I was catching up on news today.  I happened across two interesting articles.  So, hey guess what?

What?

That is not a guess. But I appreciate your enthusiasm.

It turns out that the galaxy is even bigger than we thought. Yes, here we believed a gaggle light years was big enough, but no. Now, the super cluster that we live in, now called Laniakea, is five hundred and twenty light years wide. Our corner of the universe just became a spare room.

See that little red dot? That is us. Not our planet, not our solar system; our galaxy. Little ol’ Milky Way; hanging out with a few of its buddies. Now there are even more galaxies out there and the universe keeps on expanding.

Sadly, so are we.

Yes, obesity rates in the U.S. have gone up. Again. Over thirty percent of Americans are obese. (Not overweight, that would be bad enough. No, we are obese; i.e., dangerously overweight.) As has been the case in years past, it is the poorest that are the most affected. Healthy food is more expensive. Fresh fruit spoils but McDonald’s is open 24-hours. You can spend $10 on two kinds of produce or $5 on a Quarter Pounder.

Then there is the cost of exercise. Americans spend about $130 per year on exercise equipment. In total, our nation spends around $60 million each year trying to lose weight.

For example, $130 is about how much I spend on running shoes in a year. If I do not get replacement shoes than I start to feel the stress on my knees which means running is not going to happen. So the shoes are needed. At the same time, I can easily spend $130 on a trip to the grocery store, even with buying what is on sale and signing up for online coupons and whatnot.

Now if a person has a tight budget, you are asking them to choose between recreation and diet. Does one buy food or shoes? That is not even taking into account fancy gym memberships, nutritionists, crossfit trainers; and do not get me started on the top of the line bicycles that I know are out there.

We need to be healthier. (It is one of those pesky, “life or death” matters.)  But we have to be able to magically afford it.  Sure, push-ups are free; jump ropes are cheap, and going for a stroll still works as exercise.  Now find the time for someone working three jobs to squeeze that in.

Maybe the universe has the answers. Maybe some alien race will come down and give us all the solutions. Maybe we can stop increasing our masses astronomically. Come one, there is not only a world of possibilities to explore; there are whole galaxies of them.

Or, maybe we can just emulate everything that the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister!) do. I mean, all that energy has to burn off calories. How else can they pack away all that candy they eat?  Oh, to have the metabolism and energy of a cartoon character.  Laniakea means, “immeasurable heaven”, and that sounds pretty similar to the life of an Animaniac.

(p.s.  I get dibs on being Wakko.  He’s the best.  If we are using cartoon DNA to fix ourselves, I want his.)