Not Hibernating

Its cold here in Wisconsin, but I am not hibernating. True, I am busy with other things, and have been thinking of writing something for over a month now. But each time I really sit down to it, I lose the enthusiasm to write. Its funny that whenever I am really busy and anxious with work, I am most excited about writing in my blog, and when I think I have all the leisure time in the world, I don't feel like sitting down to write something concrete.

The other day, I was in a hurry, as always, to get the bus back home from work. You really don’t know how much I love to catch a bus as it leaves the bus-stop! There is one distinct sense of satisfaction when I do manage to do that. But an equal and opposite sense of frustration when I miss it! Anyway, as I was taking the elevator down from my 6th floor lab to the first, I was halted at the 3rd floor. How irritating is that! Especially, when you are in a hurry. Then, to add to my over-sensitive nerves, a 300-pound lady enters and cracks a ‘funny one’ at me. Then, she presses the button to the 2^nd floor. That was it! Any decency and etiquette I had learned over the years was melting into nothingness. I respect a person’s desire to use the elevator, after all, it is public property. But to use it to go from 3^rd to the 2^nd floor is not only waste of her time (I am confident she waited for over a minute to get in) but also of MY time ('coz I missed the bus and had to walk home eventually).

OK, I might be seeming much too insolent at this point of time, but the fact of the matter I am getting to is that life here is getting just too comfortable. Everything can be done at the touch of a button. As we gloat about progress in science and engineering, we don't realize how much we bloat on account of that. Obesity seems to be the result of many factors, foundation of some that are laid in early childhood, in the very atmosphere you are brought up. It is not an infection, there are no medicines you can take (unless you consider Relacore and other such pills) for instant betterment. There is definitely a role for the genes, but the dominant factor is lifestyle. Why do we brush aside poor eating habits (over- and improper-eating) and poor activity routines when we are kids? Oh, he’s just a child. He’ll grow up fine. Look at those chubby cheeks.. so cute!!! Even as adults, we refrain from considering this condition as a disease. While we are fast finding cures for cancers and resistant bacterial strains, we are fast losing ourselves to this prettily disguised, yet, formidable opponent.

I was reading somewhere that obesity can be prevented by inculcating certain simple habits at childhood. Breastfeeding, eating veggies and fruits (you’ve heard it over and over) and eating together with the family can all help in regularizing food habits. In fact, I remember how when I was a kid, my whole family (my parents, sister and I) would come together for each meal, inspite of the fact that my mom also worked and my sister and I were in different schools. We were together for only half-hour at lunch, and perhaps a little longer at dinner, but the feeling of eating together was wonderful. Those memories seem quaint and quite unimaginable now. Like one of those Karan Johar movie captions: 'The family that eats together stays together'.