Why ?

WHY DO WE GET FAT?? This is a very different question than How do we get fat. How we get fat is pretty straight forward. With few exceptions, we get fat from eating too much. So Why is it we get fat? Now we want to blame the media, the food industry, the nasty sugar mongering advertisers, the government and pretty much every one but ourselves. But so far, I have yet to meet anyone who was force fed. Nobody picked up the little Debbie snack cake, pulled a revolver and said eat this or else. Nope, the simple fact is we did this to ourselves. The real question is, why? I was not a fat child, nor was I a skinny child. For the majority of my life I was a medium size person. I allowed my self to become fat, and knew that I was gaining weight while it was happening and chose to do nothing about it. Buying bigger size pants is a pretty good clue!. The thing that astonishes me the most now, is that for some reason I just accepted this as normal. After all, all of my older relatives were overweight, and some diabetic. I had learned from my family that becoming fat as I got older was not only ok, it was to be expected. Oh, how my elder would love to sit around and talk about their latest medications, and trips to the doctor. They would even smile, and with a certain pride tell me "someday, all this will be yours". At the age of 35 I was told I had High cholesterol, High Triglycerides, High Fasting Blood Sugar, High Blood Pressure, and medically speaking was "borderline obese", I weighed 238lbs at 5'8". I was one of them.
As I sit here today, I am still heavier than I want to be, but down 35lbs from my heaviest. With all the news about the obesity epidemic, I wonder why do we allow ourselves to get fat? Is it learned? I actually think it might be. How much of the current situation is a thinking problem vs an eating problem. If we stop accepting that it is normal and reasonable to gain weight of the point of obesity, can a behavior change be far behind? Even the best of diets will fail if our minds don't accept that the change is good and necessary. Get your mind on the right track and your body will follow.