Comments on the semester's blogs
Certainly I've come a long way. From the first, hesitant, self-conscious blog to today's about Sergeant Hanh. With the Free Blogs my writing has evolved. I guess it started with my musings on our cat, Sassy. I used to write a weekly op-ed column when I lived in New York City, and I thought about resurrecting some of those topics, but the Sassy blog got me to thinking about things I just want to talk about. So in that sense, it's a lot like what the op-ed column turned into. (I just ended two sentences in a row with prepositions, or should I say I just used prepositions to end two sentences with.)
I actually woke up today with the notion that I should write about Hanh, even though I had no idea if I had enough material. And this on top of having spent a couple of days wondering what the hell I was going to write about this week. I put on a pair of running shorts, sat down at the keyboard, and rapped it out. I didn't want to leave. At the same time I was thinking about how to rewrite my Popular Revision of the Research Paper.
I think this one -- about Hanh -- and the one about racism are my favorites. I had what I thought was something interesting to say, and I said it fairly well. They're also the most personal by far. It's tough to write something that means so much, but once it starts, it's, well, magic.
I plan to keep writing, free writing, maybe blogging. Trouble is I only want to write for this class. I hope they keep reading. I'll check in once or twice a week to see if anybody else is doing the same.
Oddly, my wife Googled her own peace group, MothersUniting, and came upon my blog, since I mentioned her group in one of my earlier pieces, and apparently there aren't that many mentions of her group out there in cyberspace. Yet. It scared the hell out of me because I wasn't sure she should see it, and I certainly wasn't writing it with the idea that she'd read it. She didn't see all of it, but she liked what she saw.
I really like some of my stuff. I think the desultory tone to some of the earlier, required-not-free blogs made them my worst, like the interview with Mark Long about the exciting state of English Literature.
Free Blog #13 -- Sergeant Hanh
Hanh and I were in my jeep, driving up QL1 from the Phu Bai combat base to Hue City, when he quietly told me he had some interesting information and was wondering what to do with it. I glanced over and saw he was looking straight out the windshield. I asked him what it, the information, was, and he remained silent for perhaps a minute. I was on the verge of asking him again, when he said, "I know a man who happens to be VC, and he wants to defect in place." I almost drove off the road.
Information, indeed. "What level?" I asked.
"Province level." Wow.
For the first time he looked at me. I guess I wasn’t watching the road, because I had been staring at Hanh since he said "defect in place." Hanh looked excited. "What do we do?"
"I don’t know, Hanh; I’ll find out."
"Today?"
"Yeah. Today."
Hanh was a sergeant in the ARVN – Army of the Republic of Vietnam. I was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Counterintelligence. He was my I/T – Interpreter/Translator. A good man. Married with one child. I used to buy my full ration of cigarettes on my MACV card and give them to him for what I had paid. I didn’t smoke. Hanh did, but I don’t think he smoked the full ration. Selling the American cigarettes on the black market probably helped a lot with his family budget, since ARVN sergeants didn’t make much.
Like most of the Vietnamese I met, he was smart, playful, and had a great sense of humor, although sometimes humor didn’t come through translation very well. That, more than most things, was the earmark of our cultural differences. When we’d be riding together, he asked me a lot of questions about life in the U.S. I was a little more circumspect in my questions about his culture, not wishing to offend with any sense of superiority. I cared a lot for Hanh.
He floored me one day with an impression of Leonid Brehznev smoking a cigarette. At first I didn’t get it, and then I saw Brehznev. He had caught every detail. I don’t know how he had ever seen the Soviet premier smoking, or how I had seen it enough to recognize it, but there it was. I didn’t offer him my Brando impression, but I hadn’t really perfected it back then, so I just laughed and made a note to do my Nixon for him sometime.
I talked to my Captain and we planned to have Hanh set up a meeting between him and the VC guy. The Captain was even more excited than I was, but he was a lifer and the possibility of commendations probably stoked his fire. Defecting in place meant that the guy wanted to come over but would stay "in place" for a while and feed us information. Then he’d rally when it got hot.
The Captain thought if Hanh could get him to meet in a public place and I could surreptitiously take pictures of them together, we’d have him hooked. Then, if he got cold feet about defecting in place, he’d have no choice. He asked me what I’d need. I asked for a Nikon with a lens I had used in the Intelligence Photography Course, a 600-mm lens that was only four inches long. It was literally done with mirrors, and while it looked short enough not to attract attention, as would a lens that was 600mm l-o-n-g, it could shoot from a long distance. Something way off in the background would suddenly be the primary object. The lens weighed a ton. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.
