Unless you've been living under a rock, you've been bombarded recently with startling news about the out-of-control obesity epidemic and the ruin it is causing. It's been in the headlines repeatedly and is the subject of HBO's Weight of the Nation TV special. What you haven't seen in the headlines is that we now know the solution to the epidemic and we can implement it immediately. The solution is described below. First, some of the alarming news:
As a result of these alarms, we hear lots of opinions and proposals about what to do. Almost all involve public health initiatives, government programs and new laws. The CDC, Department of Health, Surgeon General and First Lady are all on the job, brainstorming and leading us. Yale's David Katz, M.D., Founding Director of the Prevention Research Center, praises public/private collaborative efforts to promote better nutrition in the marketplace. Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker imagines a possible future with a government-mandated diet. I'm very much in favor of community leaders taking us in the right direction and government action, such as generating laws that the FDA and Public Health Departments enforce, as they do today with other matters. However, let me propose a different solution.
You can solve the obesity epidemic. Yourself. Now. You don't need to wait on others. However, you must be overweight -- not as badly as I was, but more than is healthy. If you're not sure what that is, ask your doctor. From this paragraph forward, I'm not addressing the shrinking minority who are not overweight, but the majority of us who are unhealthfully overweight.
While I am very healthy now, at my ideal body weight for over 25 years, it wasn't always so. At one time, I was obese, more than 300 pounds. And while I resented anyone sticking his or her nose in my business about my weight, I didn't like being overweight. The truth is, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't want to lose that weight, even if I didn't admit it. Virtually, none of you want this. You hate it. I know this because today, I specialize in therapy for overweight and obese people. When you are alone with me, regardless of the front you put up, you tell me you'd love to solve the problem if you could. You can. And when you do, you'll have done the most important thing that anyone can do to solve the obesity epidemic. If everyone who wanted to solve his or her weight problem got her or his wish, there would be no obesity epidemic. Go after what you want for yourself. Don't worry about the epidemic. Focus on yourself.
While you may not know a lot about the behavioral medicine I teach, you know that changing your behavior permanently is the answer to your weight problem -- getting your permanent eating habits to conform to a pattern that will cause a healthy weight. In the past, you've tried diets and giving up what you like to eat and the way you like to eat, and perhaps lost a lot of weight doing it, but it didn't last. Don't give up. You just have not learned enough yet. You're not finished yet.
When you change yourself, you'll change the world. The change in you will affect those around you. You'll be helping others just by modeling and leading the way. The improvement is contagious, just like the problem. That's how you'll be solving the obesity epidemic. When you make yourself better as a way of helping the whole world get better, you are committing yourself to something greater than yourself, and this will tap a power greater than yourself. To solve the obesity epidemic, the most important thing you can do is to solve your own weight problem for your own reasons.
This is not to say that I am against social and political action to change the culture, especially when it comes to the children. They are at our mercy, subject to the training and conditioning of the culture and marketplace that is working hard to train them to consume as much as possible. The habits we develop as kids stay with us, and it's better to learn good habits than to try to unlearn bad ones. So, we need to regulate and rein in the food industry and support institutional health training. Also, I would love it if it were easier to eat healthfully in restaurants. I'd eat out more. So, I am happy to see the laws passed that require them to disclose the nutrition info, and happy to see them responding to the public demands for healthier offerings.
So, be active socially and politically to change the culture if you like doing that. It will help reverse the obesity epidemic. But you don't have to do that if that's not your thing. Solving the problem in you is many times more important and effective to that end. You can solve the obesity epidemic. Yourself. Now. You don't need to wait on others.
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David Katz, M.D.: Unjunking Ourselves!
David Katz, M.D.: Nutrition Guidance: Facts About Opinions About Facts
Daniel J. Schultz: 'Weight of the Nation': To Win, We Have to Lose
http://greatestviews.com/the-diet-solution-program-does-it-really-work/
I often talk about the fact that it is very hard to keep up with healthy eating habits because it is not convenient so I liked this unfortunately short (because there aren't many) list: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201205/enjoy-fast-food-168.aspx
In fact, this concept applies to many addictive habits and I recommend the book even if you don't have a weight problem. If you have other bad habits you want to break read the book.
There is no political agenda here, just common sense.
1. "You are a fat person, so you are a bad person, and you deserve to be punished -- for your own good."
2. "I am a fat person, so I am a bad person, and I deserve to be punished -- for my own good."
You need to listen to a new message instead of thinking over and over what you've thought in the past.
Why do I have the feeling that while Republicans and Democrats are engaging in this phony debate and their supporters fall into line behind them, the fact that, at the same time, both parties politically support and financially subsidize this epidemic will be lost, or even deemed irrelevant?
How will it remain off the radar of the masses that the government-- yes, including it's poitical representatives across the board and party lines-- benefit greatly from a physically and mentally unhealthy populace?
I don't know.
When the airwaves, the science journals, the medical establishment, and the poiticians are all owned, bought and paid for, by the people with a special interest in making us and keeping us fat and unhealthy, I don't like the chances of many Americans stumbling onto the answer on their own. Much less, being able to avail themselves of any necessary resources.
Apparently, you did and were able to. Congratulations. But the warm and fuzzy sentiment of your article doesn't do anyone else a bit of practical good. All it does is give the fat merchants cover and license to keep on, keeeping on.
Obesity in America: The Growing Dilemma
http://exerciseandnutritiontips.com/obesity-in-america-the-growing-dilemma