back to article Fatties are 'destroying the world'

A famous mad professor who has previously called for Britons to starve their children into dwarfism so as to ease strains on the planetary ecosystem has reiterated his arguments, this time insisting that the amount of surplus flab carried by the human race will soon be equivalent to having another half-a-billion people on Earth …

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  1. xyz Silver badge
    Mushroom

    so we're all agreed on this one then....

    KILL AMERICANS and save the world.

    1. Eddy Ito
      Coat

      Re: so we're all agreed on this one then....

      I humbly disagree. If you want to be on Obama's short list, that's fine but don't think you're taking me down with you. Mark my words agent xyz, Prez. O's reaper drones will mean the end of your whole alphabet organization.

    2. Homer 1
      Mushroom

      Re: so we're all agreed on this one then....

      I'd suggest feeding Americans to the Third World, but I don't want to further poison the food chain.

    3. ZenCoder

      Re: KILL AMERICANS and save the world.

      Good luck with that, if American's are 6% but account for 34% of the biomass then the rest of the world has an average weight of an obese large breed house cat.

      6% account for 34% means 94% account for 66%. (34/6)/(66/94) ~= 8. The average adult in the USA weight about 200 lbs. An chubby main coon (large house cat) weighs 25 pounds.

      1. JetSetJim

        Re: KILL AMERICANS and save the world.

        It's "biomass of obesity in the world", not just biomass in general.

    4. Euripides Pants

      Re: KILL AMERICANS

      If you kill us all, who will buy the stuff made in China?

  2. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Time for

    bonsai children?

  3. Kevin Johnston

    Statistics

    Never forget 50% are below average

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Re: Statistics

      Median?

    2. Tom 38

      Re: Statistics

      This is like 'Poverty in the UK', which is defined as a certain percentage of the median income. One result of this is that there will always be some people in the UK defined as being 'in poverty', presumably because they don't have a flat screen TV.

      It also means that if the high end income distribution changes, the median income drops, the 'poverty line' is hence lower, and a certain number of people are 'lifted out of poverty', without increasing how much money they receive or what that money buys them.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Statistics

        So massive taxation of the rich really does help the poor, even if it just means the rich leave town?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does it help?

    If pervasive dieting "eases strains on the planetary ecosystem" then it's because of our finite resources. Finite resources mean our population can't grow indefinitely, and pervasive dieting would still not allow us to do so: it would only increase the number of people we can cram in here, and this guy seems to think we should try to cram in as many as we can.

    1. Thomas 4

      Re: Does it help?

      Well, if we're trying to get rid of useless weight, we could probably start with the guys that wrote the paper.

      1. PatientOne

        Re: Does it help?

        @Thomas

        There's a competition for participation in a rocket launch to Mars. Perhaps we could sign them up? Then they can work on their ideas up there and prove if they're feasible or not.

        Plus, it's a one way ticket...

  5. Colin Millar
    Pirate

    Now now dear do calm down

    I think they were just doing an office bet to see who could get the best headline out of the reg i.e.

    Merkin monster munchers ate my planet

  6. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Lunatics

    Somebody should buy an island in some not very hospitable waters and deport all these nutcases and their families there, so that they could demonstrate on their own example how healthy and wonderful will the lifestyle they advocate be.

    Added benefit - one can make a new reality TV show. Instead of eviction there will be extinction, though.

    1. Miek
      Coat

      Re: Lunatics

      "Somebody should buy an island in some not very hospitable waters and deport all these nutcases ... "

      We could call the island ... Australia!

      1. John Bailey

        Re: Lunatics

        Nah.. America didn't work, why would Australia?

    2. Nick Kew

      Re: Lunatics

      I guess you missed that part of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where they discover the truth about our ancestors ...

  7. Mike 140
    FAIL

    How much?

    ".. 34% of the world's biomass " A widely acccepted figure is that +70% of the biomass on earth is bacterial. (citations if I can find time) Add the claimed USA blubbermass to that and it doesn't leave much for any other fauna, flora, fishes, fungi, .....

