In media stat virtus (in the middle lies virtue). This simple and elegant Latin phrase succinctly expresses all that is wrong with our bulimic culture. It is, obviously, an admonition against excess. Though how in this age of conspicuous consumption and market fundamentalism, which even conditions how Americans nourish themselves (although nourish is an abomination here), all in the name of eternal economic growth, is changing habits possible, I've asked? Frankly the habit has sedated the population, which is always looking for the easy way out as I have seen among my chubby students.
When a culture is taught from birth that more is always better, that quality is subordinated to quantity, that measure and constraint are prohibitive to self-realization (whatever that means), and when food is treated like any other product for which greater consumption equals greater profit, then the results are hardly surprising. The myriad of snacks in the supermarkets and the super-sized offers are enough to comprehend the folly. This is also the case especially among the poor, for which low cost fast food loaded with grease, fat and sugar has a facile appeal. This, too, is the market.
And then there is a whole diet and health industry to make a killing by preying upon the people’s conformism and ignorance. I have never witnessed so much health fanaticism as among a population that is so unhealthy. Instead of drinking a nice glass of Coke, or eating a normal ice cream cone, one must consume a gallon of Diet Coke and great quantity of low fat frozen yogurt, because it’s healthy. What a world. Americans are the victims of their own excess, which is proverbially called way of life.