Fixing a World That Fosters Fat

S**t for brains at the NYT.

WHY are Americans getting fatter and fatter? The simple explanation is that we eat too much junk food and spend too much time in front of screens — be they television, phone or computer — to burn off all those empty calories.

One handy prescription for healthier lives is behavior modification. If people only ate more fresh produce. (Thank you, Michael Pollan.) If only children exercised more. (Ditto, Michelle Obama.)

Unfortunately, behavior changes won’t work on their own without seismic societal shifts, health experts say, because eating too much and exercising too little are merely symptoms of a much larger malady. The real problem is a landscape littered with inexpensive fast-food meals; saturation advertising for fatty, sugary products; inner cities that lack supermarkets; and unhealthy, high-stress workplaces.

In other words: it’s the environment, stupid.

“Everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat junk food and you should exercise,” says Kelly D. Brownell, the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. “But the environment makes it so difficult that fewer people can do these things, and then you have a public health catastrophe.”

Dr. Brownell, who has a doctorate in psychology, is among a number of leading researchers who are proposing large-scale changes to food pricing, advertising and availability, all in the hope of creating an environment conducive to healthier diet and exercise choices.

To that end, health researchers are grappling with how to fix systems that are the root causes of obesity, says Dee W. Edington, the director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan.

Recall that Kelly Brownell is a fat pig (see image at top), works at Yale where athletic facilities are available and crusades against "junk food." He is a clear failure at what he preaches.

In 1999, the University invested $100 million to upgrade Payne Whitney Gymnasium—already the second largest gym in the world—and the renovations have helped both varsity and casual athletes stay in shape.

In the fall of 1998, the University unveiled the Adrian C. "Ace" Israel Fitness Center. Free for all students, this workout area contains 21,000 square feet of state-of-the-art equipment, including treadmills and Stairmasters, Elliptical and Nautilus machines, and various types of free weights. The exercise environment has also been enhanced by the addition of a surround-sound stereo system and several cable televisions.

It is not the environment, stupid.

It is the stupid, stupid.

The fat and stupid, like Michellesie "The Cow" "I cleanse toxins out of my body" Obama (pictures at the end) and Kelly B., should shut the f**k up and get out of the way so people who know how to succeed at weight loss can take the lead.

Small wonder the NYT continues its decline.

Here is the moron champion of kids and role modelette, Michellesie "The Cow" Obama: