A word or two on the guffaw-worthy McDonalds obesity suit. The photo in this article is not of the obese teens that are suing. Few newspapers want to publish pictures of these kids. However, People Magazine (sorry, can’t find the photo) published a photo of at least one of them, and she was black. Now, I suspect that if one of these litigants is a poor black kid, it is quite likely that at least some of the others are as well.
The typical conservative answer to this reluctance to publish photos is media bias that protects black people. However, I think that the motivation is simply the chuckles that these lawsuits produce. The cultural elite don’t want to think of themselves as laughing at fat black people.
On a more evolutionary note, consider the self-defense of one of the mothers involved in this. Personally, I think you’d have to be an idiot to think that McDonalds is healthy. But historically the healthiest food was the cheapest. Sugar, fat and salt were quite expensive, while vegetables and whole grains were the foods of the masses (if they had any food). Only the wealthy could afford to be fat, which is why most premodern cultures admired fat people.
Now, with sweet corn syrup and hydrogenated oils, fatty salty foods are the cheapest. Fresh vegetables aren’t (generally) very expensive, but the time it takes to prepare them, plus the taste difference can steer people who aren’t thinking about their long term health into living on french fries. Razib has suggested, regarding high rates of AIDS and teen pregnancy, that American blacks might be more prone to impulsive behavior than whites. This alleged impulsivity could easily carry into eating disorders. And anyone who’s been on a diet knows, unhealthy food is MUCH harder to avoid than unsafe sex, so we can hardly be surprised if the same people who have unprotected sex in the age of AIDS also gobble Big Macs.
Maybe the American obesity rates, for all races, will stabilize soon. But to me the true moral of this story is that in the 21st century stupid people will have an inexhaustible supply of cheap, easy ways to screw up their lives. Society will suffer of course, and even very smart people can be lured by the empty promises of debauchery, be it carnal or culinary.
Posted by duende at January 7, 2003 11:03 AM| TrackBack | Email this article
Comments
black women also metabolize carbs in a different way from what i read-so are more prone to fatty desposits.
Posted by: razib at January 7, 2003 12:25 PM
First of all, obesity does follow Rushton’s, always reliable, rule, but there are also some interesting qualifacations (aren’t there always?). I think this chart best illustrates what I am talking about:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/weightloss/schlundt/sld005.htm
Did you see that!? While it should be noted that black men and white men are actually very similar in rates of obesity, black women are the ones really throwing off the curve- they have the highest rate in America at 33%. That’s almost twice as much as white female obesity at 17%, and an amazing 5 times the rate of Asian female obesity-a mere 6% (the lowest rate)! Excellent source material here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/3and4/overweight.htm
Also it might be of interest to point out an interesting complicating factor in the dramatically low rates of asian obesity. While asians often appear much slimmer in frame to non-asians, they many times expeience all the health symptoms of obesity without ‘looking fat’. The reason Asians are stereotypically described as looking ‘yellow’, is because they have an extra layer of fat, which makes them more vulnerable to fat-related illnesses, such as heart disease, than would be a caucasion of the same weight and height.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/16/health/main525887.shtml
Posted by: Jason Malloy at January 7, 2003 01:30 PM
though 5% of south asians in the US are doctors, we have among the higher rates of cardiovascular disease (the rate of doctors is important, because MANY taxi-cab drivers have siblings or cousins in the medical profession, or has a sibling or cousin who’s close friend is a doctor, so many south asians of even low means get good consultations on ailments).
Posted by: razib at January 7, 2003 01:44 PM
correction: 5% of DOCTORS ARE South Asian. not the other way around-though my general point is still correct.
Posted by: razib at January 7, 2003 01:49 PM
I personaly don’t think it matters if your black,white or any other race everyone knows that fast-food is NOT good for you and will NOT help you shed any pounds now as for as getting money for being overweight because you eat MCDONALD’S or any other fast-food place is the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life if thats the case I want some money to I mean if everyone sued fast-food places for putting on some extra pounds they would go out of business and then all these people would have to COOK and eat healther food but I guess then they would want to sue the cows cause beef is fating to don’t that sound stupid suing cows well so does suing MCDONALD’S for being overweight!
Posted by: MELISSA at February 12, 2003 07:57 PM