Obesity?

Well, I don't know about you but this sure seems like a confusing piece of writing. I went and did a little research and found out that this article was part of a special issue on obesity -- that means that the whole issue was dedicated to this one subject. Perhaps this piece made sense in its context, but I found it a bit strange and confusing in its current place. I kept feeling like I was missing key details about the debate. I had no idea, for instance, that there even WAS a debate about obesity as an "epidemic". I actually thought that obesity was a pretty bad problem we have here in america (I think the author said something about 1 in 12 of us are morbidly obese? What is that, like almost 11 million people?). I don't know about you, but flu pales in comparison to the army of truly fat folks that become sick because of their excessive weight. What strikes me about this article is the way it tries to shock and disturb us over and over with statistics and quotes. What is worse, these shock factors throw us off the main point of the article, which is (I think) that a vast majority of Americans are not terribly obese, in actuality, and that the "obesity epidemic" is a thing cooked up by the diet industry to get everyone dieting. Not everyone needs to diet, nor should everyone. Just eating healthy meals and moderate exercise, even when you are slightly "overweight" cuts down on many of the diseases that doctors claim are due to obesity. Sigh. Oh well. Better luck on our next essay.