Robert D. Bickel
July 27, 1956-Oct. 31, 2007

Robert D. “Bob”, 51, died at 2 p.m. Wednesday at his residence.

Family members surviving are his sisters … and brothers …

Friends may call from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday. The funeral will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday at the funeral home.

This time of year in particular I always think about my Uncle Bob. It’s been almost three years since he passed away.

From obesity and it’s complications.

I wasn’t particularly close to him, but I always felt sorry for him. He was very large ever since I can remember. He never dated much or married, he never had kids. My mom often referred to her younger brother is a bit of a hermit. When he passed he was so large they had a hard time getting him out of the house. They didn’t know how much he weighed, but they guessed it was anywhere between 400-600 lbs. That’s a quite a range. But, when you are very large like that, it’s any one’s guess.

Many years ago at a family get together when my mom was on one of her fad diets, I remember vividly being at the food table alongside my mom and Uncle Bob. My mom was grabbing a diet coke and my Uncle Bob looked at her with disbelief. He said something to the effect of, “Why the hell are you drinking a diet coke? What’s the point? Your overweight and it doesn’t seem to be helping.”

Of course my mom stood there mouth agape looking at him in horror. Back then I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why he would say that. Now I get it. He had already given up. Why make little changes in your lifestyle when you are destined to be fat? What’s the point? Hey, we are cursed with these “Bickel genes” and just about everyone in the family struggles with their weight so there’s no beating this. Why give up my Coke Classic?

The last time I saw Uncle Bob he was sitting on his riding lawn mower, using it as a mode of transportation to and from his house and shed in the backyard. We’re talking maybe 15-30 feet in distance. My heart ached for him.

His obituary is very short and to the point. He lived a closed off life from the rest of the world. He lived a lonely life. I think it’s fair to say he lived a miserable life because of the effect obesity had on him. I have no pictures of him to post here because he never really had any taken.

RIP Uncle Bob

“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”
— Barack Obama

For the last several months, I’ve thought a lot about how we as a society can eradicate obesity from our lives. It keeps me up at night. It’s on my mind all of the time. It’s every one’s problem, not just a problem for those that are obese. It’s become a national catastrophe in my opinion. It’s become the norm. It’s destroying lives, it’s taking lives.

Some of you may say I’m yelling at air. No one will listen. What’s the point?

For those of you that think that way, I would guess you could be the same type of people that think one vote doesn’t matter so why even vote? A good example that one vote DOES matter is right here. And yes, folks, the official results were certified with one vote being the difference in the race…

If even one person listens I will have done something good. I’m talking about changing lives here. It sounds grandiose in print and it sounds silly, I KNOW. But I’m talking about coming up with ideas that we can take up with legislature. Ideas to improve every day life. I’m talking about things I can do in my community and ways I can help my family and friends to fight obesity and to take steps towards a healthier way of life.

I’ve got some wonderful gym towels that carry a slogan that was created by my readers here at AFG. I have three gym towels I am offering up for FREE. All you gotta do is leave a comment with ideas on how we as a society can beat this obesity monster. No gimmicky tweets or need to blog about it on your blog to win – just leave a comment below with your idea. Winners will be picked at random.

I’m looking for fresh, real ideas that can change lives. I’m looking for ideas that may be brought up to local or state-wide legislature; ideas that will help the average person reading here; ideas that will help children and families. ANY AND ALL IDEAS – BRING ‘EM.

P.S. Please read this post over a Truth2BeingFit by Dr. J: The Great American Obesity Machine.

I just had to post this article. I didn’t agree with how Southwest treated Kevin Smith, but I definitely do not agree with how they handled this situation. I’m not sure what is the right way to deal with this, but I would venture to say it would NOT be to punish the person that does NOT need two seats by removing her from the plane.

Link to article

NICK UT / Associated Press file, 2008

By Bob Shallit

Southwest Airlines made headlines earlier this year for kicking overweight actor-director Kevin Smith off a flight because he took up more than one seat.

Now we’re hearing the airline recently removed a 5-foot-4, 110-pound Sacramento-area woman from a plane so a hefty passenger could have an extra seat.

The incident happened last week on an early-evening Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Sacramento.

The local woman was flying standby, paid full fare for the last available seat, got on board, stowed her bags and sat down – only to be told she would have to deplane immediately.

The reason?

A late-arriving passenger required two seats because of her girth.

The Sacramento woman, a frequent-flying sales rep, was stunned.

