What obesity, we are a sad nation!

| Thursday June 12, 2014 06:00

According to the so-called Happiness Index report, out of the two people you meet in the streets, 99 percent of them are angry with one thing or another. Indeed the people are very angry - angry with low salaries, expensive beer, fake pastors, traffic congestion, stubborn spouses, and expensive groceries and others. I’m one of them. We are angry with the cold front, the stabborn government, the corrupt officials, loadshedding, and even unfaithful bricklayers and auto mechanics. The list is endless!

Yeah, we are angry because debtors refuse to pay our dues and when we demand them they get mad at us. Just two weeks ago I demanded my P150 debt from a friend and he went ballistic. He didn’t pay me, but has vowed never to talk to me again.  Prior to this ‘adventure’, I got a call from a vendor just before midnight, who wanted to check if she could pay me a visit the following morning. “Kene kere ke cheke gore a ga o ise o baakanye pasele ele ya maloba, ke tshwanetse go ya setokong”. What is strange is that the vendor pressurised me to buy her merchandise but her requests for me to pay were now punctured with threats. 

People are angry because creditors are knocking on their doors, phoning them everyday demanding payments. People are angry because debtors do not pick their phones when they call, nor do they reply  to their smses.

What concerns me however, is not what the angry people are cross about, it is the latest report that we are a country of fat people and ranked among the top five in the world. This cannot be true at all. There is no iota of truth in this report.

I will never believe these lie peddlers anymore. I know very well that I am not happy, and there is no way an unhappy person like me can be fat. Being fat is always associated with happiness.  That’s our culture.

Since I turned 30 years a long time ago, I have remained at the same weight for many years. I have tried to eat as much so called junk food as possible but I still remained at 52 kilograms. Everytime there is a funeral in my neighbourhood, I make sure that I spend time around the bereaved family to benefit from the spoils that usually accompany death. I am always the last person to leave.

I don’t know what to eat anymore.  What I can confirm however, is that our police officers and their counterparts in the army are the ones who are getting fat everyday.  Their stomachs make a statement about the feeding programmes in the security organs. I have heard stories about the mess in the army barracks where they are fed everything they want. I wanted to join the army specifically for that but I was turned down. I still hate the army boss to this day.

Over the years I have tried to ignore the fat police officers I meet in the streets everyday, but could not contain it anymore and I decided to go public about it. I always wonder whether they ever engage in exercise.  Health practitioners argue that a person should exercise at least 30 minutes a day, but it seems the security agents are not getting the message.

Maybe the police commissioner and his colleague in the army should come clean about it and explain what they are doing about their overweight members. Could this be the reason why crime statistics have gone up especially in the capital city where street robberies are the order of the day? My suspicion is that the the police can’t chase these thugs and have engaged special constables for the errand.  This why the poor special constables are paid peanuts - to keep them thin for the rest of their lives. 

Maybe the recent report that we are fat should be recalled and the investigation refocused on the security organs. With my 52 kg, I am in the category of Bantum Weight, Fly Weight, or Coffee Weight in boxing language, and there is no way I am at risk whatsoever to suffer from high blood or heart attack. Hell no! This is a disease for rich people.   I walk everyday to work, I can’t afford three meals a day, unless I’m visiting the place I mentioned earlier. I cannot embark the aforementioned activities not because I don’t want them, but because I cannot afford their prices. I am angry with the lie peddlers because today they tell you not eat red meat, not to drink beer. The following day, the same liars tell you to eat at least 100 grams of red meat a day, plus red wine, and that you should drink one beer a week. What exactly should we do? Where will we get the money to buy the wine?