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Published on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
King Obesity's Realm
King Obesity sat grandly on a huge hassock atop a throne composed of solidified animal fat surveying his domain. The last thirty years have been bullish for Obesity, during which the number of seriously overweight children in America tripled. Eating fat, sugary and salty food while sitting for hours daily looking at video screens, being bused to and from school, and not having to bother with physical education, millions of lads and lassies were following orders.
An agitated messenger arrived in the throne room, breathing heavily from his travels. “Oh, my liege, Obesity, I have disturbing news. Michelle Obama, the First Lady, is launching a nationwide project she calls ‘Let’s Move’ to combat childhood obesity and shed billions of pounds of your stuff. She claims that success would reduce all types of diseases now and later, save on medical costs, as well as raise the energy level and self-esteem of millions of children. Here, Your Eminence, are the complete details of her plan.”
Obesity was a hard person to agitate. He had heard of these campaigns before. They went nowhere. He shook his heavy jowls and rubbed his many-layered belly, which was his way of saying “ho, hum, here we go again.”
His fleshy fingers clutched the plan by those people he always called the “lean and meaners,” and saw that improvement in the school lunch program’s menu, exercise at school, farmers’ markets and community gardens were at the top of the action list. Obesity chortled at his adversaries’ naivete and reticence.
For some reason, they avoided the real causes of his success in pouring massive amounts of empty calories into the mouths and down the throats of these children who cry out for more and more of them.
It is all about who owns the tongues of these youngsters, not who reaches their brains, mused Obesity. Ownership, Obesity knew, belonged to his most faithful allies—the vast fast food and food processing industry and their clever advertisers. For decades these companies have transformed millions of young tongues into fast food first responders.
The tongue has been turned against the brain for so long that the kids’ parents and even some grandparents accept this conditioned response. Look what they head for in the movies, what they choose in the supermarkets, what they order in the chain restaurants and takeouts. It’s all about the pipeline full of enlarged amounts of sugar, fat and salt, dude! Hour after hour, day after day, these pipelines are flowing to the delight of their video-addicted young customers.
Obesity has been defeating his principal opponents – Knowledge, Nutrition, and Health – for so long, he sleeps most of the day when he is not eating. So, Michelle Obama is going to concentrate on the schools. Hah, not a chance unless she wants a rebellion of the kids, whose habit is to cast aside much of the cooked and raw vegetables even when they’re hungry. The school vending machines are stocked with the perfect junk food and nearby stores can make up for any lack of ready supply.
So, though knowing better, school lunch managers, to quell any unrest, load up on sugar-glazed cookies called Crunchmania Cinnamon Buns and sugar-laden cereals for breakfast. At lunch there are dollops of modified cornstarch, lipolyzed butter oil, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar-flavored milk.
It wasn’t accidental that McDonald’s most successful words to get children to nag their parents were “It’s a Child’s World”. So, if sincere schools can’t get the children to eat their fruits and vegetables, what about the burdened, commuting parents? Can they overcome the daily barrage of junk food and drink that shapes their children into Pavlovian specimens—mere conditioned responders? Don’t be silly. They eat from the same menu.
Obesity continues to bet on the children’s tongues as wards of the irresistible junk food companies. After all, his ranks keep swelling and the Fat Pride movement is picking up steam.
The messenger, standing with military erectness, deferentially asked: “Oh master, what are you thinking?” Obesity looked down on him and rendered his conclusion: “So long as the lean and meaners do not focus on the battle for the tongues and their captors and instead concentrate on presenting nutritious foods to children while explaining why and how they are good for them, I say to you and all messengers of these tidings, do not worry, Obesity is and will continue to be king.”
“Why,” he continued, “just a few days before Michelle Obama’s multimedia White House event announcing ‘Let’s Move’ with former NFL runner, Tiki Barber, Barack Obama was with a group of schoolchildren. As if being at the White House was not enough excitement for the students, what did Mr. Obama do? He presented each of them with a box of red, white and blue M&Ms imprinted with the Presidential seal and his signature, no less.”
With that pontification, a smiling Obesity picked up a dozen triple deck cheeseburgers, a gallon of thick ice cream milk shakes, 100 Hostess Twinkies, topped off with a bucket of sweetened lard to start his third meal of the day.
