Circum Spective

motorized shopping carts
for fat people:
our national disgrace

When you are so fat and so lazy that you don't even have the will to walk around the store to buy the crap that is making you fat ...
God forbid you might get a few minutes of exercise by walking and actually burn off a calorie!

I just came back from running a few errands (to the grocery store, gas station, etc.). Two out of every three people I saw were obese. This is a national disgrace. It is disgusting and pathetic and ... disgraceful.

I am so sick of tip-toeing around the subject of obesity. It is not a disease! Its not a "diability". Its not a "condition". It is, in fact, something you have chosen to become (in 99.99% of cases). Yes, this is a "free society" -- for the time being -- but if you are going to keep choosing, day after day, to disdain exercise and eat like a self-destructive glutton, then you should be required to pay four or five times as much for your health care as people who choose to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle. That's what they do with smokers. They penalize them for their unhealthy choice. So ... why is this same principle not applied to gluttons? Obesity probably "costs" our society more than cigarette smoking.

Everyone wants to join the debate about health care, so here's my two cents worth. People who choose obesity over self-control should be made responsible for a greater portion of the cost of health care -- especially if health care becomes "universally" available. If you want to let your appetite be your god, then you may choose to do so in a rich, free society. But, by God, you should have to pay for it ... and not just figuratively, but also literally. Why should I have to work to pay for the consequences of your unbridled appetite?

In the vast majority of cases, obesity is not the result of any "disease" or medical condition, as some would have us believe. It is simply the result, in most cases, not all, of a lack of self-discipline. It is the result of unbridled self-indulgence. And if you want to claim that you are "addicted" to food, go ahead. So what? I've been addicted to a few things in my life, too. I'm not addicted to them any more. Do you know why? Because I made a choice (actually many choices over a long period of time) to stop feeding my addictions. It is a matter of choice.

The Bible refers to the kind of self-indulgence that leads to obesity as "gluttony", but gluttony has become so prevalent that even pastors of fundamentalist churches are afraid to speak or preach against it any more. Why? Because they would probably lose more than half their congregation, all people ready to run away to a different church if anyone so much as suggests that maybe they need to think about developing a little more self-discipline.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think people who are dealing with obvious and uncontrolleddrug abuse or alcohol abuse problems are usually installed into "ministry" or leadership positions in the church. So why do we allow obese people to serve in those same positions. Obesity (gluttony) is evidence of the very same character flaws that produce all kinds of other sin. Why is everyone afraid to say, "Hey, Pastor, you don't have much credibility because you are obviously a self-indulgent glutton. You're a big fatty. Go sit down and be quiet until you lose about 75 pounds. Try skipping one of your five meals or ten snacks tomorrow. That would be a good start. Have you ever heard of 'fasting'? I didn't think so."

Its all about self-indulgence versus self-denial.
It really is that simple folks.

We just try to make it complicated so we can hide behind all the speculative theories and fancy rationalizations, behind all the ridiculous excuses and psychological jargon that substitutes for the plain, simple truth:
You're FAT. You need to control your appetite. Period.

Many people who are obese don't even realize that they are, by definition, "obese". "Oh ... yeah ... I'm over weight." NO. You are obese! It's just that when you only compare yourself to the other overweight and obese people around you, you seem almost average. And now, with 60% of our population obese, that's an easy distortion of reality to adopt. It also feels better to all our sensitive little psyches to delude ourselves than it does to accept reality.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this national disgrace is the prevalence of obesity among children. There are many types of abuse, but one that is being overlooked is the abuse of making food so constantly accessible to your children that they become obese before they even get through puberty. That is more than lazy parenting. It is child abuse. Obesity, as I'm sure you already know is a major contributing factor to numerous medical problems, not to mention the poor self-esteem and related psychological and social adjustment problems that usually accompany child obesity.

All right ... I'm done for the moment. Now you can go get into your motorized shopping cart and buy yourself another five gallons of ice cream. Be careful not to accidentally throw a fresh vegetable or a piece of fruit into your cart. Wouldn't wanna waste good money on something like that! Oh, and don't forget to stop by that fast-food drive-through on your way home and get a couple of those giant, grease-dripping piles of fat they affectionately refer to as "burgers".

The main point of this rant once more, so you'll get it: if you are going to keep choosing, day after day, to disdain exercise and eat like a gluttonous, self-destructive fool, then ...
you should be required to pay four or five times as much for your health care as people who choose to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle.