| For some of us, food is warmth and love. We | | | | and the world could return to its infatuation with the |
| associate it with home and childhood: tempting smells | | | | Drive-Thru. We beamed with a sense of satisfaction |
| that greeted us after school on a cold December | | | | that we had prodded the market in a healthier direction. |
| afternoon. The kitchen served as the center of the | | | | Then we noticed that we were still fat.Where had we |
| house under the kindly direction of the Captain in the | | | | gone wrong? Well, the "small" burgers were still big: |
| apron. If we were good, we might be allowed to stir | | | | two to three times the size of their relatives of forty |
| the pot. If we were very good, we got to clean out the | | | | years ago. The salads were healthy until drenched |
| mixing bowl.As we grew up, we found wonders | | | | with several hundred calories of creamy dressing. To |
| elsewhere: the coffee shops and diners where | | | | maintain the taste we had come to love, toppings |
| adolescents gathered and food was only a platform | | | | were added: more kinds of cheese, butter, relishes and |
| for the real business of talking, bonding, and flirting. We | | | | dipping sauces. And everything was still primarily fried: |
| drank cola and root beer and discovered sundaes, | | | | breakfast, burgers, chicken, potatoes. Even high quality, |
| pizza and french fries. But real food was what we ate | | | | frequently-changed deep fry oil is loaded with calories |
| at home.Later, we moved on to the pale imitation of | | | | to be deposited on our waistlines, hips, and internal |
| food represented by college cafeterias and | | | | organs.Fast food has taken us out of the kitchen into a |
| underground cafes that were heavy on music and | | | | world where the demand for productivity makes us |
| political rebellion and light on the menu. We returned | | | | work harder and longer and steals away any notion of |
| home for the holidays and again ate real food, as good | | | | spare time. We run to keep pace with a society |
| as we remembered. Some of us moved on to the | | | | spinning ever faster and we eat on the run because to |
| non-food of C rations and swore we'd never enjoy | | | | pause is to fail. Is there no escape? This is the |
| eating again.We moved into the world of work: | | | | Twenty-first Century -- returning to the food regimes |
| automats and deli lunches or expense-account steak | | | | of fifty or a hundred years ago is improbable. The old |
| and martinis where even the most exquisite fare took | | | | fashioned "made from scratch" meals require too |
| a back seat to table discussions. We married, moved | | | | much time and effort, except for special occasions, in |
| into new homes, rediscovered the warmth and | | | | our fast-paced, two-working-parents, |
| intimacy of a family kitchen and embraced the delights | | | | long-work-and-commute lives.What we can do, if we |
| of gourmet cooking, homemade bread, and nouvelle | | | | seek to withdraw from the enormous herd of |
| cuisine.At the same time, just below our level of | | | | heavyweights, is to remember that the way to health, |
| awareness, the fast food industry started to blossom | | | | slenderness, delayed aging, and increased longevity |
| into the billion dollar gorilla it is today.At first, it was small | | | | has been demonstrated repetitively by our little friend, |
| hamburgers and hot dogs with french fries and a drink. | | | | the laboratory rat.The secret is consistent, prolonged, |
| At first, it was an occasional visit to "get mom out of | | | | cheat-proofed, under-eating. Once that core concept |
| the kitchen." At first, it was just something fast that | | | | has been adopted, and completely internalized, the |
| avoided interruptions in our race to the top.The menus | | | | pathway to a new, thin you becomes clear: eat |
| expanded to encourage more frequent visits. | | | | whatever you want but a LOT LESS. We're not |
| Drive-Thrus that sat closed and empty until noon | | | | looking at the old adage of "eat moderately and move |
| suddenly discovered how to make breakfast items | | | | around a lot" because we know, from experience, that |
| that could be eaten at the wheel. Chicken, fish, and ribs | | | | it doesn't work. When I say a "lot less" I mean it. You |
| were added, soon followed by Mexican specialties, | | | | may be eating three times a day, plus snacks. Cutting |
| baked potatoes, fried vegetables, and sandwiches. | | | | out a snack here or a dessert there may eventually |
