Slashdot Mirror
White House Fingers PlayStation As Obesity Culprit
theodp writes "The winners of the childhood obesity infographic design contest sponsored by GOOD and First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative are in, and the overall winner calls out Sony's PlayStation as a major milestone on its timeline of childhood obesity (together with Coke, Pepsi, mall food courts, fructose and high sugar tariffs, TV, McDonald's, and other fast food). Somewhat ironically, the First Lady's other anti-childhood obesity efforts include a $60,000 video game contest."
Calling out specific systems(without research: "did the NES/SNES keep more asses in more seats for longer than the Playstation" is a perfectly valid empirical question) seems counterproductive at best, libelous at worst.
The basic fact that consuming more energy than you use makes you fat, though, seems too obvious to even bother arguing about anymore. This is conservation of energy, not subtle epidemiology.
Anyone who thinks it's not the food we eat here in the U.S. is completely missing what is going on. Carbohydrates are a nearly direct path to building body fat. Nearly everything on store shelves have breads, sugars and starches in them. Many other countries have successful laws and regulation against the types of foods we eat in the U.S. every day. It's as if other nations know and understand about nutrition and the U.S. somehow doesn't. Okay... so that doesn't seem too likely that our experts don't know about it while the rest of the world does. So what could it be?
What about the cutting of recess at schools and short lunch times at some of them.
Some schools even have a recess / lunch where you have to eat fast to get some recess time!
also what is point of a 30min lunch when you have to use half of just waiting in line to get / pay for the food?
What about the fucking PARENTS, Michelle? I'd point at the parents as the single biggest reason for childhood obesity. It's supposed to be their job to make sure their kids remain healthy and active. Instead, a lot of them are just fine grabbing McDonald's and letting the kids stare at the TV for hours on end. It all boils down to people. Politicians just love pointing the finger at everything but people, because people vote. Playstations don't.
Bread and grains have been an enormous component of staple diets for ages. Even today, in a lot of third-world countries, people eat primarily starch. It's only recently that this has contributed to widespread obesity. I'm going to have to say that it's not as simple as people eating grains and other starches.
Maybe part of the problem is demonizing things that are the unpopular food item of the moment. Like saturated fat. Or starch.
Actually, it's all down to heavy consumption of wheat and grains, and starches too, high fructose corn syrup, and the demonization of saturated fat.
I have always thought that perhaps federal corn price supports have lead to overproduction of corn, thus artificially cheap high fructose corn syrup, thus artificially cheap sodas/crap foods, thus obesity.
Andy Alexis Buy my CD: http://www.pineycreekweasels.net/cds.html Sacramento, CA. "The Pearl of the Central Valley"
Yeah, there is a pretty sad disconnect between the time line and the graph. The events might as well be totally random, most of the events aren't even events, just milestones, might as well have started with the moon landing. I'm also highly suspicious of the 2% blip around 2004 which is implied is due to McDonalds stopping supersize. As big as they are, I'm doubtful that it could have such a large impact. The timing doesn't really match either. More likely, somebody thought "ugh, gonna find something good that happened that year".
I don't see where they're blaming Sony. They're calling out video games as a contributing factor in childhood obesity, which is probably true. Maybe instead of blaming Sony they could educate parents or something. I wonder how they might educate parents? I don't know, maybe some kind of graphic that shows the rise of childhood obesity and points out a lot of contributing factors that parents could work on avoiding? Something like that?
I'd throw subsidies for meat production into that ring as well. Subsidizing meat leads to overproduction of meat, which in turn leads to cheap processed low-quality meats, which is what fuels McDonald's and all the other fast food chains out there. I think the real irony is that the government is paying these companies (vicariously) to make us fat with one hand and then dishing out all these bucks to fight obesity on the other hand. If the government would just stop mucking up the system in the first place we would all be a lot healthier mentally and physically!
Yup. Being active might make you healthier, but I wish everyone would stop equating exercise with weight loss. I wouldn't focus entirely on corn, (though it's a big stupid problem here in the US,) regardless of content people simply eat too much for the kind of lifestyle we live. (lumberjacks have an excuse. I don't.)
No soft drinks, no pre-packaged boxed snack foods (seldom cereal), no chips (well, chips and salsa occasionally). Seldom eat out at fried food joints (maybe once a week). Stick to wheat breads, fruits and vegetables, yogurt, meats, sushi and rice.
Essentially if you cut out all the 'americanized' boxed and packaged foods that are mainstream, as well as soft drinks, your overall feeling of health increases rapidly. Did I also mention coffee and beer/wine are essential? And no, I don't miss ANY of that crap processed and preserved food I've cut out.
If you listen to and feel out your body just a little, and think about the history of mans food consumption, its all pretty clear what the body CAN effectively use for food.
If pointing a few fat fingers at videogames is the best our fearful leaders can do to address the obesity epidemic, it's already over.
America is laboriously waddling itself into an early grave rife with gout, diabetes, pancreatitis, and countless other chronic ailments that turn the phrase "quality of life" into a cruel joke.
The problems come from every direction: Subconscious feeding instincts that don't translate well to calorie abundance, marketing honed to razor sharpness that capitalizes on these instincts, food designed to do the same, and a general lack of accountability from top to bottom all combine to create a horrifying socioeconomic problem that I don't see us pulling out of.
Nobody cares. About themselves. About what the things they sell others do to those people.
Just give everyone that wants it some meth. Keep the daily doses reasonable and people's brains would take longer to turn to mush from the drugs than their current sedentary lifestyles.
