A Lot of Fat People

This is going to sound just plain mean, but it must be said. I saw a lot of fat people on a middle-Atlantic, East coast beach this weekend. And as a Registered Dietitian and nutrition educator, I am not happy about it.

In fact, after living in New York City and suburban New York for over 10 years now, the difference in body sizes between the relatively fit people I'm used to seeing and this particular group of people--when in bathing suits--is shocking.

I'm not talking about a little bit of pudge here or there, or a beer belly on some middle aged folks. I'm talking about downright clinical obesity and in some cases, what medical practitioners call "morbid obesity"--the kind that your doctor will tell you can kill you.

I'm not worried about aesthetics here. I'm worried about health care risks. I'm worried about people who will be staying in hospitals on our children's tax dollars because they will be too sick to work and will need extensive treatment for the large number of illnesses related to obesity--diabetes, kidney disease, some types of cancer, heart disease, and the list goes on.

Last year, the U.S. spent $147 billion on health care whose primary cause was excess weight, according to the CDC. This number is growing steadily each year.

As someone who is advocating for better school food and nutrition education in schools, I wonder: How can parents who are dangerously overweight possibly supply the crucial link between good nutrition at home and good nutrition at school? Are they even thinking about nutrition?

Are so many of us Americans so fat that, when we look around, we have no reason to give pause to our unhealthful BMIs because so many other people look exactly the same way?

I am certainly not attacking anyone. In fact, I do not lay the largest proportion of "blame" on these individuals at all. Powerful food marketing, a lack of places to walk in U.S. towns, bountiful, cheap and fattening food, and myriad other reasons have led to the obesity epidemic. These people are, in large part, its victims.


But if we ask our Congress, then our communities, then our teachers and then our kids to believe in good nutrition and maintaining healthful body weights, we have to show not only in words, but in our actions and our own waist sizes, that we truly believe this is ideal.

At present, our teachers feel defeated because they tell kids that junk food is lousy for their health, only to find the same kids showing up at school with a soda and chips for breakfast. Do the parents eat the same breakfast? When they buy these foods at the store or supply the money for their purchase, what goes through their minds?

This is food for thought. And it's non-caloric. Chew on it a bit.