Maggie's Farm

"Obesity as a social inequity?"

In my too short lifetime [too short from my viewpoint] I have seen many of the ills of man go from being at least somewhat one's own fault to being named a disease, the blame for which can then be shifted from one's own undisciplined shoulders to someone else's. When that happens, one can then expect the Government to solve it.

When I was a kid, if you sat around a lot and didn't exercise, and stuffed your face with cookies and candy, you got fat [or obese, as the politically correct now call it]. I know, because I did it briefly in my 'teens. Back in my youth, you were expected by your parents to control yourself and limit your self-indulgence if you didn't want to be fat, to get out there and walk or swim or ride a bike. Of course there were some folks who were stockier than others depending on the genetics of the culture they came from. Some were skinnier than others. That's the way God or Mother Nature made people in the world of yesterday. But anyone who wanted not to be grossly obese could control their appetites enough to be pleasingly plump, chubby, stocky or whatever, and still get around and lead a somewhat normal life.

Today, it's not your fault any more. It's the fault of some mysterious medical disorder, and we have stomach stapling, and other expensive medical interventions, paid for by government healthcare, to remedy the situation. And young women want to look like the high fashion models, skinny little preying mantises who throw up three times a day to keep their starved figures, poor darlings. And as a population, Americans are fatter than ever.

To get a look at what Americans used to consider beautiful, I recommend a week-long indulgence in viewing the best of the movies from the 1950s and 1960s, when Hollywood's stars like Audrey Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly et al, looked delicious, not ready for hospitalization.

And girls... quit throwing up. Guys, at least the grown-up ones, like pretty, well-upholstered females. I remember.

Marianne

As for President Obama bopping around on Air Force One making stump speeches for other people, that seems to be about the only thing he knows how to do. My brother-in-law has an expression for this kind of activity: Short Attention Span Syndrome, or SASS.

Yep... Obama's got it, and there isn't any cure.

Marianne