“Everything is engineered against us.” The “obesity warrior” plans to legislate leanness…
19 June 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
“Everything is engineered against us.” The “obesity warrior” plans to legislate leanness…
James “the obesity warrior” Sallis says that it’s not your fault that you are 100-pounds overweight. He wants to punish those who he deems responsible for your lack of dietary control. It’s not your fault you eat that fast food its McDonald’s fault for making those burgers and fries available. It’s not your fault that you are sedentary and like to watch TV and play videos, it’s the Sony and PlayStation’s fault and they must be MADE TO PAY! Tax them for your inability to control tastes and habits. Plus the obesity warrior demands more taxes for bike paths and parks. Last time I checked out my local bike path (and every municipality in America has a public park or path) the problem was not that there wasn’t a path but that no one was using it! I suppose the obesity warrior would loop back around and say if we taxed X-Box so that a unit cost $1,000 then more folks would be on the deserted parks and bike paths. This lunacy is gaining momentum and perhaps in the foreseeable future your local bakery will charge you $8 for a doughnut, .90-cents for the doughnut and $8.10 for a fat tax…his whining is apparently contagious.
DENVER - It’ll take more than public service campaigns to solve the nation’s obesity problem, according to fitness experts who say neighborhoods must be designed so people can get around without their cars. Virtually everything American society has done for the past 100 years has made it easier for us to be fatter, said James Sallis, a San Diego State University psychology professor, and others who gathered recently at the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual meeting. “We’ve built an unhealthy world in a lot of different ways,” said Sallis, who was once dubbed an “obesity warrior” by Time magazine. Sallis contends change will come only when the public demands walkable development, more federal money for parks and bike paths and even a tax on industries that promote sedentary lifestyles (he pointed to video game makers, movie theater chains and even electric Segway scooters). Proof that people will accept an active lifestyle and walk to parks and shopping if they can is found in the “new urbanism” style of planned communities, the experts contend. They pointed to Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood, an enclave of new homes built where the city’s old airport used to be. The neighborhood is a mix of shops, offices, parks, apartments and houses linked by wide sidewalks and meandering bike paths. Architecture varies from single-family homes to rows of brownstones. Tom Gleason, a spokesman for developer Forest City, said the design has been a hit. “People will walk if you give them that opportunity,” he said. Two years ago, the National Institute of Environmental Health Science hosted a conference on how society has engineered activity out of American life. Institute spokeswoman Christine Bruske said a similar conference last year focused on how children are affected, but new ideas take time. Without a coordinated effort among federal, state and local governments, communities can’t compete, Sallis said. Transportation money goes to highways, not bike paths or even sidewalks in newer developments. “Everything is engineered against us,” Sallis said.
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