“
You've lived in America for twenty years. Eat badly, damn it.
”
”
Jennifer Crusie (Faking It (Dempseys, #2))
“
America is one of the few places in the world where a “poor” person can still be obese.6
”
”
Donald J. Trump (Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again!)
“
According to the surgeon general, obesity today is officially an epidemic; it is arguably the most pressing public health problem we face, costing the health care system an estimated $90 billion a year. Three of every five Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese. The disease formerly known as adult-onset diabetes has had to be renamed Type II diabetes since it now occurs so frequently in children. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicts that a child born in 2000 has a one-in-three chance of developing diabetes. (An African American child's chances are two in five.) Because of diabetes and all the other health problems that accompany obesity, today's children may turn out to be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents. The problem is not limited to America: The United Nations reported that in 2000 the number of people suffering from overnutrition--a billion--had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition--800 million.
”
”
Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)
“
America today is a "save yourself" society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.
”
”
John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)
“
Telling a fat person Eat less and exercise is like telling a boxer Don’t get hit. You act as if there’s not an opponent.
”
”
Tommy Tomlinson (The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America)
“
America wrestles with its obesity crisis to such an extent that Americans forget there are worse weight problems on earth than obesity.
”
”
Melissa Fay Greene
“
Pawnee: First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity
”
”
Leslie Knope (Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America)
“
I will fix America’s obesity problems by taking all motorized transport away from fat people. In turn, I will build an infrastructure of Fat Tunnels, where all the fat people can walk. This will create jobs and subsequent weight loss.
”
”
Olivia Munn (Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek)
“
Paracelsus (1493–1541), the founder of toxicology and one of the three fathers of modern Western medicine (along with Hippocrates and Galen), wrote, ‘Fasting is the greatest remedy—the physician within.’ Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), one of America’s founding fathers and renowned for wide knowledge, once wrote of fasting, ‘The best of all medicines is resting and fasting.
”
”
Jason Fung (The Obesity Code)
“
A change in direction was required. The story you finished was perhaps never the one you began. Yes! He would take charge of his life anew, binding his breaking selves together. Those changes in himself that he sought, he himself would initiate and make them. No more of this miasmic, absent drift. How had he ever persuaded himself that his money-mad burg would rescue him all by itself, this Gotham in which Jokers and Penguins were running riot with no Batman (or even Robin) to frustrate their schemes, this Metropolis built of Kryptonite in
which no Superman dared set foot, where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness, where people lived such polished lives that the great rough truths of raw existence had been rubbed and buffed away, and in which human souls had wandered so separately for so long that they barely remembered how to touch; this city whose fabled electricity powered the electric fences that were being erected between men and men, and men and women, too? Rome did not fall because her armies weakened but because Romans forgot what
being Roman meant. Might this new Rome actually be more provincial than its provinces; might these new Romans have forgotten what and how to value, or had they never known? Were all empires so undeserving, or was this one particularly crass? Was nobody in all this bustling endeavor and material plenitude engaged, any longer, on the deep quarry-work of the mind and heart? O Dream-America, was civilization's
quest to end in obesity and trivia, at Roy Rogers and Planet Hollywood, in USA Today and on E!; or in million-dollar-game-show greed or fly-on-the-wall voyeurism; or in the eternal confessional booth of Ricki and Oprah and Jerry, whose guests murdered each other after the show; or in a spurt of gross-out dumb-and-dumber comedies
designed for young people who sat in darkness howling their ignorance at the silver screen; or even at the unattainable tables of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Ducasse? What of the search for the hidden keys that unlock the doors of exaltation? Who demolished the City on the Hill and put in its place a row of electric chairs,
those dealers in death's democracy, where everyone, the innocent, the mentally deficient, the guilty, could come to die side by side? Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Who settled for George W. Gush's boredom and Al Bore's gush? Who let Charlton Heston out of his cage and then asked why children were getting shot? What, America, of the Grail? O ye Yankee Galahads, ye Hoosier Lancelots, O Parsifals of the stockyards, what of the Table Round? He felt a flood bursting in him and did not hold back. Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction. What he opposed in it he must also attack in himself. It made him want what it promised and eternally withheld. Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized: Indians, Uzbeks, Japanese, Lilliputians, all. America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand; and so, like everyone, Malik Solanka now walked its high corridors cap in hand, a supplicant at its feast; but that did not mean he could not look it in the eye. Arthur had fallen, Excalibur was lost and dark Mordred was king. Beside him on the throne of Camelot sat the queen, his sister, the witch Morgan le Fay.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (Fury)
“
Obesity [10w]
Because of America's fat asses seats no longer need cushioning.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
I couldn't open up a magazine, you couldn't read a newspaper, you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the obesity epidemic in America.
”
”
Morgan Spurlock
“
I always think in this connection of the Rumanian saying my in-laws use when they see an extremely obese person: “So, you ate what you wanted.
”
”
Stanton Peele (Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control)
“
Larry broke my morose train of thought with his laughter. "Welcome to America," he said, "where even our zombie epidemic has an obesity epidemic.
”
”
Ian McClellan (Zombie Apocalypse 2012: A Political Horror Story)
“
We’re a morbidly obese rainbow.
”
”
Adam Carolla (President Me: The America That's in My Head)
“
I’m almost never hungry in the physical sense. But I’m always craving an emotional high, the kind that comes from making love, or being in the crowd for great live music, or watching the sun come up over the ocean. And I’m always wanting something to counter the low, when I’m anxious about work or arguing with family or depressed for reasons I can’t understand.
”
”
Tommy Tomlinson (The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America)
“
Some nights he sat up late on his front porch with a glass of Jack and listened to the trucks heading south on 220, carrying crates of live chickens to the slaughterhouses—always under cover of darkness, like a vast and shameful trafficking—chickens pumped full of hormones that left them too big to walk—and he thought how these same chickens might return from their destination as pieces of meat to the floodlit Bojangles’ up the hill from his house, and that meat would be drowned in the bubbling fryers by employees whose hatred of the job would leak into the cooked food, and that food would be served up and eaten by customers who would grow obese and end up in the hospital in Greensboro with diabetes or heart failure, a burden to the public, and later Dean would see them riding around the Mayodan Wal-Mart in electric carts because they were too heavy to walk the aisles of a Supercenter, just like hormone-fed chickens.
”
”
George Packer (The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America)
“
But in 1977, the United States separated itself from every other government in history by vilifying meat and pushing grains, which were traditionally used to fatten cattle. Soon after, America’s obesity rate shot up and hasn’t stopped.