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: How much?

      Yeah, I double read that part... I think we're all assuming they meant '+70% of the [human] biomass on earth'

      1. JetSetJim

        Re: How much?

        It's actually "34% of the world's biomass mass due to obesity". Which means, for N America, with it's population of ~529 million accounting for 34% of the worlds obesity biomass of 3.5M tons, that they're all 2.25kg "overweight". Hardly something to write such drivel of a publication about...

        1. Charles Manning

          Just trying to sound scientific

          Instead of saying x% of the fatness he instead used the buzwordy biomass.

          That promotes the article from a scandle magazine article to a "paper".

  8. Pete the not so great
    Happy

    What is it they say ?

    Inside every fat person there is 2 normal sized people trying to get out.

  9. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    They couldn't keep their mouth shut

    Here is how it was supposed to be announced:

    QUOTE:

    18/9/2012 T.V. Flash on all Dial-A-Program Services

    This is an announcement from Genetic Control:

    "It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on

    Humanoid height."

    Extract from conversation of Joe Ordinary in Local Puborama

    "I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the

    Properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold.

    It's said now that people will be shorter in height,

    They can fit twice as many in the same building site.

    (they say it's alright),

    Beginning with the tenants of the town of Harlow,

    In the interest of humanity, they've been told they must go,

    Told they must go-go-go-go."

    UNQUOTE:

    1. Captain Hogwash
      Pint

      Get 'em in by Friday

      See icon :-)

      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
        Pint

        Re: Get 'em in by Friday

        Cheers! Have a pint before the supper's ready...

      2. IvyKing
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Get 'em in by Friday

        Song title was Get 'em OUT by Friday - though I can se wanting to get the brew in by Friday...

        Reminds me of when the Reg covered the giant hogweed invasion in New York state...

    2. Intractable Potsherd
      Happy

      Re: They couldn't keep their mouth shut

      I wonder how many people are completely baffled by this strand!* (I was immediately reminded of "Get Them Out by Friday" as soon as I read the headline!)

      * It's a song on one of Genesis' early albums, "Foxtrot". Lyrics by Peter Gabriel, music by the whole team.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you are so fat you have to drive everywhere, that's bad. If you are so fat that you can't leave your house without taking the door-frames out, then you will not be using fuel for transport, and that's good.

    But seriously- I think much could be done to save on food wastage, rather than the food that is actually consumed. I remember an interview with the tennis player Martina Navratilova in which she said she has only eaten half of every meal served to her in a restaurant since she moved to the States- the rest she would take home and eat later. That struck me, because as a professional athlete, one would expect her to be expending more energy than most of her adopted compatriots.

    1. Andrew Moore

      I'm 6'2" and just under 14 stone but when I was last stateside I choose starters to have as my main course simply because of the sheer amount of food. If you really want a good example of horrendous gluttony, just watch Man V Food- it's on one of the deadbeat channels.

  11. Z80

    If it's all the same to you, I'm going to stay here in crazy BMI cuckoo world rather than joining the real world where I'd need to gain 2 stone to start being labelled as healthy.

  12. Captain Hogwash

    primitive savages

    Just wondering which people would own up to being such.

    1. Huntsman
      Boffin

      Re: primitive savages

      Mackems.

  13. wowfood

    Darwin awards

    They blame you for being killed on the roads, they blame you for getting fat, and they will blame you when the planet fries.

    Well, considering the fact I'm a pedestrian, I've seen how stupid some people are, they'll walk out on a busy road without even looking, assuming that the car will stop.

    It generally is your fault if you get fat, anyone who goes "oh its too hard to diet" is just lazy. I'm fat, I got that way by eating KFC every other day while at uni, and now i'm working on losing it. I don't blame KFC, its not their fault I love their chicken. It's mine.

    And yes it will be my fault the planet fries... once my moon laser is complete.

    The only thing I remotely agree on is the thing about cars. I don't think we shoudl get rid of them, but I do wish the government would put in more incentives for using biofuels or electric cars for use around town. The amount of parents driving SUVs to school is annoying as hell.

    They could probably do with lowering the price of train fair too.

    And one great idea I had long ago. Rent-a-car. Not the classic type but in big cities etc. You sign up to some rent-a-car service somewhere in the nation where you get an electric car for home. You want to go to london? Call the rent-a-car and book it through them, get the train to london, hop off, and in the car park would be a rent-a-car waiting for you, electric of course.

    It'd be like that bike thing they're doing in london, only with electric cars.

    1. FrankAlphaXII
      Trollface

      Re: And yes it will be my fault the planet fries...

      You mean your moon laser's still not finished? Mine's been sitting in the garage gathering dust since 2004. I blame the evil Optical-Petro-Nutritional complex for the high cost of firing the damned thing.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        You mean your moon laser's still not finished?

        "But to do that would require some sort of doomsday device... Oh well, I suppose I can spare one"

    2. NomNomNom

      Re: Darwin awards

      "It generally is your fault if you get fat, anyone who goes "oh its too hard to diet" is just lazy. I'm fat, I got that way by eating KFC every other day while at uni, and now i'm working on losing it. I don't blame KFC, its not their fault I love their chicken. It's mine."

      As a former fat man I find your self-hating attitude both depressing and offensive. Why can't you be jolly and full of life like the vast majority of fat people out there? Don't you see that by NOT blaming KFC you are saying all other fat people are to blame for being fat in general? You shouldn't stereotype like that, even indirectly. Oh and for what it's worth I only became bitter and resentful *after* I lost weight.

      1. FartingHippo

        @NomNomNom

        "Why can't you be jolly and full of life like the vast majority of fat people out there?"

        Bless their sweaty-faced, wobbly-bellied little souls.

  14. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    A long term breeding program ?

    Instead of starving children into being short we could just breed for thinner

    If perhaps the typical slightly rotund programmer could be paired with an over skinny super-model the average size of the offspring could be reduced gradually.

    I commend this idea to the house.

    1. Aaron Em

      ...I see we haven't killed all the Lamarckians yet. More energy is required, comrades!

  15. Mage Silver badge

    Hobbit meals

    You know how much a hobbit eats?

    One is like a family of Americans.

    How did the Shire feed them?

    1. Ken 16 Silver badge

      Re: Hobbit meals

      I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hobbit meals

      It was a big shire and they weren't too numerous. But yes, hobbits were generally obese. It is noted in Fellowship that Frodo is losing weight on his long journey.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Hobbit meals

        Yeah, because he's walking, not taking his car.

  16. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    WTF?

    I'm just considering the implications to the economy

    when I, in my undernourished state due to radical cutbacks in available calories, take longer to cycle the sixty miles each way to work than I spend *at* work... it'll all end in tears!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Articles like this don't help, just reading about fatties makes me want chips

  18. The last doughnut
    Stop

    No heating, home-grown food, miserable anti-car existence? Sounds like a weekend at my Ma's house. Shudder.

  19. 1Rafayal

    I am one of these fatties, and, I can confirm that I destroyed part of the world this afternoon

    1. Yag
      Coat

      I AM BECOME FATTY! DESTROYER OF WOOOOOORLDS!

      Sorry... I'm already out...

  20. James Hughes 1

    Odd

    Seem fairly obvious to me that fat people eat more than thin people (presumably that why in the vast majority of cases they are fat). Therefore a fat person uses more of the Earth's resources than a thin person. They also need more energy to move themselves about (in a car for example).

    KILL THEM. KILL THEM ALL. KILL THEM ALL NOW!

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: Odd

      There's no actual scientific proof that enhanced calorie intake leads to weight gain. The idea is based on speculative biology and computer models. Lots of people wrongly think that because fat people eat a lot it must be eating a lot that causes fatness, but correlation doesn't equal causation. There is good evidence that eating more is actually an effect of being fat, not a cause.