The Captain said he’d see what he could do. In the meantime, Hanh and I made plans to go to the village where he was going to meet the VC, so we could case the scene, and I could take normal pictures to bring back to the Captain, the Major, and everybody else involved in planning the meet locally.
I dressed in PX-bought civvies, wore dark glasses, and brought a Canon with a standard lens. And I had a snub-nosed .38 jammed under my beltline at the small of my back. Hanh and I mingled with the Vietnamese in the marketplace area of the village, chatted, examined the produce, acted like tourists. Well, I acted like a tourist; Hanh acted like my interpreter. I took pictures of him, showing the whole village, the little place where he would sit down with the VC and drink tea and formally recruit him, and the spot from which I figured I could discreetly take the pictures of them together. Hanh told me that the villagers thought I was Korean.
We sat together in the open-air eating place where he was going to meet the VC. We had Coca-Colas together, knock-off stuff from the People’s Republic of China, he said. It was great. Since the train that ran from DaNang to Quang Tri had been blown up, I hadn’t seen a real Coke in weeks. Nothing but Fresca. We never ran out of Fresca. This Coke was as good as anything from Georgia, even though it was warm. You didn’t get anything with ice over in Vietnam, since the water was always suspect, or at least unkind to those not used to it.
We were making small talk when a burst of automatic weapons fire ripped into the trees about three feet behind me, on the other side of the back wall of the eating place. Just a short burst. I almost crushed the glass in my hand, and I got that feeling deep in my stomach that I always got when I was suddenly terrified, or I had seen something really horrible. It was like the feeling you get when you crest a hill, driving fast.
We were so in our casual, two-guys-hanging-out-in-the-vill mode that we didn’t show any reaction at all. That, if anything, should have tipped off anybody watching us that we weren’t normal. Not at all normal. To this day, I have no idea what that burst of gunfire was about, but nothing further happened and after a moment’s hesitation in their routines, the villagers went on as if nothing had happened. I suppose if I had dived for cover, they’d have wondered why.
We developed the pictures and I put an illustrated lecture together for the brass, showing the whole layout of the village and where everything would take place. Colonel Bennett was there, too, having flown up from DaNang in the battalion helicopter. They loved it. The lens was coming in from Fort Holabird. I was scared and excited.
Then the Colonel took me aside and asked me if I really wanted to do it. At first I didn't understand him. He said he’d understand if I bailed out. They’d probably be able to find somebody else to do it, maybe another ARVN I/T. I could show him how to work the camera. I started to wonder what I was getting into. Was there more here than I had figured? I got more scared and more excited. I told the Colonel I wanted to see it through. Hanh and I were a team, and since he sourced this guy, I wanted to work with him on it. And, truth be told, I wanted to get my hands on that lens one more time. The Colonel loved that team talk, that mission stuff. He smiled like a kid, clapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Good luck, Sergeant." Didn’t even shake my hand
I sweated it out for the better part of two weeks, while Hanh gently pushed for the meeting with the VC. The longer I waited the more I feared I had volunteered for something that was probably going to get me killed. And with the monsoon season just starting, it was looking like the picture taking would not be as simple as it would have been in bright, sunny, warm weather. And then word came that the VC had backed out. Got cold feet before we could get him on the hook. It was off. The lens never came up from Saigon.
I think about Hanh, not as much as before, but I think about him, and I wonder how he made out. When the North Vietnamese took over, he wouldn’t have had a good time, if he was still there. Did he get out? Did he get killed? Did he get "re-educated" in some camp? He was smart and resourceful. I like to think he somehow survived. I’d love to see him, but I don’t even remember his family name. Still, I’d love to see him and know he’s okay. And I love to show him my Brando.
Free Blog #12 -- Recruiters and Such
Another New Hampshire kid was killed in Iraq on Sunday, as reported in Tuesday’s Sentinel. Manchester kid, 20 years old, joined the Marines right after graduation in 2003. His mother said, "He wanted to further his education that way. He had all kinds of plans."
I guess he believed the recruiter, as have a lot of high school kids. The No Child Left Behind Act has a requirement of all schools that receive aid under that act. The schools must provide the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all secondary students to the military recruiters. If a family wants to opt out, it has to go through several steps to do so. Most people don’t know about this.
