Is It Too Easy To Be Obese?

We all talk about obesity as an epidemic while at the same time we know that people aren’t changing behavior. The answer to being thin is easy…eat less; exercise more. If that’s all it takes, and we know the downside of being obese…why don’t we take action.

We’re lazy…that’s certainly one answer. It’s not easy to pick the right foods and exercise. It’s time consuming. It’s certainly faster to drive thru the fast food restaurant and fill up with their empty calories.

It’s less expensive. We can say that exercise is free, but for most of us, there is a time value of money whether it’s time to work or time with kids or time to do our own thing. Time is money. AND, we’ve made bad calories cheap. I talked about this a few years ago…It costs more to buy fruits and vegetables and good food than high calorie meals with salt and sugar.

We don’t penalize people although this is likely to come in the future.

On the flipside, I bet obese people who say that it’s no fun being obese. You have trouble moving around. You are socially stigmatized at times. Your clothes choices are limited.

But, we continue to make it easier…most of the health problems associated with obesity are solved by taking a pill. We’re all waiting for that magic pill that makes us thin, changes our appetite, or raise our metabolism so we can eat the same crap without having to exercise. Is that our only answer? I hope not!

Maybe they’ll be a device that will regulate our eating or some type of mental device that can “hypnotize” us. Maybe we’ll get a shock every time we grab for the sugary desert.

Ideally, we could train our genes (or taste buds) to only like healthy food and only eat in moderation, but that seems far off.