Dr. Peter J. Weiss

As you know, we’ve got twin epi­demics of obe­sity and dia­betes rag­ing in Amer­ica today.

It’s no secret how we got here.  We have col­lec­tive envi­ron­men­tal and behav­ioral prob­lems. Amer­ica is filled with com­pa­nies push­ing us to con­sume large por­tions of high-calorie, unhealthy and non-nutritious foods — and how do we respond?

We eat and drink our­selves sick!  Mean­time we’ve designed activ­ity out of our lives and as much seden­tary enter­tain­ment as we can into them.

It’s time for us to face our respon­si­bil­ity for these epi­demics.  Let’s admit that the prob­lem is us.  We can admit that we are emo­tional eaters; that our phys­i­ol­ogy is not the prob­lem; and that our behav­ior is what needs to change.

We can admit that we have cre­ated a cul­ture and envi­ron­ment that we can’t han­dle — that are lit­er­ally killing us.

Or maybe not.  That’s part of our cul­tural prob­lem too.  Today’s Amer­ica is not a coun­try where we assume per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity, face our prob­lems and change for the bet­ter.

No, we tend to look for the quick fix — the pill or the oper­a­tion that will change our phys­i­ol­ogy or our behav­ior.  We want to get bet­ter with­out any work.  That’s why we’re killing the mon­keys.

Researchers are now mak­ing mon­keys fat and giv­ing them dia­betes, accord­ing to this arti­cle in the New York Times.   Appar­ently, like humans, mon­keys eat when bored.

In order to keep them bored and eat­ing they are often kept in cages alone where they can­not exer­cise.  After the mon­keys gain weight and develop human-type ill­ness like dia­betes and coro­nary artery dis­ease, the ani­mals are used to test anti-obesity treat­ments such as drugs, gas­tric bypass surgery and forced diet­ing.

This is just sad.  Sad because of the mon­keys who suf­fer because we can’t face our respon­si­bil­ity for our issues, and sad because it rep­re­sents more of the same think­ing that got us here — that more health­care will help us to be healthy.

Well, it time to wake up Amer­ica!  More health will not come from more health­care.  We need to live dif­fer­ently!

To be blunt — if you think that these mon­key stud­ies are part of our solu­tion, then you are part of the prob­lem.

When you’re ready to be part of the solu­tion, join the More Health Less Care Alliance and start chang­ing your­self and help­ing Amer­ica to health.