gulch – from the Middle English *gulches* – “to drink greedily, to spew”
It seems only appropriate after the family traditions of gatherings, roastings, fryings, cookings, bakings and the assorted anticipatory culinary activities leading up to certainly one of the most “pig-out” days of the year for Americans, that your author turns to the statistics on what Americans SAY they want, versus what they actually DO.
While innocently poking around on my iPhone apps (yes, I am a confirmed Apple fan-boy) this a.m. on “Black Friday,” I was surprised and delighted to find that the Gallup News app has a section on “Well-Being.” The top two stories caught my eye:
- American’s Eating Habits Worsening in 2013– (published 11/27/2013}
- Americans’ Desire to Shed Pounds Outweighs Effort – (published today 11/29/2013, and, ironically enough, the day after our annual national “pig-out.”
The first reference, published the day before Thanksgiving (was this a sign?) notes that the % of adults in the US who “ate healthy all day yesterday”, reported through October of this year and all the way through December of last year, is consistently worse than it was in 2012. Looked at as a trend line, the same number, traced all the way back to the beginning of 2008 appears to be trending downward steadily: in other words, fewer people are eating healthfully every year. The last figure was 64.5% of Americans were eating healthfully the day before they were surveyed. The flip side, of course, is that that means that fully 35% of us are NOT eating healthfully – pigging out on fast food, twinkles, carbs ad libitum, and whatever catches our particularly profligate food drive at the moment.
In terms of weight reduction activities, things are even more desultory. Looked at from as far back as 2003 – when 58% of us said that we would like to lose weight but only 24% were actually doing something about it. The numbers have trended downward since then in terms of people that are actually concerned about losing weight (from 58% down to 51% now) , while the same sorry percentage of 25% (or about 1 out of 4 who know we need to lose weight) are actually DOING something about it.
Strangely, this indifference to actually doing something about it, coupled with the fact that there appears to be even a DECREASE in perceptions about weight issues is striking taken in the context that in 1991 48% of the US acknowledged that they were “very or somewhat overweight” and now only 36% do!
The take home message: we are getting fatter, we aren’t trying to do anything about it, and we now seem to have taken it as a given.
WHY IS THAT??
In a few words: hopelessness, past failures, lack of education about what to do, time demands impeding weight loss efforts and, in some cases (but a minority) – just old-fashioned laziness. Most commonly, however, I see patients that are confused, don’t know what to do, don’t even know how many calories are in a pound of fat, don’t have the time to “diet or exercise,” and are just hopelessly frazzled in terms of what to do about it. [Just to be fair: there are some patients that are trapped by medical issues that it is beyond them to extricate themselves from – one particularly dear patient comes to mind. But in general, there is a severe lack of education about these matters, and a lack of effort.]
WHAT IS THE CWI SOLUTION?
I think it’s time that we at CWI began working with people in our local community and area to do something about this. The techniques and concepts are actually simple. As my mentor’s (Jim Rohn’s) mentor (Earl Shoaff) said to him: “Mr. Rohn, the difference between success and failure are about a half dozen things.”
Look for news from CWI (on our Facebook Fan Page, blog posts (right here) and Twitter feeds (@LouisCadyMD) for our amazing, no-exercise no-dieting required “fat-inocculation” plan between now and New Year’s. In fact, if you come to these programs and continue gorging yourselves at the Golden Arches (or equivalent), you will need antipsychotic treatment, not diet treatment – it will be that powerful. Along the way, we’ll have some fun with new critical facts that you absolutely need to know, and we will lay the groundwork for the start of our CWI active treatment group for weight loss beginning RIGHT AFTER THE FIRST OF THE YEAR – just in time for your New Year’s Resolutions to come true (if weight loss is on your resolutions).
So, if weight is an issue in the meantime, perhaps you might want to rent “SuperSize Me” over the weekend to begin your mental readjusting. Stay tuned to this blog, our Facebook fan page, or other sites for updates on our soon-to-be revealed program!