I’ve recently gotten involved with a counter-recruitment effort at Keene High School, where we set up tables and advise the students about the military, dispel myths, answer questions. We’re not there to tell anybody not to go it; we just want them to go in with their eyes open, make an informed decision. Because when they’re only hearing it from the recruiters, they’re only getting half the story. At best. At worse, they’re getting flat-out lied to. After all, what’s the mission of a recruiter? Do they have quotas? If they don’t meet those quotas for a few months, will they go back to a line unit?
Go to a recruiter and collect all the brochures and written material you can. Read them all. See if the words "kill" or "die" are in any of them. They aren’t. That’s the half truth part of their pitch. They forget to tell people that they might have to kill and/or die for a cause they might not necessarily support. Because when you put on the uniform, you’re signing a blank check. If the current occupier of the Oval Office decides to go after an old buddy (like Saddam), you’re part of the team.
Even if you’re inclined to go into the military, I’d think about waiting until Bush gets out and all of his wars have started to simmer down. He’s on a mission, and it’s looking like War Without End right now.
Back to the recruiters. The flat-out lying part of it is when the recruiter says you’ll get your education. That’s what Lance Corporal Brooks was planning on. He isn’t gonna get much of an education now. And about two-thirds of those getting out of the military never gets theirs either, even if they’re still sitting up. That U.S. Government stats, not something I made up.
Another lie? How about you’ll get trained in skills that will carry over nicely to civilian life. 88% of men and 92% of women getting out had nothing they could use out here. That’s from the Wall Street Journal.
Another one? It’ll grow you up. Yeah, somebody telling you exactly what to do every moment, including what you’re going to wear today and how your sock drawer should look, that’ll really mature you. I learned more about myself running my first marathon than I did in five years in the Army, including twelve months in war. That’s the truth.
I’ve seen these guys on campus here, and they have a problem with me. See, I’m an anti-war war veteran. And most pro-war types who have never been there can’t figure that out. I don’t know how anybody could get a full experience of war and come back thinking it’s a great way to handle problems. I think most saber-rattlers have never been in one. Certainly the White House is filled with what we ca;;hicken Hawks. The only one who had ever heard a shot fired in anger was Colin Powell, and he was the only moderate on the war, even when he was mouthing the party line. Doesn’t anybody ever wonder why?
Ther are better ways to get an education, better ways to grow up, better ways to serve your country, ones where you don’t have to kill people, even if you’re at some risk. I once heard a quote, and I never got its source, so maybe I’ll claim it. It was that a hero is somebody who will die for a cause but not kill for it. My wife describes war as a failure of imagination.
Recently I started wearing the little lapel pin that goes with the Bronze Star that I got a long time ago. Whenever I happen to wear a suit or sports jacket, I put it on. Just in case anybody mistakes my anti-war sentiments for a lack of patriotism.
Free Blog #11 - Fans
For most of my life I thought of myself as a Yankee hater. I started out as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, so I had to hate the Yankees. Red Sox fans think they hate the Yankees. They ain’t got nothin’ on Brooklyn Dodger fans. Red Smith said that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel. That was back when U.S. Steel meant something. And back when Red Smith was not only alive but doing some of the best writing in journalism.
The Dodgers left town. My first broken heart. It’s bad enough when your team trades away your favorite player. With the Brooklyn Dodgers, the owners basically traded away the whole team. In a heartbeat, the Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers. It didn’t even sound right. It wasn’t right.
A number of years later the Mets were born. The anti-Yankees. They were fun to watch because nobody expected them to win. They still hold the record for most losses in a single season. But seven years later they won the World Series.
Three years ago, the year the Series was postponed because of terrorism, I was in New Jersey the last weekend of the Series. We were visiting my in-laws, and my mother-in-law, a die-hard, unthinking Yankees fan, was crowing about her Yankees, and then the Yankees lost to Arizona. I was glad to be there for that. But, more important, that was the weekend when I realized I was wrong about my relationship with the Yankees. I haven’t really hated them all these years. In fact, when I look at the team, as it’s pretty much been for the past six or seven years, you know, Jeter, Williams, Posada, even back to O’Neill and Tino Martinez, I like the teams. They execute well, they’re fun to watch. Who couldn’t love the skipper, Joe Torre? And seeing those three faces next to each other in the dugout, Torre, Sottlemeyer, and Zimmer, looking like some baseball version of Mount Rushmore. Good stuff. And back when I lived in New York City and actually rooted for them, Munson, Guidry, Catfish, Reggie, I didn’t hate them then.
