In his Oct. 31 Commentary section column, Steve Chapman wrote about our national epidemic of obesity: “. . .the number of Americans who are obese. . .has risen from 1 in 8 to nearly 1 in 5 in the last seven years.” His solution to the problem is “the development of new cultural norms about how to deal with the still-novel problems of affluence,” and he expresses optimism about change because “human beings are rational creatures who are inclined to look out for their own interests.”
He might be right, if we lived in a world without the “still-novel problem” of media suggestion.
But the corporations that control the advertising that controls so many of us just see the public as “consumers.” We’re a “super-size” society in every regard. We have to be to keep our economy growing. We long ago reached the rational limits of what we need; need has now been redefined to ridiculous proportions. When the television gods tell us we need it, we buy it.
By logical extension, the food corporations see our bodies as just one more box to be filled up. And because we’re being convinced that we need more of everything else, why should food be perceived as something other than what it is to the agri-business corporations–just another product to sell more of?
The free will (not to mention determination) of the average American who watches hours of television every week doesn’t stand a chance in the face of the number of messages to “eat more food”–from restaurants to fast-food franchises to grocery stores.
Just as the gap between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate in America, so is the gap between fat and thin. We are developing an elite class of super-fit marathon runners in approximately the same proportion as our elite class of super-rich Wall Street traders. Chapman noted that while almost 30,000 participated in the Chicago Marathon this year, most of us “regard exercise as something to watch other people do on TV. . .”
Like the super-rich, the super-fit will remain above the problems of the rest of us. As for us, because of our mass devotion to consumerism in every other area of our lives, I don’t see any future for our health other than the one described by Mr. Chapman: “By 2010, at the rate we’re going, we’ll look like a nation of sumo wrestlers.”
But the economy will be super healthy.
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Editor’s note: As the 1900s come to a close, we would like to devote space in the Voice of the people section to readers’ favorite memories from the past 100 years. By Nov. 19, please submit your letter to the editor, sharing your favorite memory, to the address listed below.
