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New Crash Test Dummies Reflect Rising American Bodyweight
Ever thought that all those crash-test dummies getting slammed around in slow-motion were reflecting an unrealistic, hard-to-achieve body image? One company is acting to change that, with some super-sized (or right-sized) dummies more in line with current American body shapes: Plymouth, Michigan-based company Humanetics said that it has been manufacturing overweight crash test dummies to reflect growing obesity trends in the U.S. Humanetics has been the pioneer in crash test dummies segment since the 1950s. But now, the company's crash test dummies are undergoing a makeover, which will represent thicker waistlines and large rear ends of Americans.
>Gay people by and large cannot make themselves not gay.
They can choose not to have sexual relations. It's an depressing life, I'll grant you. Many overweight people will tell you of the woes of failed diets and that the few times it's lasted, it was a very depressing time of their life.
Medical science has also proven that dieting generally doesn't work. Scientifically, it works. Psychologically, it doesn't. This is just like the "solution" to being gay, scientifically, it works. Psychologically, it doesn't.
Medical science has also proven that there is a genetic propensity to overweight (and also a genetic propensity to underweight or average weight). Psychology also plays a factor, but is generally a trigger for those genes. There is no specific psychology to being gay, although there is a trigger: Puberty.
Does the comparison ring true for you yet? While I will concede being overweight is certainly "more" of a choice than being gay, the level of choice involved in the matter hardly clear cut.
I'm not going to include the edge cases of people who are overweight due to disabilities.
Shall we also consider that the shape of someone's body and your attraction or repulsion to it is based on the same rules of your attraction and repulsion to the opposite or same sex? You are letting your genes makes the decisions for you just as much as the overweight are doing so as well. How about you make the more adult decision and consider that rationally someone else's weight almost never affects you (there are occasions such as on an airplane where it does, however, that's a rudeness issue--the larger person needs to consider how they can accommodate themselves without encroaching upon others). When what someone else is or does has no affect on your life, the rational answer is not to care--or, if you feel it is harmful to them only, to offer compassion and support. Not derision.
As for these crash test dummies affecting you, they're still going to test with dummies at your weight, and modern air bags are variable and dependent on the weight of the person sitting there. This doesn't affect you.