No, I haven’t really hated the Yankees all these years. I’ve hated their fans. Their fans are the most arrogant in sports. They can’t simply accept winning so much as their due; they have to make sure everybody knows they’re Yankees fans. They are so committed to winning that they don’t even appreciate the beauty of the game. If somebody beats them on a great play, they can’t see it. All they know is that the Yankees lost. Probably got robbed, if ya wanna know the truth. Because the Yankees really should go 162-0 for the regular season, every season.
What an epiphany! I could let myself enjoy Jeter’s play and not somehow violate any principles. Then I got to thinking. It’s not just Yankees fans. Most fans, when you really look at it, are flaming assholes. There’s a really fine line between the good fun of somebody dressing up funny to go to a professional sports venue and the bozos who take their shirts off – when most of them really ought to leave them on, preferably in several layers – and paint themselves in their team colors. The word "fan" is derived from "fanatic," after all.
The Fenway fans get the "Yankees suck" chant going, and the Sox are playing Kansas City, for crying out loud. I saw my only World Series game in Philadelphia a while back – more than a while, since the Phillies haven’t seen a World Series from the dugout in about 20 years – and when Mike Schmidt, their third baseman, whose bat had suddenly gone quiet for that particular series, came to the plate for the first time in the game, they booed him. The bastards actually booed him, one of the few guys playing at that time who was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. The Phillies wouldn’t have even been in the Series if they hadn’t had Schmidt that year. And they booed him. Fans. If I had been him, I’d have flipped them all out, walked off the field, and refused to wear their goddamned uniform again. And when I went into the Hall, I’d wear the uniform of the other team, whoever it was, even if I had only played for one season with them. But Schmidt, pro that he was, dug in and took his cuts.
So I guess I just don’t get the rabid, crazy fan thing. The guys who wear the authentic gear from their team. Not just a shirt or a jacket. A lot of the gear, all at the same time. I saw a guy a few years ago, here in Keene, short, pear-shaped, and he was wearing a Dallas Cowboys cap, a satin Dallas Cowboys jacket, Dallas Cowboys sweat pants. He didn't look like anybody who had ever seen the inside of a locker room, and there he was, all decked out. I looked to see if he was wearing cleats. You can’t go a day without seeing somebody who looks like he – or she – is in the pit crew of some NASCAR driver, somebody named Ricky or Jeff or Dale, probably, since they all seem to have one of those three names. They wear so much of the gear that you wonder how they can afford it. Do they go to work like that?
I like watching a game where I don’t have a strong leaning for one team or the other. Then I can really appreciate the game. I tried that this year with the Yankees and Red Sox. But by the time they played in the League Championship Series, I was hooked on the Sox. They were so grubby and so damned good. Most important, they were having fun. They were laughing, during the game, like any of us would hope to be if we were there. In truth, any of us there would be so nervous we’d forget to have fun. But they were like kids. They were having fun. And when they were down three games to none, down 4-3 in the ninth, facing the best closing pitcher in the history of the game, they took the whole thing by the throat, and they didn’t let go until they had won that game and the next seven in a row, shutting down some of the best bats in the game. It made me feel more like a fan than I’ve felt for a long, long time.
A couple of days after the Sox beat the Yankees, I caught a clip of Joe Torre’s press conference after that series, and he said something like, "Yeah, I’m disappointed. I’m more disappointed for some of the guys on the team who’ve never been in a World Series. But then, on the other side, there’s a guy named Wakefield, and his season ended badly last year. And he’s going to the World Series. So it’s not all bad." Class act, that Torre.
The same day there was a letter in the Sentinel from some woman saying something like, "Oh yeah? Well, now you’ve finally won one. Let’s see, how many have the Yankees won?" And on and on. And I started hating Yankees fans all over again. She should be made to sit in a small room with George Steinbrenner and watch the clip of Torre's remarks over and over again until, say, Spring Training.
Research Blog #7-- Lay Summary of Research Findings
For some time now I have been interested in the odd juxtaposition of a plethora of diet books on the best-selling lists and the dramatic increase in obesity. The rate of this increase is more geometric every day. And it seems the more wonder diets on the bookshelves, the fatter we get. Obesity, according to most experts, is the most pressing health issue of our time, being associated with heart disease, hypertension, stroke, liver disease, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, and various cancers, most notably, colon cancer. It is now an epidemic. What has changed? Why is obesity not only increasing but also increasing in its rate of increase?
