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Personal responsibility, people?
This article was among the bigger loads of hogwash I've ever read. Genetics plays ''more'' of a role in obesity than behavior and diet? Bull. Travel some. Go to Asia. Maybe the Mediterranean. People are thin there. There simply aren't chubby children scarfing down Happy Meals everywhere you look (like there are here). But Asian and ...
Posted to Green Room by ENH on July 11, 2008
Regarding the Wall-E article...
''Wall-E tells us that if we don't change the way we live, we'll all get really fat and destroy the world.'' You'll find no bigger supporter of the first amendment than me. However, I think the statement above, quoted from the article is a little biased. To me, it sounds like someone who is just looking for a reason to look down on ...
Posted to Green Room by CWickham on July 11, 2008
Fat enough
I couldn't even finish this article. I am sure that some people can't help being fat. All your science aside I have known many people that went from an active lifestyle to an inactive one and gained a lot of weight. Period. If you don't care enough about your own body to eat right, exercise, and generally take care of the one and only thing in ...
Posted to Green Room by digitalmonkeys on July 11, 2008
Seriously? That's What You Got Out Of Wall-E?
Equating obesity with environmental collapse? Wall-E is a story about consumerism not obesity. It's about a government run by the CEO of a retail chain and how profits and ecology usually don't get along so well. It's a cautionary tale about how blindly following a corporate entity that insists it can provide everything people need to exist by ...
Posted to Green Room by Freddy-D on July 11, 2008
Bad Genetics?
All right, the connection between obesity and environment is wrong. But if your thesis that obesity is 80% caused by genetics is correct, how comes that the US are the fattest country in the world? Just a lot of people with bad DNA? I think you grossly underestimades the effect that modern US lifestyle has on people with a predisposition to gain ...
Posted to Green Room by Giuliano974 on July 11, 2008
Re: Myth of the Noble Savage
I don't know that the view of society in Star Trek is an accurate predictor of the future. I do agree (or hope?) that it's closer to the truth than Wall-E. The thing to remember is that humans in Wall-E devolved into blobs mostly because the robots are programmed to give them everything they want, as on a luxury cruise. This is supposed to be a ...
Posted to Green Room by Jevanyn on July 11, 2008
WALL-E
I disagree that Wall-E makes a connection between obesity and environmental issues. The film clearly indicates that the ''loss of bone mass'' occurred because of space travel, and the availability of hoverchairs (originally for the elderly). The environment was a mess before humans left Earth, and the obesity occurred after, and partly becuase ...
Posted to Green Room by Jevanyn on July 11, 2008
Take a load off; you're getting riled for the wrong reasons
I am really sick and tired of this new talk about Wall-e hating fat people...and it's only just begun I'm sure. Every slightly overweight person is likely to have this kind of reaction. I'm pretty disappointed in Slate too because normally I'm not exposed to such backward thinking as this article entails. The main jest I've gotten is that fat ...
Posted to Green Room by Raynabeth on July 11, 2008
Do you know what a metaphor is?
The fact that this was the lead article today shocks me. Was nothing was good written today by your colleagues? You should understand the tools of writing and other creative media (including film) before scrutinizing any form of artistic expression. The obese blobs in Wall-E are representative of a consumer mentality not a particular group of ...
Posted to Green Room by ArthurianLegend on July 11, 2008