121–130 of 140 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except in Wall-e
They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too. Every time I see everyone in a train or line looking down at their phones, I also can't help but think of Wall-e.
(For those that can't work out, Buy N Large is the corporation from WALL-E... this is a parody done by pixar)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has become more health-conscious but also, in the last 50 years, has began to be exploited by manufacturers. Note, this person would be shocking still in Europe. Chemicals and corn by-products are stuffed everywhere in American products. Even in crazy places like maple syrup and ketchup. I went back to the States at Christmas and we went to an upscale grocery store, yet my wife couldn't find almost anything (y…
You're confusing a few separate issues: 1) Cheap, high-yield corn. Upside: cheap carbs. Downside: Probably unsustainable. Crops require crazy chemical fertizilers to support the increased yields. Because it's cheap, people want to use corn for all kinds of crap it's not really suitable for, such as feeding livestock despite it being outside of their normal diet, which has ballooning negative effects (antibiotics, ani…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a Bangladeshi friend explain to me ~8 years ago that all the female Bangladeshi movie stars (not to be confused with Bollywood stars) were fat. For most of the population, being thin was a sign of not being able to afford much food, so fat women were the ideal. Just goes to show how subjective certain kinds of beauty are.
Ditto, a couple of hundred years ago being pale was fashionable - it meant you were rich enough to not work outside. Nowadays of course, we mostly work indoors - so being tanned is fashionable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can walk into any McDonals in america, order a grilled chicken sandwich with no mayo, a bottle of water, and have a legitametly healthy meal any time I want. You couldn't do that in in previous decades because they only had fried chicken. So the tools are out there, people just choose to continue ordering the triple quarter pounder.
Does it come with vegetables? Does it come with some kind of energy source other than meat?
I always find it interesting that sci-fi depictions of "evolved" humans (i.e. many years in the future) usually depict very tall, thin - even willowy - figures. That seems to fly in the face of general trend :)
It's the same as how everyone in the movies is beautiful, nobody in the future will go hungry, and even aspirations to 'the good ol days', even though everyone back then was too busy dying of dysentery, cholera, starvation, or drowning in caulked wagons to realize just how great they had it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...the reality of western man's... What do you mean "western"? What do you mean "man"? Edit: Sometimes it seems that "too terse" comments are disliked or misunderstood. So let me explain: it seems that people in the USA, as others have already said in other comments, don't really realise that you're a special case in this matter. Of course there are fat people here in Europe, but not in the same proportion and magnit…
> you (with a "mom" nick) used "men" to restrict man is a historically recognised contraction of human. I think your analysing it too deeply ;) (I also doubt you will find many people here who abide by the idea of political correctness) (and your comparison doesn't work too well; is Europe on a par with the East in terms of obesity problems? If not then the original statement is, surely, correct).
About for my comparison of USA and Europe, I trust some friends that have visited the states and returned really scared. I also see some videos of music (and other kind) stars that I admire that have got terribly fat, people that were thin when young. People over here also get fat when older, but not that kind of fat. Really.
The most revealing sign for me is that this question seems to get quick downvotes and troll accusations. I don't see it as an "american decadence" trend. I think it's more of a poisoning thing. Even if our lifestyle is probably very similar, the effects are not by far the same. That's why comparing us with the East is not a good measure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last I heard there was still some ongoing debate among ev biologists about whether group selection was an important effect or not; I think the general consensus tends to be that it's a pretty small effect except in certain special cases. The existence of traits like courage is far better explained by sexual selection. Women throughout history have always strongly preferred courageous men to cowardly ones. This is onl…
>The existence of traits like courage is far better explained by sexual selection. Women throughout history have always strongly preferred courageous men to cowardly ones. That's not an explanation. Why do women prefer courageous men? Do you mean to imply that courage is like a Peacock's tail? It doesn't help a man survive, but it signals that he must be really good at surviving in other ways.
So, 100 years ago, this kind of weight was sideshow-worthy (and remember the other things one would see in a circus sideshow...); today, it wouldn't turn heads on a subway. However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity. I think this is due, at least in part, to the…
Naturally--as health and fitness became more of a problem, people became more concerned about it.
Anyway, it's not like fatness was totally unheard of: this guy even got himself elected President in 1908, and I don't think anyone with his shape could accomplish the feat today, over 100 years later: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/William_H...
So, 100 years ago, this kind of weight was sideshow-worthy (and remember the other things one would see in a circus sideshow...); today, it wouldn't turn heads on a subway. However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity. I think this is due, at least in part, to the…
People here are exaggerating the fatness of the average American. Yes, obesity is an unsightly problem, but the man in that photo would still be a stand-out today-- just less of one. Instead of being someone we'd only see in a circus, he's the noticeably obese fat guy in the line at McDonalds. He's definitely not sideshow-freak material today, but he'd definitely be the fattest person on an average subway car. I'd ey…
I don't get your point. He might be the fattest in a subway car, but the point is that there's another like him in just about every subway car.
One hundred years ago the fat guy was (say) 1 in a 100_000; nowadays it is 1 in 100.