      There are many better alternative theories of obesity that the mainstream "scientists" won't tell you about. Leading alternatives include the viral and genetic theories of obesity.

      The fact is the scientists just don't know. The government and medical community push the calorie theory of obesity anyway for control over populations food intake and for a piece of the lucrative diet industry. It's often remarked that the country is just 5 square meals away from anarchy. He who controls those meals controls the country. Follow the money.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Odd

        Blimey. I'd like to believe you, but I eat too much and put on weight. I accept that fat people eat more because they need more food to stop themselves feeling hungry, and simply to drive a larger body. And I accept that some people may be genetically disposed to fatness. And also that people are doing a lot less exercise than they should. But to claim that enhanced calorie intake doesn't make you fat seem, well, wrong, and googling the same also seem to go against what you claim. Can you provide any evidence that eating lots of food DOESNT make you fat? "Supersize me" seems to prove the opposite.

        Notwithstanding the above, more fat people means more food is required (you admit that). How they got fat, whether through genetics, eating too much or lack of exercise is irrelevant. So we should still

        KILL THEM ALL.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Odd

        So it's all a conspiracy that fatties are fat, a conspiracy planned by the government to make them all too fat to make it to their nearest protest waddle.

        Nothing to do with the vast amounts of pie they shovel in to the openings in the front of their heads.

      3. Danny 5
        WTF?

        Re: Odd

        i was agreeing with you, right up untill you went off on a tangent.

        But granted, i don't eat all that much and am quite overweight, a friend of mine eats at least twice as much and isn't nearly as tall as i, yet he's skinny.

        Might have something to do with him running around all day and me having a desk job and being lazy in general though.

        But i'll definately grant you that calory intake doesn't directly account for obesity, lack of exercise is far, far worse

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          "theories of obesity that the mainstream "scientists" won't tell you about"

          > "theories of obesity that the mainstream "scientists" won't tell you about"

          Hell, you sound like you're trying to sell something to Homer Simpson. : D

          Shit, scientists will tell you things all the time, if you only seek it out. Try Scientific American, or New Scientist or whatever- they're not Nature, but they're a start. Any scientist will tell you that weight gain is complicated- if they don't, they are a snake oil vendor. Things known to help are:

          -high intensity exercise for short periods (rather than flumping around the park for an hour, which will only kill your knees)

          -not eating carbs in the evening (steak and chocolate is fine, though),

          -eat a fatty breakfast (tells your body to expect fat that day, and it adapts)

          -fidgeting (though I don't know if you can learn to fidget)

          -Eat all your daily meals within a single eight hour period

          -drink coffee

          And after all that, yeah, some probably will be genetic. But try the above first. Or take up smoking, whatever.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "theories of obesity that the mainstream "scientists" won't tell you about"

            Personally, I got fat by eating cheap foods with trans fats in them and lost most of the weight by cutting out trans fats. Sometime last year I noticed I was gaining again, dieted for a few weeks, then when my weight was down I looked through the fridge for things that had expired while I couldn't eat them and noticed that I'd been eating a different brand of low fat spread than usual. Guess what? Yup, contained trans fats.

    2. Mike Moyle
      Devil

      Re: Odd

      Don't think of it as "overeating" -- rather, we are doing our part to help the world by sequestering more carbon than skinnies and should be applauded rather than vilified.

  21. Nigel Brown
    FAIL

    Coming back down South from Yorkshire on Sunday I passed an enormous, almost caravan-sized, trailer being towed by a huge SUV type vehicle. Oh the delicious irony of these two behemoths being plastered with advertising posters and stickers for some 'green' company or other.

  22. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Aha!

    "...there would be a strong incentive to reclaim the streets from motor vehicles..." (my emphasis).

    So he's one of that bunch of barking wingnut Luddites then? Those muppets just can't resist dropping their pet slogan in at every opportunity as if it were Holy Writ.

  23. Danny 5
    Unhappy

    uh oh!

    i'm 6 foot 8 :(

    i'll go kill myself now, i probably have the BMI of 2 Japanse men.

