Another Case of Finger Pointing and Blame Shifting
An article put out by the BBC states that a recent study of obesity, the largest ever in the UK, has shown that obesity is a rampant problem, costing billions of pounds in treatment and benefits or indirect costs. They say the problem is getting worse every year and than by 2050, the majority of people, at least in the UK, will be obese. I imagine that state will become reality even sooner in the U.S. All this I agree with.What I don't agree with is how the article goes on to say that obesity is no longer the fault of the individual, but of society. They say due to "energy-dense, cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work," people can not help but to gain weight, and that "the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence [has been] abandoned for good." [Editor's note: sorry for the British spellings. They're quotes.]
While I agree that Western society in general is not very conducive to a healthy lifestyle, the stance taken by the article really pushes my buttons. It is yet another example of modern culture's tendency to shift responsibility off the individual and onto something else, be it other people, genes or society as a whole as seen here. Without doing a ton, people can stay healthy if they choose to. Yes, there are certain diseases and conditions that do make it hard or impossible to not gain weight, but the vast majority of people are not afflicted with anything like that. With a little exercise and being conscious about what you eat, you may not look amazing but you won't be obese, either.
I wish that people would learn to just take responsibility for their situations. I'm not talking about just in matters of obesity or health either. All these frivolous lawsuits are examples of this same attitude, that when something happens it is not my fault, it's the fault of whoever made the product for not idiot-proofing it. The attitude that says the fault lies with anyone but you combined with greed is very repelling to me. Thankfully, there has been litigation within the past few years limiting the amount of damages juries are allowed to award, but these lawsuits continue to happen and will keep happening until society as a whole becomes a whole lot smarter, which I don't anticipate happening.
I don't know; maybe all this is just my natural tendency to get incredibly annoyed at stupidity, but I do think this is a problem that doesn't have a conclusive end in sight.
Labels: Current Events
posted by Jeremy @ 7:29 PM
2 Comments:
"costing billions of pounds in treatment"
Hilarious.
I concur, though. Society is being trained to ignore and pass the buck way too easily. It's a downhill spiral that isn't going to go away. I typically end up thinking, "man, their parents must've botched or something," but it's a much larger phenomenon that just a few families. Besides, you aren't your parents and all that jazz.
Haha, I didn't even notice the pun on the British. Good stuff.
You're right; it's not just parents, it's society. But the problem just keeps getting compounded by the fact that now parents are teaching their kids the same thing through their actions, even if the parents didn't originally learn it from their parents.
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