The problem with obseity is one of cost benefit analysis. Working Americans spend the majority of their day communting and at work. So when they get home, hitting the treadmill and starving themselves is the last damn thing they want to do. When you do a cost benefit analysis, exercising an hour a day (common reccomendation) takes one hour out of your average 6 waking hours not spent at work or on the road (at least 1 hour to work + 8 hours on the clock + 1 hour at lunch + 1 more hour to get home). Additionally, after having spent the majority of your week whoring yourself, who can blame someone for decideding they need a bowl of ice cream.

I would also remind you that once, you are overweight, getting the weight off and keeping it off is a life long commitment. Smokers have nothing to bitch about quitting compared to fat people. Smokers might have a week or two of cravings, Fat people have to work at this for the rest of their lives and results of exercise and diet are painfully slow. So while a smoker gets imediate benefits from quiting, a fat person may have to work hard at losing weight for months to see a noticeable change.

Bottom line is life past 65 really worth it? If it is then get your ass on the tread mill. If not, let them be, at least they are shoring up social security. The only other solution is massive funding for a drug that lets people eat what they want and maintain a healthy weight.

An interesting thing I learned in "Fast Food Nation" is that food processors can make anything taste like anything. So why aren't they making super filling foods super tasty with almost no calories, or foods like rice high in vitamins and low on calories so people can eat a lot of it without gaining. Either way this could be something to look at.

Perhaps another way to look at this, is the American slaves are not happy and choose not self improvement but masturbation (the easy pleasure) to wake up tomorrow to slave another day. If it were easy to be thin, everyone would be, no one wants to endure the redicule fat people get on a daily basis.

This is a work in progress.