Why are Americans so fat? Why does the size of the average American seem to continually rise and grow? I'm not sure if these are questions that everybody thinks about, but they should be. Maybe if we spent more time analyzing the problem at hand, we would realize what we are doing wrong and fix our problems. Unfortunately, that's not what happens.
So, back to the question - why ARE Americans so fat? Well for one, think about what you are doing right now. You are sitting down in front of a computer screen reading things on the internet. How many calories do you think that burns? I'll tell you... not very many. Alright, so right now you are at school and you don't really have much of a choice. But how about when you get home from school today? What are you going to do? The answer for most of you is probably: surf the internet for a little or relax in front of the TV for a while. Admit it, you know it's true. And to make matters worse, you will most likely be eating a snack to cure your boredom while you participate in those minimally-calorie-burning activities. The bad just got worse - you are not only burning minimal calories, but now you are gaining calories most likely because you are just bored.
Think back to when you were younger. What would you do for fun as a kid? I know what I did. My friends and I would go play at the park, we would play games outside like tag and capture the flag, we rode our bikes around or walked from place to place, or we would play sports like basketball or tennis. I'm sure many of you readers are babysitters; what do those kids do for fun nowadays? I know the kids that I babysity love their ipods. They could sit there playing games for hours. A lot of times they'll go on their computer and make videos and take pictures on their photobooth. They also love their Disney channel shows. They'll sit in front of their TV browsing through the DVR and On Demand shows which make their favorite shows readily available and with a large variety too - many more shows available than when I was growing up. To simply analyze how kids occupy themselves these days makes it obvious that what is fun nowadays happens to be mostly technology-based and therefore consists of little to no movements (hence little calorie burning).
However, kids aren't the only culprits. There are even services nowadays to order your groceries online and have someone go grocery shopping for you and deliver them to your house.... wow. Face it, our society is lazy and that contributes to our obesity. If you think about what you do every day, I'm sure you can pinpoint which activites showcase your laziness and the status quo of our society. So think about what you do each day. What can you change to make your actions more beneficial to your health?
Source: "Supersize It"
No comments:
Post a Comment