Food is not the problem...

In these hectic times and need to be thin, we have lost a treasured tradition, breaking bread.

What better way to screw with someone than to tell them something they cannot live without is wrong?

There are reams of research on healthy eating. I've read quite a bit of it...or should I say I've had it crammed down my throat all my life.

Have you seen the most recent bit of research? Eggs are considered one of the perfect diet foods. Yep. Research has once again declared eggs are healthy, whole eggs. I've watched that particular "tennis" match all my life. I've seen the healthiness of eggs batted back and forth between the worst food on the planet to the whites are healthy, but the yolks aren't, and the yolks are healthy but the whites aren't, and they're the proverbial golden egg. I've completely lost interest and decided research is flawed and a lousy source of "the last word." The very purpose of research is to prove the other experts wrong.

In last Friday's post, I groused about the advice to "get new friends," if you're trying to lose weight and your friends don't eat healthy. I agree with the "birds of a feather" idea. It's true. Unfortunately, the wide-sweeping generalizing is irresponsible, and the research is flawed.

The problem I see, over and over, is the failure to discuss the core problem.

Obesity is a symptom, not the core problem.

We've landed ourselves with 10-year-old girls dieting, who don't need to diet, women comparing themselves to air-brushed unhealthy supermodels, and a diet industry that has gone wild and the only way for them to make money is to keep as many as possible on a diet, not to mention the insane government regulations. Did we learn nothing from Prohibition?

Obesity is a symptom, not the core problem.

As long as it is treated as the core problem, then no one needs to look any deeper. How convenient. Just stop being fat. It's easy to see and measure.

If obesity is the core problem, then all you have to do is cure the obesity and everything is hunky-dory. If it solves the problem, then why do so many people gain the weight right back? And more?

Obesity is a symptom.

Look a little deeper.

If it's a symptom, then what is it indicating? Or is it too scary, too personal, to go there?

I know what my core problem is: I hide behind my weight.

I'm working on changing my perception.

This isn't over. :-)