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What the hell are we doing, people?
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004, 4:53 p.m.
I was chatting with a co-worker as we walked down the hallway this morning.
"Hey, Lyneva, how's it going? Up to anything interesting these days?"
"Oh, pretty good, pretty good. I'm going to get that intestinal bypass surgery done, but they have you fill out soooo much paperwork."
I just nodded. At the time, all I could think was, "What is the proper response for that? 'I hope it goes well'? 'Good, cuz you needed it'? 'Isn't that a bit extreme?'"
But the thing is, I got to thinking about it... Good Lord, what are we doing??? There are children starving in more countries than I can count--not to mention our own--and we've got people going in for voluntary surgeries to make sure that what they eat doesn't really get digested and delivered to their systems!! What are we doing?!?!?! We have so much excess that we can afford to deliberately chop up our insides so that we don't properly process food? Don't get me wrong, I'm far overweight (100 pounds heavier than I was at my lightest as an adult), and I really do know how hard it is to get rid of that. I'm not trivializing the problems that all that excess weight causes... but for crying out loud! This is just wrong!
I just started doing a little bit of research (Gastric Surgery for Severe Obesity) and found out that not only are we essentially wasting vast quantities of food by doing this, but people are paying $15,000 to do it!! Do you know, do you have any idea, how many people that could feed? It's insane! Absolutely, positively insane. There are days when I'm ashamed of the things people do in my country. I have to admit that today is one of them. Please, go make a difference. Go to The Hunger Site to click on a button for free (free! Free! It doesn't even freakin' cost you anything!) to help kids out. And I found this place which lists out a bunch of online places you can go and just click (that's all they ask, is for you to click, it doesn't cost you a thing) to help out various charities. I'm going to start researching a good company to help out a child and every time I think about getting a burger somewhere, I'm going to put that $5-10 in a jar somewhere and use it to help someone.