Vroom,
“It’s easy to say they should know better, but the government and official bodies (e.g FDA) are producing misinformation, misguided food choices and combatting the availability of supplements.”
While I agree to some extent that the education is not all that great, I have a difficult time believing that people can claim to be uneducated on diet issues. Assuming you have a television, internet access, or a high-school health class, the basic information one needs to maintain a healthy lifetstyle is readily available.
The Food Pyramid, as an example, is on the threshold of being overhauled, and probably for good reason. But I think it is a stretch to think that the ordinary person doesn’t know that huge portions of junk food and a complete lack of exercise makes you fat and unhealthy.
“I’m not sure whether it is reasonable to assume that people generally know where to find sources of information that are informative, authoritative and correct. In this environment, and with a clueless bureaucracy, it must look like some mystery epidemic that is raging across the continent.”
Again, I just don’t think people are that ignorant. The information is out there. Any doctor’s office or free clinic has reading material on healthy lifestyles.
“A lot of people work very hard at staying fit, and still fail, because of lack of knowledge… education where art though?”
I know quite a few people that work at it moderately, and some that work hard at it for a brief period of time only to abandon the program when results don’t happen fast enough. Very few people I know work hard at consistently and remain unhealthy. Rather than a lack of knowledge, I chalk it up to a lack of an attention span, or a lack of discipline. I suggest that most fat people know exactly what to do to lose weight/get healthy, they just don’t do it.
I agree that the education could be better. But as usual, too many people are waiting for the government to serve up a perfect solution on a silver platter with minimal effort on their own part. Not so - health is a personal responsibility. It requires effort, discipline, doing a little homework, and exercising a little self-restraint.