‘I think I’ve uncovered the cause of obesity … and it’s not complicated’

Now, I’m no academic with letters after my name, nor a researcher, a dietician or other health professional involved in the ever-elusive search for the cause of obesity. Nowadays, as I look around I can’t help notice how our girths are expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Like it or not, like me or not, it’s seems obesity is threatening to becoming our new norm, even though this out-of-control world-wide affliction is now threatening the sustainability of our health services meant to keep us all in good health.

It strikes me that the ever-growing numbers of the aforementioned experts and their research papers have an uncanny and direct correlation with the ever-growing numbers of obese people. How could this be so?

I’ve recently completed a glorious two week cruise during which I had ample opportunity to, amongst other things, relax, navel gaze and meditate upon many of life’s imponderable and unsolvable problems of a world I thought I had left ashore. At least three times daily I dined with my fellow cruiselings somewhere or other in one of the many fine dining venues all offering unlimited mouth-watering temptations. Both quality and quantity seemed in constant competition with each other. It was food heaven and I love cruising. Gluttony easily came to my mind.

My observations during the 40 or so hours I spent mostly in the continuous all-you-can-eat buffet, plus a further 20 or more hours sipping happily away at an equally generous variety of beverages eventually drew my attention to an equally uncanny correlation between girth size and the size and number of peoples’ servings of food and drinks. I couldn’t, and if we were all to be honest with our selves, help notice that sugary deserts and sugary drinks were a large component of the all-you-can-eat servings. In summary, and to put it simply: smaller girths equalled smaller servings, whilst larger girths equalled larger, often sweeter servings.

Now, if you are thinking who am I, or on whose authority do I present these findings: remember these are just my casual but undeniable observations made over many hours in a location where obesity finds fertile ground — namely an all-you-can-eat, continuous buffet and with the same familiar diners. Of course, in today’s world, simple solutions are not what we are looking for even though my simple but honest on-the-ground observations and my discovery of the link between food quality and quantity cannot go ignored.

Therefore I will be writing to my federal and state ministers of health asking for my slice of the research pie being dished out to all and sundry in the never-to-end quest for the cause of obesity. If and when I obtain my research grant I intend to use it to keep cruising, all the while refining my observations, equations and related data until the experts, medical professionals, drug companies and diet industry purveyors come to the same conclusion as myself.

I will have plenty of time and now money, to do fortnightly impact graphs, continuous statistics, budgetary predictions and more. I can even create huge multi-coloured pie charts. In fact I can make it as complicated, multi-coloured, confusing and misleading as required.

So, as I wait patiently for my research funds and my next cruise: bon apatite everyone.

Have you noticed your waistline expanding? Are you worried about being overweight or obese?

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