“It didn’t seem right that I should have to leave to accommodate someone who had only paid for one seat,” she tells us. (She has asked to remain anonymous for fear some may regard her as insensitive.)

She’s even more miffed because she says Southwest personnel berated her when she questioned the decision to boot her from the plane.

She ended up getting on the next flight.

“It’s small potatoes, in the scheme of things,” she says. But she believes Southwest should have been more considerate.

Airline spokeswoman Marilee McInnis agrees.

“We know this was awkward and we should have handled it better,” she says, adding that the airline intends to apologize to the local woman.

McInnis says normal policy is to ask for volunteers when a flight is overbooked for any reason.

In this instance, she says, airline personnel may have been influenced to choose a faster course of action to reduce embarrassment for the late-arriving passenger.

Why the extra concern? The person requiring two seats was just 14 years old.

How do you think Southwest should have handled this?

I’m going out of town in less than a week and would like to open my blog up to some guest bloggers. If you are interested, please email me at afg@anonymousfatgirl.com as soon as possible with your post. Post topics are up to you as long as the topic is health, fitness or weight related. :)

Last night my husband and I were invited to dinner at our local casino buffet. The buffet contained some wonderful choices as always. As I hustled over to the salad bar, I was excited to see some homemade salsa and other fresh and healthy options. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for the others) the line to the salad bar was pretty non-existent. Most of the buffet recipients were stacked up in lines around the highest caloric items possible.

As I sat there, I started noticing how the majority of the people at the buffet were overweight or obese. (Me included!) Every so often, a thin person would be among the masses. A year ago I would have never noticed all of the unhealthy choices at the buffet or all of the overweight patrons.

Is this our new culture? Or was this only a cross section of the overweight, chain smoking casino patrons? I’m not sure.

On a very basic level there has to be some personal responsibility. For most of my life, I’ve never had that. I was personally irresponsible. I would eat whatever food I wanted, no matter how bad I knew the food was for me. There was nothing that was “off limits”. Everything was “on” all the time.  A quick road to instant gratification – that created a long road of unhappiness.

When our very culture or environment promotes obesity, weight will most definitely rise.

• Buffets and predominantly unhealthy choices in our society promote obesity.
• A lack of personal responsibility promotes obesity.
• Lack of awareness and knowledge promotes obesity.

Question: Do you think personal responsibility play a role in our culture’s issues with obesity?

I caught a really interesting segment on last night’s NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams:

As food has grown cheaper and portion sizes have exploded, the size of our dinner plates have grown to accommodate our ever-expanding appetites.

Please take the time to watch this, it’s very interesting. (Here’s the direct link if you have trouble viewing the video below.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Watching the guy with the dinner plates just perplexes me. When did the plate manufacturers decide to enlarge our plates? How did we get from where we were in the 1960′s to where we are now, over 70% of our country overweight?

Read a post I did awhile back on Obesity Trends from the 1960′s on.

We did have many fast food places take off around the 1960′s and after. Microwaves became the rage.

Could it simply be that we live in a microwave society and that has fueled our fat and obesity in this country? Thoughts?

This morning I read a very interesting article on Robin Meade’s blog (she’s the morning anchor on HLN).

Not all that SHOCKING to me: according to a group of retired armed force leaders, one out of four young people do NOT meet the requirements to join the U.S. Military because they are TOO FAT.

“It’s not drug abuse, it’s not asthma, it’s not flat feet—by far the leading medical reason is being overweight or obese,” said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen Norman Seip.

Here are the stark indicators the group points to:
- 27% of 17 to 24-year-olds are medically ineligible because of weight
- 12,000 leave the service each year before their enlistment ends because they can’t pass physical fitness test

Here are some of the standards they must meet and maintain:
Army maximum weight – women, 241 lbs; men 259 lbs.
Army body fat content — depending on age, women with no prior service up to 36 percent body fat, and men with no prior service up to 30 percent.

Personally I’m a little surprised at the standards. I mean 241 lbs for women? That means I would qualify based on weight alone – and in my humble opinion, I’m in no shape to be in the military!

Let’s take a look at a graph of Obesity Trends from 1960-2000 (source). WOWZA! We just keep on getting fatter and fatter and I’m sure 2000-2010 is even higher.

Here’s another interesting graph (source). The average adult weighs 24+ pounds more than in the early 60′s.

We all know about the obesity epidemic in America and that our nation keeps getting fatter and fatter every day. Why though? What has changed from the 60′s & 70′s to the 80′s+?

I would venture to say America began it’s love affair with PROCESSED FOODS & FAST FOOD around that time. Thoughts?