For a moment, there, I thought that you were blaming the Internal Revenue Service

There is no question that our (shared) North American culture is imposing certain standards of beauty -- just look at the emergence of television shows like "The Swan," in which women compete to be made over not only cosmetically and in terms of hairstyle, but also surgically . . . I do not consider myself a slave to fashion, and my primary motivation in losing weight is to improve my both my present and long-term prospects for good health, but I have to admit that I am not without motives stemming from vanity. If there is an attitude that fatness may be equated with moral inferiority, then it should surely follow (as it always does, in an atmosphere of disapproval and/or intolerance) that many people wish to stay off the radar, and diet themselves thin.

And yet, at the same time, we North Americans celebrate and worship excess, whether it be fame, chattels, money, success -- or food. No wonder we are so messed up, and that we jump at "easy" solutions to our problems offered to us through infomercials, magazine advertisements, and get-rich-quick schemes. There is no question that obesity is one of today's hot buttons, and that many unscrupulous vendors of "diet aids" and "magic exercise solutions" of dubious usefulness are the only ones profiting.

Makes me mad.