Eat Pasta, Be Happy (and thin)

I've just returned from an eight day vacation in Italy and you'd think I'd want to talk about the awe-inspiring ruins of the Coliseum in Rome or the sculptural perfection that is David in Florence or the graceful hills of Tuscany...but no.

Oh, they're great, don't get me wrong.

But what struck me and my companions about Italy, above all else, is that the Italians aren't fat. Not the young people, not the old people, not the women or the men.

It doesn't make sense because they eat pasta and bread with every meal. They can buy pizzas on every corner, they drink cappuccinos with whole milk every day, they devour pastries. Their restaurants, with a seeming lack of concern for their customers' wellbeing, don't even list the calories for their meals!

Fitness clubs? I saw exactly one during my stay in Italy. One! Here in the U.S., there's a Snap Fitness or LA Fitness on every other corner.


Joggers? I counted four in eight days, and all of them were foreigners. The locals, casually sipping their cappuccinos at sidewalk cafes, seemed to regard these sweating joggers, proudly decked out in their Adidas shorts and shoes and clutching their Aquafina bottles, with an amused disdain.


And yet these unathletic, pasta-munching, cappuccino-sipping Italians had normal bodies. Not thin, with washboard abs, just normal, the way homo sapiens are supposed to look. The way we used to look.


So again the question: Why are we fat and getting fatter, and why do Italians remain stubbornly normal?


After several minutes of furrowed-brow thought and exactly no research, I've come up with a few answers.


First, they walk. Lots. Every day. We Americans drive everywhere.


Second, they eat real food, natural food, not much that is pre-packaged. We consume chemically enhanced crap.


Third, they eat three meals a day. That's it. We, on the other hand, wolf down our three meals, grab our snacks, snatch chips or a candy bar, stop in for a mocha, quench our thirst with a 24 ounce cup of Coke, and finish the night off with an ice cream bar or a handful of peanuts. Of course, we try to counteract our over-consumption by insisting on diet soft drinks, whole wheat bread and one percent milk. Lots of good that does.


Finally, Italians eat normal-sized portions in normal-sized meals. Americans, on the other hand, super-size our burgers, sandwiches, fries, soft drinks and pizzas. We seek out all-you-can-eat buffets because that means we're getting a good deal! We're buying wholesale!


So, that's it. Italians know how to eat and exercise seemingly without trying. We don't. We struggle and agonize and sweat and study nutritional labels, but we still can't figure it out. We can build skyscrapers, rockets to the moon, smartphones and ridiculously sophisticated medical technology, but we can't keep the pounds off.


Enough of the studies and diets!


Just walk to the grocery store and buy pasta and tomatoes. Which is something I'll be doing right after I stop off at Starbucks on my way to the gym.

Obese? Not Me!

Kind of scary news from a health survey yesterday. Turns out that more than 30 percent of us in Michigan are now considered obese.

Yikes. Just 15 years ago, fewer than 20 percent of us were obese

I used to be a skinny kid--6'2", 140 pounds as a sophomore in high school, 6'3", 175 in college--but then I seemed to gain a couple of pounds every year thereafter, to a point where I'm now not too far from being considered marginally obese.

And yet, like most of us, I still see myself through the eyes of the 20 year old "me". Basically the same guy, right? Except I've got a bit of a paunch and I'm a little fleshier here and there.

The problem is, I've had the paunch for several years now and slowly but surely, it's becoming a part of me, and it's growing every year, flowing almost imperceptibly over my belt.

The discouraging thing is, the quick little one- or two-week diets I used to go on in my younger days don't seem to work anymore--I lose only a pound or two over a week, then go out to a nice dinner or a barbeque, and I'm back where I started.

I love to eat. We, as a society love to eat. Food gives us comfort. Meals serve as entertainment, and God knows, we don't want to deprive ourselves of fun in our lives.

And yet, of course, it's killing us. Heavy people die earlier than fit people. Heavy people suffer from more illnesses than fit people. Heavy people spend a lot more money on health care than fit people.

We can worry all we want about the national debt, about cuts in Medicare and Social Security, about rising gas prices and turmoil in the Mideast, but if we continue to pack on the pounds and fat at the same rate--How about 50% of us being obese in 2025?--then some of that stuff won't matter much. We'll eat ourselves into oblivion.

This is no longer just a light, fluffy story about health and lifestyle, something for the First Lady to focus on. Unfortunately, most of us don't realize that yet. We're too busy ordering out pizza or waiting in line at McDonalds.