Dr. Peter J. Weiss

Why are we such an unhealthy soci­ety?  Are we just mak­ing “bad choices all the time?  Have we col­lec­tively let our­selves go?  Are we lazy and undis­ci­plined?

I don’t think so.  I think we have cre­ated an unhealthy liv­ing envi­ron­ment that shapes our behav­ior in ways we are unable to effec­tively resist.

We are all prod­ucts of our envi­ron­ment to a much greater extent than we real­ize or want to admit, espe­cially given our Amer­i­can ideal of rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism.  Yes some peo­ple are healthy in Amer­ica today, but they aren’t your aver­age folks.

They’re liv­ing a healthy lifestyle, and any healthy lifestyle is coun­ter­cul­tural by def­i­n­i­tion in our mod­ern world where being nor­mal means being unwell.

Love Canal is a neigh­bor­hood in Nia­gara Falls, New York, which became the sub­ject of national and inter­na­tional atten­tion, con­tro­versy, and even­tual envi­ron­men­tal noto­ri­ety fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste that had been buried beneath the neigh­bor­hood by Hooker Chem­i­cal.

Who cre­ated this envi­ron­ment where unhealthy food is ubiq­ui­tous and seden­tary pur­suits are per­va­sive.  Did our chil­dren make the school menus?

Did our chil­dren invent the “happy meal,” a mar­ket­ing tri­umph — unhealthy food trans­formed into a “pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence” for par­ent and child?

Shouldn’t a “happy meal” actu­ally help you be happy and healthy over the long term?  Did our chil­dren invent the video games that they’re addicted to?

The answer is no.  Adults have cre­ated our cul­ture and envi­ron­ment — the cul­ture and envi­ron­ment that are so harm­ful to us and to our chil­dren.

Let’s stop blam­ing peo­ple for choices and start help­ing them to make bet­ter ones.  And let’s do that by tak­ing a hard look at the envi­ron­ment.

Can we do it?

We’ve done it before.  In the 1970’s we woke up to real­ize that we were lit­er­ally poi­son­ing our phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment.  Love Canal in New York and the Val­ley of the Drums in Ken­tucky are a cou­ple of famous cases, but air and water pol­lu­tion were major prob­lems across Amer­ica.

And we responded.  The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency.  The Clean Water Act. The Clean Air Act Exten­sion.  The Super­fund.  You get the idea.

We can respond again.  What would the More Health Less Care act of 2011 look like?  I’ve got my ideas, but they might not all be fea­si­ble.  And for sure many won’t be polit­i­cally cor­rect.

You don’t have to agree with all of my ideas, but let’s agree that we’ve cre­ated a cul­ture that’s killing us and our chil­dren.  Let’s find an answer.  We can fig­ure it out together, and begin to reshape our envi­ron­ment and cul­ture just like we did with our phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment sev­eral decades ago.

But just like back then, it starts with indi­vid­u­als.  It starts with you!  Join the Alliance at More​Health​Less​Care​.com.

Together we can do it!