Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

“I’m sick of the news talking about obesity.” I had just written “Who Is To Blame?” Stacey, Dan and Mike nodded. They braced themselves for a Laura Tirade. “No matter where I look, there is some news program about obesity.”

Stacey surprised us all. “I think it’s the insurance companies.”

I crinkled my brow. “The insurance companies are to blame for obesity?”

She shook her head. “Obesity costs insurance companies a lot of money. I think they are promoting this idea that obesity is a problem so they won’t have to pay so much.”

She stopped the Laura Tirade in its tracks. Over a month later, I’m still thinking about what she said. I understand that the news moguls are controlled by the businesses that own them. I realize that insurance companies are big players in our economy. Could all those news programs be an underhanded method to absolve the health insurance companies from paying for obesity-related illnesses? Am I helping them out and doing their work for them?

For about a month, I have been fretting about whether I’m working for “The Man.” Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote, “The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” Am I merely a thermometer of popular opinion instead of a thermostat of change?

After all this fretting, I realized the truth…

Obesity not only costs insurance companies money. It robs people of their lives and their quality of life. When I weighed 235 pounds, I was tired. I was relatively healthy, but I couldn’t tie my shoes without holding my breath. If I had let my bingeing continue, I would have ended up not being able to go grocery shopping without one of those electric grocery carts. I’m intimately familiar with where the path of obesity leads.

If I can convince just one of you to take charge of your health, then I am the thermostat for change. If just one of you decides to exercise today instead of skipping your workout, then I have achieved my goal. If just one of you decides to choose a healthy snack instead of the food that is tempting you, then I am working for you, not “The Man.”