Maybe the time is right  to talk about the  eat healthy exercise more directive  because it’s clearly  not working.

    Where do we begin?   How about the  Fifties when almost no one was fat.   When   Americans were very active   and ate  nutritious meals that Mom prepared with love.    

   Sorry, but  that idealized view doesn’t jive with the facts.  No   we   weren’t  feeding on lean meats, fresh vegetables, or fruits.   Believe me, fast foods arrived before the Beatles.  White Castle served us greasy burgers and fries and soda. Industrial strength soda;  there weren’t any diet versions.  Same  story with milk or beer.   It was full  calories  ahead.  

 Juices? Unless your mother was a super-mom who squeezed oranges, you drank  frozen concentrate diluted with tap water or canned  tomato juice.

And what about those perfect fresh vegetables?  Maybe  in summer,  but the rest of the time  we ate canned or frozen peas, carrots, string beans, broccoli.   All we knew from lettuce was ice berg.

And, of course, we cooked with Crisco or homemade lard —every home had a tub of it. That’s why the fried chicken, French fries, grits, pie crusts, and cakes tasted so good. 

OK, we’ve put the lie to the idea that the trimmer bodies of the 1950’s were due to more wholesome meals. Let’s take on the myth that we were exercising.

Today, we all  spend hours at our computers. Sure,  sitting doesn’t do much for the shape of your butt,   but what’s the difference what you sit  in front of ?  Is a  typewriter better?? 

   You’ve seen fat construction workers and  thin manicurists,  right?  Work that requires heavy manual labor doesn’t guarantee a svelt bod, nor does work that keeps you seated equal added pounds.

Did we burn more calories watching network TV than we  do now  watching cable?   TV programming was limited then,  so  we also sat and  played cards and board games. Or,  sat and read a book.   We weren’t  jogging  or going to the gym.  Health clubs  didn’t  start until the 1970s and even then most women didn’t sign on because,  believe it or not,   sweating was  unfeminine.  So how come when  50s moms delivered four  kids,  they still managed to get back into pre-baby wardrobes?

Bottom line, we sat every chance we got, just like today– because that is what human bottoms like to do.

Then why are we fatter than our parents and grandparents?  The simple, unvarnished, scientifically researched answer from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is that we just plain eat more. The CDC reports that women today eat 22 percent more than women did in 1971.  Go back to  1958 and  the number is  30%!   And we’re not talking apples to apples unless we are actually  eating  apples.  Because we can’t  compare  thousands of calorie-free beverages and reduced-fat foods to the limited, full strength selections back then. 

If over consumption got us into this mess, why didn’t we all just eat less? I’ll tell you why. Because in the 1980s, legions of  fitness gurus and diet experts—some of them physicians– became media savvy and perfected their messages. They convinced us that we needed  the magical trifecta:  : eat only foods that are healthy ( eliminating fats then carbs); exercise( beat up your body and “burn” calories)   and drink at least eight glasses of water a day.

 So  first,   eager Americans embraced the  “go for the burn/no pain no gain” body-damaging exercise to get rid of the extra calories;  sort of  our  20th Century version of the Roman vomitoriums.

Bad choice:  the Pennington Biomedical Research Center recently determined after a six-month study that dieting alone reduces weight just as well as dieting and exercising.   People who cut calories 25 % by only  dieting  and those who cut calories 12.5% through diet and 12.5%  with exercise  lost the same amount of weight. Worse both groups experienced   the same  decrease in muscle mass and basal metabolism!    So  exercise is not a weight loss solution; but it sure helps your heart, muscles and immune system. 

Second, the diet industry convinced us that grazing, formerly known as snacking,   was healthier than eating regular meals. This meant that consuming food anywhere at any time wasn’t just acceptable, it was downright medicinal.  As for quantity,    we  so  want to believe that if it’s  “good” food, you can’t eat enough.  If blueberries make you smarter are you just going to eat a few?   Except that reason tells us that the more often your stomach is stretched, the more you must shovel in to feel sated.

The third development– the glorification of water –  led us to believe that we could drink away our  hunger or even  “wash” away  those calories.     In 1976,  each of us annually drank only a gallon and a half  of  bottled water.  Today we each  drink 28 gallons. Now we know there has been some climate change—obviously made worse by the need to dispose of billions of plastic water bottles– but  we don’t live in deserts today and we weren’t dying of thirst 30 years ago.

What’s the current word from the experts who gave us all this flawed advice?  Well, you better believe they’re distancing themselves from their past weight loss theories. Now, they really know what the problem is and how to fix it. And, make us feel better about ourselves at the same time.  If you’re over weight, it’s not your fault.  Genetics, set points and stress hormones are to blame.

They don’t exactly say we have mutated in just 50 years, but the implication is that we have no longer have control over our bodies  because after decades of gaining and  losing and then regaining they aren’t cooperating.

   It’s  a complicated situation and we’re  burnt out from all the talk and  failed solutions.  And maybe being thin is overrated, especially now that  seven out of 10 of us are  not. 

 Take  Al Gore, for example.  Gore?  Yes  the man who was and still is  way ahead.  The man who saw the potential of the internet and the problems of climate change.   The author of the latest best seller, The Assault on Reason.  The recent Nobel Laureate. Remember how he looked at last year’s Oscars ?   He was large enough for conservative pundit Ann Coulter to quip that:   “It looks like Al Gore swallowed Michael Moore.” As smart as he is, he is still unaware  that his size undermines his environmental cred.  No matter the mode of transportation, the more you weigh, the more fuel it takes to get you where you’re going.

Speaking of going, I’m going to end now without any quick fix, but with some food for thought.  Stop forcing yourself to  guzzle water and quit beating yourself up for not eating healthy—it’s ungrammatical at the very least—or   exercising more.  Instead,   teach yourself to close your mouth sooner and open it less often and you are on your way to a better body.