Like the millions of New Year’s resolution-makers now jotting down ways to better themselves in 2013, the Boston Public Health Commission set an ambitious goal last April: to help residents to lose a collective 1 million pounds within 12 months. But that was more than eight months ago, and since then participants have only clocked in about 69,000 pounds lost. That’s less than one-10th of the original goal. The flab has won.
It would have made an inspirational story had the weight loss plan worked. Instead, it ended up looking a lot like everyone else’s doomed shape-up routines: full of great intentions and motivated by an inspirational goal — but ridiculously, hopelessly unrealistic. Just like individuals who set out on too-ambitious diets or overzealous workout routines, the city set its weight-loss goal despite overwhelming evidence that it wouldn’t work. Similar plans had failed in Philadelphia, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Corpus Christi . . . the list goes on. Instead of tweaking those plans by giving residents more tools to help themselves and one another — perhaps by handing out free pedometers or creating a number of visible support groups around the city or online — Boston gave the same old routine the good old college try.
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All of eukaryotic life represents less than twenty percent of the biomass on this planet. Why not just let evolution take its course? There will always be plenty of bacteria that will thrive after we've wiped ourselves out.
Honestly, I can't believe this topic merited attention on the editorial page.
That said, this plan was poorly managed ad publicized. It said failure from the get go.