The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen. Sarah Brown

The above quote is my quote of the week. It made me think of how we are becoming a society of lazy slugs.. sitting whenever we can, cutting out school children gym classes & exercise programs. Making parents pay for all aspects of sports & after school extra curricular activities. Yes, I understand the budget issues but think of the kids whose parents don't have the money for these things, especially in this economy. It is not a cut & dry thing. So many aspects to the whole thing & I understand that. It just is so frustrating!

Dr. J & I along with many other bloggers talk about the great need for preventative measures! If we don't do that, we are just passing on our bad habits & behaviors to the next generation which is already happening & they will pass it on & so forth. THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!!!! I was also reading how habits have to be "ingrained" or at least learned before the kids start school because once there, it is not pretty....

So, with no further stalling.. read this great piece by Dr. J:

The Great American Obesity Machine

There was an old TV show that was quite revolutionary for its time called “The Great American Dream Machine.” It told stories about actual people who, “by the dawn's early light and the twilight's last gleaming,” were able to actualize their desires and realize "The Great American Dream!"

Unfortunately, America has created a more successful, but much less personally rewarding machine: The Great American Obesity Machine.

The inmates are running the asylum

I remember, when I was doing my psychiatric rotation in medical school, being asked by a patient, “Dr. J, do you think I'm crazy?” (They called medical students doctor. Actually, they called everyone with a white coat at the hospital doctor!) Always believing in honesty, I replied, “I sure hope so!”

Here we are, “inmates” of our own self-created psychiatric hospital. The Great American Obesity Machine, like some kind of Chaplinesque feeding device, that keeps rolling us down the demented assembly line, with altered minds and bodies, as happens with any addiction or habit!

Our minds look for ways to make it all acceptable rather than looking for ways to really solve it. We put Band-Aids on ruptured arteries and we wonder why the blood keeps flowing. Our bodies are getting larger and larger. We lumber about with some sort of self-created deformity, rather than face our destructive addictions and habits.

What do we do about it? We invent diets to deal with it! Let's do the no whatever diet. Well if that doesn't work, let’s try the eat more of this diet. So many of our respected advisors just keep making up new diets that will help us avoid the GAOM (Great American Obesity Machine) while people keep criticizing them for just trying to make money selling us useless diet books!

With our present thinking, rather than seeing things clearly, we bend the truth to fit our altered state.

I remember when the Mediterranean diet was all the rage. People were eating tons of olive oil with everything. No one seemed to notice or care that the people who live in the Mediterranean region have fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins as the majority of the their actual diet, with olive oil used sparingly as the main oil additive.

I read a discussion wondering whether we eat too much protein, though as a percentage of our food we probably eat less protein than we used to, given the increase in carbohydrates and fats. If you look at amounts of food eaten, not the percentages, we are eating too much in every category!

Refusing to change won’t make it better

If you were getting a headache every day because, while you were walking down a particular street, someone was hitting you on the head with a hammer, one would think at least, you would walk down a different street eventually!

But we keep looking for ways to get down that same street without it being hammer time! Not going to happen. Modify the hammer? Nope! Wear a helmet? Still hurts. How about trying another street? No, so many reasons not to. I know, we call the pain normal. That is the path we are taking.

We are doing everything we can to make this Great American Obesity Machine the normal reality of humanity, and our physical makeup is breaking down under this assault. We, as a species, were not designed to function well at these higher weights.

If not for every aspect of our modern, technologically advanced society working overtime to keep us limping along, we would have broken down long ago.

What can we do about it?

We must be willing to see and accept that the path we are on will not lead our species to a healthy resolution. Thirty years ago, less than a third of us were overweight or obese. Now more than two thirds of us are, and it's continuing to increase. Rather than back to the future, we need to go forward to the past!

Until we have societal changes that, like it or not, address the core obesogenic problems, like our distorted, exaggerated relationship with altered foods and our entrenched avoidance of an active lifestyle, The Great American Obesity Machine will just, like the mighty Mississippi, just keep rolling along!

It's time to rage against this machine!

As we say in aviation slang, it's time to kick the tires and start the fires of our new machine: The Great American Fitness Machine!

You will find it here at Jody's, and at CalorieLab running 24/7. We are  all in this together. We all have to do this together!

OK, time for you to weigh, no pun intended but a great "weigh" to say it.... Thoughts, discussion, anything you want to share!!!

Who is ready to rage against the machine - Let's TERMINATE the GAOM and let's live the Great American Fitness Machine as Dr. J so eloquently put it!!!!