Folks, if you haven't noticed lately, weight loss is a billion dollar industry. Unfortunately, the industry is fueled by our societies portrayal of how the average American should look. Think about it, how often do you see a truly average looking American in a magazine or a movie? This unrealistic portrayal of how Americans look often has a detrimental effect on body image. After being flooded with these idealized images, many Americans often decide to go on a diet for all the wrong reasons. Consequently, a large percentage of these dieters often give up after coming to the conclusion that they will never look like the American ideal.
In the pursuit of this dream body, dieters have lost touch of reality and the true metabolic rules of the body. Our failure to recognize those rules have lead to an unhealthy society, that is fatter then ever. Fifty-five percent of Americans are considered overweight and two-thirds of them are dieting. We are fatter as a society because of inactivity, increasing technology, larger food servings, social eating patterns, early childhood addiction to unhealthy foods, and just too many calories. In fact, we eat about 260 calories more daily and move less than we did in the past. Yet, we have higher expectations on how we should look.
Melvin H. Williams writes, "The regulation of food intake was never designed, through the evolutionary process, to adapt to the highly mechanized conditions in today's society. Hence, the combination of overeating and inactivity has led to increasing levels of overweight and obesity, one of the major health problems in the United States today" (Williams 195). Our calorie expenditure has decreased due to modern improvements. In addition, the American diet is typically high in fat and low in nutrients. What this means for most food consumers, is that we eat over-processed foods. Over processed foods fill us up but they also fill us out.
Each day, people are bombarded with attractive body images presented in movies, magazines, and on TV. In movies, the film reel is packed with images of the American ideal. Many of these images have come to represent how the average man or woman should look. A multibillion dollar industry is supported by these ideal body images, causing countless weight loss programs to surface. Don't believe the hype, work on bettering yourself and not attaining the unobtainable. Your success lies within your personal progress, not on how your body compares to Cindy Crawford's.
"The Trendy Diet that Sizzles: A counterintuitive program reaches critical mass." Newsweek 6 Sept.1999: v134 p60.
Nutrition Concepts and Controversies. West Publishing Company: New York, 1978.
Tribole, Evelyn. "Which weight loss programs work best?" Consumers Digest Sep- Oct 1996:v35 n5 p71(4).
Williams, Melvin H., Nutrition for Fitness and Sport, William C. Brown Company Publishers, Iowa: 1983.
Matthew Johnson (Google+) is a certified personal trainer, nutrition expert and an on-line fitness consultant that started ChangingShape.com back in 2001.
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