junk food is like legal "crack" that the whole family can enjoy....
It's definitely been a long while since I've written anything here. I started many times, but after Thailand, where I did pretty much nothing except frenzied eating and drinking, I was so relaxed that the concept of moving my hands over a keyboard seemed like it could kill the peace. But now, back at work, back in the swing of things and back to reality.... is this reality? - meh, close enough. Now with the extra kilos that my laziness has given me, I feel like it might be a good idea to ease the pressure on my legs by getting rid of them....
I gotta love social convention, and political correctness. Everyone I have mentioned this to has said "no, you're fine, you don't need to lose weight" or "Are you kidding, its muscle not fat" . Umm unless muscle has decided to change its function and start being a little extra packing to make the pants tighter and the gut more protected, I appreciate the sentiment but to clarify, I don't think I am fat, I am just fat for me at the moment... This all got me thinking, perhaps (and this may not go down well) but maybe people need to shut the hell up about "big is beautiful" and "real sizes". I don't think a silhouette of a lolly pop is the way to go, but c'mon - there is evidence of what a healthy lifestyle actually is and there are quite a few that have it wrong.
I believe we live in a world where facts are obscured by idiotic beliefs. Take smoking for instance (I am sure many will disagree with what is about to come, but calm your shit until the end), but they need to ease up on the bullshit shock campaigns, ads and judgement of the public smokers. I don't think its by any means healthy, but here's the thing - increasing the size of ads didn't significantly reduce the number of kids from taking it up, since peer pressure is the main driver for younger people taking up the habit. Plain packaging didn't do a whole lot either - seriously, do they think people hang the packet around their neck as some sort of accessory? No. Now look at what we hear and see about smoking - Smoking causes cancer, causes gangrene, causes death. Whilst I am not arguing that point, statistics show that diet related deaths are higher than many of the smoking related deaths/illnesses. Yet, even then, the statistics don't say "junk food causes diabetes" or "poor diet causes death". It says "poor nutrition is a contributing factor" or some other subtly different wording.
Can you imagine if "fast food" was forced to be plain packaged? or attracted obscene amounts of tax? - think of the uproar it would cause, yet the food holds limited nutritional value and adversely affects the bodies functionality... we know how awesome we feel the day after a KFC face stuff right? Not exactly ready to run a marathon. There is still judgement - such as that moment you see a larger person order from across the McDonalds menu and asks for a diet coke; you think to yourself "yep, that makes it healthy.... wait.. no" But you are not about to launch into a conversation of telling them about some relative that died from clogged arteries, but its ok to tell a smoker it's disgusting, they'll die, blah blah. Does the concept of "addiction" mean anything to the general public? - the average smoker gets this kind of "help"
1 - If they don't stop they'll die.
2 - Someone was able to just give up one day and it was easy, so just stop.
3 - Think of the money they would save
4 - those coughs and dirty looks to remind them that strangers find them truly repulsive
There is a lot more but think about this - a person finds it hard to quit, but they are told that if they don't they'll die, others find it easy and quite frankly they are spending a fortune, choosing to be foul. This obviously creates a slight level of stress for them, which ironically for smokers, means having a cigarette. Would you tell a kid who wet the bed to just stop or they're going to die and no one else in the family does it, so just stop it? - Ignore the fact that I just compared smoking to peeing in bed, but do you think the kid (or the smoker) is going to take yet another lecture or look of disgust and go "Brilliant! That fixed it, thanks for letting me know it has to stop- All better now"?
I don't actually offer a better alternative since quitting smoking is obviously going to be of benefit to a smokers health... But can you imagine if this kind of advertising was used for weight loss. All those people who are emotional eaters wouldn't exactly be thrilled. What if a McDonalds big mac meal cost $20? Diet is the cause of 99% of obesity and the likelihood of it being something else isn't as high as the world would have you believe and I don't care what anyone says, I have never seen a human skeleton with big enough bones to use that as a reason either.... Diet and exercise is important, so why the hell is it only important when someone is in the upper levels in pant sizes?