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What makes people happy?

Is being fat approved among the Pima Indians in the US? I would guess it isn't, at least not beyond certain reasonable limits.

Excluding medical conditions, people are doing something they know to be harmful to them. Both from the standpoint of social disapproval and of health, they're damaging themselves. Why?

It's not because they lack someone to tell them what to do. The Pimas even have examples, in some ways relevant, from their relatives across the border. The culture in the US is not approving of fat, so they're not emulating the wealthier people they see on TV.

Whatever it is people need to make them happy enough to avoid using food as more than sustenance, these people don't have it. That makes fat a symptom of something lacking.

How can anyone look at a situation like that and ask not, What's wrong?, but How do I take control? Do you think that if armed guards forced people to behave in approved ways that the effects would last after the guards left? If so, you think of the human spirit as more malleable than I do.

My view, believing the individual is a passive reflector of what the culture provides is foolish. People make their own choices. And to change self-destructive behavior, it's much more effective to help the individual to make changes he wants to make than to try to change the surrounding influences.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 04/22/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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