As I trawl the aisles of my local grocery store, and later when I stand in line I must confess: I look in other carts. What I see, it ain't pretty. People don't buy food staples or actual food.
Now, I am not one to talk I have a love of sweets and all bread products, so if I lost a few pounds I wouldn't fade away. I exercise but my diet is not perfect. My local store carries only a few organic products and one kind of chicken sans antibiotics. It is so ironic that I live in a rural area and the food selection in the city 45 minutes away is better.
I grew up in a single parent home, my mother worked full time. I always shopped with her. On Sundays my mother made some extra meals to freeze and the remaining days, she left instructions if the meal was a long one and I followed them diligently. When I was older we split the "cooking" days.
Imagine my shock one night when I was discussing recipes with another colleague one night, and a younger one overheard me saying I was going to make beef stroganoff and asked which "box" I made it from. No boxes honey, I told her. It is easy to make, I assured her. I explained I always kept certain stock items around for making the "standard" meals when I had no creativity. She had no idea what I was talking about.
This is what was in the grocery cart of a couple with a child behind me in line this week: two large crates of ramen noodles full of sodium and lacking in many nutrients, three kinds of sugar cereals, soda, treats, some frozen meals and boxed meals. I use frozen meals for work so I am not knocking them. What was not there: meat, fruit, vegetables. The child who was overweight asked for a candy bar and a coke and they obliged.
I happen to live in Tennessee which apparently has the 5th highest adult obesity rate and the 4th highest childhood rate.
Experts argue that is is not just a matter of diet and exercise. Among the factors contributing to obesity are population, age, ethnicity, genetics and ancestral environment. Certain medications and smoking cessation are also influencing factors. I can attest to genetics, many people in my family struggle with weight. Chastising those who have weight problems is not in the end, an effective strategy. Shaming is silly and it involves stupid generalizations about the assumed character about people that are often just false. But a part of me was angry at that couple in line behind me for failing to provide healthy alternatives and for simply allowing that child to continue his pattern.
I can't help but wonder... do Americans needs lessons on how to shop for food and how to plan meals? I am in favor of heavily taxing fast food and using it to provide supplemental help for working families on limited budgets. Shopping is a nightmare when your income is limited and the food that isn't healthy is the cheapest. Why aren't we subsiding small sustainable farms and ditching the long term practice of helping agri-corporations? Why aren't we restricting food advertising directed not just at children but during prime time television hours in general? If an alien from mars came to America this moment and watched television he/she/it might conclude that Americans are starving given the sheer amount of food ads we see on television. Oddly enough they are starving, for nutritious alternatives.
Does anybody truly believe they will look like the models on television who are quaffing beer if they do so? Does anybody believe the folks on television who are merrily eating fast food in those lifestyle commercials will continue to look lean and appealing?
Children and adults are literally bombarded with messages to eat in our MSM. Our local newspaper routinely publishes the menus for both city and county school lunches and most of it is crap. While there are always healthy alternatives, do we really believe our kids will make the healthy choices on their own with no support when their friends are not? How many of us choose broccoli over french fries?
While I see no conspiracy, food can be narcotic, and when we choose to comfort ourselves and our children with food that isn't nutritious we are also engaging in passive surrender. When we sooth anger with ice cream (and I have done it myself) we are also diverting our anger away from demanding change. The growing obesity epidemic is not just a matter of promoting healthy alternatives, it is yet another reminder that Americans are in fact being encouraged to "check out" to retreat into their own pain, to stifle themselves instead of agitating in the streets and confronting a system that does not want us to speak.