "problems" are beyond our individual control then, all kidding aside, it is time to run for the hills.

So walk, Fat Cat, walk! If you don't lose some weight, the government will make us all eat Subway sandwiches without mayo, yuck, and it will have been your fault. The planet is counting on you!

But, no pressure.

Pigassus

Post Script: If I have to eat bean sprouts, which taste like dirty old dirt, instead of the aforementioned eight slices of pizza Heaven, then I don't want to live longer.