Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The Obesity Epidemic

Randall Parker -- a.k.a. FuturePundit and social engineer extraordinaire -- opines about obesity in "Response To Obesity Epidemic Should Be Urgent Priority." But obesity isn't contagious and therefore can't be an epidemic.

What's the problem, then? According to Parker,
food is cheap. As biotechnology advances food prices will rise more slowly than inflation. So food will become cheaper still.
That's a problem? Tell it to the poor.

Here's my solution: Let natural selection sort it out. If fatties aren't fit to live, they won't live as long as non-fatties or procreate at the same rate as non-fatties. So, if fatness is gene-related, there'll be fewer fatties in succeeding generations. Otherwise, I don't care how fat other people get, as long as I don't have to pay for their food addiction.