Obese People Need Help, Not Blame!
posted on: September 04, 2016. posted in: Weight loss
I'd like to share a little story with you.
A story that I hope will change your views on overeating, obesity and the shocking way this country treats obese people.
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Once upon a time there was a small village. With a small number of villagers. Who spent their days living and working in their small wooden huts.
The villagers worked the land, farmed the land and fed from the land, giving them everything they needed to survive and thrive.
And thrive the village did.
A small number of wooden huts turned into a large number of wooden huts. A small number of farms turned into a large number of farms. And with this growth came new production, new processes and new ways to make and sell their food.
The villager's diet was once based around fresh, simple, natural foods. But as the village and population grew they began to make more longer lasting, cheaper to produce PROCESSED FOOD.
Meals slowly changed from fresh meat, vegetables and the occasional whole grains, to meals made from cheap, beige, hyper-processed refined grains. All with added fat and sugar and flavourings, to make the cheap, processed meals more palatable.
Snacks changed from fruits, berries, nuts and seeds, to sweets, biscuits, cakes and treats. Again, with added fat and sugar and flavourings, to make the cheap, processed treats more palatable.
Gone were the days where the villagers prepared their meals at home, from fresh, natural, nutritious ingredients.
Now there was a Burger Hut, a Fried Chicken Hut, a Coffee Hut, a Cake Hut, a Chocolate Hut, a Cookie Hut, and even a Pizza Hut, that would deliver food to your hut door. So there were 100s of new Food Huts, providing 1000s of different types of convenient, processed, super-tasty food.
The result was inevitable.
The villagers ATE more.
And as the Food Huts created less and less nutritious food, and ever more tasty, ever more addictive types of processed food...
The villagers got HOOKED more. And BINGED more.
The increase of calories drove their weight up and up and up. So the villagers grew fatter and fatter and fatter. And as that fat took its toll on their bodies, they grew sicker and sicker and sicker.
The village obesity epidemic was born.
When the obese villagers visited the Health Hut to seek help, support and advice from their doctors, they were told...
"Eat less. Exercise more. Lose weight."
Simple advice.
But so hard to stick to.
Because everywhere you went in the village were Food Huts. Every turn. Every corner. Every track and every trail led to more and more calories. And not just calories. Hyper-processed. Hyper-addictive. Impossible-to-resist calories.
The owners of the Food Huts were making a killing. Literally. They'd mastered the art of addiction. Of how to create foods and flavours you cannot say no to. Foods that are engineered to activate the same part of the brain as the most addictive and damaging drugs.
For the obese villagers...
FOOD WAS A DRUG.
So they tried desperately to eat less.
They tried to so hard avoid the Food Huts.
But the owners of the Food Huts used branding, advertising and sponsorship to make their processed, addictive products UNAVOIDABLE. And not just unavoidable. So ingrained in the psyche of the villagers, that they couldn't envisage not eating them.
The McDonald's Hut, the Coke Hut, the Kellogg's Hut, the Weetabix Hut, the Cadbury's Hut and the Nestle Hut had become brands so powerful and influential, that the villagers invited them into their homes and their lives as part of the family.
Even the village government invited them into their talks and discussions around village nutrition. So with a bit of lobbying here, and a few backhanders there, the super-rich, super-powerful owners of the Food Huts were creating, shaping and providing the village nutrition guidelines.
Based around their processed junk, of course.
Which meant the village children grew up not just eating their processed products. But thinking and believing it was normal, right and HEALTHY to eat their processed products. Not realising that once upon a time, before the Food Huts and the village obesity epidemic, these junk foods DIDN'T EXIST.
By now they did exist.
Obesity was rocketing.
And FOOD HUTS were the cause.
As the message from the Health Hut kept being spread...
"Eat less. Exercise more. Lose weight!"
Up popped more and more Slimming Huts, to help the villagers diet, restrict their calories, eat less and get in shape.
And how did they help them do that?
By selling their own brands of processed food, claiming it was healthier and better for you than Food Hut food, even though it was actually made by the Food Huts, but just packaged with a healthy label.
"Swap fatty Food Hut cookies, for low-fat Slimming Hut cookies!"
Both cookies. Both processed. Both junk.
And both ultimately going to make you FAT.
Sadly, as time went on the village doctors, health experts and even the VHS (Village Health Service) promoted, supported and subsidised the Slimming Huts, as well as providing free memberships for the villagers.
So the villagers went to the Slimming Huts weekly. The villagers did eat less and lost weight, with incredible stories and testimonials from successful village slimmers. Stories of men and women losing 5, 6, 7, even 10 stone by swapping fatty Food Hut foods for low-fat Slimming Hut foods.
But still the obesity epidemic grew and grew.
Still the villagers got fatter and fatter. Even though the number of Slimming Huts grew higher and higher. In fact, the rise of village Slimming Huts was proportional and perfectly aligned to the rise of village obesity.
But nobody thought to link the two.
So the Village Health Service was facing crisis point. Breaking point. Buckling under the ever increasing weight of the obese villagers.
The Slimming Huts WEREN'T WORKING.
If they were, village obesity would have been wiped out decades ago, when they first popped up with the promise of life long weight loss. But villagers were losing weight in the short term, then "falling off" the diets, binging at the Food Huts and gaining even more in the long term.
Getting fatter and fatter...
Bigger and bigger...
With every Slimming Hut they tried.
Desperate times, called for desperate measures. So the VHS decided to ban the obese villagers from routine surgery, in an attempt to force them into losing weight. A move which clearly laid the blame for obesity with obese villagers, rather than with the Food Huts or Slimming Huts.
For one rebellious villager, this was the last straw.
He stood up in the centre of the village and had a little rant....
"Seriously? Seriously??! You think obesity is the obese villagers' fault??? You're blaming them and punishing them, and risking their already compromised health and wellbeing by banning them from operations???
Can't you see what's going on?
Don't you understand the cause of obesity?
Can't you see the cycle this village is stuck in?
1. The Food Huts sell hyper-addictive food.
2. Villagers become obese eating them.
3. So they visit the Health Hut for help.
4. Who refer them to the Slimming Huts.
5. Who sell them food from the Food Huts.
Then we're back to 1 again!!!
The cause of village obesity is ADDICTIVE, PROCESSED FOOD. Created by the Food Huts, and now sold to obese villagers by the Slimming Huts, disguised as "low-fat" or "low-carb" or "healthy" or "organic".
It doesn't matter what the label says.
It's all processed, addictive FATTENING FOOD!!
The only way we'll stop obesity...
Is if we stop it at the source...
FOOD HUTS.
Hitting them where it hurts, not the poor obese villagers.
Tax them. Fine them. Restrict them. And BAN THEM from their deceptive marketing practices. Not obese people from operations. Operations they probably desperately need, because of the damage done to them by the Food Huts!!!"
Liam
[If you'd like to learn more about how we can help, please feel free to email us for a non-judgemental conversation about your weight and nutrition.]
