Basic Pursuits

One or our favorite writers, Australian Craig Harper, takes us to the woodshed again. This time writing for Lifehack, he refelects on life and thinking in Fat City, where most of the people are fat, like in most of the English speaking world.

I’m amused by those who suggest that obesity is primarily an education problem, when in reality, it is (for the majority) a self-control problem. Self control: yes, that crazy, outdated notion I’ve spoken of many times before. We are inundated with education but we choose not to learn. Real ‘learning’ would have resulted in a large-scale positive change in behavior, and of course, decline in obesity levels. It hasn’t. In fact, if there was a positive correlation between the increase in education and the decline of global obesity, then we would see virtually no obesity at all.

And there's much more.

One problem with obesity is that we've anointed obese people victim status. We act as though something terrible has happened to them when in fact they themselves have eaten every mouth full.

Living in Fat City