Commercial Calories

I was going to write about the religious right in the US again and its incomprehensible belief in creationism. The rest of the world shakes its head in wonder that these citizens of the most powerful nation on the planet seem to believe something that is so starkly wrong.
Didn't they get ANY science in school?
I wanted to explain this phenomenon to our friends abroad by showing that these folks themselves are evidence that the Theory of Evolution is correct.
They are proof that humans are evolving from earlier life forms; they ARE the missing link between our benighted past and our enlightened future.
But a more pressing discovery intervened.
As I have discussed in a previous post, Americans tend to pack on the pounds. In fact, we carry the equivalent of two entire Swedens on our national body in excess blubber.
How did we let ourselves go like this?
The reasons might seem obvious: we eat too much, we don't exercise, we spend too much time in church, but clearly these cannot account for all the added pounds. If you talk to anyone who is overweight, many seem to be just as baffled by their bulk as you are.
"I don't know why I look like the Goodyear blimp; I only eat salads!"
And as you watch them, you see it is true. They often don't eat any more than thinner people.
So how can one account for this national problem? Could millions of people have some sort of metabolic disorder?
Unlikely.
What they do have, however, is TV.
99% of Americans have an average of 2.24 TVs in their homes and spend many hours a week in front of the flickering screen.
What are they watching?
Food commercials! A lot of food commercials.
The commercial for the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden, for example, shows a healthy looking group, preparing to enjoy endless bowls of differently flavored pasta — all shown, close up in their calorie rich redolence. Or consider the Pizza Hut commercial. It shows pizza after calorie laden pizza, but the two couples in the ad are not fat at all! Another ad, Carl's Jr, shows two slim and trim women in bikinis making and eating enormous, pulled pork-stuffed cheeseburgers.
Clearly the food is not doing THEM any harm.
So what gives?
We need to approach this scientifically and analyze the data. Who watches the most TV in the US? Men watch an average of 29 hours per week while women log in at 34 hours per week. Who tends to be more obese? Men or women? The stats show that women tend to be more obese than men.
Clearly watching the food commercials themselves is what is making the US population overweight! Somehow, seeing the deliciously presented food in all of its savory splendor causes our bodies to react by storing up fat, a kind of Pavlovian reaction. In the same way that a fearful situation can make our bodies respond with adrenaline and a "fight or flight" reaction, watching food commercials on TV makes us gain weight. Your brain sees an almost pornographic food commercial on the boob-tube and says, "OMG! Look at that chicken pot pie!" and sends a message to your fat cells to "go Goodyear".
Which brings me to my new diet idea.
Since your weight gain is most likely to have been caused by watching these commercials and NOT by the half-gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough, Häagan Dazs ice cream you had after dinner, you can reduce your weight by the simple expedient of turning off the TV when a food commercial comes on, or – better yet – get up from your couch and go get a beer and some chips and salsa to avoid exposing your body to those pernicious, subliminal (and subcutaneous) influences.