The Bar Is So Low, We’re Tripping Over It

AMERICA’S OBESITY EPIDEMIC: THE BAR IS BARELY OFF THE GROUND

America has an obesity problem, and pretending otherwise isn’t helping anyone. If you’re going through the drive-thru every morning for a sausage muffin and hash browns, and then again on your way home for a bacon cheeseburger and fries, you are the problem. If you know you have a weight issue yet can’t connect that eating this garbage daily is the reason you’re overweight, there’s no saving you. That kind of willful ignorance is exactly what’s rotting our health from the inside out.  

We’ve reached a point where common sense has vanished. You can’t eat junk food morning, noon, and night and expect to feel good, look good, or function well. Calories and choices matter, and pretending they don’t because it’s inconvenient to face the truth is how people end up believing they’re victims of something other than their own habits.  

What makes it even worse is that now, in 2025, we have more resources at our fingertips than any other time in history. We have access to infinite information, AI platforms that answer questions instantly, and gyms within a few miles of wherever we live. We have grocery stores filled with healthy options, free online education about nutrition, and social media loaded with workout tutorials, fitness coaches, and transformation stories. Yet, somehow, all of this abundance gets wasted. People scroll through TikTok fitness videos with a soda in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. We’ve made excuses a lifestyle.  

The bigger issue is that in America, the bar for what’s “normal” has fallen so far it’s practically underground. We’ve lowered our expectations of health to the point that simply being slightly less unhealthy than the average person makes people feel like they’re doing fine.  

Here’s the perfect analogy for what’s happening: imagine a 240-pound person who stands 5-foot-5. They walk into a Walmart, look around, and notice that most of the people there are between 250 and 350 pounds. They feel a sense of relief, maybe even pride, because at least they’re smaller than most. They think, I’m not doing that bad. But the reality is brutal. They’re not doing well; they’re just comparing themselves to a crowd that’s completely fallen apart. The standard has sunk so low that simply being less unhealthy than the next person feels like an achievement.  

That’s the sickness in our culture. Being “average” now means being out of breath walking up a flight of stairs, needing medication by middle age, and living in denial while clutching a soda the size of your head. And rather than raising the bar, society keeps lowering it to make everyone feel comfortable. We celebrate mediocrity and call it self-acceptance.  

Here’s the truth: if you want to be healthy, happy, and live a long life, you have to stop pretending that barely clearing a bar that’s lying on the floor is something to be proud of. You have to raise your own damn standards. Stop normalizing bad choices. Stop mistaking “better than worse” for good. The bar doesn’t rise until individuals do, and right now, most people are content crawling under it.