Why Are Americans Overweight?
We Are Hungry!


There are several reasons why Americans are the fattest people in history. Like our waistlines, the problem confronting us has many layers. Let's look at our basic diet. Most of the items, such as refined bread, meat, eggs, milk, salt and sugar, now come with warning labels. Further, Americans have been conditioned to treat food as filler instead of nutrition. Fast food advertisers pump up the "Super Sized" meal as the icon of contentment. Flagrant disregard for caloric quantity and quality balloons our bellies. Despite the vast information available to help us design a healthful diet, many Americans prefer to take the easy way out. Diet pills and drinks are often ineffective when they're devoid of menu management and proper exercise.

Our fast food society is suet saturated with suspicious products from the Wild West meat industry. Americans ingest heaping helpings of fried delights, but few vegetables and fruits. When you wrap these deadly ingredients in a sedentary, "couch potato" lifestyle, you have a recipe for rampant disease and social collapse.

Our favorite foods are not only inedible, some are even dangerous. The US government "greased" the way for corporate consolidation in various food divisions from farmers to grocers. During this race to the bottom line, food safety and quality were sacrificed. In order to get more bang for the investment buck, these mega-companies began feeding livestock growth hormones to shorten the maturation cycle. Although the animals grew faster in a shorter period of time, the result wasn't better meat.

Basically, the hormones stimulate water retention. So, a pound of Frankenmeat goes to market with more water and less nutritional value at a higher price. Vitamin additives are inadequate and antibiotic overuse is probably harmful. The meat derived from this process is unnatural and tasteless. Also, it's unknown what hormone/antibiotic soups do to the human body over many years, especially to women. However, there's no doubt eating Frankenmeat boosts the waistline.

Frankenmeat fast foods come in second behind the leading cause of waist inflation: comfort snacks. Today, Americans are working harder for less money and under greater stress than at any time in recent memory. Fear caused by perceived hikes in terrorism and crime has forced many citizens into self-imposed hermitage. More TV time encourages snacking. Again, Americans have been conditioned to feast on comfort foods full of sugar and salt. The addictive quality of these products offers little satisfaction while enhancing craving. The admen and producers bet heavily you can't eat just one.

There's a more disturbing element in the overweight equation: our loss of faith in the American Dream. George Bush's constant war rants destroyed American optimism. He replaced it with endless dread and sadness. We try to drown our depression in a fetid formula of alcohol, drugs and comfort foods. Yet, the more George Bush threatens humanity with weapons and war, the wider our waistlines get. It seems we've internalized Bush's nuclear madness. And it's blowing us to bits from the inside out.

Americans are overweight because we're hungry for a more peaceful world; more useful lives and more inspired leadership. Most of all, we're hungry for a return to a grand and glorious national purpose. These wishes will never be fulfilled by a Happy Meal or a bag of stale potato chips.

Americans are overweight because we're overstressed and unhappy. Each day our suffering increases as our so-called leaders bow down to the god of war. Throughout the ages, the toughest sects to eradicate weren't those which revered Jesus or Krishna or Buddha. The most resilient believers worshipped images of the mother goddess. Both men and women sought her blessing because she embodied the essence of eternal peace, love, compassion and forgiveness. War brings only pain and sorrow to everyone. Americans are hungry for peace and justice. In order for us to regain our health, we must destroy the golden calf of war and replace it with the mother goddess of peace (Statue of Liberty). We must always remember the road to salvation has no Golden Arches or Drive-Thru window.

Franklin L. Johnson
starhelix@aol.com