Certainly, the availability of cheap, convenient, calorie-laden, fatty, good-tasting food in huge portions and aggressively marketed is a factor in the supply side of the calorie equation. And on the expenditure side of the equation, there is an increasingly sedentary lifestyle with labor-saving devices both at work and at home, less leisure time in order to do the physical exercise most jobs no longer require, and a physical environment that discourages walking and bicycling.
If we couple this combination of increasing the calories we put into our bodies – not to mention the inferior, highly-processed quality of those calories – and the decreasing of opportunities to burn those calories with a genetic history where a body that could hang onto its energy and expend it stingily had the best chance for survival, there could be no other result than an alarming rate of increase in obesity.
The research explores these causes, along with a look at possible solutions on both sides of the calories-in/calories-out equation and resistance to those solutions that helps to keep the causes alive. We also investigate the quality of the food we eat, the benefits of exercise – obvious and not-so-obvious ones – and an examination of the genetic pressures that contribute to the ability of human beings to hang onto to our energy, which usually winds up hanging over our belts. This research includes professional journals and popular magazines, three books, personal interviews, and a film.
Free Blog #10 -- Born on Halloween
What a great day to have a birthday! It's the best day of the year for any kid anyway, but to have it come on a day when everybody's dressing funny, and you can go around and get candy at strangers' houses, well, that's just the icing on the cake, so to speak.
It's great to see everybody, I mean everybody, having a great time on your birthday. People you don't even know. Everybody's got a smile on his or her face, even when it's hidden behind a mask.
It wasn't until I was in the second grade that I found out that the parade they held every year on my birthday was not for me. Let's face it, nobody draws a sharp line between what's happening for you on your birthday and everything else. So my birthday had cards, a party, presents, cake, trick-or-treating, a parade. And it was great that so many other people took part in it, too. People I didn't even know. So some kid in the second grade set me straight on the parade. Kids can be so cruel. Hey, kid, we were having this parade before you moved here, okay? Haven't you ever heard of Halloween? Well, yeah, but . . . .Oh.
When I lived in New York City, Halloween was a great study in contrasts, as is so much in that town anyway. There were some people fully participating in the holiday, and others were going about their days as if it didn't exist. Probably even people who were going to go to masquerade parties that very night. I went into a corner grocery on Columbus Avenue one Halloween, and everybody working their was dressed in gorilla outfits. Need something? Just ask the silver-back fellow in aisle 3.
I saw a guy dressed normally with a werewolf head. He was holding his kid's hand, and the kid was dressed the same. He flagged down a cab. And the cab stopped and picked him up. African Americans can't get a cab to stop for them, but werewolves can.
The annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village is one of the great spectacles of the year in that town. Some of the cleverest, wittiest ideas for group costumes are seen there every year. There are politically topical themes, especially in election years, and cultural icons are regularly skewered there. Equal opportunity stuff. I was dating a woman who lived in the West Village, and for my birthday that year she took me to dinner at an Afghanistani restaurant in the East Village. We were walking back to her apartment after the parade had broken up, and I remarked on how many cops there were around. She said, "They aren't cops, you jerk." It was just the village guys taking the opportunity to dress like cops. I couldn't stop laughing.
For the past few years my birthday has centered around my son's trick-or-treating and his school Halloween gig. No more dinners at Nicola's for me. At least on that day. But living in Keene has a way of extending the holiday, owing to the Pumpkin Festival. This year my son was Johnny Damon. We face-painted a beard on him, he already has a mullet of sorts, he wore a Damon #18 jersey, baseball pants and socks and cleats, a Red Sox cap, and carried a bat. In the costume parade at the Pumpkin Festival, he was getting a lot of recognition from the spectators. "Hey, there's Johnny!" "Johnneeeeee!" as only people with New England accents can say it.
Even though I don't forward to birthdays the way I used to -- probably something to do with the size of the number -- Halloween is still a day I look forward to, because it's so damned funny. And seeing it through my son's eyes makes it even better. Maybe if he gains a lot of weight he can be David Ortiz next year.
They ran the New York City Marathon this past Sunday and I still don’t know the results. There used to be a time when I watched it live on television, knew who a lot of the contenders were. I relate to that race, but I don’t follow it anymore. Life has changed since that days when I used to run the marathon.
Emil Zatopek, the great Czech distance runner, once said, "If you want to run a race, run the mile; if you want an experience, run the marathon." I ran five of them. I still cannot believe. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I once heard that Neil Armstrong, after he came back from the moon, was walking his dog late one night in Houston, and he looked up at the full moon. And then it hit him that he had walked on it. But he was looking at the moon as he had always looked at it. And it just didn’t make sense to him that he had been there. It’s like that with a marathon. Even after you’ve done a few of them, it just doesn’t seem that you did. I guess that's why so many people keep running them from time to time.
