Sure advertising works...companies wouldn't spend billions every year on it if it didn't, but It's still about choice. People sure resist temptation when they see a 24 hour fitness ad. I know I don't blame advertising when I decide to have fastfood...I blame myself for being a overindulging fatass.

6'2, 210, 27 BMI.

And you're right Silock...I just double checked it and I'm only "overweight". For some reason I was thinking 25 was obese not 30.

You don't recognize the irony in you citing a faux documentary as the foundation for you blaming "the food industry" for America being fat?

No, of course you don't.

People wanted a particular style of sauce. They hadn't been able to put that desire into words in such a fashion that the spaghetti sauce industry could cater to their desires. Once that desire was discovered, the food was made, Prego sales improved and the spaghetti sauce industry was changed dramatically.

What part of "consumer driven" are you missing there?

Okay, that at least makes more sense to me than trying to legislate advertising.

Why "blame" anyone? You have vulnerabilities, but you're not to "blame" for them. Everyone has them.

And seat belts will just be a suggestion, like non-smoking regulations will just give people a small area of freedom in an enclosed space full of smokers.

We're talking about a specific type of food, though.

It's like stuffed-crust pizza. Before I knew about stuffed-crust pizza, I had no desire for it. It never thought to myself, I want some pizza with cheese stuffed in the crust. I never thought to myself, this pizza would be so much better if it's crust was stuffed with cheese.

The thought never entered my head.

Then pizza hut started advertising pizza with CHEESE STUFFED INTO THE CRUST!!!!!!!!!

I had to ****ing have it.

And so I started eating even more fattening and caloric-ridden slices of pizza.

Super Size Me is fake?

But you are advocating a government-sponsored weight-loss program,and that's enough reason to ridicule you.

Yup.

The Federal Government loves you.

Just because you personally didn't tell them you wanted it doesn't mean others did not. They don't just put something in the marketplace and start advertising and selling it without someone telling them they want it.

Well, some people are fairly open to suggestion and can be swayed easily.

Indeed, just look at the 2008 election.

See, even for guys that go to the gym regularly, BMI isn't TOO far off. It's not totally accurate, but hardly anything that's generalizable is. For instance, if I let my diet go a bit and don't stay shredded, my BMI creeps up into overweight. But if I stay at a very low body fat, I can keep all my muscle mass and still be considered "normal" bodyweight, albeit at the higher end.

Part of the problem for guys who work out is that they think they need to weigh more than they actually do to maintain muscle mass or be "big." As for what that means for BMI, if the gov't is going to use it in some calculations, then there needs to be an exemption for people who teeter on the normal/overweight boundary pending a doctor's exam.