Thanksgiving’s around the corner, so I’d better get this one out of the way. Just file it away so you can start fresh after the holidays.
We are perpetually hammered with stories about how “fat” we’ve become as a society. And just as often, that increasing girth is randomly attributed to Big Macs, Whoppers, cheesesteaks, hoagies, pizza, Egg McMuffins, and just about any other fat-filled, high calorie American meal that can be had in minutes from a roadside fast-food dispensary.
But why do we ignore the other side of bodily functions? Why do we focus primarily on the fuel that goes into our bodies and give secondary consideration to the engine that uses that fuel? Simply put: I believe our “fatness” is due more to our inactivity than to the ingestion of a Big Mac.
A recent article in American Legion Magazine indicated that the average American burns 150 calories less per day at the workplace than they did 50 years ago. That’s because many American jobs today involve more sitting around (usually in front of a computer screen) and less moving around.
That means we carry around more than thirty-seven-thousand calories per year—every year. That’s fuel that we store instead of burn up. And that’s how we get fat.
And it’s not just the workplace. Think about it. Fifty years ago, if you wanted to change the channel on your TV, you had to get up from your seat, walk across the room, turn the channel selector, and walk back to your seat.
Most cars in 1960 had windows that had to rolled down manually. Even that burned a few calories at the toll both—at least a few calories more than are burned by the act of pressing a power window button. In fact, now we don’t even have to do that. We have E-Z Pass!
I think that it will be explained some time in the further that the cause of the overweight population is due to the modified fats that the food industry has put in our food. These fats cannot be metabolized and are just stored, just like a Twinkies can sit for years on a shelf. I think this is also the cause of Diabetes. If you look at when these food additives became available that is when all this started. All the fried foods and huge portions. Yes, I agree that exercise is very important and you need a plan to get enough. It is unfortunate that these high caloric foods are cheaper and easier to buy.