Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Keep Eating, Americans: The Economy Is Depending On Us.

Want some chips? How about a Big Gulp and some Oreos? Don't worry about getting fat because you are stimulating the economy, and that's something to feel great about. It seems as if the obesity industry is one of the few things keeping the economy afloat other than defense spending. According to William Weis, a management professor at Sattle University, Americans spent more than 315 billion dollars on eating comfort foods and restaurant fare last year.
Soda and carbonated beverages led the way to the tune of 37 billion dollars spent. More than 6 billion dollars was spent on chips (I spent, maybe $10 of that...cholesterol and all!). Cookie sales raked in almost 4 billion dollars, of which 244 million of that was spent on Oreos alone! Seriously, who DOES compile these statistics?
All of this has led to a robust segment of the economy: it's good for the manufacturers, obviously, but it is also a boon to doctors, dentists, clothing manufacturers (especially XXXL sizes) and Golden Corral owners everywhere. Think about it: have you visited a fast-food restaurant lately and NOT taken an extra cup of soda with you when you left? It's free, after all, and we all want to get our money's worth. So we end up spending money to join a gym and work it all off before we go to our job which requires NO physical labor whatsoever for most of us. See the trend toward pudginess?
Why do we put on so much weight as a country? It takes a Harvard economist David Cutler to explain it to us. As he wrote in 2003 in an article entitled Why Have Americans Become More Obese? "As an accounting statement, people gain weight if there is an increase in calories taken in or a decrease in calories expended."
Really? I wish I'd gone to Harvard so I would have figured that out, but whatever I can do for the economy is little enough. I wonder if buying a fast car is as helpful as eating fast food...of course, I would have to be able to squeeze into the driver's seat! Pass the french fries.

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