Ice Cream Day Dream

I was just settling into a parking space at the Norwichtown Commons when I watched someone in sweats with a gym bag walking towards the far side where the fitness center is. She was smoking a cigarette and finished it off about a half dozen strides before hitting the center’s entrance.

I’m not passing judgment, nor should I. I smoked two/three packs of cigarettes a day for twenty-two (plus) years and have my own definitions of insanity and dependence, as does each of us with a vice, but for Kafkaesque humor, you'd have to go some to top that.

It’s a little like ordering the deluxe cheeseburger with bacon along with large fries but asking that our diet soda have no ice. Do you think I’m silly to worry about the health effects of ice? Ask the captain of the Titanic. Now, who’s silly?

We like the routine, the assurance of the rote drill (I think) and maybe that's where we believe the benefit accrues. It's like small children learning the Pledge of Allegiance long before they have any idea what allegiance means (for some of us that's still true through old age). 

A whole generation now hits the fitness centers in the same way previous ones frequented the bars and clubs on Saturday nights or the churches on the Sunday mornings that followed. But for what purpose, and to what end?

Behaviorists refer to an obesity epidemic in the United States (though obesity is now a worldwide problem) and it bubbles up on all manner of media, usually with a pitch for some sort of breakthrough product that will allow us to eat as much as we want and still lose ten pounds by this weekend’s high school reunion. The vendor has operators standing by and if we call before midnight tonight, they’ll get our money faster.

And while we have adult Americans gaining on average 45 pounds in the course of their lifetimes (I’m an over-achiever, if you were wondering), the World Food Bank in a champion understatement noted in a report last month that ‘food insecurity'  continues to accelerate.

Instead of studying and attempting to learn the lessons behind research like this, we watch reruns of Oprah and her talk-show sisters and dream of the day when we, too, could have been in a studio audience and under our seat was a pair of Nike Running shoes(?) I think not. There may not be a free lunch, no matter how many believe otherwise, but at least you can go to Oprah’s website for healthy eating tips. Bring your own napkins.

I'm wondering if we're not better off just eliminating the middleman and cutting out the white space. Put a cigar bar in a fitness center--or set up one of those luxurious dessert places in the lobby; call it "Cool Whip and Curls", no one will snicker. 

Those who wish to indulge can, and the rest of us can pretend to not see any of it as it'll all be behind closed doors. Look at how often we use that trick to manage world events that should and could have numbed us. Besides, it’ll keep us from walking around with our eyes closed; people get hurt going through life like that.
-bill kenny