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Natural Born Heroes: Mastering the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance)
“
What prompts alarm in me is how you and your government want to ruin not only the potential of this of this country, but also the path of those who are going to transition into more advanced beings in search of immortality and omnipotence, and maybe even participate in a great singularity. These advances are going to pass, one way or another. And your current second-rate moral system—your weak, pretend-God-will-take-care-of-us bullshit—is a waste for our species' possibilities. You people want to pretend that democracy, religious inspiration, and unbridled consumerism are going to last forever and carry us all to bliss; that the American Dream is right around the next corner for everyone. you spend hundreds of billions of dollars on lazy welfare recipients, on mentally challenged people, on uneducated repeat criminals, on obese second-rate citizens bankrupting our medical system, on murderous war machines fighting for oil and your oligarchy's pet projects in far off places. All so you maintain your puny forms of power and sleep better at night.
”
”
Zoltan Istvan (The Transhumanist Wager)
“
Every fat person, and every fat person’s family, pays with anger and heartache and pain. For every one of us who can’t shed the weight, there are spouses and parents and kids and friends who grieve for us. We carve lines in their faces. We sentence them to long years alone.
”
”
Tommy Tomlinson (The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America)
“
We must also consider the enormous social-class differences in addiction rates. That is, the farther down the social and economic scale a person is, the more likely the person is to become addicted to alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, to be obese, or to be a victim or perpetrator of family or sexual abuse. How
”
”
Stanton Peele (Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control)
“
The UK needs a post Brexit US trade deal like a hole in the head. Given America's out-of-control opioid crisis, fuelled by prescription drug addiction, along with an obesity epidemic like the world has never seen, why on earth would the UK want to open its doors to US healthcare companies ? So that they can wreak untold havoc and destroy our National Health Service ? No thanks !
”
”
Alex Morritt (Lines & Lenses)
“
Giving up animal fats has also meant shifting over to vegetable oils, and over the past century the share of these oils has grown from zero to almost 8 percent of all calories consumed by Americans, by far the biggest change in our eating patterns during that time. In this period, the health of America has become strikingly worse. When the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet was first officially recommended to the public by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 1961, roughly one in seven adult Americans was obese. Forty years later, that number was one in three. (It’s heartbreaking to realize that the federal government’s “Healthy People” goal for 2010, a project begun in the mid-1990s, for instance, was simply to return the public back to levels of obesity seen in 1960, and even that goal was unreachable.)
”
”
Nina Teicholz (The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet)
“
I tell myself that a quick stroll around the block is enough exercise, and I believe it. I tell myself that the mound of peanut butter on my sandwich is just a couple teaspoons, and I believe it. I tell myself that a cheat day is just a onetime thing, and I believe it. The worst lie I tell myself, and the most powerful one, is about tomorrow. Tomorrow is the golden day. That’s the day when I’ll quit overeating and start working out and set the course for a new version of myself.
”
”
Tommy Tomlinson (The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America)
“
With her science-based food guide looking like it had just been rearranged by Picasso, Light was horrified. She predicted—in fervent protests to her supervisor—that these “adjustments” would turn America’s health into an inevitable train wreck. Her opinion of the grain-centric recommendations was that “no one needs that much bread and cereal in a day unless they are longshoremen or football players,” and that giving Americans a free starch-gorging pass would unleash an unprecedented epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
”
”
Denise Minger (Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health)
“
One of the biggest health problems facing America's poor is obesity. You know you live in a good place when overeating is a problem.
Most of the 6 billion people in the world live short, brutal, miserable lives; 1 billion people try to survive on just a dollar a day. They would love to have the lifestyle of America's poor. Ninety-seven percent of American families our government classifies as 'poor' have color televisions and half own two. Seventy-five percent of poor people have cars and nearly half own their own homes.
”
”
John Stossel (Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media...)
“
Despite the odium and widespread condemnation of Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, he passed with all the fanfare of a fart in a mesh sack. Medical examiners said it was a thrombotic stroke, likely exacerbated by obesity and high blood pressure. Some said cocaine and opioids had been found in his system, but these reports were never confirmed. Trump was dead, and now it was time to start glossing over his dismal legacy and perpetuating his vision, posthumously, for Making America Great Again...
”
”
Philip A. Becnel IV (Freedom City)
“
In nearly all of the country’s nineteen thousand municipalities,117 declining or stagnant property tax revenues, along with mounting costs, have reached crisis proportions. The opioid crisis, the mass shootings, the rising rates of suicide, especially among middle-aged white males, the morbid obesity, the obsession with gambling, the investment of our emotional and intellectual life in tawdry spectacles, and the allure of magical thinking, from the absurd promises of the Christian right to the belief that reality is never an impediment to our desires, are the pathologies of a diseased culture. They have risen from a decayed world where opportunity, which confers status, self-esteem, and dignity, has dried up for most Americans. They are expressions of morbidity.
”
”
Chris Hedges (America: The Farewell Tour)
“
A group called the Food Research and Action Center wants the government to spend more on food programs. Sure enough, their study found that astonishing numbers of children were 'hungry': 'One in four American children under age 12 is hungry or at risk of hunger in America.'
The report got lots of press. Some reporters spun the report so it sounded worse than it was. Dan Rather somehow changed kids who were 'sometimes hungry' into 'children in danger of starving.'
Starving? The Food Research and Action Center never counted calories. They didn't even ask people what they ate. Instead, they asked: 'Do you ever cut the size of meals?' 'Do you ever eat less than you feel you should?' Naturally, some people said yes to those questions. It didn't mean America is 'hungry', let alone 'starving.' In fact, in America, one of the poor's biggest problems is obesity.
”
”
John Stossel (Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media...)
“
One of my colleagues in Duke, Ralph Keeney, noted that America's top killer isn't cancer or heart disease, nor is it smoking or obesity. It's our inability to make smart choices and overcome our own self-destructive behaviours. Ralph estimates that about half of us will make a lifestyle decision that will ultimately lead us to an early grave. And as if this were not bad enough, it seems that the rate at which we make these deadly decisions is increasing at an alarming pace.
