[A GUEST APPEARANCE ON THE BLOG- SID]
Ok. So I saw this documentary last week called 'Super Size Me' which is about fast food and the obesity epidemic in America. The documentarian spent a month existing on only a McDonald's diet and documents the social, physiological and amorous effects (vegan girlfriend freaked out) while showing McDonald's using every trick in the book to keep adults and children hooked onto its products. But the most interesting part of the movie for me is the documentarian describing a lunch he had with a few other people at a restaurant. One of the people at the table was lecturing the other, who was a smoker, on the evils of smoking and how he should quit right away. There was also an obese woman at the table who had a lot on her plate, quite literally. The documentarian basically said, "Obesity is the number two cause of unnatural death in the US now after smoking and is projected to overtake smoking as the number one cause in ten years. However, it's interesting that it is now socially acceptable to heckle a smoker in public even when they are not smoking, but not an obese person. At what point will it be socially acceptable to tell an obese person to stop eating so much and stop ravaging their bodies with heart and bone problems and burdening the healthcare system? When is it going to be socially acceptable to tell fatty to stop ordering that second portion of dessert?” I guess part of the argument for not doing so is that everyone needs to eat but they don't need to smoke. But c'mon girl..Have you seen some Americans lately? They're signing up to be stunt doubles for Free Willy. They so fat that by the time they roll over it's their b'day again. Kids in school so fat these days, they literally sit next to everyone in class. Case in point: the other day I was having lunch at a relatively upscale restaurant with a friend and the waitress, who didn't know either of us, started lecturing my friend on the evils of smoking when she found out he was a smoker. I'm just waiting for a fat person to heckle a smoker friend of mine when I'm around. Boy, is he or she going to get it.
word.
-Sid
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4 comments:
Interesting. Check this out -
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/0,6903,156042,00.html
Maybe people aren't as concerned about obesity as they are about smoking because obesity involves just that one person whereas smoking affects everyone around.
We've had smoking banned from public places including all pubs from the beginning of this yr. I find it much more decent without the smoke altho I'm a smoker. Ur clothes dont stink of smoke the next day and u can still wear d same pair of jeans. Smoking shud be banned from any confined places where others could be affected by passive smoking! It makes everyone's lives better and u do smoke less as well!
The waitress cud loose her job for preaching to customers. If you're working in a restaurant, just serve. People at the table can do the talking. No offense to waitress/waiters, I've done that myself!
i think we all agree that second hand smoke and smoking is bad and should not be condoned..i'm not defending smokers. but i have two questions:
1) Why do people think they have the right to lecture someone they just met on the ill-effects of smoking, even if that person is nowwhere near a cigarette? Would you tell a very fat person about the dangers of obesity even if they were stuffing ur face in front of you?
2) Why do we have ads targetting teens to prevent them from smoking but we look the other way when they are overweight and continue to overeat?
I'm trying to highlight socially condoned double standards. Even when we know something is bad for you, we don't say anything if it affects 'self-esteem' - that holy grail of human development. what crap.
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