The Jump.

Remember when you were a teenager and it seemed like your parents never let you do the cool thing? All your friends got to, but you? Noooo. (...or maybe it was just me. Hi, Dad!) I remember bringing these issues up to my parents and bolstering my argument with "But Jenny gets to go that party with all the seniors! But Amanda is going to be there!"

The typical response, the one that drove me crazy, was, "Well, if Jenny jumped off a bridge, would you?" Looking back, my parents were right. (Of course.) Even in the small choices--what you do on your Friday night, what you choose to purchase--you can't just blindly follow what everyone else is doing. You have to take in the options and make an educated decision on what is right for you.

This blog is about that educated decision and how it relates to companies who make considerably less than healthy products. For example, 32.3% of men and 35.5% of women in the United States are obese. Is this partly the fault of restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King, who churn out and promote preservative- and sodium-filled fare than can seemingly clog arteries upon mere glance? Or, does the responsibility lie with the consumer who purchases that Big Mac and fries, no matter how hard the restaurants' sell? Should they have looked past all the advertising and better weighed their options? That is what we are hoping to discover...whose fault it is if you do, indeed, jump off the bridge.

*Flegal, PhD, Katherine; Carroll, MSPH, Margaret; Ogden, PhD, Cynthia; Curtin, PhD, Lester R. “Prevalence and Trends in Obesity Among US Adults, 1999-2008.” Journal of the American Medical Association. January 13, 2010. Accessed September 28, 2010.