You Don’t Have to Buy My Book

We’re killing or endangering ourselves with obesity.

This hit home for me today. Someone I know — “John” — was getting a colonoscopy this morning, and something went wrong.

John has been overweight since his late teens. He got lap-band surgery a few years ago to lose weight. The surgery cost him a lot of money. The band restricts how much he can eat at one time. It seemed to work at first.

These days, though, John’s weight loss has stopped. Worse, I’ve seen John step outside a restaurant and throw up at the curb because he tried to eat too much and then could not reach the restroom. You see, the food that cannot pass the lap-band restriction to reach the stomach must go somewhere. That somewhere is back out the mouth.

I heard recently that John had resigned himself to being fat for the rest of his life. I had heard that Oprah Winfrey said the same thing about her own weight.

I hate fat-shaming, so I appreciated Oprah’s announcement from that perspective. But, John’s colonoscopy went wrong this morning. His heart rate dropped to a low, dangerous level. The outpatient-surgery center had to put him in an ambulance headed to a hospital with an emergency room. John’s trip to the ER may not be due to obesity, but his obesity did not help.

Folks, we have an obesity epidemic in the USA. I’ve heard a sports doctor preach about this for years, but today it hit home. If obesity doesn’t kill us, it endangers our lives.

I’ve written a book about weight loss. Marketing gurus — some of whom are millionaires — tell me that I am supposed to tell you that any problem that you have is not your fault. So, with my weight-loss book, for example, they say that I should tell you that any extra pounds that you have are not your fault.

The food industry gains from you eating more. The diet industry gains from you bouncing back and forth with your weight. Surgeons gain when you get lap-band or other weight-loss surgery. Everybody other than you seems to gain from telling you that it’s not your fault.

I’m sorry, but you have to take responsibility for your own weight. If you are overweight, you don’t have to buy my book, but please do something — for your own sake, if not for the sake of your loved ones.