I suspect that over the next few decades, real improvements in life expectancy and quality are less likely to be driven by medical technology than by improved decision making. Since focusing on long-term benefits is not our natural tendency, we need to more carefully examine the cases in which we repeatedly fail, and try to come up with some remedies for these situations. For an overweight movie loved, the key might be to enjoy watching a film while walking on the treadmill. The trick is to find the right behavioural antidote for each problem. By pairing something that we love with something that we dislike but that is good for us, we might be able to harness desire with outcome - and thus overcome some of the problems with self-control we face every day.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
Anthony Fauci seems to have not considered that his unprecedented quarantine of the healthy would kill far more people than COVID, obliterate the global economy, plunge millions into poverty and bankruptcy, and grievously wound constitutional democracy globally. We have no way of knowing how many people died from isolation, unemployment, deferred medical care, depression, mental illness, obesity, stress, overdoses, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, and the accidents that so often accompany despair. We cannot dismiss the accusations that his lockdowns proved more deadly than the contagion. A June 24, 2021 BMJ study22 showed that US life expectancy decreased by 1.9 years during the quarantine. Since COVID mortalities were mainly among the elderly, and the average age of death from COVID in the UK was 82.4, which was above the average lifespan,23 the virus could not by itself cause the astonishing decline. As we shall see, Hispanic and Black Americans often shoulder the heaviest burden of Dr. Fauci’s public health adventures. In this respect, his COVID-19 countermeasures proved no exception. Between 2018 and 2020, the average Hispanic American lost around 3.9 years in longevity, while the average lifespan of a Black American dropped by 3.25 years.24 This dramatic culling was unique to America. Between 2018 and 2020, the 1.9 year decrease in average life expectancy at birth in the US was roughly 8.5 times the average decrease in 16 comparable countries, all of which were measured in months, not years.25
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
Under Dr. Fauci’s leadership, the allergic, autoimmune, and chronic illnesses which Congress specifically charged NIAID to investigate and prevent, have mushroomed to afflict 54 percent of children, up from 12.8 percent when he took over NIAID in 1984.59 Dr. Fauci has offered no explanation as to why allergic diseases like asthma, eczema, food allergies, allergic rhinitis, and anaphylaxis suddenly exploded beginning in 1989, five years after he came to power. On its website, NIAID boasts that autoimmune disease is one of the agency’s top priorities. Some 80 autoimmune diseases, including juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, Graves’ disease, and Crohn’s disease, which were practically unknown prior to 1984, suddenly became epidemic under his watch.60,61,62 Autism, which many scientists now consider an autoimmune disease,63,64,65 exploded from between 2/10,000 and 4/10,000 Americans66 when Tony Fauci joined NIAID, to one in thirty-four today. Neurological diseases like ADD/ADHD, speech and sleep disorders, narcolepsy, facial tics, and Tourette’s syndrome have become commonplace in American children.67 The human, health, and economic costs of chronic disease dwarf the costs of all infectious diseases in the United States. By this decade’s end, obesity, diabetes, and pre-diabetes are on track to debilitate 85 percent of America’s citizens.68 America is among the ten most over-weight countries on Earth. The health impacts of these epidemics—which fall mainly on the young—eclipse even the most exaggerated health impacts of COVID-19.
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
And, even more important for our purposes, these facts are sturdy enough that we can build a sensible diet upon them. Here they are: FACT 1. Populations that eat a so-called Western diet—generally defined as a diet consisting of lots of processed foods and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, fruits, and whole grains—invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Virtually all of the obesity and type 2 diabetes, 80 percent of the cardiovascular disease, and more than a third of all cancers can be linked to this diet. Four of the top ten killers in America are chronic diseases linked to this diet. The arguments in nutritional science are not about this well-established link; rather, they are all about identifying the culprit nutrient in the Western diet that might be responsible for chronic diseases. Is it the saturated fat or the refined carbohydrates or the lack of fiber or the transfats or omega-6 fatty acids—or what? The point is that, as eaters (if not as scientists), we know all we need to know to act: This diet, for whatever reason, is the problem. FACT 2. Populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don’t suffer from these chronic diseases. These diets run the gamut from ones very high in fat (the Inuit in Greenland subsist largely on seal blubber) to ones high in carbohydrate (Central American Indians subsist largely on maize and beans) to ones very high in protein (Masai tribesmen in Africa subsist chiefly on cattle blood, meat, and milk), to cite three rather extreme examples. But much the same holds true for more mixed traditional diets. What this suggests is that there is no single ideal human diet but that the human omnivore is exquisitely adapted to a wide range of different foods and a variety of different diets. Except, that is, for one: the relatively new (in evolutionary terms) Western diet that most of us now are eating. What an extraordinary achievement for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick! (While it is true that we generally live longer than people used to, or than people in some traditional cultures do, most of our added years owe to gains in infant mortality and child health, not diet.) There is actually a third, very hopeful fact that flows from these two: People who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health. We have good research to suggest that the effects of the Western diet can be rolled back, and relatively quickly.
”
”
Michael Pollan (Food Rules: An Eater's Manual)
“
Burgard argues that even attempting to classify obesity by type or origin is misguided: “We have this fundamental misunderstanding that everyone should be close to the same weight, and therefore higher weight bodies can never be healthy and well regulated,” she explains. “But what if most people’s bodies are regulating themselves fine, just at a wider variety of weights than we’ve been taught to consider acceptable?
”
”
Virginia Sole-Smith (The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America)
“
While it may seem paradoxical, hunger also plays a key role in the development of obesity. “I often hear things like, ‘Those people can’t be hungry—they’re fat!’” says Janet Poppendieck, Ph.D., the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. “But the least healthy, most obesity-inducing calories in our society are often the cheapest.” A study from the University of Washington found that junk food can cost an average of $ 1.76 per 1,000 calories, while more nutritious foods add up to $ 18.16 for the same amount. Food-insecure families may also be more prone to obesity because their bodies are essentially always in crash-diet mode, which ultimately slows down metabolism.
”
”
Virginia Sole-Smith (The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America)
“
But right now, in America, we no longer think of food as sustenance or nourishment. For many of us, food feels dangerous. We fear it. We regret it. And we categorize everything we eat as good or bad, with the “bad” list always growing longer. No meat, no dairy, no gluten—and, goodness, no sugar. Everything has too much sugar, salt, fat; too many calories, processed ingredients, toxins. As a result, we are all too much, our bodies taking up too much space in our clothes and in the world. Food has become a heavy issue, loaded with metaphorical meaning and the physical weight of our obesity crisis.
