Fat Free of Free Fat?

Obesity is growing in America


            Driving home one day I started to smell something good cooking.  Now I wasn’t hungry prior to having the aroma of some meat cooking on a grill with fresh onions and a hint of garlic sizzling somewhere telegraphing to me to turn that smell into a taste.  My mouth started to water and my mind told me to disregard my safe driving habits and start making like a giraffe and extend my neck to find the place that was cooking that great smell.
            When I was twenty and active in sports I could eat like a sperm whale, devouring up to a ton of food a day and not gain an ounce.  I also could loose five to ten pounds a week if I wanted to by just working out harder while not eating any less.  Oh what I would give to be that way again.  My problem is I really, really, and in case you didn’t get it, I really, really, really like to eat.  I have friends who will attest to the fact that I can eat french fries like a crack head with a five thousand dollar a day habit.  I live for Filet-O-Fish® Fridays.  Chicago pizza is a USDA daily requirement to me.  Golden Corral® for breakfast buffet and Captain George's Seafood Buffet both in Virginia are to die for.
            Unfortunately I am no longer twenty.  I am forced to refocus on driving my car and feeling like a dejected teen when they find out their first crush doesn’t want them, I have to understand I don’t want that tasty smell in my system.  In March of 2003 I suffered a major car accident that had me laid up for quite a long while.  First I lost a great deal of weight but after leaving the hospital and sitting around in a wheel chair for months eating like a twenty year old I began to look like that sperm whale.  The first time I was able to stand up and step on a scale I almost died form the shock.  Today, after three I am only almost back to my pre accident weight and I feel I better loose more because I can no longer loose weight like I do money in Vegas.  
            In my anger of not being able to stop at that wonderfully aromatic juicy beef sizzling over onions on a grill place, I started counting the amount of places I could stop and get something to eat while driving home.  On one block between traffic lights I could count ten restaurants, fast food joints, junk food stores, doughnut shops, and candy establishments.  I was driving in Los Angeles, the city of great weather and health food eating, tofu preaching, designer water carrying, health nuts, and two out of every four person I saw was obese.  I live in Virginia where Norfolk was acclaimed as the fattest city in the country.
            If we want to wonder why we are getting fatter just scrutinize at the gauntlet of temptation we have to circumvent in our day.  The average of ten places
per block to fill our bellies with instant gratification is a start.  Also most of us don’t realize how many times a day our hands finds a way to our mouths.  Most obese people will tell you that don’t eat that much, HA!  Also we eat the wrong things.  Haven’t you ever wondered why when you see poor people on the television that tend to be huge?  A study was done and reported on TLC that the fattest group of people on the earth by faction is a poor tribe of Native Americans.  
            Despite a boom in the health and fitness industries, drawing in billions of dollars a year, Americans are becoming obese in alarming numbers. With diabetes, heart disease, gout and arthritis on the rise, it is estimated the obesity will be the number one killer in the country over taking HIV/AIDS and cancer.  Doctors are searching for the reasons behind the fat pandemic that is gripping America around the waist and thighs.  
            As doctors and researchers receive millions of dollars in grant money to search for fat genes and brain flaws, I request my share of those millions so I can tell you that we eat too much and too much of the wrong things.  As we regulate via the FDA to place blame on those ten establishments per block, we suffer.  I regret that McDonald’s changed the oil in which they cook their fries.  I suffer from theaters not giving that extra dose of butter on my popcorn.  And I don’t care what the ads say, low cal and  fat free does not taste as good in fact it taste like bovine excrement.