Who's to blame?

Prepare yourself for my opinion: this is my blog after all. 

Last week, I had a conversation with a very nice man. We covered quite a few topics, but there's one that struck me and has resonated with me since. He said when he was in 8th grade, very few students in a rather large class weighed over 200 lbs, had asthma, allergies, or other chronic health problems plaguing our youth today. He then proceeded to tell me to look at my 8th graders and see if I could say the same.  Without giving me time to disagree, he said there could only be one common denominator....how we grow, prepare, and consume food. 

WAIT. JUST. ONE. MINUTE. Am I in a chipotle ad? When you walked through the Ag shop, did you fail to realize I was an Ag teacher? Are we really blaming the obesity epidemic on food? I can guarantee you that the sleeve of Girl Scout cookies I just ate are not responsible for my expanding waist line. My hand, controlled by my brain, placing each and every single delicious thin mint in to my mouth is responsible. 

Not the GMOs that help us feed the ever growing population, or even the antibiotics that keep my animals healthy. I know it isn't the use of naturally produced hormones that has helped us reach a much more efficient rate of production or even the pesticides, dye colors, and preservatives. I can blame absolutely no one single person or thing except for myself. 

Have we ever considered that "kids these days" are lazy because we have spent generations working our asses off to make their lives easier? It takes less farmers to feed us which allows for more families to have the privilege to get off the school bus and lay on the couch watching tv for hours until dinner is ready. The dinner that practically jumped off the grocery shelf in to your high tech cart with holes for your overpriced latte. We have developed technology to make our lives easier and information readily available. It isn't necessary to physically get off the couch to turn the channel on the tv or walk the aisles in the library searching for the information necessary to complete our homework assignments. 

So many of our ancestors worked for us to get to this point of complacency. Now...If it isn't easy, they don't want it. I just want to quit blaming everyone else and start taking the blame ourselves. It's not my fault as a teacher for students that are failing. It isn't the pencils fault for misspelling words. A gun doesn't kill people. Food is NOT making people fat. You are making yourself fat. Now, get off your ass and do something about it. 

Ill be cheering from the couch. Kidding,