”
”
Virginia Sole-Smith (The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America)
“
And if it’s true that you are what you eat, then we’re a herd of overfed slobs who consume mass quantities of fatty, over-salted, high-calorie processed garbage. Then we stare in the mirror, baffled at the sight of our expanding waistlines, thinking this sudden, inexplicable obesity can be cured by a miracle diet, power cleanse, or appearance on a weight loss reality show. America: pockets of intelligence in a large pair of fat pants. And
”
”
Ian Gurvitz (WELCOME TO DUMBFUCKISTAN: The Dumbed-Down, Disinformed, Dysfunctional, Disunited States of America)
“
FOREWORD When Commander Perry opened up to the occidental world that shut-tight little island Kingdom, Japan, he did more than merely contact for our manufacturers a people who bought "Nifty Clothes," with two pair of pants. He gave us an insight into a world that was thoroughly organized and civilized long before Columbus discovered West where the East should have been. The Japanese learned much from the so-called civilized world, -but they taught us something we could never have learned from intercourse with any other nation. They gave our governmental forces of law and order a weapon that aided materially in the suppression of disorderly elements throughout our great cities. It took time, of course, to break down the prejudices that our early enforcement officers, in common with our then wild and wooly population, had against anything that was foreign. But when the great police forces of our largest metropolises realized that guns and billies alone would not be proof against big, burly lawbreakers, and that to instil respect in the hearts of "bruisers" they needed something other than armaments—pistols that could not be drawn fast enough,—they then discovered the wonder of Jiu-jitsu. They found that the wily little brown man depended on brain instead of brawn and that he had developed a Science and an Art that utilized another's strength to his own undoing. Strangely enough it was the layman who first appreciated the potential value of Jiu-jitsu. For many years before the Police Forces of our cities put a study of this Science into the training of every rookie policeman, there were physical culture experts in America who advocated the use of it by everyone who had any respect for physical prowess but who found the spirit more willing than the flesh. They showed that it needed no possession of unusual strength to overcome an opponent that depended entirely on his bulk and ferocious appearance to cow the meeker ones of the earth into submission. The Japanese, by the very fact of their small stature, are compelled to place more emphasis on strategy than on force. Thus they have thoroughly developed Jiu-jitsu and there is barely a saffron-hued tot in Japan that doesn't know something about the "Gentle-Art" as it is known. President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia, one of the world's greatest educators, who, together with millions of his enlightened and progressive countrymen, is a firm believer in "a strong mind in a strong body," sought to teach every schoolboy in his country some knowledge of the wisest of all physical sciences. While it does not itself develop and build muscle, it is an invaluable aid to the sensible use of the body. It is a form of wrestling that combines the cunning of the fox with the lithe grace and agility of the panther. It sharpens the brain and quickens the nerve centers. The man or woman who has self-respect must not sit by and permit our people to become a nation of spectators watching athletic specialists perform, while we become obese and ungainly applauders. Jiu-jitsu gives the man, woman and child, denied by nature a great frame, the opportunity to walk without fear, to resist successfully the bullies of their particular world, and the self-confidence which only a "well-armed" athlete can have. By its use, differences in weight, height and reach are practically wiped out, so that he who knows, may smilingly face superior odds and conquer.
”
”
Louis Shomer (Police Jiu-Jitsu: and Vital Holds In Wrestling)
“
As if to confirm the difference between Korean and European anti-Americanism, Salman Rushdie sees parallel patterns in the difference between the anti-Americanism of the Muslim and European worlds. The former, according to Rushdie, chiefly enlists political reasons for its antipathy to America, but the latter is anti-American in its essence and entire behavior: These days there seem to be as many of these accusers outside the Muslim world as inside it. Anybody who has visited Britain and Europe, or followed the public conversation there during the past five months, will have been struck, even shocked, by the depth of antiAmerican feeling among large segments of the population. Western anti-Americanism is an altogether more petulant phenomenon than its Islamic counterpart and far more personalized. Muslim countries don’t like America’s power, its “arrogance,” its success; but in the nonAmerican West, the main objection seems to be to American people. Night after night, I have found myself listening to Londoners’ diatribes against the sheer weirdness of the American citizenry. The attacks on America are routinely discounted. . . . American patriotism, obesity, emotionality, self-centeredness: these are the crucial issues.”37
”
”
Andrei S. Markovits (Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (The Public Square Book 5))
“
Food is supposed to sustain and nurture us. Eating well, any doctor will tell you, is the most important thing you can do to take care of yourself. Feeding well, any human will tell you, is the most important job a mother has, especially in the first months of her child’s life. But right now, in America, we no longer think of food as sustenance or nourishment. For many of us, food feels dangerous. We fear it. We regret it. And we categorize everything we eat as good or bad, with the “bad” list always growing longer. No meat, no dairy, no gluten—and, goodness, no sugar. Everything has too much sugar, salt, fat; too many calories, processed ingredients, toxins. As a result, we are all too much, our bodies taking up too much space in our clothes and in the world. Food has become a heavy issue, loaded with metaphorical meaning and the physical weight of our obesity crisis. And for parents, food is a double burden, because we must feed our children even while most of us are still struggling with how to feed ourselves. When the feeding tube first went in, I thought the hardest part of teaching Violet to eat again would be persuading her to open her mouth. Actually, the hardest part was letting go of my own expectations and judgments about what food should look like—so I could just let her eat.
”
”
Virginia Sole-Smith (The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America)
“
Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.
”
”
John Piper (Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist)
“
Unlike the temporary reduction in growth during the Depression, this slowdown is a result of fundamental transformations: Americans are having fewer children, and we have gradually narrowed the gateways of immigration. Population growth is a function of life span as well, and where we once experienced steadily lengthening lives, the so-called diseases of despair—drug overdoses, obesity, and suicide, which all accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic—are taking a greater and greater toll every year.
”
”
Scott Galloway (Adrift: America in 100 Charts)
“
There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian’s right to live luxuriantly “as a child of the King” in this atmosphere sounds hollow—especially since the King Himself is stripped for battle. It is more helpful to think of a wartime lifestyle than a merely simple lifestyle. Simplicity can be very inwardly directed and may benefit no one else. A wartime lifestyle implies that there is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent (2 Corinthians 12:15). Winter continues: America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves. How hard have we tried to save others? Consider the fact that the U.S. evangelical slogan, “Pray, give or go” allows people merely to pray, if that is their choice! By contrast the Friends Missionary Prayer Band of South India numbers 8,000 people in their prayer bands and supports 80 full-time missionaries in North India. If my denomination (with its unbelievably greater wealth per person) were to do that well, we would not be sending 500 missionaries, but 26,000. In spite of their true poverty, those poor people in South India are sending 50 times as many cross-cultural missionaries as we are!11
”
”
John Piper (Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist)
“
There are decades worth of rigorous studies that prove irrefutably that the standard American diet (SAD, isn’t it?) is killing us through obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. And now there are many important studies that confirm undeniably the diet we recommend to all our patients works to curb the scourge of those diseases.