| The burgers got bigger and so did we.Somewhere, a | | | | help you lose weight - if you have twenty years to |
| brilliant light bulb exploded in an ad man's brain and | | | | invest in the attempt.Don't "cut back." Slash, sever, |
| "Super-Size" was born. If a burger was good, why not | | | | pulverize your portions. If you eat three meals a day, |
| make it bigger for just a little more money? If fries are | | | | change to eating just one. If you like to graze on six |
| the staff of life for American teenagers, why not | | | | mini-meals or snacks, cut to two. Reducing your overall |
| make the portions bigger? Why not make the best | | | | intake by two thirds should bring you into the zone of |
| purchase value a whole meal, combining everything the | | | | your actual daily needs. Yes, it would be nice if you |
| customer wants (and maybe something they don't)? | | | | opted to make those reduced calories all highly |
| Why not Super-Size the whole meal and really make | | | | nutritious but we all know that you are going to eat |
| money?Rather than an occasional change-of-pace, | | | | what you are going to eat, no matter how much the |
| the Drive-Thru gradually assumed a predominant place | | | | health gurus nag you. So go ahead and eat what you |
| in our diets. Astute marketers targeted their sales | | | | intend, just one third of your usual rations.To keep your |
| pitches to the most responsive and easily manipulated | | | | energy on an even keel, you can spread your one |
| niche of the population: children. Tired, time-strapped | | | | meal throughout the day. If your usual lunch is a |
| parents yielded to tearful pleas to visit Ronald or Jack. | | | | cheeseburger, fries, and a shake, split it up: a shake for |
| And our children grew fat.Teenagers, with their | | | | breakfast, a burger for lunch, a dinner of fries and a |
| deep-seated psychological preference to live in their | | | | slice of cheese. Are you then on a diet? Are you using |
| cars existed on a diet made up, almost exclusively, of | | | | your precious time on specialty shopping and food |
| fast food, turning up their noses at the thought of a | | | | preparation? Do you have to think about what menu |
| home-cooked meal. Active and full of energy, they | | | | items fit into your prescribed weight plan? No, none of |
| ignored the almost imperceptible puffiness that their | | | | these apply. You are simply eating the way you have |
| intake triggered.What was there to worry about? The | | | | always done except one day of your prior food plan |
| Drive-Thrus were a gift from heaven: tasty food, fast | | | | now last three days. If you're worried about your |
| access, car-proof containers, cheap satiation.Then we | | | | health, take a multivitamin (funny, you weren't worried |
| woke up. We looked at a world where even the | | | | about your health on the same fare in the past, were |
| average individual was clearly overweight and more | | | | you?) If you are a tall, large-boned individual or you feel |
| than a third of us were obese, even our children. In a | | | | (genuinely and persistently) faint, take a canned |
| culture obsessed with the appearance of being thin, | | | | nutritional booster like Ensure.It is almost too simple and |
| we were become permanently, indisputably, fat.The | | | | too easy IF you have really internalized the concept of |
| few earlier voices of criticism increased to a low roar. | | | | under-eating and have adopted a "can do,will do," |
| The tasty creations of yesterday became the | | | | attitude - the key to everything.P. S. You'll save a lot of |
| now-maligned culprits of our condition. To keep the | | | | money too!Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and |
| money-machine viable, the fast food moguls adapted | | | | an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic |
| to the cries for change: the oil used for frying was | | | | reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation |
| trumpeted as unsaturated, salads appeared on menus, | | | | on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the |
| substitute sides for french fries became available, and | | | | Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free |
| "Super-Size it?" was no longer the order taker's | | | | ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently completed a |
| standard refrain.The industry breathed a sigh of relief | | | | psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an |
| seeing that a few changes made everything all right | | | | Attitude: A Weight Loss Workbook. |