perk of being able to leave promptly at 6:00 P.M . each evening is muted by the feeling of complete mental exhaustion that overcomes Ken as soon as he opens his car door in the parking lot. In his previous position (closer to home and for significantly less pay), Ken would take a leisurely lunch hour to eat a sandwich in the park or even join a coworker for a light workout at the gym. He’d return to work refreshed and proceed at a sensible pace through the afternoon hours, pausing often to share a laugh with coworkers. Lately, he has stayed at his desk to eat lunch, typically procured via a 40-second drive to a busy nearby intersection with numerous quick options.
Ken, inspired by Kelly’s commitment, is also making a concerted effort to “do the right thing” and eat healthier. He eschews McDonald’s and Burger King for Chinese buffet, which sounds healthier but is actually just as bad. He returns to the office armed with chow mein noodles and sweet-and-sour chicken, trying not to spill the mostly simple carbohydrate meal onto his spreadsheets. Laughter in the hallways has been replaced by the discernible buzz of anxiety, the unspoken fear that heads will begin to roll out the door if Ken’s spreadsheets don’t impress stockholders and executives. In contrast to the few brief moments of Grok’s life-or-death encounter with a bear, Ken’s work-place is essentially a daily nine-hour grind of unrelenting moderate stress. Ken and the rest of us would still choose the spreadsheets over being scared sheetless by a bear, but the impact of prolonged chronic stress is far more destructive to human health (and misaligned with our genes) than a pattern of brief intermittent stresses coupled with adequate downtime and a relaxed lifestyle.
The postlunch, insulin-driven sugar crash hits Ken hard, so he scarfs down one of the PowerBars Kelly had thrown into his briefcase (PowerBar Energize Tangy Tropical has 42 grams of carbs—25 of them sugar) and heads to the break room for his daily afternoon cup o’ joe. Ken consumes two cups and one to two diet sodas each day, a total of about 250 milligrams of caffeine. 14 Not quite enough to classify him as an addict (actually, that’s about the daily average for Americans), but it’s definitely another substance,along with the several prescription and over-the-counter meds, that he is dependent upon to make it through his day.
Love, Money, and Insulin
Even while making a comfortable income by any reasonable definition, the Korgs are experiencing financial stresses familiar to many. 15 After paycheck deductions for taxes, 401(k), and, of course, the enticing employee stock purchase program (where 5 percent of his gross income is fed back to the monster), a third of his annual net goes to mortgage and related tax and insurance costs. Other healthy chunks go to car payments and insurance, groceries and dining out, medical expenses not covered by Ken’s skimpy company policy, and the occasional whopper, such as two grand for a major surgery at the vet, two grand for Kenny Korg’s class field trip to Washington, D.C., 800 bucks for Kelly’s last-minute bereavement trip to the East Coast for a family friend’s funeral, a C-note for a weight-loss “starter kit” that gung ho neighbor Wendy basically forced upon them (a 28 percent discount when buying an entire case!), and so on.
Kelly contributes to the family’s bottom line running her own stimulating but stressful business as a freelance graphic designer. The flexible hours are great, although the healthy boundary between work and personal life often gets blurred. One favorite ritual is picking up her daughter from school every day and taking her out for a treat—carrying on a fond family tradition she and her sisters enjoyed with their mother. As Eric Schlosser details in
Fast Food Nation
, Kelly is cooperating with the food industry’s institutionalized exploitation of American families that allows parents to replace quality
Ken, inspired by Kelly’s commitment, is also making a concerted effort to “do the right thing” and eat healthier. He eschews McDonald’s and Burger King for Chinese buffet, which sounds healthier but is actually just as bad. He returns to the office armed with chow mein noodles and sweet-and-sour chicken, trying not to spill the mostly simple carbohydrate meal onto his spreadsheets. Laughter in the hallways has been replaced by the discernible buzz of anxiety, the unspoken fear that heads will begin to roll out the door if Ken’s spreadsheets don’t impress stockholders and executives. In contrast to the few brief moments of Grok’s life-or-death encounter with a bear, Ken’s work-place is essentially a daily nine-hour grind of unrelenting moderate stress. Ken and the rest of us would still choose the spreadsheets over being scared sheetless by a bear, but the impact of prolonged chronic stress is far more destructive to human health (and misaligned with our genes) than a pattern of brief intermittent stresses coupled with adequate downtime and a relaxed lifestyle.
The postlunch, insulin-driven sugar crash hits Ken hard, so he scarfs down one of the PowerBars Kelly had thrown into his briefcase (PowerBar Energize Tangy Tropical has 42 grams of carbs—25 of them sugar) and heads to the break room for his daily afternoon cup o’ joe. Ken consumes two cups and one to two diet sodas each day, a total of about 250 milligrams of caffeine. 14 Not quite enough to classify him as an addict (actually, that’s about the daily average for Americans), but it’s definitely another substance,along with the several prescription and over-the-counter meds, that he is dependent upon to make it through his day.
Love, Money, and Insulin
Even while making a comfortable income by any reasonable definition, the Korgs are experiencing financial stresses familiar to many. 15 After paycheck deductions for taxes, 401(k), and, of course, the enticing employee stock purchase program (where 5 percent of his gross income is fed back to the monster), a third of his annual net goes to mortgage and related tax and insurance costs. Other healthy chunks go to car payments and insurance, groceries and dining out, medical expenses not covered by Ken’s skimpy company policy, and the occasional whopper, such as two grand for a major surgery at the vet, two grand for Kenny Korg’s class field trip to Washington, D.C., 800 bucks for Kelly’s last-minute bereavement trip to the East Coast for a family friend’s funeral, a C-note for a weight-loss “starter kit” that gung ho neighbor Wendy basically forced upon them (a 28 percent discount when buying an entire case!), and so on.
Kelly contributes to the family’s bottom line running her own stimulating but stressful business as a freelance graphic designer. The flexible hours are great, although the healthy boundary between work and personal life often gets blurred. One favorite ritual is picking up her daughter from school every day and taking her out for a treat—carrying on a fond family tradition she and her sisters enjoyed with their mother. As Eric Schlosser details in
Fast Food Nation
, Kelly is cooperating with the food industry’s institutionalized exploitation of American families that allows parents to replace quality
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