Saturday, May 5, 2012

Supersize me!

Last evening I watched for the first time the 2004 produced documentary of a man that decided to eat every meal, three per day, for thirty days from the McDonald's menu to see the impact on his weight and vital signs.  If you have not seen it I highly recommend watching but it is, WARNING, not easy to watch. It is laced with humor and sarcasm but it is blatant in its message of fat ingestion on a grand scale and the market manipulation Americans have become accustomed to.  I will paste in the link of Part 1 of the documentary:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQj2u4ap5bo&feature=related

Perhaps it is because I am working to reduce my own intake of fat and increase of exercise I am more attuned to the message of the documentary but last night I was stopped in my tracks about the whole spectrum of the fast food industry, the eating habits of an obese America, amazed at the rationalization of ingesting the chemicals that are now the norm in most processed foods and angry at myself for realizing that this has become the American way. 

Nobody loves a Burger King Whopper better than me.  When I would get off the plane returning to the US from an international trip,  I could not wait to sink my choppers into this sandwich I had longed for over the Atlantic.  And frankly, never even registered the caloric and fat intake for I had rationalized, "hey, I deserve this, Man."  How sick is that!

I am convinced America is on a death march with our eating habits and I plead guilty at a very personal level.  But this has to stop and stop on a grand scale I realize. At sixty-four years old I should be out in an OccupyHogdom marches that documentary affected me so strongly.  Having lived in Europe and worked in many parts of the world, every time I would return from an overseas trip I realize in retrospect I would be amazed to see the size differences at all ages of Americans versus other parts of the world; and that is a state of normal which is really frightening.

I hate to hear people talk about diets, fad, etc, for I detest the ego hit in realizing I am no different in the need to find a pathway to reduce weight and improve blood numbers.  I am blessed to have good blood numbers and I know it.  I guess this was a real, added wake up for me in watching that now older Supersize slam at the fast food industry but it is a well deserved slam as it should for smoking and alcohol. 

So my message to my friends today ..... let's stop killing ourselves! Life is too good to systematically keep pulling the trigger!

1 comment:

  1. It is easy to not think about especially with the busy lives most lead. Rather than cooking it saves time to just stop somewhere and get a bite to eat on your way home from work or school. I tried to keep my intake of fast food to a minimum, but still find if I run out of time I will take the hit and get it on my way to work or home from work. But when I'm on a good healthy kick I never feel better, but beware just because it's home cooked doesn't mean it's healthy!

    ReplyDelete