There has been a lot of media buzz about the rising trend of obesity in America, and not without reason. As the literal "fat cats" of the world, Americans consume more calories per person than any other nation in the world. Due to the lengthy process of physical and social evolution, and the complete lack of drive-thru burgers for 99% of that time, we as humans have developed a highly effective system for storing excess calories in the form of fat cells. But cavemen were an extremely active group; gathering berries and plants is a great workout for your core, and there is really no better cardio than chasing down rabbits with a sharp stick. But sharpened sticks turned into checkbooks with Harley Davidson-stamped leather cases, and the daily hunt was reduced to a drive-thru.
Was it that we started being awesome so fast that evolution simply couldn't keep up? Or should we join the people trying to blame it on corporate baddies, with their really cool commercials slinging cheeseburgers to 6-year-olds?
No, I think there is a far simpler answer: Shitty food tasted awesome—and I mean really awesome.
This country wasn't built on rock and roll, Ford trucks, or even good old hard work, this country was built on cheeseburgers. When was the last time you looked at a light salad with vinaigrette and thought, "God I can't wait to drive that into me!" The answer is never, because that never happens. Nobody sits in class absolutely craving a few steamed carrots, or fantasizing about cramming their face to capacity with delicious apple wedges. There's a reason nobody orders the grilled chicken at burger joints: they have clearly surrendered their dignity at the door and just want to cram their gullet full of fried whatever. It is a widely accepted fact that pizza grease actually increases your ability to metabolize alcohol, thus granting the late night drunk who orders a monster double pepperoni at 3am a chance to proactively ease his impending hangover.
So can we just come out and say it? We, as a nation, are still firmly in the swoon of our love affair with greasy piles of meat and cheese, and no amount of nutritional information on Big Mac boxes is going to make us want to leave her. And why should we? She's been damn good to us over the years. Wendy's has always been there to make sure you can eat with only six dollars in your checking account; that pizza place is still open when your dignity is being dissolved at the bar by that cute brunette; and the warm embrace of melted cheese and Italian meats will be there to soothe your anguish. Seriously, it's called comfort food for a reason.
"Please, I'm begging you… have a McRib. Has this smile ever let you down? Do you know another clown like me?" It's not that I'm against eating decent, healthy food; it's more that I just really love the greasy stuff like any other red-blooded American. This country wasn't built on rock and roll, Ford trucks, or even good old hard work, this country was built on cheeseburgers, and the bigger the better. In a time when most of the world lives in grinding poverty, I still get really irritated when there are only four nuggets in my 5-piece McNuggets, and I'm OK with that. Sure, most of the world's population has to walk 10 miles to get clean water, and eats less in a day than the pizza crusts I throw out, but I don't have to see that. Unless of course the "feed the world" commercial comes on the TV, and let's face it, guilt is just a remote click away.
I vote that we go ahead and embrace our shitty habits. We have literally engineered all the physical work out of our lives, and simultaneously developed the most energy-dense foods ever created. The fat and calories it would have taken days to acquire in the natural world are now instantly available for the three bucks in change you found under your passenger seat.
So dig in America, one day we might have to live off our man-boobs and thunder thighs, and the skinny will perish and the chubby will inherit the earth.