1:31 p.m.
With each passing day I worry more and more about the state of health of Americans. I work in a place called "Watterson Towers," a building that is home to hundreds of different offices. And working within those offices, hundreds of obese employees. While I occasionally pass a man that is somewhat overweight, it is the women that worry me the most. I don't know if it's genetics or perhaps a regional thing. Living in CO and FL, I rarely saw anyone who was more than say 15 0r 20 pounds overweight. But here, these people are easily pushing 200, 250, 300 lbs. It saddens me.
Now, I'm not saying I'm skinny by any means. I would categorize myself as being healthy. But not healthy like I was when I lived in the mountains. Yes, I too became a fat ass. I weighed 20 more pounds than I do now. And while 20 pounds isn't a great amount of weight, for someone who is 5'5", it is. And drinking 5 nights out of the week and curing my hangovers by eating Totinos pizza for breakfast probably didn't help any.
But once I realized I needed to get healthy, that was it. I changed my lifestyle, which in turn changed my life (is that redundant?).
So, seeing all of the people who are in desperate need of a lifestyle change deeply troubles me. I was on the elevator (I normally take the stairs, but I had an arm full of paperwork and a package) and the lady next to me had the biggest Big Gulp I had ever seen.
It literally was a gallon of soda. A gallon... Of soda. And this morning I was pulling into the parking lot and passed a lady who easily weighed 225, carrying a huge birthday cake - the kind you get at Kroger that has the sugary sweet frosting. Now, she may have very well been taking that cake to someone else, but I'm pretty sure she was going to have a couple of slices.
I used to work at a Hospital and everyone worked in one big room. At one desk was a bucket of candy, which one nurse would refill each week.
Well, this one lady, who was pretty heavy, would eat and eat and eat. I'm surprised the carpet hadn't worn away from her walking back and forth to the bucket so many times. She went to get candy so many times that a co-worker and I made a game out of it. At the beginning of every morning, we would each write down the number of times we thought she would go to the bucket. We started small at first, but neither of us were even close. By the end we were up to 25, 30 times a day. And I'm not talking a Hershey Kiss or a peppermint. She would eat 25 mini candy bars - Reeces Cups, Kit-Kats, Mounds, Paydays... If someone brought doughnuts or cookies in she would eat 5. Pretty soon it got to be too much and we had to stop counting. It was too depressing. The worst part is, she would always complain that she was too fat and asked how we stayed so thin. Hmmm... maybe because I don't eat 30 meals a day. I don't know. She would come to me and ask me for pointers for eating healthy and exercising. I suggested that she don't eat sugar, fried food, bread, drink soft drinks... I thought she was going to cry. I also told her to try taking the stairs instead of the elevator. She did once and couldn't breathe for like 10 minutes afterwards.
People, you don't have to live this way. It's never too late to make a change.
If you or someone you know wants to get help for obesity, please contact:
Wendy Carlin, MS, RD, LD
Program Coordinator, Division of Adult and Child Health
Kentucky Dept. of Public Health
Telephone: 502-457-1026
Fax: 502-564-8389
E-mail: wendy.carlin@ky.gov
Web site: http://www.fitky.org/
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
No comments:
Post a Comment