”
”
Franklin House (The 30-Day Diabetes Miracle: Lifestyle Center of America's Complete Program for Overcoming Diabetes, Restorin g Health,a nd Rebuilding Natural Vitality)
“
the First Lady is attempting to convince the United States that it should have some kind of universal healthcare. Well, it will fail, but only because it doesn’t go far enough. My grandfather is looking into rigging future elections to go our way so that we can ram through legislation that will dramatically change America. We will eventually have a new healthcare law that will not let anyone over sixty-five have unlimited healthcare, nor will they be allowed to enjoy retirement for very long for we will have people who will determine who can live and who should die, based entirely on what these retired citizens can contribute. This law will not let undesirables be born that will suck up money throughout their lives because they have one health issue or another, like children with Down syndrome or even Autism. This law will require that everyone pay the government for their healthcare, no one will have the freedom to use whatever healthcare provider they want. We will control what will be used and for how long. Companies who do not comply with the rules, like giving their employees full access to abortions, will be sued or forced out of business. Universal healthcare will also be used to tell people what they can or cannot eat, and we will declare that Americans are full of obese people who need the government to control what they eat. No more eating whatever junk food you want to eat just because you can.
”
”
Cliff Ball (Times of Turmoil)
“
All the nations that make up the world are burdened down with riches or poverty, obesity or malnutrition, success or failure.
”
”
Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
“
The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.
”
”
Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure)
“
Promoting nutrient analysis of foods by weight instead of by calorie became a great way to keep excess calories, cholesterol, and saturated fat in the diet—a terrific strategy to create a nation with an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, and cancer. A foreign enemy out to destroy America could not have devised a more effective and insidious plot. How ironic that this was the program designed by our own government, promoted with our own tax dollars, and justified on the ground that it served the public interest.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss)
“
According to a 2014 Huffington Post article, Southern states are consistently behind the rest of the country in wages, economic mobility, education, and health care. However, they lead the country in incest, teen pregnancy, gun deaths, incarceration, poverty, obesity, intoxication, and general unhappiness. They’re also still hooked on creationism, and freaked out over gay marriage. It’s like evolution took a detour, crashed through a dead end sign and plunged into a swamp. But instead of calling for help, it mated with the swamp creatures and built a civilization.
”
”
Ian Gurvitz (WELCOME TO DUMBFUCKISTAN: The Dumbed-Down, Disinformed, Dysfunctional, Disunited States of America)
“
I wish we taught the modern generation the true meaning of "love" and the human race. The love for all people regardless of their religion, race, culture or Political beliefs.The love of justice in the face of injustice.The love of wisdom in the face of ignorance, the love of country in the midst of unpatriotic beings and the love of self in the face of wanna be's.
I wish we showed them that racism is not something that "Human Beings" should accept or brand. I hope we teach them that character matters more than race. I wish we taught them that "Islam" is not the biggest problem that America faces and vengeance, itself, is harm!
In this time of divides, we have seen what the media can do. It has the power to uplift and break a candidate. In this uncertain times, we must be courageous as Americans and stand for what's right, not what the media think is.
In this time, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Donald J. Trump will not and can not change this country. It will take you, as an American to liberate your minds from "HATE", racial divides, injustice, and discrimination. It will take you as an American to rethink Islam, Health Care issues, Free Education for all, Unemployment, Environment and Climate Change, Obesity, Foreign Relations, Illegal Immigration, Equality Between Men and Women, and Individual Liberty vs. Government Control#Movebeyonddisparities.
”
”
Henry Johnson Jr (Liberian Son)
“
They get this little nubbin of a penis,” Dr. Karpman said. And no one, he said, likes having a nubbin.
”
”
Sarah Varney (XL Love: How the Obesity Crisis Is Complicating America's Love Life)
“
The reality in America from the 1970s onward was that the nation’s health was already worsening from the failure of the low-fat diet to prevent heart disease or obesity, and people were scrambling to find an alternative,
”
”
Nina Teicholz (The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet)
“
In this period, the health of America has become strikingly worse. When the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet was first officially recommended to the public by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 1961, roughly one in seven adult Americans was obese. Forty years later, that number was one in three.
”
”
Nina Teicholz (The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet)
“
We are commanded to associate with, pray and worship with fellow believers, plus it’s medically indicated. Neuroscientist John Cacioppo concluded that people who don’t associate regularly with other people are more prone to illness, obesity and feelings of helplessness. (Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection).
”
”
John Price (The Day: A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series))
“
There are many facets to the decline in fairness and opportunity in American life. Perhaps the worst are the conditions now imposed upon young children born into the underclass and subjected to the recent evolution of the educational system. They are related, and they reinforce each other; their combined result is to condemn tens of millions of children, particularly those born into the new underclass, to a life of hardship and unfairness. For any young child whose parents don’t have money, or who is the child of a migrant agricultural worker and/or an illegal immigrant, prenatal care, nursery, day care, after school, school nutrition, and foster-care systems are nothing short of appalling. And then comes school itself. The “American dream”, stated simply, is that no matter how poor or humble your origins—even if you never knew your parents—you have a shot at a decent life. America’s promise is that anyone willing to work hard can do better over time, and have at least a reasonable life for themselves and their own children. You could expect to do better than your parents, and even be able to help them as they grew old. More than ever before, the key to such a dream is a good education. The rise of information technology, and the opening of Asian economies, means that only a small portion of America’s population can make a good living through unskilled or manual labour. But instead of elevating the educational system and the opportunities it should provide, American politicians, and those who follow their lead around the globe, have been going in exactly the wrong direction. As a result, we are developing not a new class system, but, without exaggeration, a new caste system—a society in which the circumstances of your birth determine your entire life. As a result, the dream of opportunity is dying. Increasingly, the most important determinant of a child’s life prospects—future income, wealth, educational level, even health and life expectancy—is totally arbitrary and unfair. It’s also very simple. A child’s future is increasingly determined by his or her parents’ wealth, not by his or her intelligence or energy. To be sure, there are a number of reasons for this. Income is correlated with many other things, and it’s therefore difficult to isolate the impact of individual factors. Children in poor households are more likely to grow up in single-parent versus two-parent households, exposed to drugs and alcohol, with one or both parents in prison, with their immigration status questionable, and more likely to have problems with diet and obesity. Culture and race play a role: Asian children have far higher school graduation rates, test scores, and grades than all other groups, including whites, in the US; Latinos, the lowest.
”
”
Charles H. Ferguson (Inside Job: The Rogues Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century)
“
to emigrate, God’s people should remember the importance of assembling together with other believers. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.”(Hebrews 10:25). We are commanded to associate with, pray and worship with fellow believers, plus it’s medically indicated. Neuroscientist John Cacioppo concluded that people who don’t associate regularly with other people are more prone to illness, obesity and feelings of helplessness. (Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection).
