The fitness industry is a huge marketplace, drawing countless Americans - a full two-thirds of whom are overweight - into spending billions of dollars annually in the hopes of becoming healthier, fitter, or simply less fat. Unfortunately for health-hungry consumers, however, a new study sponsored by the Monsanto Corporation reveals that these expenditures may be counter-productive: statistically, a person's body mass index ("BMI") is directly proportional to the amount spent on physical fitness.
At first glance, these results seem paradoxical; surely people who invest heartily in exercise equipment, sportswear, health club memberships, and athletic gear end up weighing less, not more, than the average overweight American?
Not so, says Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, who offered a credible explanation for the seeming dichotomy between fitness expenditures and body weight.
"People think that simply paying out a bunch of money will help them get thin and healthy. So the more they spend, the less they think they need to work out and eat right. As a result, the people who spend the most are the fattest and unhealthiest."
Grant noted that this trend, where people's actual health is inversely proportional to health dollars spent, parallels that of the entire nation: of all the industrialized nations, the United States spends the most on health care, and yet is one of the unhealthiest countries in terms of life expectancy and chronic disease.
For this reason, rather than investing government dollars and personal funds in fitness and health care, Grant urges American consumers to spend their hard-earned income on fast food, factory-farmed animal products, and genetically engineered foods.
"It's true we'll get increasingly unhealthy," acknowledged Grant, "but that's happening anyway. And at least this way we'll be getting what we pay for."
And, as most American consumers will agree, getting what you pay for is our American bottom line - our increasingly expanding bottom line, that is!
