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It sounds too simple but it’s true. Filling some of life’s most basic needs provides life’s greatest happiness. For instance, good health, a rewarding job, a safe neighborhood and a comfortable place to call home. Add to that list a future for our kids that is bright and ripe with opportunity and overall life seems pretty good. Wouldn’t you agree?
So at what point did it become so difficult to achieve these relatively modest goals? Well, it happened at precisely the tipping point of where too many Americans forgot one of those critical realities of life.
Be careful what you wish for….because you just might get it.
Some wished that high school students could be paid to attend class in Cincinnati Ohio. They got it. But be careful, such is not the case in countries where students excel in math and science because the parents are still in charge.
To all of those who sacrificed their lives at Pearl Harbor, to their families, and to service men and women around the world today defending our way of life…..THANK YOU. - Billy the Coach
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
These were the first words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt announcing the attack by Japanese forces on U.S military facilities at Pearl Harbor. December 7th, 2011 will be the 70th anniversary of this epic event in American history. This historic milestone reminds us how dramatically the world has changed in 70 years, but also how fortunate we are that some things remain the same.
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!!!
Click on the picture and watch the video then tell us what YOU think. Weigh-in on this!
Revamping the country’s health care system is a major goal of the Obama administration.
How it will be managed and who will pay for it are complex issues that won’t be resolved easily. But one question should be first and foremost in a system that we’re told will be built upon the premise of preventative care. “WHERE’S THE FITNESS???”
With obesity, diabetes, hypertension and many cancers on the rise due to the continued poor lifestyle behaviors of the majority of Americans, is it realistic to think any health care system can care for a population that refuses to care for itself?
