One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all
Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall
—Lyrics to White Rabbit by Grace Slick
Be honest.
Most of us would love to look bigger, stronger, better, thinner, younger and if we can do it through modern chemistry, why not?
Haven’t we been trying all along?
Women, and some men, wear makeup, color their hair blue, polish their nails and wear fancy shoes just to improve their looks.
Men wear clothes three times too big, or three sizes too small, to either hide or show off the six pack.
The number of fad diets is endless from grapefruit to phentermine.
I went on the Slim Fast diet a few years back but I found the shakes taste a lot better with a couple scoops of ice creams. (Sorry, I stole that line.)
But really, why work out?
One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you smaller.
We darken our skin, whiten our teeth and color our hair...except for maybe the folks on “My Redneck Vacation.”
Advertisers play the “guilt” card relentlessly, especially when a new year starts, hoping that New Year’s resolutions will lead to a treadmill or two-year contact at a health club, when all most of us need to do is walk through Eisenhower Park or Brown’s Park.
Jack LaLanne never used a Bowflex, an elliptical or did Zumba.
The whole vitamin industry is built on that “pill” concept. Vitamins and dietary supplements are a big business — more than 110 million Americans forked over a collective $28 billion in 2010 on little bottles of would-be magic. Research is unclear, however, on whether shoring up your diet with extra vitamins, minerals, and other supplements actually helps.
Sure, we need vitamins, but is a pill better than an apple or an orange or a glass of milk or an afternoon in the sunshine?
Face it!
We are the “pill” generation.
We take a pill to sleep, stay awake, control blood pressure, lower cholesterol, help us breathe, control our pain, prevent illnesses, improve the love life, and some to talk to Alice when she’s ten-feet tall.
Should it surprise anyone then, that athletes want to improve their skills through modern chemistry?
Isn’t that what most of us have been doing for years?
