The Weighty Issue

For a long time I have been looking for a way to describe the difficulties of losing weight to people who have no trouble at all keeping a healthy waistline. I think I may finally have a found an analogy that works. Please bear with me.

It was long thought that children had a natural talent for learning languages fluently and effortlessly. This skill was somehow turned off in adolescence and early adulthood, leaving most adult people feeling hopeless about ever mastering a second or third language. However, experts in the field know this is not true.

For the first five years of one’s life, practically all one ever does is learn a language (and maybe even two). During those first five years, we are mentored toward perfecting pronunciation and committing words and concepts to memory by people who encourage us along the way. Other things are taught as well, but they usually aren’t as intellectually demanding. By the age of five, our mastery of whatever language we are learning is well underway.

It therefore follows that we could also master another language by the age of 30 if life would allow us to take a five year leave of absence from work at the age of 25, and truly concentrate on learning that second or third language. But life rarely affords most of us that opportunity. Work demands, children, church (for those who have that commitment) all conspire to leave us little time for learning that extra language.

The same can be said for losing weight and adopting a healthy lifestyle. It might help some of us if we were in an environment where mentors could be following us as we go about dealing with learning to like healthier foods and becoming more physically active during our waking hours. But the demands of our modern world are such that we must contribute to the economy. This means either running one’s own business or working for someone else to earn one’s salary. We are expected to work at least 35 hours a week (more often, 40) in order to afford buying food, paying for clothing and housing, and buying a host of things that may or may not be necessary just to keep the economy going. Work demands, activities for children, volunteering, church (for those who have that commitment), doctor’s appointments... With all that to worry about, who has time to invest in adopting a new lifestyle?

The very structure of modern society doesn’t help, either. For decades, people would walk to neighbourhood grocery stores to buy what they needed when they needed it. Now, we have residential zones where no stores are allowed, and people see nothing wrong with having to use a motorised vehicle to get to the store and come home with large quantities of food. Instead of getting our exercise through everyday activities, we actually have to set time aside for exercise!

In Back to the Future III, Doc Brown tells bar patrons how things are in the future. At one point, a patron asks: Does anybody walk anymore?

Brown says: Of course they walk, but they do it for fun.

The patron: For fun? Who’d want to do that for fun?

I don’t know to what degree the irony was intended, but I find there’s a wealth of wisdom in that exchange.