More than one in four adults are obese in at least 31 states, according to a new report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But, this is not news. We all know Americans are fat. Disastrously fat. Go to your local hardware store and try to sidle through the bellies in the aisles. You have to be thin to get anywhere in America. Only thin people can serpentine through those aisles.

What is infuriating about the non-stop stream of fatness updates is how consistently they ignore the cause of America’s increased body mass. The spectacular ballooning of bodies parallels the exit of women from the home. The greatest contributing factor to weight gain is a reliance on processed or restaurant-made foods.

I can often tell whether a man’s wife works by the size of his paunch. But, what does the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with its millions in research dollars, recommend as a cure? Free health care, as well as nutrition and exercise programs, also presumably government-funded. Gimme a break. Americans are over-eating and will continue to over-eat until they get something satisfying. It’s not just food they want, but soul food. Soul food is homemade.

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