I always thought it would be an impossible thing to train for. Who’s got time to run 20 miles a day? Then I read an article in a running magazine that showed a reasonable training schedule, based on a plan of alternating hard and easy days, or longer and shorter days, if you will. And I immediately decided I was going to have a go at it. That was in February, and I ran my first New York City in October.
It’s a race that’s impossible for the average human being. You carry about 2000 total calories of available energy in your body, 800 in glucose, a single sugar, in your bloodstream, and 1200 in your liver, stored as glycogen, a double sugar. When you use up glucose, the liver breaks down enough glycogen to replace it. You burn about 100 calories per mile, regardless of pace. That’s 20 miles. Your liver has to get very creative to get you through the last 6 miles 385 yards. Mostly you go it on will.
My first marathon I got a slow start and then pushed to make up the time for the next 10 or 12 miles. Big mistake. You’ve got to listen to your body. If today isn’t the day to run a seven-minutes-per-mile pace, no amount of pushing will get you there over a 26 mile course. It all unraveled going up First Avenue in Manhattan. By the time I got to the Bronx, I was as stiff in the legs as I expected to be the next day – "flash freeze," it’s called. My liver cramped as it started working on things to break down that aren’t all that easy to break down, like amino acids. I’d stop. My liver would catch up on the backlog. I’d start running again, though by that time it didn’t look like the running I was doing in Brooklyn.
Oh, boy, only six or seven more miles of THIS. My goal of a 3-hour marathon began slipping away. Only in Harlem did I get a pickup, with the most enthusiastic crowds in the whole race. Steel drum bands playing the Rocky theme; kids running to open hydrants to bring water. Unbelievable effort. I figured those kids did more work on the sidelines than we did running.
I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever do another one. I always wanted to run Boston, and there’s one in the Humboldt Woods in northern California that goes through the redwoods, called "Avenue of the Giants." Quite a contrast to the crowds in NYC, silent giants. Maybe. For now, I guess I’ll go find a paper and see the results from this past Sunday. And keep carbohydrate loading. That's the fun part. I can always do that.
INTRODUCTION
Obesity is epidemic in the industrialized world, most especially in the United States. Most alarming is its almost geometric rate of increase. The sight of morbidly obese people in public, a rarity 30 years ago, is commonplace today. What has changed?
There is no lack of either theories about obesity’s causes or advice on what to do about it. Indeed, the best-selling book lists are riddled with diet books, and magazines and newspapers rarely go to press without at least some ink devoted to obesity. Each author has the "answer". But the population is getting fatter almost before our very eyes. The direct correlation between the increase in the number of diet books on the best-seller lists and the rate of obesity could tempt a researcher into looking for a cause-and-effect relationship between the two. Do diet books cause obesity? They certainly do not seem to be working. Or are they? Perhaps obesity would be increasing at an even faster rate without them.
All researchers agree that obesity is a major, if not the major, health issue of our time, directly or indirectly contributing to heart and liver disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, and osteoarthritis. 310 million people are affected worldwide. But with all the attention being paid to obesity, the problem only seems to be getting worse.
What are the causes for obesity, and why is it on a head-spinning increase? How have these causes been addressed, and why don’t they seem to be effective? What are we missing?
CONCLUSION
As stated above, obesity’s fundamental cause is a surplus of calories at the end of the day. The solution is to turn the surplus into a deficit until ideal weight is achieved. And one can do that by either taking in fewer calories than he or she burns, or by burning up more calories than he or she takes in. The pressure against dealing on the supply-side is enormous: cheap, easily-obtained, calorie- and fat-laden, tasty, and aggressively-marketed food in huge portions, produced by an entrenched industry that puts huge amounts of money into resisting any societal changes on that side. So the solution, as repugnant as it might sound to the average American, is the deal on the debit side of the calorie ledger: In a word, activity.
If we can learn about the body’s regulatory system for storing and burning calories, our metabolism, not to outsmart or disrupt it, but to work with it, we might be able to find out how to turn up the furnace. The set-point theory answers most of our questions, and science has spent a lot of its time and resources trying to refute it instead of applying it. Because the pressure on the supply side is enormours -- cheap, tasty food, plenty of it, and no work involved in getting it -- our success depends on our resisting that pressure and burning up more of what we have stored.
