I was very moved by a comment on my last piece. A reader asked ”how does one stop the evening binge "madness" within? To anyone who has the answer, please hear my cry for help, because I need it.”

I don’t have all of the answers. I struggle with my weight daily; some days are easier than others. I could lie and stand on a soap box and preach to you the things I have learned in books but what I have learned in life experience affords me a unique expertise. I can sympathize, I can empathize, and I can eat! As for the evening binge “madness” – I can only ask – what are we so mad about? I am always still puzzled; doctors continue to advise that patients lose weight – but doctors fail to stop and ask a patient – “Is something bothering you?” What’s eating you?

But then again, profits before people and consumption before compassion…

Consumption before passion too; I don’t know of too many people these days that go on dates in a state of sobriety or to bed on an empty stomach.

At the end of the day, food is there for me. It always was and it always will be, but it is an empty comfort that turns to shit in the end – in every which way! If you think of moments in your life that have provided comfort or a sense of safety to you, I trust that it is not the taste of Twinkies that first comes to mind.

I have always believed that obesity in our society is inextricably linked to interpersonal interaction. Sex or friendship - the way you feel when you walk into a room – all of this bears weight on weight.

Obesity was not really a problem prior to the twentieth century. Families stayed close, communities offered stability, and people could keep a job for life (don’t quote me; I wasn’t around then!). Even as we look to the Amish, a sect within our society that has received a great deal of media attention in recent years, we don’t see many obese Amish people; you won’t find them at Rochester Big & Tall! It was reported a few years ago that the overweight and obesity rate amongst the Amish was a paltry 4%, compared to the national average of 64.5%.

As we become further and further disconnected from one another, struggling to connect – online, or vicariously at the box office through the ladies of Sex And The City- we see that abuse of substances and addictive behaviors follow. Interestingly, in the namesake film, when Samantha’s sexual exploits become compromised by circumstance, she compensates with food. If writers can understand this dynamic, why are health professionals so far behind? Maybe science has become too complex and too egocentric, when problems and their solutions are not as complex at all. Established researchers, healthcare providers and academics have told me that health and marketing share no intersection; it is no wonder that we are not progressing forward.

In America , where obesity reigns supreme, citizens are consumers, and healthcare is treated no differently. Accordingly, obesity is a by-product of a consumer culture no different than credit card debt. It’s time that we look at things through a different lens – that of the consumer experience, innate to the human experience.

The realities of our modern lives often do not provide us with the safety nets of love from community, partnership, and family within our close reach; the pantry is. Just like Al Franken’s persona “Stuart Smalley” said that fear is like a darkroom– the pantry, too, is a small, dark room in which negatives are developed. How fortunate for me that my apartment is too small for a pantry!

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