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New Crash Test Dummies Reflect Rising American Bodyweight

Posted by timothy on from the my-self-esteem-has-certainly-taken-a-beating dept.

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.

31 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. What did you expect.. by bazmail · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... from our country that now judges food quality in calories per dollar?

    Its disgusting seeing my nation turning into a bunch of blubber-pods.

    1. Re: What did you expect.. by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... from our country that now judges food quality in calories per dollar?

      I think you have it backwards, otherwise McDonald's wouldn't be so cheap

      A true testament to the fact that a bad diet screws with intelligence

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    2. Re:What did you expect.. by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Seriously? The old self-loathing OMG-I-hate-my-country-because-we're-all-so-fat! trope? What are you, a sophomore in his first PoliSci class?

      Lookit - you're dead-wrong in that this is somehow just an American thing: Europe and many parts of Asia(!) are seeing a large rise in obesity as well.

      This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture. The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo.

      Now if you're that worried about folks whose physiological evolution hasn't caught up to relative prosperity, then crash the global economy and drive civilization back into the dark ages. Otherwise, dude, grow up already... this is much simpler (and at the same time more complex) than you think.

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    3. Re:What did you expect.. by Person147 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture.

      Actually in the UK (and I expect other countries) the poorer members of society are the fatter ones (citation). So the evidence collected thus far completely contradicts your comment. It may well be the case that as a culture (or country) itself raises its standards of living the population as a whole get fatter - but that wasn't your observation.

    4. Re:What did you expect.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Overweight people can (with a few exceptions due to medical conditions) change the fact that they're overweight. Gay people by and large cannot make themselves not gay. Apples and oranges.

    5. Re:What did you expect.. by Moof123 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In poor countries is is often cheapest to eat meals like rice with vegetables, or noodle soup with vegetables. In the US and other developed countries vegetables and fruits are fairly pricey relative to high calorie processed foods. I can get a 500 calorie sausage McMuffin for $1 (ready to eat no les), about the same price that I pay for an 100 calorie apple, and less than I pay for a 25 calorie bell pepper. I can get 3-4 boxes of mac and cheese at 700 calories a box for that same $1.

      Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience) compared to a vat of spaghetti with red sauce ($3-4, or $7-8 if you toss in a pound of meat). Poor people are making rational economic choices based on how we have driven down the cost per calorie in processed foods.

      The rising standard of living brings great economies of scale (and subsidies), but not to everything equally. So veggies don't get relatively cheaper, but meat and cheese do.

      In a sane world we would respond by backing off of meat and dairy subsidies and heavily subsidize fresh fruit and vegetables. Maybe outlaw checkout aisle candy and put baskets of fresh fruit there. Some euro countries are doing this, we probably never will.

    6. Re:What did you expect.. by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2

      Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience) compared to a vat of spaghetti with red sauce ($3-4, or $7-8 if you toss in a pound of meat). Poor people are making rational economic choices based on how we have driven down the cost per calorie in processed foods.

      First off, $20-25 seems really high unless you're feeding an army.

      But regardless of that, if you're looking to get the calorie count up, a salad is exactly the wrong way to do that. There's a reason why dieters eat so much salad, after all. Take a look at your basic staple foods -- flour, rice, potatoes, etc. They beat out typical processed foods in a calorie-per-dollar comparison any day.

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    7. Re:What did you expect.. by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can get a 500 calorie sausage McMuffin for $1 (ready to eat no les), about the same price that I pay for an 100 calorie apple,

      Wow..where do you pay that much for an apple? When they are in season (and I try to only eat fresh veggies and fruit that are in season and mostly local)...I buy 6-8lb bags of apples for $4 or so.

      Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience)

      Where are you paying this much?? I mean, chicken breasts in the meat dept on sale are about $1.99/lb....whole chickens often are $0.89/lb...so a veggie and chicken dinner to feed a family of 4 isn't $25?!?!

      Where in the US do you live where food is so expensive?

      I find that I spend far less money buying whole foods like veggies and fruit in season, along with good animal proteins, cooking from scratch..that I would for crap processed food.

      I certainly feel MUCH better doing it that way too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good pizza or occasional Taco Bell..but if I eat that crap for 2 days in a row, I feel physically less better than I do when eating good for you foods.

      And again...it isn't a money thing, at least not anywhere I've lived before.

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    8. Re:What did you expect.. by operagost · · Score: 2

      Actually, you are wrong. There was more industry and correspondingly far more blue-collar workers, who typically engage in a lot more physical activity.

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    9. Re: What did you expect.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well to do people are well because they are smarter. They do not smoke. As soon as it was proven cancer bla boa, they stopped. Same with excessive drinking or drugs. And now that it is so obvious that food plays a important role in health, they handle that too. The poor/ stupid don't care. It is well proven fast food is absolutely more expensive. It's just fast. I eat fast food once a month, then I feel sick. Then I forget, and try again. Eat less, eat well. Except for children. So many studies have been done on school performance and nutrition. Poor=map nourished = low brain performance. Sad. This is one problem we do know how to fix, unlike energy or pollution or greenhouse gases. But we can't. You cant, and I cant. It is up to the family and the individual. Some people just don't deal with in.