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: uh oh!

      Uh what? How can you not know? Call the police maybe?

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: uh oh!

        nevermind, I thought you said BMW

  24. Stevie

    Bah!

    Notwithstanding the fact that the author does not take into account the extra cost of cooling larger people nor does he do the essential extra-cost-to-cool vs savings-on-heating-during-winter calculation, I have to say I find the whole thesis of these justly ridiculed "professors" to be stoutist in the extreme.

    Stoutism is an explicit theme in all their work on this subject, and one wonders how they can get funding. Any discussion of lightness-challenged people should steer clear of avowedly stoutist doctrine, and the taxpayers should not have to fund such offensive research.

    The only way forward in the debate on weight is to police the language of that debate vigorously to remove all occurences of such stoutist slurs as "*bese", "*verweight", "f*t" and the like (I appologise to everyone for even obliquely making reference to the stoutist's hate thesaurus to make my point).

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: Bah!

      "Notwithstanding the fact that the author does not take into account the extra cost of cooling larger people"

      Ice would work and is very cheap as the only ingredients are water and frost.

      Do you have a degree? I gently suggest you don't criticize professors if you don't. your choice though!

      1. Aaron Em

        Hey, wait a minute

        Arrant appeal to authority? I thought science was supposed to replace religion, not become it!

      2. Stevie

        Re: Bah!

        "Do you have a degree?"

        Yes thank you, your concern on my behalf is groundless.

        I shall think of you and these idiot professors as I run my AC at full blast to cool empty rooms at a cost to me of pennies a week, all my lights blazing away because I can't be arsed to switch them off and my car ticking over in the driveway in case I want to drive somewhere this week and my swimming pool sucking more juice in a day than the average UK primary school is budgeted for all week even though no-one will be going near it until late July.

        FYI: Your capitalizatorizer seems to have cut out there. You need to keep pedalling until you've finished typing.

    2. Yesnomaybe

      Re: Bah!

      I like it. Reduce energy spent on heating and cooling, by moving fat people towards colder areas, and skinny people towards warmer areas. Having said that: Africa isn't famous for having an obesity problem...

  25. NomNomNom

    "A famous mad professor who has previously called for Britons to starve their children into dwarfism so as to ease strains on the planetary ecosystem has reiterated his arguments, this time insisting that the amount of surplus flab carried by the human race will soon be equivalent to having another half-a-billion people on Earth."

    A real mad professor wouldn't just make arguments, but would find a way to fulfil his idea of utopia. Perhaps by buying a small tropical island where he could conduct research away from the prying eyes of the world and develop an army of (small) mutants that will replace humans as the dominant species on Earth. Or maybe he could construct a giant magnet that would shrink humans. If he was really clever he could shrink everything else at the same time that way no-one would realize until it was too late.

    1. Steven 1
      Thumb Up

      @NomNomNom

      I believe you missed the obligatory ‘Mwahahaha’ from the end of your post….

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too Many Humans

    Too many fucking humans

    You breed like rats

    and you're no fucking better

    (a free Internets to the first person that can name the band - no Googling)

    1. Aaron Em

      Since fucking when

      is misanthropy considered a goddamned virtue, instead of being correctly identified as the stigma of a damaged personality?

    2. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Too Many Humans

      I would say it was Agent Smith, or maybe the Gozer the Gozerian

      ... because if a person wrote that, talking about humans in 3rd person, he or she needs professional help, pronto!

    3. Andrew Moore

      Re: Too Many Humans

      The Wombles.

  27. Tim Worstal

    Barking professors

    Erm.

    Thin people who cycle a lot use many more calories than fat people who sit on the sofa. I know this because I have been, at different times, both. Also, I can count.

    1. ertdfg

      Re: Barking professors

      You can COUNT? How dare you be involved in social science work; you're not allowed and will be banned from all social science discussions forthwith.

      We can't have people COUNTING around here; none of our theories would ever get published. The nerve of some people.

  28. toadwarrior

    The simple solution is to just make cars smaller so fat people will have to lose weight if they want to drive.