”
”
John Price (The End of America: The Role of Islam in the End Times and Biblical Warnings to Flee America)
“
The constitutionally protected free speech that entitles every American to express their opinion has devolved into the notion that all opinions carry equal weight, simply because they are deeply held, and passionately expressed. And not just by some morbidly obese high school dropout proudly holding a misspelled sign, but by our elected officials.
”
”
Ian Gurvitz (WELCOME TO DUMBFUCKISTAN: The Dumbed-Down, Disinformed, Dysfunctional, Disunited States of America)
“
This was a remarkable break from tradition. For the first time, a government institution intruded into the kitchens of America. Mom used to tell us what we should and should not eat. But from now on, Big Brother would be telling us. And he said, “Eat less fat and more carbohydrates.
”
”
Jason Fung (The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (Why Intermittent Fasting Is the Key to Controlling Your Weight))
“
Americans spend an average of about $7,200 a year on health care, compared with the roughly $2,900 average for the other market economies that make up the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), and for that greatly increased outlay we get higher infant mortality, higher obesity rates, lower longevity, fewer doctors per 1,000 people (just 2.4 per 1,000 in the United States, compared with 3.1 in OECD states), and fewer acute care hospital beds (2.7 per 1,000, compared to 3.8 per 1,000 in the OECD countries).
”
”
Matt Taibbi (Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America)
“
Unless younger generations remove the Boomers from power soon, the next quarter century will be even worse than the last one—a parade of missed opportunities and bad choices. The poor choices the Boomers have already made and the results they engendered are reflected in this book’s charts, snapshots of the decades of Boomer power. In the charts, lines that should have been going steadily up (like median income) have flattened and sometimes plunged, while lines that should be going down (like debt and obesity rates) have been going up, trends that will continue absent dramatic change. There aren’t many excuses for these failures, only explanations, and they all point the same way, as they have for years.
”
”
Bruce Cannon Gibney (A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America)
“
The research shows that those who avoid meat and dairy have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.23 The data is conclusive: vegetarians live longer in America, probably a lot longer.
”
”
Joel Fuhrman (Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss)
“
Stevia is extracted from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana, a plant that is native to South America. It has 300 times the sweetness of regular sugar and a minimal effect on glucose. Widely used in Japan since 1970, it has recently become available in North America. Both agave nectar and sweeteners derived from Stevia are highly processed. In that regard, they are not any better than sugar itself—a natural compound derived from sugar beets.
”
”
Jason Fung (The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (Why Intermittent Fasting Is the Key to Controlling Your Weight))
“
Real America, in honor of the hellhound, our beloved Bukowski
You hate America, no, not at all, I love it so much that I can say obvious truths that they themselves do not want to accept. If I criticize myself all the time, why would I stop criticizing others? A poem in honor of the only sincere American, Bukowski. The myth of America tells us of the land of freedom, founded by descendants of intelligent and puritanical Europeans. It's all a load of crap, no, it's the land of slavery, my friends, not just in the sense of slavery of African descendants, but of mental slavery. Yes, the land of the alienated. Eden, created by Angels. This is all a load of crap. Real America, Real America, Strong America, came from the indigenous tribes, from the toil of blacks and the industrious mentality of descendants of Europeans, all lazy, violent and who wanted to get fat like pigs, without worrying about anything. Dirty America that produces clean America, sold in the movies. Why lazy? Well, they don't like to make a lot of effort, and this indolence produces innovation. Is that why they are so creative? Well, they are creative in order to pay well the brains of other nations who go to work there. They knew that numerous wars and constant friction were much worse than anything else and cost money. So? Well, then, let's create a land where everyone can get fat, rich and kill each other, but only as long as the general profit of society increases. Let's sell the excess food, weapons and our gourmet culture to other peoples. It worked. But let's not fool ourselves. America is Golden on the outside and dark on the inside. America is the country of weapons, drugs, fantasies and lies. Above all, lies. See, the mafias that operated there to supply the demand for alcohol, prohibited in order to maintain the pure "spirit" of the drunken bourgeoisie, were all called mafias of other nationalities. But they were all Americans. America is geography, not history or ethnicity. You are an American because of your ties to this immense land blessed by God. Is that what these bastards have done? They have turned their own pain into art and sold it to us in the movies. The weapons, yes, they have to be good and they have to kill quickly. Why? Because Americans are lazy and don't like anything that lasts long. Even wars have to be fought in other countries and if they are too exhausting, they lose their Hollywood shine, so we have to abandon Saigon. Fatness, that is another thing that best represents America. Americans are all obese. Well, at least you can't help but notice them. They are, well, heavy people, especially the Karens. I love Karens, I'm a male Karen, you know. And as for drugs, well, that's the most interesting part. It's the country that consumes them the most, why? Well, maintaining the American dream requires a lot of mescaline. Fat drug addicts with guns sticking out of their own toilets. The toilets in America must hide everything we really want to know. I will probably never get a visa there, thanks to this poem. Still, you can't deny that my writing is anthological. God bless all the Americas. Please don't blow me up, I have poetic license to write these words.
”
”
Geverson Ampolini
“
Eating in America has become controversial behavior, with all sorts of “non-nutritional” sexual, social, political, cultural, and even clinical overtones. Our troubles with weight have as much to do with our attitudes toward eating as they do with what we are ingesting. We are seeing a growing psychosis that I believe actually adds stress to our already stressful way of life. It is fast erasing the simple values of pleasure. Without a national change of heart, we have little hope of turning the tide of the obesity epidemic.
”
”
Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat)
“
The real reason French women don’t get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.
”
”
Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat)
“
The coast of Austria-Hungary yielded what people called cappuzzo, a leafy cabbage. It was a two-thousand-year-old grandparent of modern broccoli and cauliflower, that was neither charismatic nor particularly delicious. But something about it called to Fairchild. The people of Austria-Hungary ate it with enthusiasm, and not because it was good, but because it was there. While the villagers called it cappuzzo, the rest of the world would call it kale. And among its greatest attributes would be how simple it is to grow, sprouting in just its second season of life, and with such dense and bulky leaves that in the biggest challenge of farming it seemed to be how to make it stop growing. "The ease with which it is grown and its apparent favor among the common people this plant is worthy a trial in the Southern States," Fairchild jotted.
It was prophetic, perhaps, considering his suggestion became reality. Kale's first stint of popularity came around the turn of the century, thanks to its horticultural hack: it drew salt into its body, preventing the mineralization of soil. Its next break came from its ornamental elegance---bunches of white, purple, or pink leaves that would enliven a drab garden.
