The Pandemic Soul

I’ve been thinking a lot about the obesity problem we have in America. I myself am overweight, and have always struggled with this issue since I’ve been a child. I’m not an overly active person. I don’t fidget. I like my couch. I love McDonald’s.

There are some irksome issues with how we deal with this problem in our country. It gets a lot of press, and we see a lot of reports about how the country is overeating ourselves to death. We see those pictures on the evening news of people’s fat asses sitting on park benches with their cracks hanging out.

The country is told that we need to eat more healthy. Exercise more. Eat margarine. Eat butter. Eat eggs — no, don’t eat eggs. Who the hell knows anymore?

The fact is, though, that obesity is going to overrun our public health system. Diabetes and heart disease are huge contributions to the strain already sitting on the system. In 20 years, when the land of good-and-plenty is even more healthy-sized, who’s to say how many people are going to need wheel-chair access to get into a movie theater?

If anyone in the government wants to fix this problem, then here’s the solution: quit throwing money in the wrong direction. Take, for example, a recent article I read: Chicago unveils most ambitious bike plan in the United States (via Digg).

Great job, mayor of Chicago. At least your heart (pumping furiously to counteract your plaque-filled arteries, I’m sure) is in the right place. But why in the world are they spending so much money to cater to a segment of people that is too small to matter? I’ve seen the same thing happen here in Arkansas: $12.5 million dollar, federal transportation-funded, foot bridge going across the Arkansas river. Oh, and did I mention it will be the longest footbridge in the United States when it’s complete? WTF?

Howabout this: instead of spending millions of dollars to cater to those insane assholes who ride bikes all over town, instead why don’t we subsidize gym memberships? Let’s create a federal funded, state-assisted, program that works like this: gyms start using people’s drivers licenses to track comings-and-goings. Each month, gyms submit a non-identifying database of gym usage to the government. Government sends a subsidy check to the gym. State or local governments can decide how affordable it is for people. Perhaps lower-income bracket people get 100% subsidy, while middle income gets 50%, and so on? I don’t know, just throwing numbers out there.

My point here is that lower-income people often need this kind of assistance the most. It’s shown that people with lower incomes eat poorly because they can’t afford “better” food. I myself am in a bit of a cash-crunch right now, and am eating junk food all the time. I’ve been wanting to get back to working out six days-a-week, like I was two years ago, but just don’t have the money to do so right now. You’d better believe that if it was free, though, I’d be there.

I’m not against governments making our cities more pedestrian friendly, or biker friendly. But what I am against is putting money in a place where a non-optimal number of people are going to use it. How many people in Arkansas own a bike good enough to ride for their health, and live within 10 minutes of this bridge? Not enough. If the whole state had access to exercise equipment, more people would get the benefit.

And how about health clubs and gyms? Can we say “BOON”?! I realize that the free-market doesn’t usually have this kind of government input, but if it helps America be a stronger, more healthy population, then shouldn’t we do what it takes?