You are what you eat

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We went to see Supersize Me on Friday night at the Espoo Film Festival which was the Finnish premier and featured an introduction and Q & A session after the movie with the director Morgan Spurlock. It was an interesting movie and I really enjoyed his attention to the medical data from three different medical professionals as well as a dietician. I don't know that anyone would be crazy enough to eat McDonald's for every meal for 30 days but it really was a surprise to see the dramatic degradation of his health in such a short time.

Perhaps the most important message of the film is directed to children and their parents in the US. The budgets for schools in the US has been cut so much in the past decade that they are being forced to allow for commercial advertising and for selling soft drinks, candy and fast food to help raise money for such things as books and, well, education. How sleazy or desperate do you have to be to allow your schools to pimp themselves out to the fast food and candy industries? And, to cut to the chase, the US is overflowing with supersized, fat, morbidly corpulent people. It is. I used to be a teenage fatass or, as they called it back then "husky", but I wasn't as enormous as kids are these days and I was almost a singularity in a whole gradeschool of skinny kids. I remember when I was about 10 when I saw a woman go by in the hospital where my mom worked whose kneecaps, her kneecaps, had folds of fat that flapped as she walked almost to the middle of her shin. She was like a circus freak since I had never in my life seen anyone so incredibly obese, but these days all it takes is a trip to any shopping mall in America to find such a person. It's a serious problem, especially for the children who will have a lifetime of health and weight problems. Of course, people think you're being mean when you point this out and I know firsthand how it feels to be on the wrong end of the stick but, then again, I don't weigh 400 pounds these days either. People feel free to point out that smoking kills and I wonder how long before it's common for people to approach the morbidly obese and start hassling them for the same reasons.

Is McDonald's to blame? No, I still don't think Spurlock explored the connection well enough and it would be far too easy and simplistic to point at them and name them as the cause of obesity in children. Even as a contributing factor I still wouldn't go as far as allowing people to sue the corporation for catering to what people seem to want as it is the American Way, isn't it? I suspect that the answer is complex and is probably far more related to the changes in lifestyle since the 1970s where people are just too busy to cook or share a real meal at home with each other. My mother worked full-time but damn if we didn't have dinner with the family, every night, at 7pm which was usually cooked by one of my sisters or me. I hated it as I got older but perhaps there was an ancient wisdom there that once cast aside has led to the current epidemic of obesity. These days both parents often work and fast food is a quick and easy solution to feeding the family. Portions are enormous. Noone walks anywhere. People get fat. There's a lot going on in this pressing issue and it's not just contained in the US as the UK is quickly catching up. It could happen here, too. It's a good movie but don't eat a Big Mac before watching it as we did as I felt sick as a dog for a day afterwards. :)

And, it's almost September with a bunch of exciting new books coming out in the next month or three.

• The Future Dictionary of America ~ The concept of what a dictionary might look like in 30 years sounds intriguing.
• The Algebraist ~ I hope this book is as good as the synopsis and first chapter sample suggest it will be. I'll forgive Iain for his sad whisky tour book if it is.
• The System of the World ~ The final book in the saga cannot get here soon enough. I'm almost sad to see the end nearing.
• The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers ~ A collection of HCB essays.
• Slightly Out of Focus ~ Especially now with all the journalists in Iraq being targeted, noone says much about the photographers who have to get close to their subjects. A memoir by one of the original photojournalists should be a good read.
• Waiting for the End of the World ~ A photoessay of fallout shelters. I always wanted to buy an old decommissioned army shelter and silo in Kansas just for the comfort factor.
• Extreme Measures : The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton ~ Another in the long list of 'forgotten' scientist books on the man to blame for the nature vs. nuture Victorianism.
• Portuguese Irregular Verbs ~ Academic novel/mystery that looks entertaining.
• The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs ~ The sequel to the above.
• Lonely Planet Say What?: Comparing Funny Expressions From... ~ This could be terrific if it's done well.
• The Penguin Book of Facts ~ Reference books filled with all sorts of useful and useless information are wonderful things.
• Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary ~ I looked at this book just for the title and the topic of spulling is a sore point for all those familiar with English. The title is clever not only for making you curious enough to look but it incorporates three often misspelled words, too. :)
• Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (Jetlag Travel Guide) ~ A spoof of modern travel guides that looks pretty hilarious.