And then for decades, kale kept a low profile, its biggest consumers restaurants and caterers who used the cheap, bushy leaves to decorate their salad bars. Kale's final stroke of luck came sometime in the 1990s when chemists discovered it had more iron than beef, and more calcium, iron, and vitamin K than almost anything else that sprouts from soil. That was enough for it to enter the big leagues of nutrition, which invited public relations campaigns, celebrity endorsements, and morning-show cooking segments. American chefs experimented with the leaves in stews and soups, and when baked, as a substitute for potato chips. Eventually, medical researchers began to use it to counter words like "obesity," "diabetes," and "cancer." One imagines kale, a lifetime spent unnoticed, waking up one day to find itself captain of the football team.
”
”
Daniel Stone (The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats)
“
No one spoke for a moment. For John it was the word “America” that hit home. The land of milk and honey, the land where obesity had been considered a major health issue, almost a national right, with food chains boasting about who had the biggest, fattest burger. He often wondered, even then, what reaction there would have been if these ads, showing America’s excessive waste, had been sent to Liberia, Yemen, or Afghanistan.
”
”
William R. Forstchen (One Second After (After #1))
“
The fact that obesity in both Europe and America is chiefly a class-specific phenomenon—obese people disproportionately inhabit the lower rungs of the social scale on both sides of the Atlantic—appears hardly a matter for reflection and pales in comparison to the ubiquitous mention of the sole culprit: the “Americanization” of European life.
”
”
Andrei S. Markovits (Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (The Public Square Book 5))
“
I was struck, during COVID-19’s early months, that America’s Doctor, apparently preoccupied with his single vaccine solution, did little in the way of telling Americans how to bolster their immune response. He never took time during his daily White House briefings from March to May 2020 to instruct Americans to avoid tobacco (smoking and e-cigarettes/vaping double death rates from COVID); to get plenty of sunlight and to maintain adequate vitamin D levels (“Nearly 60 percent of patients with COVID-19 were vitamin D deficient upon hospitalization, with men in the advanced stages of COVID-19 pneumonia showing the greatest deficit”); or to diet, exercise, and lose weight (78 percent of Americans hospitalized for COVID-19 were overweight or obese). Quite the contrary, Dr. Fauci’s lockdowns caused Americans to gain an average of two pounds per month and to reduce their daily steps by 27 percent. He didn’t recommend avoiding sugar and soft drinks, processed foods, and chemical residues, all of which amplify inflammation, compromise immune response, and disrupt the gut biome which governs the immune system. During the centuries that science has fruitlessly sought remedies against coronavirus (aka the common cold), only zinc has repeatedly proven its efficacy in peer-reviewed studies. Zinc impedes viral replication, prophylaxing against colds and abbreviating their duration. The groaning shelves that commercial pharmacies devote to zinc-based cold remedies attest to its extraordinary efficacy. Yet Anthony Fauci never advised Americans to increase zinc uptake following exposure to infection.
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
Most of us would like “America’s Doctor” to properly diagnose our illnesses using the best science, and then instruct us on how to get healthy. What if, instead of spending their entire budgets developing profitable pharmaceutical products, Dr. Fauci and the heads of other NIH institutes deployed researchers to explore the links between glyphosate in food and the explosion of gluten allergies, the link between pesticide residues and the epidemic of neurological diseases and cancers, the causal connections between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease, between mercury from coal plants and escalating autism rates, and the association of airborne particulates with the asthma epidemic? What if NIH financed research to explore the association between childhood vaccines and the explosion of juvenile diabetes, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis, and the links between aluminum vaccine adjuvants and the epidemics of food allergies and allergic rhinitis? What if they studied the impacts of sugar and soft drinks on obesity and diabetes, and the association between endocrine
”
”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health)
“
The first proposition, that “IVF is Futile of Obese Women” Brown states that “it seems unlikely to be appropriate to describe IVF treatments as futile in obese women” due to the fact that “analysis of a large sample of cycles in North America showed live birth artesian morbidly obese women (those with a BMI over 35) were not much lower than in women in the healthy weight range (26.% as opposed to 31.4%).
”
”
Nicola Salmon (Fat and Fertile: How to get pregnant in a bigger body)
“
For every Gatorade sponsored athlete like Lionel Messi seen drinking a Gatorade to replenish and rehydrate after a hard-fought soccer victory, there are a million obese teenagers drinking Gatorade by the gallon in their bedrooms while playing excessive amounts of XBOX and wallowing in their own filth.
”
”
Brandon Day (A Brief History of Bullshit in America)
“
Surely little remained of the Puritan legacy of prudish rectitude, he thought: surely this was now a country of excess, gluttony, lust, and sloth; surely this had grown into a land where obesity reigned and even the poor moved ponderously down the street on big thighs that rubbed fatly together. What had become of the pilgrims' gaunt and stingy oversight? He knew in part it was the visionary genius of enterprising men, but such entrepreneurs were only the tools of a hungry culture. For the descendants of those gray, upright pioneers had cherished cravings for beef patties with ketchup, deep-fried chicken and vats of ice cream, chemically scented and dyed all the colors of the rainbow, and billions upon billions of gallons of soda. Their thirst had never been quite slaked and so they never finished drinking; and this was the market in all its streamlined functionality—which, precisely where the supply and the demand curves crossed, had swiftly produced a nation of paralyzed giants, fallen across their couches much as soldiers on the field of battle, their arteries hard, their softened hearts failing.
The market made a fool of you by giving you what you wanted. But this did not make him resent it; it merely earned his respect. From the day you were born you were called upon to discern what to choose.
”
”
Lydia Millet (How the Dead Dream)
“
The Dunkin Donuts slogan “America runs on Dunkin” scares the hell out of me. The suggestion that a country prides itself on being “nourished” on donuts and lattés is rather curious.
”
”
A. Breeze Harper (Sistah Vegan: Black Women Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society)
“
Today finds us facing an unprecedented healthcare crisis. Despite spending over $22 billion a year on fad diet and weight-loss products, 70 percent of all Americans are obese or overweight. One out of every three deaths in America is attributable to heart disease, our number one killer. By 2030, 30 percent of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. And depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide. Despite the heartbreaking fact that a vast majority of these chronic diseases can be prevented and often reversed through some simple diet and lifestyle changes, we instead divest ourselves of personal responsibility and become willing indentured servants to the pharmaceutical industry, popping pills that effectively mask symptoms but, more often than not, do little or nothing to prevent or cure the underlying chronic illnesses that ail us.
