Firstly, let's give Ben Dover a break

We're talking about a guy who has repeatedly referenced his MBAs "in Finance" from both Stamford and Princeton -- and Princeton doesn't have an MBA probram. People's reactions to him are pretty much on the money, given that he appears to be a pathological liar.

Secondly, KitchenGirl, pass the pipe, please--you're full of more excuses and rationalizations than a high ranking officer appearing in front of a congressional panel investigating what went wrong in Iraq. I live in this high-fructose, factory-farmed, sidewalk lacking environment, too.

No kidding. If you don't mind my asking: how old are you, are you married, do you have kids (and how many) and how much money do you earn? Do you rent or own? Debt? How much?

However, I have not found it nearly so hard to eat sensibly and exercise. I am no Einstein, so I have to wonder why others do. It comes down to personal choice [...] If I have had any advantage it is that I was blessed with a mom who was very vigorous about teaching her kids how to eat.

And for those unlucky bastards who didn't? Home Ec isn't a required course anymore, and when I took it (three times, in three different school systems) not once did we learn about nutrition, how to read nutrition lables, RDA calculations, budgets, or even how to actually cook a meal. I learned that a spatula is the long flat thin thing that kind of looks like a knife and is used for frosting cakes, a pancake turner is that thing with the flat jobbie on the end, and that the rubber thing is called a rubber scraper. I thought all three of them were spatulas, but I found out otherwise! I also learned how to make sugary cinnamony flowers out of Pillsbury biscuits and maraschino cherries.

I don't shop at boutique grocery stores--it's Kroger or Publix for me--and I have had no trouble finding whole-grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, etc. i realize that not everyone in this country can say that, but the majority can.

Can they? I can find reasonably high-quality food at the Shaw's one neighborhood over (for half what I'd pay at Whole Foods, same brand and everything) but I'll be damned if I can find even 1/5 of the same or similar products at the Market Basket which caters to the working class neighborhood that I actually live in. They simply do not carry those products. They're starting to, but only because the 'hood is slowly being "gentrified" by people like me -- single, high disposable income, tertiary (or higher) education levels, etc.

For instance, when comparing two similar products, I always pick the one with higher fiber and a healthier saturated fat to total fat gram ratio. If it's a tie, I look at the sodium.

OK, right away that puts you in a different place than probably the majority of people who are shopping. Some of it is choice, sure, but I'll bet a lot more of it is lack of information -- and not knowing that they lack the information, so there's no prompt to seek it out.

I bike to work (14 miles roundtrip) I know that not everybody can, but I made a CHOICE to live close to where I work so that I could.

Oh please. I bike to work, too, and live 6.5 miles from my office. I also rent a two-bedroom apartment with one roommate in a neighborhood with kind of a crummy school system and a relatively high petty crime rate (plus one random murder down the road from my house) for the surrounding towns. The condos up the road from my house cost $500K. For most people, living within biking distance of work is a luxury they can't afford. To state that it's a "choice" is disingenuous at best and mocking cruelty at worst.

If I assume some of the defensive posters here are fat, KitchenGirl, why should they care what I think? This is just a message board, we aren't on a date.

Because you're trying to make a point, and it's getting lost in your childish insistence on mocking and name-calling

I'm just being silly yanking their chains. I really don't care if you think I am a dick.

Fair enough, I think you're a dick.

I am the first person to support anybody who is heavy but wants to get in shape. At the bottom of it, I consider myself a kind person but i do brace when i read a list of excuses as to why the Industrial Food Complex, city planners and fashion magazines are the reasons why somebody CHOSES to be fat.

I don't think you're kind at all, I think your responses thus far have been childish and frankly mean. Your assumptions that 'everyone can do it if I can' are overly-simplistic, and I provided a list of reasons why.

Lastly, most people don't work 70 hour weeks--it's a shame anybody would choose material gain over health

Intersting, because there is a direct correlation between disposable income and weight/overall health. If you want people to work fewer hours and earn less money *and* raise a family, they're going to have to live a lot further away from their offices and grocery stores that provide a variety of healthy options at a reasonable price. There is no economy of scale when you live in a sparsely populated area. So no more biking to work, and no more whole grain spaghetti.

(even people with kids, your kids would rather you be able to run around and play than anything money can buy--ask 'em) and the high-fructose trend predates the obesity epidemic so I still blame the internet.

Actually the ubiquity of high-fructose corn syrup and the uptick in obesity both began in the early 70s.