While sugar drinks and big fast food portions of too much fat and empty starch certainly help obesity, I think the South Pacific Islanders have a very strong cultural reasons. In many cultures up to a hundred years or so ago, the wealthy people were fat, because they could afford to eat as much as they liked (and already too refined food - white bread instead of dark bread, for example); and because they didn’t have to work physically all day. The Islanders have trouble adjusting a very old tradition with modern medicine about the dangers of obesity, but they are trying to educate people that being fat is not attractive.
That sounds about right. This google transcription of a PDF article goes into the issues in a bit more detail, but it’s similar to what you see in some African cultures - being big and well-fed suggests you are a high-status person. Eminently sensible in a subsistence agriculture situation with periodic food shortages, not so good when fried chicken and sugar-frosted cereal are available at the drop of a hat.
I’m suprised you make such sweeping condemnations in GQ instead of GD.
Just for the record, do you know how many different causes (sometimes overlappig and adding) for poverty there are? It’s a lot more than just being “lazy” (no matter how popular that opinion might be in your country.) In fact, the view that the poor are poor because of laziness/squandering money on getting drunk/poor household management were debunked by thorough scientific research ** about a hundred years ago**, with scientists gathering data in both Germany and England among the workers. Often the father was not the only worker, but the elder children and the wife also helped, and they still stayed poor (like the working poor today), because the wages were not adequate to pay rent and food.
Similarly, there are many reasons for obesity. Among them is lack of education about what foods are good and which are bad. Another factor is hereditary. Another factor is lack of time to prepare wholesome meals, relying instead on fast-food or frozen pizza (and if you are a single mother working 40 hrs./week, there simply is no time to cook if you are only a normal human.) And one - not the only - cause is lack of willpower, which isn’t related to class, but contributes to many cases. Like the many people - across classes - that are addicted to cigarettes and lack the willpower to stop. Or the many people - across classes - that drink too much, and lack the willpower to stop.
There was a Discovery Channel special a couple months back about an African society where the men demand that their wives be fattened up before marriage. This girl of like 17 sat in a hut and basically drank porridge for 3 months to get fat.
Her grandmother sat with her, and would beat her with a stick if she didn’t eat.
There was nothing sensible about it.
Taken to extremes, no human custom is sensible - the situation you describe isn’t much different to the legendary Valley girl getting a boob job and lip implants for her 18th birthday. But take a look at, say, the situation in the Horn of Africa now and ask yourself whether you would prefer your wife to go into a prolonged famine with a nice stock of blubber or looking like Kate Moss. In a subsistence farming situation, all too often fat=life, thin=death.
This is mere class bigotry.
Constanze, LonesomePolecat, et al:
Generally speaking, a lazy person is more likely to be chronically poor vs. a hard working and motivated person. And a lazy person (by definition) is also someone who has a tendency to sit around and do nothing. Hence a valid argument could be made that laziness is the common variable that causes poverty and obesity.
Granted, this is a very politically incorrect theory.
It is also a theory that isn’t even remotely supported by the facts. It does, however, make an excellent excuse to turn a blind eye to the poor.
You mean those people who were lucky enough to land a job that supports them, and work 8 hrs/day, but sit around in the evening because they are tired, are lazy? Or the working poor, who wear themselves out in two jobs, because neither pays enough, are lazy?
And the rich guy who inherited his wealth, who sits in board room meetings doing nothing constructive except make bad management decisions, but can afford a cook and a health club, is not lazy?
Is that really what you think?