    10. Re:What did you expect.. by DRJlaw · · Score: 2

      Overweight people can (with a few exceptions due to medical conditions) change the fact that they're overweight. Gay people by and large cannot make themselves not gay.

      Citation needed. For both.

      Your "exceptions" are the rule.

      Gay people can be celibate.

      Frankly I'm more interested in the first point. While gay people can "not be gay," I wouldn't wish it upon them, they've worked hard not to be looked down upon for being gay, and all the more power to them.

      Now on to your implied point that it's ok to shame overweight people because they supposedly can change the fact that they're overweight -- just like gay people can change the fact that they have same-sex relationships -- by overcoming fundamental physiological urges that you're oh-so-sure can be overcome by pure willpower.

    11. Re:What did you expect.. by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      As a number of people have responded to you, the issue, while simple, is not what you're stating. That's something that can be adjusted for and overcome pretty easily.

      The real issue is that more developed nations have found methods of mass-producing cheap consumables -- cheap to produce, cheap to buy, lacking in nutrients, rich in other stuff that causes obesity (or sometimes just the wrong balance for your body to process as "working" food). These consumables have replaced grown vegetables in the diet of people with less income, because they're more easily affordable at the time they're needed.

      Ron Finley spells it out pretty clearly. When his poorer neighbourhood converted abandoned lots and street easements into places to plant edible food, obesity levels dropped, vandalism dropped, and most importantly, diabetes levels dropped.

      It's correlation and not causation, but this is a pretty damning result suggesting that convenience "foods" are a major contributor to the obesity issue (likely because of what they use as fillers, preservatives and growth hormones).

    12. Re:What did you expect.. by butalearner · · Score: 4, Informative

      Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience)

      Where are you paying this much?? I mean, chicken breasts in the meat dept on sale are about $1.99/lb....whole chickens often are $0.89/lb...so a veggie and chicken dinner to feed a family of 4 isn't $25?!?!

      Where in the US do you live where food is so expensive?

      It's almost certainly the veggies that are the problem. In Colorado, the thinnest state in the nation (though even 1 in 5 adults there are obese), I could get all manner of cheap but high-quality fruits and vegetables all year round from Sprouts (a chain grocery store that calls itself a farmer's market). Bell peppers were almost always on sale for $0.25 - $0.50 apiece, and that's including orange ones, which are generally more expensive. Where I live now, 1 in 3 adults are obese, and I'm lucky to find green bell peppers, which are usually the cheapest, for $1.00 apiece. The parking lot farmer's markets (they also had those in CO, by the way, but prices were rarely better there than at Sprouts) are all over now, and their prices weren't much better anyway, so crappy grocery store produce is once again my only option.

      As a result, we often end up buying frozen veggies, which don't taste nearly as good, so we don't do it as often. We ate a lot more rice and veggie dishes and salads in CO, but we eat more pasta and meat dishes here.

      Over the course of making this post, I found out that Sprouts is coming to my city in 2015. I am very excited about this.

  2. Average body size by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Kinda relevant, Average American Male's Body Compared To Bodies Of Men From Other Nations

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    1. Re:Average body size by s122604 · · Score: 2

      Oh, but Europeans love to think that...
      I've been to the UK numerous times, no shortage of lard buckets

  3. This makes no sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Crash Test Dummies are Canadian.

  4. Automakers do not want by codeButcher · · Score: 2

    They might not want to buy these crash test dummies, because they do not fit so well in some of their cars.

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  5. What about the "old normal"? by dpilot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Might this have bad implications for those who can keep their appetites and activity levels in decent proportion?

    I'm thinking about the fact that airbags can be harmful to kids, because they're tuned for adults. What happens when we start tuning our restraint systems for the obese? Will they continue to function properly for trim people, will they work less effectively, or might they actually become harmful, like airbags for kids? (I would expect that they might become too stiff for old-normal body proportions, for instance.)

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  6. Air bags by c · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As long as it doesn't lead to an increase in the power of air bags such that they become (more) unsafe to people with a healthy weight, I don't see this as an entirely bad thing.

