Since the days of Jack LaLane in the 1950′s, the conversation about health and fitness in the United States has centered around a discussion of what we weigh. Weight loss, weight gain, weight plateaus, weight maintenance and so on. Weight loss has become big business, and over the past 50 years many companies have profited handsomely by repeatedly offering hollow solutions to the under-motivated.
But at the same time, an unprecedented and powerful phenomenon is taking place among a small yet growing minority of Americans. Beneath the clamor of tired excuses for why “It’s not my fault,” there is an emerging segment of Americans who see physical fitness as a means of proving to themselves and others that the American spirit is alive and well. For them, the weight is over.
Physical fitness is no longer a requirement for survival. Not for people anyway, who tend to live in industrialized societies. It does, however, remain the case today for the majority of earth’s wild species.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Just because we differ in opinion, doesn’t mean we differ in principle.” He also said Americans should exercise every day. Both of these Jeffersonian pearls are relevant to America’s current state of obesity denial.
America’s insatiable appetite for all things edible is rivaled only by its appetite for pointing the finger of responsibility rather than accepting it ourselves. To blame fast-food restaurants, advertising campaigns or school lunches for childhood obesity while ignoring the absence of parental aptitude is ludicrous. Even more ludicrous is the notion that government programming at any level can effectively substitute for the discipline lacking in so many parents. Until political posturing can burn about 600 calories an hour, there won’t be much help coming from Bacon Hill or the White Castle House.
Kevin Smith, oops excuse me, “Director” Kevin Smith’s ongoing tiff with Southwest Airlines provides a veritable highlight reel of the whining, self-indulgence we hear so often from America’s growing legion of belt-buckle busters.
As we like to say in BTC Land, it is Babytalk at its very bust.
Let’s review shall we? Mr. Smith buys two seats on Southwest Airlines in an obvious acknowledgement that just one standard airline seat is no match for his ample caboose. He then decides to change flights, but the new flight only has one seat available. This is where that annoying little thing called “reality” struck, making it obvious that the lucky travelers neighboring Mr. Smith’s seat would be getting up close and personal with Silent Bob’s overflow flesh. Ummm!!!
