As someone who has fought overweight most of his life, I have mixed feelings about Wesley Smith’s facile suggestion that our kind (he includes himself) “made ourselves that way.”

Our moms were following dietary “wisdom” promulgated by a government that even then was unduly influenced by folks who stood to make money by our eating choices (e.g., X servings of dairly per day; protein, protein, protein!).

Moms responded rationally to what was dirt-cheap because it was subsidized. Why do you think there’s corn, corn everywhere today, including oceans of high-fructose corn syrup?

Today, mom works 9 to 5 because dad can no longer support the family alone. That, in turn, is because it’s government policy, influenced by business interests in having more workers seeking jobs so as to keep wages low, to “liberate” women from the “drudgery” of staying home. Self-employment’s daunting for dad because health care is somewhat correlated to health insurance which is strongly connected to working for some entity that can deduct the premiums – as a result, mirabile dictu, of government policy.

But consumption must be high – high as in the consumerist frenzy on which the Great Ponzi Scheme depends for a simulacrum of being coherent and successful. Frugality is a sin. The transvaluation of values marches on.

When mom gets home, she’s kinda beat and doesn’t want to be bothered with cooking whole foods before the kids rush off to the evening activities that are now de rigeur. How about some M&C with weenies and high-fructose ketchup? What could be more American?

Self-control is a nice theory, but our bodies responded almost slavishly to the swings of blood sugar wrought by eating over-processed (high glycemic index) foods.

I think I’ve found the answer personally, but it’s been a long series of trial-and-error, and I only was able to try and err repeatedly because I’m educated and well-off enough to move weight control up in the triage line of competing concerns. In other words, I’m eating counter-culturally. Not everyone can do that.

Government policy fed us; it will take some government policy changes to slim us again.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.