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  7. Techniacl details of the dummies by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    What ive found to be lacking in this article is the technical details of the dummies. Here at humanetics our dummies are actually quite advanced as the details on a few recently manufactured units will surely attest:

    model 13543: Fudge: Meant to simulate the average child in america, Fudge comes pre-treated with cookie dough and its kinematic range has been artificially limited for realism. Fudge stands 4'4, and weights 230 pounds. Convenient multi-grip handles are provided as Fudge requres a team-lift for safety.
    model 9543: Lerleen: lerleen measures 5' tall and weighs more than 400 pounds. Kinematics have been removed for savings/realism and the materials impregnated with a mix of cigarette smoke resin, liquid yogurt, and imitation chocolate. Installation is easy with the included guide rails and lift straps for most counterbalance indoor fork-lift trucks. Mass can be redirected to the feet, and feet are also removable in order to simulate lifelike condition of end-stage diabetes.
    model 15442: Cobbler: Cobbler represents the average adult american male, at 5'11 and 550 pounds. This model is not kinematic, however is poseable in a variety of styles to simulate heart attack, COPD related loss of consciousness, or food-related motor vehicle operator distraction. Cobbler is impregnated with a malty, earthy aroma comprised of barbecue sauce and artificial cheese, and must be installed by a certified mover/millwright.

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    1. Re:Techniacl details of the dummies by PPH · · Score: 2

      model 12707: Mary Lou: Mary Lou stands 5'-2" and weights 95 pounds. Limbs are articulated to allow feet to be placed on the dashboard or out the window in the front passenger seat. Meant to test limb injury or loss due to air bag deployment or rollover.

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  8. Re:Obesity by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sounds like something a fatty would say.

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  9. For all the snarky and negative comments .... by King_TJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to say that IMO, this is a pretty good idea.

    The whole idea of doing crash tests and designing vehicles around one standard dummy size means you have no way to know if the safety systems work well with anyone outside that narrow parameter.

    Not everyone heavier than the 167lbs. or so of the current crash dummy is unhealthy, for starters. Should America's vehicles be higher safety risks for all of our professional athletes with more muscle-mass than average? (Chevrolet just sponsored the World Series .... Maybe they better rethink their strategy if they don't design cars to be as safe for some of those guys?)

    Even the "ideal weight charts" say a 6'4" person is still in the "normal" weight range at 197lbs. - so what about tall people like that? (Are the crash test dummies tall enough to see what happens when someone's head is that much higher up in the vehicle? They probably should check into that.)

    But even putting all of that aside for a moment? The people bringing up those comparisons of average body types in other countries to ours don't really convince me that we're so bad off as a nation. Honestly, I used to be as skinny as the depicted "average sized 30 year old Japanese male" in that Huffington Post article -- and you know what? I hated it. As a general rule, women found me too skinny to be physically attractive to them (with many preferring the larger-framed guys who were clearly in the "overweight" category). The only praise I ever received was from the "gym rat" types who cared more about achieving the numbers the charts or stats said you should achieve as "ideal". And even then? I was never really very strong. They always assumed I would be a "quick runner" though.

  10. A prediction by aaron4801 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Car companies will purchase a few test units, then realize all their 5-Star Safety cars are now only 3-Star safe for bigger passengers, then go right back to the smaller dummies. Seriously, what's the incentive for car companies to voluntarily take on more difficult metrics to reach? Unless the government mandates an increase in dummy weight, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt by the CTD manufacturer.

  11. Old Physics Joke by VorpalRodent · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, the punchline is now reality? "Assume a spherical driver."

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  12. Re:Obesity by onkelonkel · · Score: 2

    Overweight and obese are medical terms based on associated health risk. BMI is fairly good for average people, not so good for athletes.
     
    Want to know if you are fat? Try this - lift your shirt, and grab a fold of skin 2 inches to the left (or right) of you belly button. How thick is the fold of skin (and fat)? An inch or less, ok. More than an inch, you are carrying unnecessary extra body fat which will damage your health.

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  13. Re:You want to know why we're fat? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

    Which means that people who plan ahead and alot time to prepare food in the evening/morning for the day will have much healthier diets than those who pick up something from the corner convenience store/fast food store between shifts.

    This is what all the studies and numbers already indicate. They also indicate that people would rather someone else do that work for them and pay the extra money/pay the price in health.

  14. Re:Obesity by itzly · · Score: 2

    Doesn't work well for people who carry their fat around their internal organs, which is the most dangerous place to have it. Unfortunately, BMI doesn't necessarily work that well either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

  15. Re:Obesity by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 2

    You're right, maybe that's what the problem is. Maybe America isn't getting incredibly fat, maybe we're just getting incredibly muscular.

    *goes to Walmart*

    Nope. Incredibly fat. Sorry.

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  16. Re:You want to know why we're fat? by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 2

    Doesn't McDonalds sell a double cheese burger for $1?

    So you're saying that if you're willing to pay a 25% premium, you'll earn the ability to waste time at the grocery store and in your kitchen?

    Sold!

    I spend a lot of time and money cooking my own food, but living off fast food was a lot cheaper (in terms of both money and time). It's an odd world we live in.

    --
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  17. height too? by Mirar · · Score: 2

    Can we have some crash test dummies reflecting taller people too? *NCAP tests with 180cm/6' dolls (I asked them).
    I want to know which cars will kill me because the ceiling is too low for a 6'4" (193cm).