Everyday Fitness

In this 2006 report, Statistics Canada puts 2/3 of Canadians at overweight or obese. That should sicken you. There's no end to the list of negatives involved in being overweight. Your mood, physical health, appearance, and overall quality of life; not to mention the inevitable burden on society when it comes time to take care of your failing body.

Also, research shows that overweight people are most often viewed as lazy, incompetent, overindulgent, sloppy, slow, and unintelligent. None of these things may be true about an overweight person, but it's how they're most often stereotyped. And that won't help you get ahead in life.

Seriously, two thirds! Since when did abnormal become the new normal? As a society, over eating or poorly taking care of one's self shouldn't be tolerated. Obesity needs to become the new smoking. Like it was put in the movie "Super Size Me" I believe; we might leer at a smoker and say, "what are you doing? Don't you know smoking is bad for you?" The same needs to happen with poor eating, as insensitive as it might seem to some.

I'm no psychology major, but I've heard of research that suggests people are more likely to act a certain way if they risk facing the scorn of their peers, rather than behaving that way for their own good. Sounds like the case to me; overweight people have a hard time kicking the habit for their own sake, and they may not feel pressure to have to. That's because being overweight is tolerated in day to day life, since we're supposed to be accepting of other peoples' appearance. But obesity is more than just appearance. It's killing our species.

Let's get it right Canada