Maybe, just maybe, something else is going on here. Some one even wrote a book about it: Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World.
It would be unfair to suggest that the conventional analysis is in error, however. Certainly the chronic obesity of the American (I weigh well over 250, which at not quite 6 ft. tall is obviously too much) is a health crisis. And, just as certainly, America consumes the resources of the rest of the world far in excess of our just proportion.
But all that aside there is more to this story, much more.
Try for a moment (it will be hard, but also even the smallest result will be worth the effort) to see the whole world as a kind of energetic cartoon. Exaggerate everything a little bit. Picture it as if one was watching from an alien starship orbiting the planet. Here's these Americans, eating everything in sight, sucking up food and resources from all over the world like some kind of huge vacuum cleaner.
Of course they don't just eat. Most of the time actually they work, so picture them working in those offices and factories. Speed up the action a little bit. Work, work, work. Move machines, move paper. Take a coffee break. Make some boxes, but things in boxes, make notes and records, type at computer terminals, take a lunch break - eat fast because only given a little time, work some more, make more boxes, put more stuff inside, have another coffee break and eat some candy and coffee to get stimulated to finish the day, then work some more, make some more stuff, move some more paper around, do overtime because the boss will otherwise fire you. Then you're done, sort of.
Now go home, but still busy busy busy. Stop at Walmart, buy some stuff in boxes, so when you get home you can open the boxes and take out that stuff and put it in the closet with the other stuff. Stop at the fast food on the way home, so don't have to cook. Then get home, tired and cranky, make the kids do their homework before they can watch TV. Clean up after them, do some laundry, then watch some TV on your own. Watching TV is important, because you get to kind of space out, which makes the advertising get inside your soul easier. The TV is the training ground for being a good consumer, for opening the boxes and taking the stuff out, and eating the fast food, and making all that garbage we can't find room to get rid of anymore.
Except, have to do this every day, work work work, make lots of boxes, move paper around, type on computers, go home eat stuff, empty boxes, watch TV, learn how to consume, go back to work and on and on and on.
Of course, that's the so-called masses. We have to not forget the elites, the bosses.
This is what they do. Get driven to work, give orders all day to others, go to long lunches, hang out with celebrities, buy a new house (can never have enough houses or cars or sports franchises), met with bankers and lawyers and find out new ways to get something for nothing out of your workers and the politicians on the payroll. Take an afternoon break and get laid, give your stockbroker some inside information, give orders to your security company to use one of their former CIA agents to kill that troublesome labor leader at your Mexican drug plant, get driven to a dinner meeting with the psychologist team that designs the advertising by which you get your workers to consume, have drinks with the bankers who make the easy credit available so that the worker/consumers can buy more stuff in boxes, and owe more money so that they can be made afraid of losing their jobs (if they lose their jobs then how could they pay off the credit cards, and mortgages) and being afraid of losing their jobs then they will tolerate more abuse at work, which makes for more stress, which helps them consume not just food but also drugs and alcohol. After these meetings go to the Opera, which gives you access to other bosses and their political lackies, but don't take your wife home afterward, she rides in the other limo, while you go out with your bimbo who takes care of you (again) in the back seat. Nothing but work work work, and consume consume consume. (the bimbo costs you more jewelry and another villa in the south of France). Take some pills to sleep (otherwise your conscience might bother you).
You know what is amazing in all that? People (at least the so-called masses) raise children, try to live moral lives (care for their elderly, give to the church, try to give an honest days work for lousy pay etc.), and occasionally find a little time to reflect on life.
But you're right if you think there is too much work and consumption and not enough life of spirit (reflection). Since the latter is missing in a very big way from modern civilization (everywhere in the industrial West, and becoming a very bad habit now being carried out into the third world as well), there is a deep hunger for it. Now this hunger gets displaced in the soul, and becomes a further driver for the eating and consuming. We don't have enough time to reflect that what we need is more time to reflect, not more food, cars, TV, computers, sex or whatever.
Yes, Americans are horribly overweight. But why the surprise - its in the very design of the culture of work and consumption, empty of time for reflection. And, if you want to cure it, then it won't be with diets, or nagging, or teaching nutritional facts at school. The whole way of life has to change - all of it!
Funny thing is that this is happening - this big change. That's why everything todays seems so crazy - its all falling apart. Falling apart is important, by the way, because until things do fall apart, such big changes as are needed can't happen. Also, people are doing more reflecting, more taking charge, but just in small increments now. Everything is still too much consumption and work and not enough reflection. So do your part, consume less, work less, and reflect more. Then watch, all that fat will disappear because the real underlying cause, the spiritual hunger, will begin to be met. Originally posted January 05, 2003.