An agitated messenger arrived in the throne room, breathing heavily from his travels. “Oh, my liege, Obesity, I have disturbing news. Michelle Obama, the First Lady, is launching a nationwide project she calls ‘Let’s Move’ to combat childhood obesity and shed billions of pounds of your stuff. She claims that success would reduce all types of diseases now and later, save on medical costs, as well as raise the energy level and self-esteem of millions of children. Here, Your Eminence, are the complete details of her plan.”
Obesity was a hard person to agitate. He had heard of these campaigns before. They went nowhere. He shook his heavy jowls and rubbed his many-layered belly, which was his way of saying “ho, hum, here we go again.”
His fleshy fingers clutched the plan by those people he always called the “lean and meaners,” and saw that improvement in the school lunch program’s menu, exercise at school, farmers’ markets and community gardens were at the top of the action list. Obesity chortled at his adversaries’ naivete and reticence.
For some reason, they avoided the real causes of his success in pouring massive amounts of empty calories into the mouths and down the throats of these children who cry out for more and more of them.
It is all about who owns the tongues of these youngsters, not who reaches their brains, mused Obesity. Ownership, Obesity knew, belonged to his most faithful allies—the vast fast food and food processing industry and their clever advertisers. For decades these companies have transformed millions of young tongues into fast food first responders.
The tongue has been turned against the brain for so long that the kids’ parents and even some grandparents accept this conditioned response. Look what they head for in the movies, what they choose in the supermarkets, what they order in the chain restaurants and takeouts. It’s all about the pipeline full of enlarged amounts of sugar, fat and salt, dude! Hour after hour, day after day, these pipelines are flowing to the delight of their video-addicted young customers.
Obesity has been defeating his principal opponents – Knowledge, Nutrition, and Health – for so long, he sleeps most of the day when he is not eating. So, Michelle Obama is going to concentrate on the schools. Hah, not a chance unless she wants a rebellion of the kids, whose habit is to cast aside much of the cooked and raw vegetables even when they’re hungry. The school vending machines are stocked with the perfect junk food and nearby stores can make up for any lack of ready supply.
So, though knowing better, school lunch managers, to quell any unrest, load up on sugar-glazed cookies called Crunchmania Cinnamon Buns and sugar-laden cereals for breakfast. At lunch there are dollops of modified cornstarch, lipolyzed butter oil, high-fructose corn syrup, sugar-flavored milk.
It wasn’t accidental that McDonald’s most successful words to get children to nag their parents were “It’s a Child’s World”. So, if sincere schools can’t get the children to eat their fruits and vegetables, what about the burdened, commuting parents? Can they overcome the daily barrage of junk food and drink that shapes their children into Pavlovian specimens—mere conditioned responders? Don’t be silly. They eat from the same menu.
Obesity continues to bet on the children’s tongues as wards of the irresistible junk food companies. After all, his ranks keep swelling and the Fat Pride movement is picking up steam.
The messenger, standing with military erectness, deferentially asked: “Oh master, what are you thinking?” Obesity looked down on him and rendered his conclusion: “So long as the lean and meaners do not focus on the battle for the tongues and their captors and instead concentrate on presenting nutritious foods to children while explaining why and how they are good for them, I say to you and all messengers of these tidings, do not worry, Obesity is and will continue to be king.”
“Why,” he continued, “just a few days before Michelle Obama’s multimedia White House event announcing ‘Let’s Move’ with former NFL runner, Tiki Barber, Barack Obama was with a group of schoolchildren. As if being at the White House was not enough excitement for the students, what did Mr. Obama do? He presented each of them with a box of red, white and blue M&Ms imprinted with the Presidential seal and his signature, no less.”
With that pontification, a smiling Obesity picked up a dozen triple deck cheeseburgers, a gallon of thick ice cream milk shakes, 100 Hostess Twinkies, topped off with a bucket of sweetened lard to start his third meal of the day.
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78 Comments so far
Show AllWhither away Ralphie. I eat alot and I'm fine. Now to enjoy another plate of beef lasagna. You owe me one.
Wonderful to see our tax dollars are being wasted on M&Ms with the presidential seal.
There are those who kill quickly and there are those who murder slowly.
They are Hell-Creatures.
