Our society as a whole is way too obsessed with body image. We strive to be thinner than we are naturally meant to be and consider ourselves fat the minute we see the scales go up by a pound. Every magazine cover depicts a rail-thin model and the headlines on all of them offer advice on "How to lose 10lbs." today. Yes, obesity is a critical problem and a severe health concern but maintaining an abnormally thin weight is just as serious. Our fast food culture is certainly to blame for the rise in overweight people however; media advertising (not to mention television watching) has to assume blame as well. It makes one wonder if the multi-billion dollar weight-loss industry, collectively with the food industry is secretly behind it all.... after all, money talks.

What we really need to do is go back to eating whole foods, unprocessed, not artificially flavoured or tainted with refined fats, flours and sugars. We need to watch less television, spend less time surfing the Internet or playing video games and get more physically active. Our children learn by example and what kind of example are we teaching? We need to relax more, take time to enjoy life more, understand and appreciate each other more and make time to (forgive the cliché) smell the roses more, thus reducing the stress we create at the pace we live now. The combination of all of those will produce a healthier society, which in turn will be less taxing on our health care system, a win win situation for both man and government. I often wonder what it will take for us to wake up and realize what we are doing, not only to ourselves but also to future generations.

Of course, in an ideal world we wouldn't have pollution, lying politicians, taxes, greed, war or disease and everyone would be treated as equals. It's too bad that these are nothing more than dreams but then again... maybe, just maybe we can change things one at a time!