Oh No, Not That

Published at 09:49 on 10 October 2011

It is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. That would normally be some bit of obscure trivia that really doesn’t affect me, but it is also Pledge Fortnight (I only wish it lasted a mere week) for all Seattle public radio stations, so I’ve been listening to the CBC more than usual as a way to get my public radio fix without being subject to endless begging for money.

That has allowed me to notice that a persistent theme on the CBC this weekend is about the obesity epidemic (which affects more than just the USA, although it does affect the USA worst). More specifically, it’s about pinning the blame on the epidemic by blaming some obscure aspect of the Canadian diet (typically related to carbohydrates).

Anything but overall lifestyle seems to be to blame. While it’s certainly plausible that some of the other changes might have some aspect (particularly given how much the modern diet deviates from the one we evolved to eat as hunter-gatherers), to ignore the increasingly sedentary lifestyle people live (which is equally alien to the conditions we evolved under) is to ignore the elephant in the living room.

However, if you ignore the elephant, then you don’t have to ask people to take responsibility for themselves and make new and possibly difficult life choices on a daily basis, and you can make a radio program that is light weekend matter instead of something more challenging. And sadly, that (and not uncovering true root causes, no matter how unpleasant they may be) seems to be the first priority this weekend.

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