You didnt RTFA. They call out inactivity, fast food, and soda.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
If kids spent all day reading books instead of playing games would they get equal blame? In both cases a kid is just sitting there doing nothing.
Xbox is a subsidiary of Microsoft, an American company and a big lobbyist / but a surprisingly small campaign contributor.
Which says it all! If you haven't noticed yet, this is just another political "think of the children" ploy. Don't be fooled because it includes multiple liberal pet peeves of freedom, along the lines of "We will tell you what you can eat and do, when and where" bullcrap. But they are still required to play by the fancy political rules, which is what gives it away as dishonest by only mentioning a foreign brand. Come on people, encourage more exercise, but do not try to demonize inanimate objects because of your own choices.
IT IS CALLED PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!
Hope you didn't mind me fixing your quote.
Personally I blame, in no particular order. Government for telling people that the world is coming to an end, and keep your kids inside. I blame 'think of the children' idiots, for telling everyone that their kids are at risk from *random thing here*, and they should be coddled from birth until they leave. I blame psychologists for repeatedly saying the same things as the 'think of the children' idiots, along with telling parents that males should be quiet and demure. While prescribing drugs to keep them 'under control' aka ADHD.
I blame the media for doing the same thing and reinforcing it. And I blame parents for not being well informed, and following what the media presented, and what the 'school psychologists' told them. Along with being told that games like cops n' robbers(or variations like cowboys n' indians), or war, or any supper-happy-stupid childhood games are bad for them because it 'reinforces negative stereotypes'.
Pretty sure that covers it, I know I'm missing a few like school boards, and such. I don't however blame the kids, but I pity them. Because of all that, they never had a childhood where they could actually go out and enjoy themselves.
Om, nomnomnom...
Give it a few years... add beer and a lowered metabolism and you're set ;)
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
Excusemewhat? It's the parent's job to educate and train their children. Encouraging activity and exercise falls within the purview of parental influence.
The way your body handles food (burn/save) now is different than it will in ten years. Keep up the bad habits and most likely you will be overweight rather than under.
WebMD's article on testosterone is interesting. Basically, your testosterone levels peak at around 25 and decline gradually until death.
Let's not forget the importance the state of Iowa plays in American Presidential primary process. Being the first poll, each politician courts the state months or even years in advance. A few will skip the state, but most will make sure they do not vote against anything the voters there will be concerned with, and that includes corn.
Michelle Obama has adapted a worthwhile initiative to reduce childhood obesity into a platform for broadcasting her snide disdain for the plebeian tastes of the common people. Her chart also indicts "The first successful shipping mall FOOD COURT [emphasis hers]". Mrs. Obama has deigned to enlighten the masses, disabusing us of our philistine taste in Playstations and food courts at the mall. Once imbued with her own degree of elegance and sophistication, we shall live as healthfully she, dining casually in bistros on the Spanish coast and in elegance upon the healthful hors d'oeuvres at White House receptions.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Depends on a lot of things. But they don't usually die of obesity-related diseases, despite your theory. Strange, that.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
1. Corn. A lot of food is loaded with high-fructose corn syrup because it's cheap. Modern meat has a higher percentage of fat because subsidized corn is a cheap way to fatten livestock and increase the quantity of meat. The surplus fat ends up in all kinds of products as a cheap way to provide flavor that consumers have developed a preference for. And of course, corn products of all types end up in high-carb foods that are cheap and supported by relentless marketing. Corn doesn't just fatten livestock, it fattens humans too. Healthy food is more expensive than junk food. All of this happens because corn is sold for less than the cost of production (thanks to the government).
2. Fear. When I was a kid, we would go to a nearby forest and play outside all day. Or we would play unsupervised baseball, football, etc. from dawn to dusk. Today, we don't let kids play without a boatload of supervision, protective equipment, etc. Therefore, outside play is infrequent. Walking through the woods is now out of the question, thanks to lenient sentencing of violent criminals and paranoia that we get from watching crime dramas on TV.
3. Homework. Teachers are pressured into assigning homework far beyond what is needed to support academic progress. Administrators seem to think that keeping kids busy will keep them out of trouble (by keeping them seated and indoors, of course). This has a number of side effects, none of which help the kids.
Or salt.
There's no reason why healthy people can't consume near limitless amounts of salt (up to the point of over saturation) without harm. Yet, it is demonized to the point that we're forced to make do with food that is sub-par to satisfy some ignorant fools. Our bodies run on salt. It's the second most important agent after water for keeping our biological machinery running. Properly functioning kidneys will get rid of any excess without any ill effects. Popular opinion, however, has come up with the false idea that salt is a causative agent in heart disease so the nannies can stick their noses where it doesn't belong.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
If the child wants to be healthy, then it is their own job to try to be healthy. Having someone force you to do everything will turn up bad results.
I'm sorry but you're fucking wrong. Left on their own the MAJORITY of kids will only do what they want, regardless of the consequences for the future. They will not study, they will not clean their rooms until the mold tries to eat them, they will eat nothing but chocolate, hot dogs, and ice cream, and the list goes on.
Most of those kids will understand that the things their parents tried to "force" on them when they were young were for their own good - but only after they're finally out on their own and they realize that if they don't do these things, nobody will. (And there will be consequences for them if they don't start doing them at that point if it isn't already too late.)
There are gripes I have with parental types even now as an adult, but I'm GLAD they gave more of a shit about my own health than I did.
it's harder when all preprocessed and prepackaged food, including breads and juices contain fructose. It's very hard indeed.
You can't handle the truth.