The children I have known who are overweight are so because they have been fed or allowed to eat portions of food- whether junk food or white carbs- that are too large for their body size. Portion size is an important component.
Also, many parents are not physically active with their kids. Regular physical activity is not part of many family's joint routines.
Changing what families are eating and what activities they partake in are important,as is making sure there is physical, calorie- burning activity taking place regularly in the schools.
Bravo, Ralph ... the lighter side of you is turning out very well too.
And, as usual, YOU ARE RIGHT!
/cm
Hear, hear Cee! This is what struck me first. It's great to see a sage like Nader use humor to get his message across. Like other good teachers. Laughter is good medicine.
Re: another post. I see parents won't let their kids go Anywhere without a snack.
Satiety is anathema to all commercial interests.
Jack Chase
There are many books and articles out that say what Ralph is saying and they are all correct.
However, the culprits are not just the food industry and their desire for profits regardless of the health of the Ameican populace.
The real culprit and the ultimate stopgap measure is the parent and good parenting.
Michele Obama needs to say something that will make her very unpopular - American parents are doing a lousy job of parenting. She needs to gather all the facts available from the largest fact gathering source in the world, the US Government, and put together a speech that lays out a plan that is simple, easy to follow and can be put on the refridgerator door - the one place every American goes several times a day - and make the parents responsible for the actions of their children.
We can look at childhood obeisity, school test scores or high school drop out rates, the reason is the same - bad parenting.
American parents - wake up. Once childhood obeisity is under control, then we can deal with adult obeisity - the US is top on that list too.
In that case it isn't just Americans. Canadians too. Aussies. Brits. Western Europeans. Parents from Nauru. And increasingly, parents from some of the East Asian countries.
The US might be the biggest guy in the room, but obesity is a rapidly growing issue for quite a few wealthy, or wealthiesh, countries.
Yup. Obesity is like a cancer. If unchecked, it spreads, which is happening right now, particularly in the Western countries, such as the USA.
I will have to ask my niece about Europe when she gets back to confirm or deny what you said but it is my understanding that in Europe, people are controlling obesity and trying to lower the rate of increase. I would be interested in learning their methods of trying to halt the epidemic and see if those ideas can be tested in this country.
Yeah, they are trying to lower the increase, but they really aren't succeeding. It is just that the problem isn't as bad as it is in the US. The UK is probably closest to the US, it is competing with the US for the gold medal. *grin*
Countries ranging from France to Sweden have it too, though not as bad. IIRC, Sweden has managed to stop the rate of increase.
From what I had read from a lot of articles and comments on this site, Alternet, and other progressive sites on obesity and agriculture, the US is the biggest culprit in getting their unsustainable ideas passed around to other countries and economically pressuring them to join the US. I thought that if we could know their ways and practice on it, not only would the US reduce significantly on obesity but their negative influence on other nations would decrease. I could be too optimistic though.
Agreed. My son is quite conscious of the poisins that lurk in the everyday foods he is exposed too. Through continuing education durnig his childhood years, he now can make VERY good food choices. It all starts with parenting and good examples from parents. They will trump corporate ads every time.
Sioux Rose
Translation required. You/troll wrote, "My son is quite conscious of the poisins that lurk in the everyday foods he is exposed too."
Corrected version: "My son is quite conscious of the poisons that lurk in the everyday foods he is exposed to."
Did you graduate high school?
Poisons don't lurk,
Continuing as opposed to frozen in place?
Very weakens writing,
Alas can not does;
This folly, faux pas ad nauseum does what?
A sad intimation of medals deserved
Diluted pride....and poignantly little one, the progeny
of the sighted see few corporate ads.
Rather they are read to and read, ya know-
menus, drive up windows, their schools cafeterial
consecrations and meth recipes online after America
seduces them one too many times.
