Food Fetish

America seems to have a food fetish. Since the Supersize Me movie, a number of programs about food and eating a lot, have come out. I had the interesting experience of seeing one of them today: Man vs. Food. I was flabbergasted. The whole show is about this overweight guy named Adam Richman who goes to various eateries in the U.S. that serves ginormous portions of food to see if he can eat this portion within one hour. So he is seen going in to the kitchen to watch the cook prepare his 12-egg omelette with cheese, mushrooms, and onions inside, and add two large bisquits, a pound of hash browns, and a pound of sausage in it. He comments about how wonderful it looks and how he can't wait to sink his teeth into it. Earlier today we saw him try to eat 5 lbs of steak, two large buns and a pound of creamed spinach and broccoli. He came within two spoonfuls of doing it within an hour. His face was ashen, he was bloated, and God only knows what his stomach looked like on the inside. it must have been stretched way out of shape, not to mention what his arteries must look like. But while everyone in the shop was cheering, hooting, and raising their drunken fists in the air to encourage him, he just kept pushing it down.
This man did manage to get down the omelette but failed to eat the steak dinner. He goes at food like the truest glutton I've ever seen.
Aside from recoiling at what he is doing to his body, I can't believe the message he is sending to young people today. And we wonder why at least 28% of the people in this country can be considered obese (30% over their desired weight). If you look at the people who are watching him gulp down these massive quantities of food, you won't find very many of average size. And there aren't many people in the restaurants who are cheering that I would want my kids to emulate.

People don't think that these kinds of messages stick with young people. Why try to be healthy when these guys on TV look fine (more or less) and are yucking it up with both feet in the trough? There are incredible restaurants and diners in this country that thumb their noses to health. Here's one: the Heart Attack Grill where people over 350 lbs eat for free. They allow non-filtered cigarettes there, and the menu items are things like the Quadruple Bypass Burger, Triple Bypass Burgers, Flatliner Fries, and Jolt Cola. Are these people crazy?

In case you can't tell, this is a bona fide rant. Our country is suffering from poor nutrition, when we are the best fed people in the world. We have so much while the vast majority of the world don't have enough to eat. It is almost painful watching a porky guy chow down a plateful of food that could easily feed a family of six. What are we coming to? While the economy is going downhill and people are struggling with the enormous global issues we face today, the best we can do is watch people gorge and destroy their health?