Is America Killing Itself?

It should come as no surprise that America, as a whole, is a relatively overweight country. After all, according to a recent Gallup poll performed, as many as 2/3rds of Americans are overweight, and over a quarter of Americans are considered obese. Those are certainly frightening statistics.

Still, the issue I would like to address isn’t necessarily pertaining to obesity in America, but rather health. The question: Is our desire to be fit and skinny causing us to live unhealthy lifestyles?

Farrell acknowledges this issue in Fat Shame. “According to HAES advocates, the conventional focus on weigh loss rather than healthy living, fuels a dangerous and profitable diet industry as well as the growing field of weight loss surgery” (Farrell, 12). She goes on to point out that from 1992 to 2003, the estimated number of weight loss surgeries went from just 16,200 in 1992, to over 140,640 in 2003.

Undoubtedly, these surgeries address the ‘skinny’ issue, often siphoning out pounds of fat in order to make us skinny for as little as a few thousands dollars. Unfortunately, they rarely ever address the issue of health. Rarely are these surgeries performed in an effort to make us healthier. We might look healthier, sure, but are we actually healthy?

And certainly, as Farrell suggests, the answer is most often no. In fact, she goes on to argue that America, as a whole, has become misguided; that we have becomes victims of our own misconceptions and naivety and, therefore, are unsure of how to conduct our daily routines in a healthy manner.

Still, therein lies the question of what forces perpetuate these stereotypes. What forces cause us to be constantly aware conscious and conscientious of our figures? For some, as Farrell points out at the beginning of Fat Shame, it is that outside societal pressure. The expectation that in order to be successful in the cruel, calculating world, you have to be skinny and, therefore, attractive. That, in many ways, fat is unmarketable and therefore bad for business.

The "Delta Zeta saga", as Farrell labels it, is just one of the potentially thousands of different ways in which these misguided norms are perpetuated on a daily basis in America.

Yet another point of view -- and one that I have harped on frequently in class -- relates to the frequent advertisements that bombard us on a daily basis. We encounter thousands, if not millions of different messages and images daily, all instructing us, in different ways, on what we should spend our money on or how we should conduct ourselves. Some of them, too, suggest that a healthy and happy person is also one that steers clear of that "fat" characterization.

So, again, I address my initial question: Is America killing itself? In some ways, absolutely. Despite being an overwhelmingly overweight country, we have been taught that fat is bad. That fat will destroy us. Yet, at the same time, many often take short cuts like cosmetic surgery and diet pills that can often be more destructive, both mentally and physically, than they are beneficial to their health. Meanwhile others develop destructive eating disorders.

Yet, at the same time, there are people, entire movements and ad campaigns which encourage healthier styles of living and eating. Ones that aren't necessarily dominated by the same images that we often see in ads for clothing and cologne.

The question is, will those help us escape from our destructive tendencies? Will America ever be a healthy place?