Sioux Rose
MOOKIE: In a perfect world where Mom didn't have to work and one parent was home when the kiddies got home from school, your suggestion would hold greater merit. The financial roller coaster is making it very hard for families to keep food on the table, utilities, rent/mortgage, etc paid. Quality food may not be the number 1 priority as a result. Plus it's not just childhood obesity, a good segment of the adult population is clueless as to how to eat; and building on my earlier assertion as per "lives of quiet desperation," the coping devices range from over-indulgence in sugars, to alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling problems, etc. People in America are largely out of balance because the nation and its values have veered so far into the killing fields as to guarantee the return of karma's boomerang in ways we barely acknowledge. There is a definite return on the investment: "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these..." That comment links directly with the first post on CD today regarding the U.S. as proud weapons trafficker to the world. There's blood money on every bullet discharged, every missile fired. A nation's economy reflects its values, or lack of them. The empty souls of our people are a direct result of the nation depriving so many (in other lands) of homes, health, harvests, and life itself. Things always come full circle.
When I bring visitors over here from other countries like South Korea, France and Russia, their first observation is how fat Americans are. The next observation they make is that all the restaurants are commercial chains. Gone are the days of the Mom & Pop restaurant, which has given way to the poor food complex. There are a few exceptions where people can actually dine on poor food everyday and not get fat (higher metabolism, smaller portions, etc.) but the vast majority of Americans (and Canadians too!) are overweight.
Poor food (Mac Cheese, fast food, soft drinks, etc.) dominate the diets of the middle and working class people of America simply because the cost is attractive and the advertising effective. When I visit my well-to-do friends, they generally eat real food, live longer, are not overweight, don't have diabetes and have higher energy levels. But the cost of real food is prohibitive for most Americans. It should be obvious that corporate poor food kills far more Americans than any foreign enemies, homegrown crime wave or even the for-profit healthcare industrial complex, but these same killers pretty much own our government and the airwaves.
Until the majority of Americans choose to abandon the corporate parties, I'm afraid America will continue to be the unhealthiest, first world country to live in.... except for the obscenely rich of course!
You can eat cheaply of all organic high quality foods if you cook. Beans and rice, stir fry veggies with rice. The number of combinations are limitless and can taste amazing and can be very cheap.
Oatmeal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, beans and rice or stir fry for dinner.
Shop around the edges of the health food store and you can eat there on a budget or better yet by into a farm coop or shop at farmers markets.
How many (organic) health food stores are in poor (inner city) areas? How many farm coops? How many farmers' markets?
Also, you don't freaking need any of health food stores or coops or farmers' markets. You need a decent supermarket. Which can be pretty hard to find in poor areas.
The issue isn't that it isn't possible to eat healthily, and tastily, if someone is poor. The issue is that it is harder to do so.
There may not be food co-ops in inner cities but the co-op I belong to delivers produce shares to central locations within my city.
Many cities have community garden programs and can work quite well for supplementing food budget dollars.
I agree with rfloh though that healthy eating does take more effort. Well worth it in the long run for sure.
I agree but where there is a will there is a way, I used to travel 30 minutes one way to buy my groceries at one point, when I was making $6.50 an hour. I made it a point and priority in my life and sacrificed other things so I could eat quality food.
Decent supermarkets generally have a very poor selection of organic produce if any, they also don't have a good selection of organic bulk grains and legumes. Sure you can buy non-organic but why if you have an option.
I agree that it is possible, I have done similar things in the past, including walking pretty long distances in snowy wintry weather to be able to get access to better food.
The thing with organic is that yeah, it is better. But the first thing to do should be to get people to eat better, healthier food, not necessarily organic food. The problem is that better food tends to be more easily available if one is affluent. Walk into any supermarket in any affluent area, anywhere in the US. You can see a wide selection of good fresh veg. Many varieties of tomatoes, of onions, of salad greens, etc. Lots of herbs and spices. Etc. A whole cornucopia to prepare a feast. Try to find the same in some poorer area. Even when there is a supermarket, a supermarket that belongs to the same chain as the supermarket in the affluent area, the selection is (much) worse.
Yeah, I was pretty shocked one time when I was in a poor neighborhood grocery store, almost spoiled produce, browning meats. It was very sad.
It is really encouraging to hear about some of these neighborhoods reclaiming empty lots and whatnot to plant gardens.
There are so many facets to the obesity epidemic that everyone can disagree and everyone can still be right. I've noticed 2 other problems in poor areas. One is that children do not have places to play outdoors and/or the neighborhood is so scary that parents keep their children indoors. The other, which was somewhat of a surprise, I encountered about 20 years ago. We were meeting with food pantries to assess their need/ability to use fresh produce. Most of the people who ran these pantries were black women from the South who knew how to make great meals with almost nothing. They were nearly unanimous that their clients did not want to cook--they wanted canned beef stew, soups, etc. The broad inference was that cooking was for "poor" people and there was a stigma to that. Sort of how breast feeding became out of fashion even for people who can't afford formula.
