Don't Worry, It's Not YOUR Fault!

(This is a re-post from June 2013.)

Thank God!  It's not my fault.  That adipose tissue orbiting my equator is the product  of a DISEASE according to the nation's largest physician organization.  Obesity is now officially NOT YOUR FAULT!  See your doctor and let the American Medical Association assume the guilt, but save some for your parents.  As we all know, parents are responsible for just about every problem life tosses our way

Looks like it needs mayo.

I couldn't help noticing the curiously juxtaposed story about doctors declaring yet one more modern problem a "disease" as I opened the paper a couple of mornings ago.  There was the report of actor James Gandolfini, TV's Tony Soprano, dying of heart failure after eating a whopping big meal of fried foods and copious amounts of booze while he vacationed in Italy.  It was just above the story of the AMA's declaration proclaiming gluttony as an illness.  REALLY??

Is there nothing to save us from ourselves?  Who is going to prevent us from picking up that double-decker ham sandwich?  No way to make us simply drop that fork, pass on the pie, and put the ice cream back in the refrigerator?  It must be that damn disease talking!

How did we get from a society that took on the responsibility of saving the world from Hitler, Tojo, and a variety of nut jobs in the Kremlin to one that can't wait to point the finger toward any vice, foible or offense and say, "Not my fault."  Everybody is a victim.  We no longer control our own destiny.  Maybe I'm being judgmental, but I can't help it.  It's my parents' fault, damn it!

I'm no doctor, but I play one on this blog and it is my considered opinion that a disease is an illness you are born with or contract by accident and cannot control.  Drinking too much and eating too much are physical and psychological addictions that can be overcome through something we used to call willpower.  When we want to look and feel our best it is within our abilities to simply put down the glass or knife and fork and get "WELL".

In the words of Dean Wormer:  "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son."  If our doctors are no longer willing to call us "Tubby" who is going to stand between us and that plate of fries?

Oh, who cares!  Is the crash cart ready?  I'm goin' in!

Help yourself.  It's a disease!