U.S. Diet vs Italian Diet

If Michelangelo's David were American...

Lately I have been obsessed with Italy and all things Italian. It must be the book I am reading, Eat, Pray, Love. a third of the book talks about when the author relocated for four months to Italy and literally ate everything in site and loved doing so. She gained 30 pounds and loved every minute of it. She went into detail about the amazing meals; the fresh tomatoes, the eggplant, the breads, the thinly shaved cappuccino, fish and the wines. Apparently Italians love their food, but their rate of obesity is not anywhere as high as in the United States. Over 30 percent of our citizens are considered morbidly obese compared to Italy's of only 8.5 percent. That is a huge difference statistically. And, I am willing to bet they consume better food than we do. We just consume junk!

That brings me to an email I received today. It showed two images of Michelangelo's David; one as the brilliant sculptures carved of the perfect male body (which looks remarkably like my sexy husband!--ah, life is good!) and another of what David might have looked like if he had been American or lived here for four months!

David's vacation to the United States proudly sponsored by:

Sponsored by! That was a funny end to the amusing email. The sad reality is that over 30 percent of Americans are obese because of these companies and the products they serve. Even Starbucks can't deny that fact, try as they will to look like a simple coffee company, they aren't selling just a cup of black coffee to many of their customers, nor do they want to. They want you to buy the Caramel Macchiatos with 350 calories and enjoy a seemingly innocent cinnamon scone bringing the total to over 700 calories! I know after giving up my daily macchiato that I lost 10 pounds without changing anything else.

It is equally as funny or ironic that some of these companies are sponsoring the Olympics! McDonalds has even sunk so low as to imply that Olymians eat their garbage with their "Eat like an Olympian" campaign. Garbage!

We are in big trouble!