Much of the cultural shift, it seems to me, has come via Madison Avenue.
Hmm interesting.
I've never really come across the cooking is for poor people thing before, not that I'm disputing what you say.
Re the influence of Mad Ave, I'm not sure. It night have been so in the past, but with the increasing prevalence of celebrity chefs nowadays, it seems that the zeitgeist at least is tilting towards it being fashionable to cook good food.
You could be right about the pendulum swinging back, especially if the urban agriculture movement seriously catches on.
I was as surprised as you about the cooking is for poor people. Live and learn.
Sioux Rose
CASSANDRA: Did you consider that a lot of these women may have worked all day as domestic help for wealthy clients, only to come home exhausted? Maybe the best they could do was to open a can of food and heat it up to give the kids something. Think of all those "Hamburger helper" commercials.
Highway 19 heads south from Tallahassee to St Petersburg, and I was driving a 110 mile stretch of it to meet a friend. I got hungry and didn't want to stop at any of the typical fast food joints that are fixtures in every major town. I finally came upon a health food store, and upon entry, noted tht all he had were vitamins. The owner didn't even have a cold case with yogurt! I asked why he didn't have the bare minimum (yogurt, protein shakes) there, and you know what he said to me? "You're the first one who ever asked." 110 miles and only ONE health food store, but I am the first to ask about FOOD items in such a zone. The lack of consciousness regarding food, primary source of nurture, is emblematic of the missing VENUS factor in so many aspects of modern macho Mars-rules American life. And the results are exploding everywhere, including around children's waistlines.
Look in any high school yearbook from the 1950's, you hardly ever see what is considered an obese kid in any of the grades.
We had junk food, it just wasn't as readily available for day long munching.
Plus, outdoor activity was a daily thing.
Parenting has also changed, the mindless drones are now the parents.
It's so crazy - my bro's got 3 kids, 12, 10 and 8.
Since the birth of the first one, I've tried every way known to man to get him to feed the kids right.
Fail.
All are fast-food/junk-food addicts. They will wail for extended periods if they don't get their McDs every other day. The will not, under any condition, touch a vegetable. Fruit? Maybe a banana. Maybe. The other night, I stopped by - each is gorging on a large chocolate bar... at 9pm...
The parents are like, 'Whatta ya gonna do?' Total surrender.
Like them, most American parents are pussies with no self-control or willpower.
Ray Berthiaume
Great testimony. Why did you have to use the "p" word?
I find it annoying that you seem no longer able to refer to a cat as a pussy. It is supposed to mean something else these days. And I cant believe that someone is so prissy as to object to using the word. To me, it still means cat. But then, to me gay still means happy.
Stop being such a pussy Ray
Obesity is the most salient characteristic of Americans in my experience. Things really started accelerating in 1980 or so. Just a mere 8 years later, I returned from a 3 month trip to Asia- Nepal and Thailand. When I got off the plane in Seattle, I was shocked at how fat the people were- and this was 20+ years ago! It has only become worse with each passing year with no-
Stop signs- Speed limits- Nobody gonna slow me down!! - AC/DC.
It is tragic and the car culture is a significant factor in this mess, just as important as those hard to access grocery stores.
I remember hearing recently that in the 1960's the average American male weighed 166lbs. Today he weighs 191 pounds.
If memory serves they said the average American woman weighed 140lbs then and today weighs approx. 160lbs.
Sioux Rose
One of my daughters studied fashion and told me they actually have altered dress sizes. Marilyn Monroe was a very curvy woman who probably wore a size 12 in her era; but today it would be an 8 or a 10. Sometimes I can squeeze into a size 4 which used to be what an emaciated female would wear. My younger daughter has some jeans that are "o" as opposed to a size 2. It would be interesting to do weight averages in places. In South Florida you seldom see a really fat person, but in North Florida if I walk into Wallmart it seems like a surreal scene taken off a fun-house distortion mirror. I can't believe (and it's so tragic) how mis-shapen some people are. They are larger than their cattle. Noting this, I wrote a screenplay entitled, "FAT CHANCE" which I submitted to a number of contests. Its theme is right on given the statistics; plus it takes the fat metaphor into the entire pattern of over-consumption which is so American. From large vehicles to large homes with separate storage facilities, to large body sizes, to "super size" this and that. I think empty people who live lives of quiet desperation unconsciously seek ways to fill the vacuum inside. Sadly, food only adds girth without answering for what is truly missing.
