Irresponsibility: Finding Excuses

Last time I was very pleased to find an example of strong behavior in the dimension of responsibility. The woman attacked by the jaguar at the zoo admitted her part in the incident and hoped that others would learn from her mistake. 

When someone is in the wrong, the common reaction seems to be denial or making excuses. The news lately is filled with celebrities, politicians and their defenders quick to deny a charge, downplay the seriousness of a charge or call attention to all the celebrities or politicians in the past who did the same or worse without ramifications. So it’s OK?

Making excuses covers a multitude of sins, and it serves as a convenient, and often accepted, way  if covering up for behavioral slip-ups in any of the five key dimensions.

One area where this comes into play is when weak behavior in the area of discipline leads to unwanted consequences, for example, lung cancer from smoking, retirement insecurity from failure to save during the working years or obesity.

Along the lines of the latter I found this article on line: “10 Reasons Why Obesity Is NOT About Gluttony and Sloth.” First, the author obviously used the most provocative words possible to describe a situation characterized by a simple lack of discipline, too little exercise or too large portion sizes. Use of the terms gluttony and sloth, boarders on name-calling; they arouse a sense of resentment to prepare the reader to be receptive to a litany of ready-made excuses.

And here they come, all the reasons an unmotivated person can fall back on:

• Obesogenic Environment: where living in an area without sidewalks or safe walking routes coupled with a lack of accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetables along with other environmental factors may add challenges. (People would be thin as rails if only they had sidewalks.)
• Culture of Beauty: drives people toward an unattainable standard, encouraging “self-starvation, exercise abuse, and other eating disorders. It really only serves those who make money off of it.” (This stems from a perspective problem, being manipulated by external values.)
• Mental Health problems “from depression and anxiety to chronic stress and past trauma” can become an issue. “Weight gain can be the result of emotional eating as a way to cope or a result of medications.” (See addiction below for the same excuse in different words.)
• Genetics: While genetics does not predict obesity, over time the combination with other factors may predispose individuals to have obesity issues (though that doesn’t explain why it would suddenly become a factor in the last 50 years.)
• Social Networks: Social influences “play a role in our health behaviors including eating, exercise, weight loss or gain.” (Blame it on your friends.)
• Food Addiction: works like other addictions as “a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings and situations in life.” (Is it realistic to expect life to be comfortable all the time? How easy to forget that life in this century is more comfortable than at any other time in history.)
• Lack of Awareness: too many confusing “messages about what to eat, how to exercise, and ways to lose fat” leave “most of us…scratching our heads.” (But most of these confusing messages come from the purveyors of easy solutions, miracle diet plans and magic answers or from scientists trying to secure funding.)
• Family Income: “Soda is less expensive than water…” (Last I checked water is so inexpensive that I take a shower in it! It falls from the sky! Unless you live in a place like Flint, MI, this argument is as bogus as they come! See here for more about the expensive healthy food myth.)
• Environmental Chemicals in lab experiments alter the metabolism and increasing “the size and number of fat cells in animal exposed to chemicals.” (Blame it on the chemicals, while ignoring the difference between lab experiments and reality.)
• Fat Shame: causes the internalization of society’s fat phobia…creating the most harm. (But change is hard; it doesn’t happen without some discomfort as a motivation. If anything, society has become overly sensitive to the idea of fat shaming and many other attitudes labeled as intolerant.)

So there they are, ready-made excuses to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle. Just spouting off one or two of these (and ignoring the comments in parentheses) is a lot easier than taking responsibility for lapses in discipline.