Elevator aversion

Whenever I walk through the Innovative Teaching and Technology Center, I am not surprised that we live in the country with the highest levels of obesity in the world. Each time I enter the building, I see a group of people waiting for the elevator. As I walk up the adjacent stairs, I see the same people two floors up. This laziness — evidenced in choosing to take an elevator in lieu of walking two flights of stairs — speaks volumes about out current society.

We live in a society that values convenience over effort and laziness over hard work. Everywhere you look exist inventions aimed at making life easier through the elimination of bodily effort. From moving airport walkways to fast food drive-through windows, our country is engrossed with trying to move as little as possible.

The general public's choice to avoid physical exertion at all costs has had extremely damaging consequences. In America, where 34 percent of the adult population is obese, obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 70 million American adults are obese.

While there are many debates regarding the accuracy and legitimacy of such estimates, taken at even their most conservative results, we live in a population with more obese individuals than many other nations have people. Why is this?

A country obsessed with ease and practicality, we refuse to exercise our bodies more than we have to. An estimated 78 percent of Americans don't meet the minimum activity level recommendations while 25 percent are completely sedentary. Parked in front of my computer all day, I will admit that I am not immune.

We too often think that maintaining our health is just dependent upon eating healthy. Yet reducing obesity is about more than just eating habits. Obesity is the result of many complex factors, only some of which can be actively controlled. Even a person with the healthiest diet will not maintain a healthy lifestyle without a combination of other factors, namely exercise.

As a country, we need to put a greater effort into actually participating in physical activity. Even if it's just simple lifestyle choices like taking stairs rather than escalators, we can greatly improve our health.

It's important to note that efforts to reduce obesity in this country should not be undertaken with the efforts of creating a skinnier society. Obesity, especially with the current low margins of qualification, is no more condemnable than skinniness. What is important instead of weight is health.

Rather than focusing just on weight, we need to focus on having a healthy America. While we may live in a country focused entirely too much on aesthetic preference and superficial judgment, we should not worry about obesity simply in regards to size. Big or small, it doesn't matter. We don't want a skinny society; we want a healthy society.

It is embarrassing to be the country with the highest rate of obesity in the world. This is not because there is anything inherently wrong with weight in and of itself, but rather that we are placing ourselves at greater risk of things such as heart disease and diabetes. While most of the college community likely values physical appearance above physical health, we must focus on the dangerous consequences of obesity and try to eliminate it in our modern American society. Rather than just attacking McDonald's, let's focus on ourselves as well. Let's take the stairs and skip the elevator.