Sioux Rose: Very well said! I agree with you!
If it's cheap and easy, then obesity is here to stay.
Public School Lunches Gate Way Drug to Fast Food Nation.
If you ever had public school lunches prepared and served to you by multinational coporations over the last 30 years you'll know that the slop they feed children makes strip mall fast food in comparison taste and look like gourmet food.
I think it has been the plan all along. What corporations make this slop for America's youth? Are the they same that own the other fast food corps? Maybe it's ADM or McDonalds?
We are all cattle to these corporate slime. Albeit we offer much greater profits over cattle raising and slaughtering. They don't have to buy feed for us or take care of us medically unlike cattle. We are their slaves cradle to grave.
If nothing else you owe it to yourself and your children to boycott all the corporate slop they throw at our families and community just to spite them.
Are you aware of the fact that more than 50% of children in urban areas receive free lunches? The lunches are not as nutritious as they could be, but the kids are grateful to have something to eat, and I imagine their parents are grateful not to have the added expense of having to buy food for lunches five days out of the week. With the lack of funding for public education in the last 30+ years, it's a wonder they get anything at all. Many Repugs would gladly do away with the free lunch program as it is considered what they call an "entitlement".
I was raised on food stamps and gov't food handouts and I rarely ate a public school lunch after grade school because it made me ill. In grade school we actually had cooks who made most things from scratch. Imagine that cafeteria workers who actaully cooked. I guess that spoiled me. Albeit that grade school might have had only 100 kids at the time.
So, don't whine to me about how great public school food/prison food is. It just corporations feeding us the left over slop from factory farms that no grocery store or even fast food outlet could sell or feed to the public.
Obesity, and most every other plague in the USA, is largely a result of the profit imperative, a relentless campaign to hijack our lifestyles to accommodate the interests of profit. When you witness these plagues with your own eyes, view in your mind the smiling faces of your US Senators and your Representative in the House. THEY are the caretakers of the plagues. We remember that in Nov 2008 San Francisco's 9th district had an opportunity to walk the progressive walk and elect Cindy Sheehan to the House of Representatives. Instead, they voted to preserve their real estate investments there in San Francisco. They re-elected Pelosi, Caretaker of the Plagues.
Sioux Rose
RTDRURY: I answered your post on Monday's Chris Hedges thread and would be curious as to your response, if you have the time to stop back there.
The modern day Western Diet is killing us with preventable chronic diseases and type 2 diabetes. Read Michael Pollin's book "In Defense of Food". Its a facsinating book on the Industrial Food Complex and how they market food-like substances based on corn and soy that look like food but are nothing but empty calories. Take control of your own food world and save your life.
Another excellent book that challenges the prevailing myths on diet, obesity, and disease is titled Good Calories, Bad Calories by science writer Gary Taubes.
Taubes' book is good, based on actual science.
His position on blood tryglyceride levels is based on science. I agree with him. But, how many people are willing to accept that too much (fast digesting)carbohydrates, has a whole host of bad effects, ranging from insulin resistance, to type 2 diabetes, to endogenous glycation and the effects on blood vessels on that, to heart disease?
Americans are the plague. Obesity is the cure.
Thanks for the laugh. If you believe this, do we need universal health care? Why interfere with those who want to eat themselves to death?
End socialism for cows!
Stop feeding them government subsidized corn!
When a serving of broccoli costs more than a burger you're going to have a very unhealthy country!
Mr. Nader:Is that you? A little tongue in cheek allegory? Some actual humor? A way better approach to get your point across than your usual grim tirades? Better approach! Keep it up.
Do people that eat like this have a death wish for themselves and their families? It is well known, even through the corporate media, that this crap is poison. I can't figure out why it is still the norm. It's an addiction, I guess.