Cultural background
Lab mice have no option but to eat whatever the researchers drop into their cages. Some diet regimes treat humans the same way.
Human contacts revolve around food. You meet family and friends for lunch or dinner. Birthdays and weddings are unthinkable without food - a lot of food. Then, there are lunches with clients and corporate events. You would feel impolite not offering food to a guest visiting your house. A dinner without a dessert for your guests would be off cultural limits for most of us.
More food means more hospitality in all cultures. And while newspapers may be full of articles warning about unhealthy food, it remains the mainstay of our civilisation. Breaded mozzarella sticks, chicken wings and oil-saturated samosas are standard corporate event fare. Even when you fill up your car at the petrol station, you have a choice of a dozen brands of chips and cookies, yet the chances of finding any fruit, even a few old apples at the back of the shelf, are slim indeed.
In social situations, we are under pressure to disregard slimming efforts – as a host, you are expected to offer a more-than-adequate quantity of food, while guests are expected to accept food, even when they perhaps don’t want it. This pressure creates a myriad of situations dangerous for those who want to watch their weight.
Moreover, our culture of easy access to food is in direct contrast to any self-imposed restrictions.
This is true for nutrition, but even more for energy expenditure. For millennia, humans have strived to make life easier, meaning that now, in the 21st century, we find ourselves - through wireless connections, remote controls, washing machines, underground parking, lifts and home delivery – at the point where movement became an optional part of life.
Surely any other creature spending most of its life as immobile as we do would become overweight too?
To beat the odds, a dozen of TheSlimSchool lessons are dedicated to handling ‘dangerous’ situations based on our cultural environment. Stick to just 3 or 4 recommendations, and you will, in the majority of cases, be able to resist the lure of chicken nuggets or that second helping of birthday cake. We will also give you a number of very simple suggestions about moving more to fight back against drive-in culture. Subscribe now.
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