Why Obesity

Why Obesity?

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The Spectator

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        Men were once hunter/gatherers having to scramble for their food. Some men were hunters of larger game to keep meat on the table. Some were farmers having to sweat from daylight to dark to keep food in the home. Food shopping is now done online at the touch of a button. It is a known fact that the more we eat, the more we want!
With the age of technology, everything is done at the touch of a button! Everything we eat for breakfast, that once took many cooking hours to prepare, is now and instant thing. There is instant oatmeal, instant coffee, instant grits, Bisquick, and even the eggs are instant.
        Paying bills is now online. No more having to prepare statements and walking to the mailbox. Banking is now online and we do not have to walk or drive to the bank. Remember when we had to go to the supermarket, look for parking, find a shopping cart, and finally, walk all over the store to find the items we needed. Now, this is all in the past as more and more people do their shopping online and the items are delivered to the front door. Do these time-saving perks make up for the exercise we used to get in actually doing these chores?
        When my father was a coal miner in small drift mines, sometimes the coal seam was so small he had to lie on his back, and shovel the coal over top of his body into the coal car. Later, all this labor was replaced with front loader machines that only had to be operated by one man and could do the work of ten men. The work of blasting the coal out with dynamite was replaced with machines with teeth that pulled the coal out, loaded it on a conveyer belt, and sent it on its way to the market.
        Factory line workers used to do each manufactured product by hand. This took much concentrated effort. In automobile factories, men had to actually place a part on the automobile, tighten it by hand, and insure that the automobile was ready for the next man to do his thing. This is all done now by robots!
        During the westward movement a man had to have knowledge of clearing land, building his own home, plowing the cleared fields, and harvesting the crops for winter’s food. Machines have taken the place of all this. Is it any wonder that jobs are so hard to come by in America and if one is found one must have the technological savvy in order to do the job?
         There is an old proverb that tells us that men will become weaker and wiser. Is this age upon us?
        When a man or woman goes into a modern restroom, they no longer have to turn on the faucet for water to wash their hands. Soap dispensers no longer have to be pumped, they just dispense the soap automatically as the person places their hand under the gadget. Even the paper towel dispensers are automatic just by waving one’s hand underneath it.
         Technology imprisons us to the point of isolation. We no longer have time for walks in the park, walking next door to visit a neighbor, and sometimes not even speaking to them when we do happen upon them. Technology raises our children, trains our pets, and even cleans our homes. Children no longer have to walk to the library for information. It is at their fingertips on multiple sites on the internet. There is no such thing as ‘dialing a telephone’ as we can now store countless numbers in our smart phones to be reached at a touch. Technology is used at a very young age to pacify our children’s requests. No wonder juvenile delinquency is happening at an unheard of pace. Humans can just lie back and have everything delivered to their recliners at the touch of a button. Wall-e was prophetic and is now a reality.
        Millions are spent each year on plastic toys, known as, ‘pacification’ toys! Just do anything to shut the kid up! More money is spent on Halloween each year for plastic items made in China than is spent for quality food for our tables. All these items end up in the landfills further polluting our planet. Then along comes Thanksgiving and millions more are spent for decorations which end up in landfills. It is useless to even mention Christmas!
        The last great achievement of humankind is now on the way out. We no longer have to steer the car, apply the brakes, or use the clutch to change gears. Everything that we used to do manually is now done for us automatically.   Driverless cars are a reality!
        Do we wonder why there is such an upsurge of obesity in America?