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.
"lets throw in a gaming console amongst other big culprits that help fatten up kids" If your fat its because you didnt exercise enough as a kid and you probably ate shit. More so, its probably the fact that you ate shit. Oh, and your parents probably didnt push activity and exercise on you. "LETS BLAME SONY!" I call it a witch hunt
It barely even mentions the playstation. It seems to be more pissed off at soda then anything else.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
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?
Does reading books also cause obesity?
America is sugar addicted and everything we eat has corn syrup and corn starch.
Is there really a strong correlation between the playstation and obesity?
I see a stronger correlation between the portion/serving sizes.
When parents keep programming their children from young to finish everything on their plate and don't waste, think of the starving in Africa etc, they sure are going to find it difficult to not try to finish a super sized meal/drink.
And the businesses are sure happy to sell larger sizes. You can more easily sell larger portions for higher revenue and profits. Only a few snobs like going to expensive restaurants to get very expensive food in tiny portions.
As for "food preparation time", I eat out very often and thus spend nearly zero food preparation time and I'm not obese. It's just a matter of what you choose to eat and drink.
Here's a tip, cut out the sugar water and fries. Only have them as a treat once in a long while. Do fast food establishments in the USA make it easy and convenient to just order water with their burgers? Or is it more expensive to do so than to order it with sugar water?
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"
Of course not. Xbox is Microsoft, an American company and a big lobbyist / campaign contributor...
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
And for vastly longer than "ages", grains were not part of our diet at all. The recently obesity epidemic has coincided with the (incorrect) assumption that eating fat makes you fat, that eating cholesterol is bad etc. What's the life expectancy of a 3rd world grain eater?
Now that wheat consumption is linked to heart disease (whereas we now see saturated fat is not) and how starches and sugars interact with our metabolism through insulin, and low cholesterol is associated with increase cancer risk, you really have to think that the diet of grains needs serious consideration, and the advice to base our diets on grains (advice given by grain producers and their lobbies) and that such recommendations are very suspect.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Do fast food establishments in the USA make it easy and convenient to just order water with their burgers? Or is it more expensive to do so than to order it with sugar water?
The "value meal" gimmick at U.S. quick-service "workaurants" is roughly buy a burger and fries and get a free Coke.
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!
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.
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
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.
Older folks (you know, a large part of electorate) are traditionaly sceptical of new fangled toys; don't search for your deamons in what is simply categring to preexisting sentiments of many voters.
I believe you missed the point. There are lots of "new fangled toys" produced by a number of manufacturers. Yet of all those toys produced by all of those manufacturers, it's the foreign manufacturer that is targeted.
To the people you described an XBoX360 would be just as "new fangled".
Incidentally this is a reason why collecting Social Security should mean you surrender your right to vote. Perhaps then Social Security would be something other than a Ponzi scheme doomed to collapse under its own weight since it would no longer be political suicide to fix it. As a bonus, the tendency you have highlighted would be irrelevant and no longer an input towards decision-making.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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.
people eat too much because government pushed the agenda of stabilizing food prices during Nixon actually and it carried on, and due to prices being fixed, the ingredients became worse and worse for human consumption, including the gov't not even mentioning that fiber needs to be in the food 'pyramid'. Watch this Sugar - the bitter truth. An explanation on why people are obese.
The answer is fructose, which is a form of alcohol without the buzz, and which is not regulated by the FDA because its bad effects are not immediate and happen over time.
You can't handle the truth.
and scientists finger the White house as the culprit of obesity: Sugar - the bitter truth. An explanation on why people are obese.
Short version:
1. Nixon pushed to stabilize food prices to help him in elections, he succeeded in doing that to food.
2. Various gov't programs included providing 'juices' to the poor.
3. Fixed food prices caused corporations to start looking for other ways of taking care of price fluctuations, namely using cheaper and more cost effective ingredients.
The food that causes obesity is...
fructose.
The video above explains that fructose is a form of alcohol without the buzz and how it does damage by not allowing the body to understand that it doesn't need to consume more food, while causing obesity, liver damage, and various other illnesses normally associated with alcoholism.
BTW FDA doesn't control substances that even though harmful to you, do not cause acute poisoning, and fructose does not cause acute poisoning, it makes you sick over time.
White house is the culprit.
You can't handle the truth.
I was talking to my folks recently about whats going on in my hometown.
I grew up on a dead end street where lots of kids live. Lots of kids still live there. There is hardly any through traffic. When I was a kid, we'd play games on the street pretty regularly. Anything from street hockey, to improvised soccer, to water gun fights... you name it.
Recently a new generation of kids on that street started doing some of the same things. The police were called, parents fought and eventually it was decided that it was beyond inappropriate for the kids to play there. One of the main reasons that seemed to be cited was a large fear of child abductors and the fact that they couldn't always be supervised.
So thanks to years and years of pampering and isolating our children from fears both real and manufactured, a new generation of kids won't have any memories of the street I grew up on. Instead they'll all stay inside and get fat in front of their Playstations and we'll blame the Playstations for all their problems. Might as well put them on Ritalin to keep them from using all that pent up energy, too.