  29. This post has been deleted by its author

  30. Michael 31
    Thumb Up

    Well said..

    Lewis

    Well said

    That's all

  31. CmdrX3

    What are these carbon credits you speak of

    .. and can I put them in a sandwich to enjoy with a pint of Guinness

  32. Bucky 2

    Well, that's fabulous

    I know pounds, and I know kilograms.

    I'm assuming a "stone" is the average weight of Patsy Stone (who I know hasn't eaten since 1973)?

    1. Aaron Em

      Re: Well, that's fabulous

      1 stone = 14 pounds. It's one of those hilarious leftover units they use over there.

      1. DanceMan
        Boffin

        Re: Well, that's fabulous

        Over here too. Half-weight on the flyrail at our theatre in Vancouver is one stone, full weight is two stone.

      2. M Gale
        Trollface

        Re: Well, that's fabulous

        I find it amusing that someone from the colonies can refer to any Imperial measurement as "hilarious". You guys seem to use even less Metric than we do, and even then your units are all buggered up.

        Really, US gallons? What's with that asides some kind of 200 year old sulk? Measuring things in pounds but then saying that stones are "leftover units"? Saying all of that without a hint of irony too?

        Now that's hilarious.

  33. Joe User

    And you say that Americans are nutters....

    See title.

  34. RonWheeler

    Too many people

    Half a billion isn't even that significant any more. I'd rather see the planet eventually have one billion people who can live really quite profligate (read 'full') lives than 7 billion and rising living like impoverished resource stared street-rats. Stopping people from breeding like rats and doubling the world's population every 40 years takes some doing though - people are selfish and stupid.

  35. DF118
    Thumb Up

    <blockquote>As for the idea that cycling is dangerous, this really doesn't hold water. You have to cycle more than 20 million miles in the UK, spending hundreds of years in the saddle, before it's likely that you'll be killed. There's a lot of foolish fear of motor vehicles among UK cyclists or potential UK cyclists, but it's largely unjustified.</blockquote>

    Hear hear - the idea that cycling is inherently dangerous is one that many people in Britain (on both sides of the cyclists v drivers debate) need to get out of their minds. It's doing nobody any favours.

    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Thumb Down

      I don't care.

      I am still not going to cycle on the road. It's bad for me, and it is bad for other road users. I'm quite happy taking the bike on my car to somewhere I don't risk opprobrium/death/serious injury, but that's all.

  36. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    Devil

    The harpoons . . .

    . . . man them.

  37. Escape Velocity

    Governments and "scientists" really do suck.

    Over-eating isn't near as much of a problem as poorly-eating. Thanks to the government mandates, just about every manufactured food in the U.S. contains high fructose corn syrup. Everything from sweets to hamburgers at McDonalds have HFCS.

    This ubiquitous sweetener has caused so much human damage, U.S. private health insurance doesn't even want to predict Diabetes any more and stopped paying for insulin resist tests (which will indeed tell you if you are on the way to pre-diabetes, as it did for me). Now the insurance companies just wait for the Diabetes to onset and relegate to the least expensive, least effective treatments.

    And here's the icing on their cake: lots of people want to start charging "fatties" more for health insurance. It's absurd... first they make a bunch of people fat by taking away healthy choices, then they start charging them for it.

    Granted we can all *choose what we eat, but the choices in the U.S. are severely limited for the time and talent constrained. This restricted choice of healthy food is the fault of government in the U.S., not the fatties.

    For most humans, eating a normal quantity of junky foods *today will get you fat... over the decades really fat.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      TV

      Escape Velocity - been watching 'the men who made us fat' on iplayer recently then? Try at least editing the show's editorial line a little before regurgitating it.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It strikes me as a self-limiting problem. Sooner or later a civilisation large enough to matter will pick a fight with another large civilisation and reduce the active biomass by a few million people. Or fail taking their technological advances with them (hello Babylonians? Mayans? Romans?)

