Modest eating habits promote healthy lifestyles

Ashley Fredrickson

 

Life is not about counting calories, keeping diet diaries and reading new diet fad books.

 

But it is also not about driving around a mall parking lot for 30 minutes to find a close spot or super sizing your whopper meal at Burger King because it’s only an extra 63 cents.

 

We are living in a land of television, fast food, instant messaging and vending machines. Welcome to America folks, where, according to the surgeon general, sixty percent of adults suffer from obesity.

 

But who is actually suffering here? Is it the obese adults? Or is it the taxpayers who are paying for this disease since it is driving health care costs up because hospitals are now having to accommodate to the larger patients by providing armless chairs, larger gowns and private weighing rooms in order to spare their embarrassment.

 

It is great to see the media focus on a healthy way of living. Sure the ads, commercials and mailings get repetitive after awhile, but maybe repetition is exactly what America needs in order for a change to occur. As long as news programs continue to show these informative shows and drill into these people’s heads that obesity is an extremely unhealthy way of life, we will eventually see our country’s statistics concerning weight take a turn for the better.

 

What it really comes down to is time and motivation. It takes just as long to get into your car and drive to a buffet as it does to take a brisk walk around the block.

 

If Americans would realize this, surgical procedures such as gastric bypass and liposuction would not be such a common way of solving a problem that can be resolved by a daily walk and less trips to McDonalds.

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