Super-Sizing America

For some of us, food is warmth and love. We associate it with
home and childhood: tempting smells that greeted us after school
on a cold December afternoon. The kitchen served as the center
of the house under the kindly direction of the Captain in the
apron. If we were good, we might be allowed to stir the pot. If
we were very good, we got to clean out the mixing bowl.

As we grew up, we found wonders elsewhere: the coffee shops and
diners where adolescents gathered and food was only a platform
for the real business of talking, bonding, and flirting. We
drank cola and root beer and discovered sundaes, pizza and
french fries. But real food was what we ate at home.

Later, we moved on to the pale imitation of food represented by
college cafeterias and underground cafes that were heavy on
music and political rebellion and light on the menu. We returned
home for the holidays and again ate real food, as good as we
remembered. Some of us moved on to the non-food of C rations and
swore we’d never enjoy eating again.

We moved into the world of work: automats and deli lunches or
expense-account steak and martinis where even the most exquisite
fare took a back seat to table discussions. We married, moved
into new homes, rediscovered the warmth and intimacy of a family
kitchen and embraced the delights of gourmet cooking, homemade
bread, and nouvelle cuisine.

At the same time, just below our level of awareness, the fast
food industry started to blossom into the billion dollar gorilla
it is today.

At first, it was small hamburgers and hot dogs with french fries
and a drink. At first, it was an occasional visit to “get mom
out of the kitchen.” At first, it was just something fast that
avoided interruptions in our race to the top.

The menus expanded to encourage more frequent visits.
Drive-Thrus that sat closed and empty until noon suddenly
discovered how to make breakfast items that could be eaten at
the wheel. Chicken, fish, and ribs were added, soon followed by
Mexican specialties, baked potatoes, fried vegetables, and
sandwiches. The burgers got bigger and so did we.

Somewhere, a brilliant light bulb exploded in an ad man’s brain
and “Super-Size” was born. If a burger was good, why not make it
bigger for just a little more money? If fries are the staff of
life for American teenagers, why not make the portions bigger?
Why not make the best purchase value a whole meal, combining
everything the customer wants (and maybe something they don’t)?
Why not Super-Size the whole meal and really make money?

Rather than an occasional change-of-pace, the Drive-Thru
gradually assumed a predominant place in our diets. Astute
marketers targeted their sales pitches to the most responsive
and easily manipulated niche of the population: children. Tired,
time-strapped parents yielded to tearful pleas to visit Ronald
or Jack. And our children grew fat.

Teenagers, with their deep-seated psychological preference to
live in their cars existed on a diet made up, almost
exclusively, of fast food, turning up their noses at the thought
of a home-cooked meal. Active and full of energy, they ignored
the almost imperceptible puffiness that their intake triggered.

What was there to worry about? The Drive-Thrus were a gift from
heaven: tasty food, fast access, car-proof containers, cheap
satiation.

Then we woke up. We looked at a world where even the average
individual was clearly overweight and more than a third of us
were obese, even our children. In a culture obsessed with the
appearance of being thin, we were become permanently,
indisputably, fat.

The few earlier voices of criticism increased to a low roar. The
tasty creations of yesterday became the now-maligned culprits of
our condition. To keep the money-machine viable, the fast food
moguls adapted to the cries for change: the oil used for frying
was trumpeted as unsaturated, salads appeared on menus,
substitute sides for french fries became available, and
“Super-Size it?” was no longer the order taker’s standard
refrain.

The industry breathed a sigh of relief seeing that a few changes
made everything all right and the world could return to its
infatuation with the Drive-Thru. We beamed with a sense of
satisfaction that we had prodded the market in a healthier
direction. Then we noticed that we were still fat.

Where had we gone wrong? Well, the “small” burgers were still
big: two to three times the size of their relatives of forty
years ago. The salads were healthy until drenched with several
hundred calories of creamy dressing. To maintain the taste we
had come to love, toppings were added: more kinds of cheese,
butter, relishes and dipping sauces. And everything was still
primarily fried: breakfast, burgers, chicken, potatoes. Even
high quality, frequently-changed deep fry oil is loaded with
calories to be deposited on our waistlines, hips, and internal
organs.

Fast food has taken us out of the kitchen into a world where the
demand for productivity makes us work harder and longer and
steals away any notion of spare time. We run to keep pace with a
society spinning ever faster and we eat on the run because to
pause is to fail. Is there no escape? This is the Twenty-first
Century — returning to the food regimes of fifty or a hundred
years ago is improbable. The old fashioned “made from scratch”
meals require too much time and effort, except for special
occasions, in our fast-paced, two-working-parents,
long-work-and-commute lives.

What we can do, if we seek to withdraw from the enormous herd
of heavyweights, is to remember that the way to health,
slenderness, delayed aging, and increased longevity has been
demonstrated repetitively by our little friend, the laboratory
rat.

The secret is consistent, prolonged, cheat-proofed,
under-eating. Once that core concept has been adopted, and
completely internalized, the pathway to a new, thin you becomes
clear: eat whatever you want but a LOT LESS. We’re not looking
at the old adage of “eat moderately and move around a lot”
because we know, from experience, that it doesn’t work. When I
say a “lot less” I mean it. You may be eating three times a day,
plus snacks. Cutting out a snack here or a dessert there may
eventually help you lose weight – if you have twenty years to
invest in the attempt.

Don’t “cut back.” Slash, sever, pulverize your portions. If you
eat three meals a day, change to eating just one. If you like to
graze on six mini-meals or snacks, cut to two. Reducing your
overall intake by two thirds should bring you into the zone of
your actual daily needs. Yes, it would be nice if you opted to
make those reduced calories all highly nutritious but we all
know that you are going to eat what you are going to eat, no
matter how much the health gurus nag you. So go ahead and eat
what you intend, just one third of your usual rations.

To keep your energy on an even keel, you can spread your one
meal throughout the day. If your usual lunch is a cheeseburger,
fries, and a shake, split it up: a shake for breakfast, a burger
for lunch, a dinner of fries and a slice of cheese. Are you then
on a diet? Are you using your precious time on specialty
shopping and food preparation? Do you have to think about what
menu items fit into your prescribed weight plan? No, none of
these apply. You are simply eating the way you have always done
except one day of your prior food plan now last three days. If
you’re worried about your health, take a multivitamin (funny,
you weren’t worried about your health on the same fare in the
past, were you?) If you are a tall, large-boned individual or
you feel (genuinely and persistently) faint, take a canned
nutritional booster like Ensure.

It is almost too simple and too easy IF you have really
internalized the concept of under-eating and have adopted a “can
do,will do,” attitude – the key to everything.

P. S. You’ll save a lot of money too!

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