I really hate reading articles like this because they make it sound like we’re completely helpless against our own surroundings.
I mean, sure, it’s hard to be healthy when junk food is so much cheaper than healthy food and it’s readily available on every corner, and whenever you turn on the TV at night, you’re lambasted with shiny ads that just make all of those flavors just look so juicy and delicious … but it’s not like someone is literally forcing you to eat all of that crap instead of gnawing on a carrot stick or something that won’t go straight to your gut the next day. It’s not really fair for us to boast about having the freedom to do whatever we want! in this country if we’re then afterwards going to bitch about how we don’t have any control over being fat because it’s society’s fault…
It’s all about willpower, and I know this far too well because I struggle with it constantly myself, but nothing is impossible – you just have to make the decision of which is more important to you … eating that cookie now which will be gone in 30 seconds, or feeling better about yourself 6 months from now when you’re 40 pounds lighter than you used to be.
It’s certainly not easy, but it’s a cop out to point back at the world and say that you’d be healthy if it weren’t for all of these sugars that we put in everything nowadays, or if it wasn’t for all of the marketing persuading me to eat unhealthy foods. You can’t bitch about not wanting the government to regulate every factor of your lives and then also throw your hands up and say that it’s just not possible to be healthy with the way things are today.
Just to be clear, I’m certainly not in favor of taxing or trying to regulate junk food … even though I think what they’ve done to school lunch programs is a travesty and they could be doing a lot better when it’s the public dollar being spent to feed our children … but as for telling you and I how to spend our own money? That’s where we have to take some personal responsibility and say, “No thanks – I’ll pass on the Ding-Dongs today because I’m trying to lose some weight.”
Excuses never lead to results. Americans, myself included, tend to have a lot of them, and that’s something that we all have to work individually at to change.