”
”
Rich Roll (Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself)
“
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? My message would be: “Sugar is toxic.” Sugar and other natural or artificial sweeteners are among the most addictive agents in our environment. When consumed in quantities that exceed the rate of metabolism in muscle or the brain, sugar is converted to fat, resulting in insulin resistance, obesity, and an increased risk of many other diseases, including cancers. While consuming fats and proteins evokes a feeling of satiety, consuming sugars induces a desire for more sugar within an hour or so. We evolved this addiction because, in the not-so-distant past, adding fat to our bodies at the end of a growing season when fruits were ripe was essential for surviving until the next growing season. But today, sugar is available all year round and is one of the cheapest foods available. So we continually add fat to our bodies. We may be approaching a time when sugar is responsible for more early deaths in America than cigarette smoking. I have written and lectured extensively on this subject over the past ten years as our understanding of the biochemical basis for the toxicity of sugar, especially the link to cancer, has become more clear.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World)
“
The body’s metabolism slows down as people lose weight, which means they have to eat fewer and fewer calories to keep losing. But this study showed that, for the contestants who lost weight quickly, their metabolism kept slowing even when they started gaining weight again. Basically, however fat they had been, that’s what their bodies wanted them to be.
”
”
Tommy Tomlinson (The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America)
“
Indeed, it seemed the welcome message was unmistakable: You’re different. We must crush the difference out of you.
There’s a tenacious myth that America glorifies individualism, but trust me, if you are a true individual, you will be persecuted. Schools force-feed you the propaganda version of the world and of history. The bullshit version. So that by the time you graduate you’re chanting along with everyone else: “America, hell yes, white men are number one!” Why? Why do you say America is number one? Because if you actually look at the statistics, around the world America is not in fact number one at anything anymore, except maybe obesity, firearm deaths, the death penalty, and incarceration rates. Oh, and of course, military might and our other big export: American film and television.
This is when reactionaries start yelling about how other countries are worse, so why don’t I go live there, et cetera, et cetera. My view is why not just be better? Why should we continue to feel superior just because other places are worse? That sounds like bad logic to me. We can just be better by thinking differently.
”
”
Rose McGowan (Brave)
“
The first lesson of our journey and theme of this book is that to a degree unnoticed in more privileged parts of America, working-class communities have collapsed into a miasma of unemployment, broken families, drugs, obesity and early death. America
”
”
Nicholas D. Kristof (Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope)
“
Mark longs for the days when his father was a farmer. Things were hard, but life was good. Easier somehow. He’s conveniently forgetting the farm crisis of the ’80s in order to justify his worldview. In reality, there was never a time when people didn’t engage in a relentless battle with the earth. There was never a time when it wasn’t hard to be a farmer, or a time when all families were good and moral and Christian. Even the belief in the wholesome rural community is ill-founded. According to Rural People and Communities in the Twenty-First Century, rural residents are “more likely to experience chronic or life-threatening illnesses.”5 They are more likely to have cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and mental illness. While rates of drug and alcohol use overall are slightly higher in metro areas, use among young people in rural areas is significantly higher than among their urban peers. Additionally, according to the Rural Health Information Hub, “A 2010 report to Congress from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF)6 states that the incidence for all categories of maltreatment was higher in rural counties than in urban counties, with rural children being [two] times more likely to experience harm or endangerment.”7
”
”
Lyz Lenz (God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America)
“
America’s top killer isn’t cancer or heart disease, nor is it smoking or obesity. It’s our inability to make smart choices and overcome our own self-destructive behaviors.
”
”
Dan Ariely (The Irrational Bundle: Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The Honest Truth About Dishonesty)
“
The greatest threat to American lives is not a country or an organization, Americas worst enemy perhaps may not be North Korea, Iran or Al-Qaida, her worst enemy is the excess weight burden of its own population driven by the insatiable appetite for high-calorie diets.
”
”
Oche Otorkpa (The Unseen Terrorist)
“
Clint shared the close quarters of the holding cell: a young, white punk, pierced and tattooed, who passed out on the bench soon after he arrived; a pair of tailored, older men, one black, one Hispanic, argued over a petty drug deal gone awry; an obese Chinese pickpocket muttered to himself in Cantonese. Here, the melting pot that is America displayed her dingiest hue. An odor
”
”
Helen Hanson (3 Lies (Masters CIA Thriller, #1))
“
FACT 1. Populations that eat a so-called Western diet—generally defined as a diet consisting of lots of processed foods and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, fruits, and whole grains—invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Virtually all of the obesity and type 2 diabetes, 80 percent of the cardiovascular disease, and more than a third of all cancers can be linked to this diet. Four of the top ten killers in America are chronic diseases linked to this diet. The arguments in nutritional science are not about this well-established link; rather, they are all about identifying the culprit nutrient in the Western diet that might be responsible for chronic diseases. Is it the saturated fat or the refined carbohydrates or the lack of fiber or the transfats or omega-6 fatty acids—or what?
”
”
Michael Pollan (Food Rules: An Eater's Manual)
“
real incest symptoms include bulimia (to shrink from sight), obesity, wearing baggy clothing or many layers of clothing (in an attempt to cover up from peering eyes and to provide protection by appearing larger), eating disorders, substance abuse, perfectionism (an attempt to overcompensate for feelings of worthlessness), depression, suicidal ideation, promiscuity, prostitution, self-harm, phobias, homosexuality, and more.
”
”
Judith Reisman (Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America)
“
our own entitlement system. The weight of our government supporting people who can but won’t work, who talk on cell phones they did not pay for, who have children they cannot feed, who live in houses they cannot afford, who drive cars they cannot put gas in, and who eat themselves into obesity, while others work and pay the taxes that you use to buy their votes. They have become the majority. There is no way for the hardworking, taxpaying members of society to vote you out. That is what is wrong with this country. That is what has led to the problem we now face. If you continue to do that, one of two things will happen. Our economy will collapse further, until we cannot recover, and then we will no longer be the United States of America. A nation will arise that none of us will recognize, that most of us will not want to live in.
”
”
Mike Foster (The Right To Bear Arms: After the Riots Begin)
“
In 1925, an advertisement began appearing in newspapers and magazines across America. It depicted a slim woman with short hair standing on a diving board, clad in a one-piece bathing suit, looking pleased with her herself. But next to her, in shadow, stood her future self: dowdy and obese. “This Is You Five Years From Now!” read the caption. “When Tempted to Over-indulge, Reach for a Lucky Instead.” The ad, for Lucky Strike cigarettes, was made by American Tobacco, which was the first cigarette manufacturer to realize that obesity could be used as a marketing cudgel. Until then, smoking had been an overwhelmingly male pastime. But in looking to expand sales, the cigarette manufacturers began pitching tobacco to women as an appetite suppressant.
”
”
Anonymous