'Fess up -- You're FAT!!!

I read an article today about how Americans are in denial about their weight. Only 1 in 10 of us say our diet is unhealthy. Forty percent of people surveyed admitted to being "somewhat overweight", but just 11 percent said they were very overweight or obese.

In reality, a whopping 68 percent of us are overweight, or obese. But we aren't simply a bunch of fat-ass liars -- we are misguided, misinformed, and the victim of tricky marketing.

You see, most people actually believe they are eating healthy foods. They believe that the Boston Creme Pie Yogurt must be good for them, because it is yogurt.

Part of the problem, according to an expert, is that the sugar content of food is given in grams, and most people don't have a sense of the size of a gram.

And because sugar is the only element of food for which there's no "daily recommended" amount given on the back of food labels, most people don't know how much is too much. Women should limit their intake to 40 grams a day, and men to 50 or 60, and that Blueberry Cheesecake yogurt can have as much as 33 grams of sugar per serving.

We also have a poor sense of portion size, think we exercise more than we do, and believe we can get part of our recommended allowance of fruits and vegetables from unlikely sources.

Yep, we're in denial.

The yogurt info really stuck in my craw, because I love yogurt. Not flavored yogurt -- that is just too sweet for me -- but the plain stuff.

The 99 Cent Only Store always has a wide variety of yogurt in the dairy case. There are plenty of single serving flavors of different name brands (which I avoid like the plague) for 39 cents each, and usually a large container of plain low fat, and/or fat free. The brand of the tubs vary -- I've bought Athenos Greek Style, Yoplait, and La La.

I like pineapple, so I pick up a can of Dole's crushed, and mix a small amount into the yogurt for a mid-morning snack.

Since reading this article I have checked the sugar content, and the plain yogurt checks out at 10 grams per serving, while the pineapple clocks in at 7 grams. I usually eat less than a serving of each, so even though a small snack can constitute a large portion of my daily recommended sugar intake, it is still better than a whopping 30 plus grams lurking in that innocent key lime pie flavored yogurt.

So, let's all actually think about what we are eating, read the labels, and not trust our digestive systems to Jamie Lee Curtis, huh?

Or we could just go through life like Cartman from South Park, and this precious, precocious little All-American darling --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vddAqYbUmwI