The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel now has a volunteer staff of "community columnists" who deliver their own often skewed view of reality.
Here's one from yesterday concerned the new health crisis, fatty foods:
*******
America, your obesity is costing me
Posted: Dec. 12, 2006
None of my columns has elicited the wrath of the masses. I'm about to change that. Because statistically speaking, it's a pretty good bet for me to say that you're fat. And I'm ticked off because you're hurting my wallet.
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Lost in the debate about controlling our health care costs is perhaps the single most serious health issue affecting our nation. According to the Wisconsin Public Health Institute, 37% of Wisconsin residents were overweight in 2001 and 22% obese, more than double the level just 11 years prior to that.
The cost? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $92 billion nationally in 2002. Tax-supported Medicaid and Medicare picked up nearly half of that.
According to the American Obesity Association, on average, a person defined as obese is five times as likely as someone at healthy weight to have Type 2 diabetes, three times as likely to have high blood pressure and twice as likely to have a heart attack. In addition, obesity is linked to liver trouble, arthritis, stroke, sleep apnea, impaired respiratory trouble and countless other ailments.
A recent General Motors study of more than 200,000 of its employees found that the average annual health care cost of someone severely obese was $1,500 more than that of a person in the healthy weight range. America has grown so large there's now trouble with our perception of that range.
People often ask how I stay so skinny. It's true; compared to most people I encounter on a typical day, I look like a rail. But according to the chart for body mass index, my current height and weight (6'1, 155 pounds) fits within the ideal BMI parameters.
What's my secret? And why am I ticked off that a big portion of my paycheck goes to treating obesity-related illness? Because my being skinny is not an accident; I have to work at it.
During the past 13 years, I've run enough miles - more than 25,000 - to circle the Earth. When that damaged the tendons in my foot, rather than sit and mope, I hit the weight room, took up swimming, bought a bike and, if nothing else, took 60 minutes or more each day to walk.
Though I have a weakness for chocolate, a look into my typical grocery cart reveals things like broccoli, spinach, multigrain bread and apples. My alcohol consumption is usually no more than one drink a week. Fast food? Strictly reserved for my few trips a year back home to Minneapolis. In other words, I make the choices necessary to avoid obesity-related illness.
By now rabid e-mails have started to arrive. Tonight my mailbox will be filled with e-mails calling me insensitive, unkind, someone who has no idea how difficult it is to go through life in a body that's not svelte and compact.
Well, the good news is that most health officials consider just 30 minutes of light to moderate exercise (walking) five times a week enough to significantly cut into the obesity epidemic. As a married and working professional who typically puts in at least twice that, I don't see why 99% of people couldn't achieve that.
America, you're too big. You're costing me, the health-conscious person, billions in the way of Medicare, Medicaid and higher insurance premiums. Go ahead now; get angry and send me that nasty e-mail. Check that. Break out the paper and pen and write me a traditional letter. Then you'll need to walk to the mailbox. Finally, you'll be fighting back.
Steve Paske of Milwaukee is a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher and author of a new book, "Breaking Stride." His e-mail address is
paskesm@yahoo.com*********
No, you self-absorbed little twit. I won't feed your ego by emailing you.
Like Mr. Paske, I've been skinny all my life. To the consternation of my wife, family and friends, I've been able to eat as much as I want without gaining weight. (Until the last three or four years).
I've gone to restaurants and ordered and eaten two whole dinners at one sitting. At an all-you-can-eat fish fry, I had 13 plates of fish.
Didn't gain weight.
No amount of exercise bulked me up, although I got stronger. And the exercise that I had, as well as the people I know, didn't come from hitting the gym. It came from real work. Y'know, Mr. Paske, stuff like lifting crated hoods for Chryslers from the top shelf at the parts warehouse and schlepping them all over town to auto body shops.
Oh, yeah, I've also gotten in my share of aerobic exercise. Try running up and down 26 flights of stairs all day while carrying boxes of product to be photographed.
But what do I say to my wife, who works longer days than I do, does even more physical work, but is genetically predisposed to being overweight? "Tough luck, sweetheart?"
This guy is so full of himself that he needs deflating.
First it was the smoking police. Then the anti-gunners.
The food police are on a roll, and they're bringing their nonsense to a town near you, and soon.
