Today I will be bitching about our society's ideals. First take 'personal responsibility'. Noone could possibly complain about that, right? But most people don't use it to help empower anyone or move anyone up. They use it to reduce a complex problem to one that is simple- just blaming someone else.

For example, weight. It is certainly a fat person's fault if they are fat, right? Why don't they just eat less and exercise? That's all well and good, but some people just won't lose or lose so slowly that while they are losing the weight, you're calling them names. There are personal factors, but there are others too. For example, I am naturally skinny.

There are personal factors, I'm not denying it. I try to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables and not to eat so much horrible stuff. However, there are also environmental factors. I can safely run if I wanted to. I could get up enough cash to join a gym without causing major problems. I can afford to eat decent food and I can understand nutrition information (some high school graduates can barely read) and also through my education, I can tell healthy eating from fad diets. If I didn't have this environment, I either wouldn't know what to do or not be able to execute it.

Not to mention, genetics play a part. If I had a slow metabolism, I couldn't be skinny on just eating a little less. Note that this is a complicated problem- it involves socioeconomic status, safety levels, education, and many other things. It cannot be reduced to simply 'you are fat, therefore you are a bad person'. I think I need another whole entry to fully discuss this since it just scratches the surface of this huge subject.