    So who's first? India v Pakistan? China vs USA? China, Russia and USA in Friday night gangbang special? Or the whole of Western Europe against each other, again, for the third time in a century?

    Place your bets...

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't do much=get heavy=don't do much.

    Cycling a walking are useful for weight-control but once someone is well on the way to chinduality they are unlikely to embrace either pursuit.

    While hitch-hiking I often noticed the people who could really do with a bit of exercise were the same ones welded to their motors,

    chicken and egg (on the face normally).

  40. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    "and public activities would replace sedentary solitary indoor pastimes"

    Yeah... that's why I went into the IT field - so I could hang out on deserted street corners with my neighbors where we daydream about how much better life would be if we had a Big Mac and a chocolate shake to quiet the grumblings in our empty stomachs. Because I LOVE being social and being locked in a cold server room surrounded by computers all day is just torture. No, I'd much rather spend my evenings loafing around out in the streets than sitting in my house browsing Internet pr0n.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    One minor point

    Generally excellent article except for this bit.

    "You have to cycle more than 20 million miles in the UK, spending hundreds of years in the saddle, before it's likely that you'll be killed. "

    It depends. If you're just a dude riding a bike, then yeah, you're right.

    If on the other hand, you're a lycra wearing 'Cyclist(tm)' then I'm afraid your chances of being killed are 100%. Until there's a vaccine for uncool self righteousness, It's the only humane thing to do.

  42. C. P. Cosgrove
    Trollface

    Never mind . . .

    The above discussion has been entertaining, the article was hilarious, but for me the best bit was the bit at the end - 'Full Disclosure'.

    Chris Cosgrove

  43. AdamWill
    FAIL

    silly

    "The prof evidently doesn't know or care that without motor vehicles the government would not be able to afford any roads for cyclists and pedestrians to use"

    Yes, Lewis, as is clearly demonstrated by the fact that prior to motor vehicles, roads didn't exist!

    Not really defending the paper in question, which is clearly twaddle of the highest order ('biomass due to obesity', I ask you), but you don't have to ruin a perfectly good critical analysis of it by getting in gratuitous political shots at the end.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    hmm..

    this article seems to have a real chip on its shoulder. it is one of the most single-sided articles i've seen on reg in a long time. surely the author can appreciate that the human race is - even in net terms - overweight, and that certain areas of the planet contain humans that are consuming and carrying well more than their fair share of solid-state energy. we continue the current trends at our literal peril, and that's without even considering concepts like sustainability, with which our current trends are utterly incompatible.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get it straight.

    @ xyz and others

    Do you ever hear me bitchin about the fucked up Brittish?

    No.

    Instead you hear me say the fucked up UK government, the fucked up UN, the fucked up NATO, the fucked up US Government. Our country is under a fucking coup for fuck sake.

    I love the Brittish, I hate their fucking government.

    The logic you state is similar to blaming Indian Farmers for Monsanto's crimes. It's monsanto, not the fucking farmer! What next nuke India?

    Instead of KILLING people, we need to fucking ARREST OUR PSYCHOPATHIC LEADERS.

  46. Reventropy

    Director, Reventropy Associates

    Professor Roberts and his associates are correct based on my 37 years of research on how increasing height and body weight are harmful to our health, longevity and survival as a race. My findings are documented in 40 peer-reviewed papers and seven books. See Human Body Size and the Laws of Scaling: Physiological, Performance, Growth, Longevity, and Ecological Ramifications, Nova Science Publishers, NY, 2007. The increase in human size has a major impact on our food, water and energy needs. It also consumes more natural resources and promotes water, land and air pollution.

    A recent paper, A New Study Of Sardinian Men Finds Height Is A Factor In Longevity" was published last month in the journal, Biodemography and Social Biology. The findings in this paper support 12 longevity and 20 mortality studies that previously found that increased height and weight promote chronic disease and reduce longevity.

  47. Katie Saucey
    Thumb Up

    "And then, fruitcake mode at full power.."

    So where do I send the bill for this keyboard?

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