4 ms·

70 slides, and not a single overweight person to be seen. Just an observation.

stonemetal 16y ago
Not sure which slides you were looking at but 3(old guy on the left is arguably larger than he should be), 12(portly gent on the right), and 66(a fine double chin if ever I saw one) have overweight people in them. Also it was the great depression not exactly known as a time of plenty.
- tibbon 16y ago
  Yet we're in an economic downturn, which is supposed to be a time of lacking as well and people are fatter than ever.
  - brianobush 16y ago
    snacks and heavily processed foods are cheaper than healthy fresh vegetables and fruits. the easy path...
  - duck 16y ago
    I think relating this so called downturn to the Depression is impossible for any of us (and media) to do. From the stories I heard from my grandparents and others, I'm not sure if the generation today would do so well in a true great depression.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  3 is an illusion, but your other two examples are certainly heavy set people. I would call neither "overweight" though.
- joshfinnie 16y ago
  I think the point is that it is almost impossible to take a picture today like #6 without getting one overweight individual in it. Definitely a different world back then.
  - randallsquared 16y ago
    You clearly don't live near me. It would be easy to take such a picture in Chinatown, DC (unless I was around... ;) ) without overweight people in it. The vast majority of people I see on the street going to and from work are pretty thin. Maybe cities are different, or maybe DC is.
jacobolus 16y ago
Go find poor rural places in the developing world today (or even more so 20 years ago), and you’ll see scenes that look pretty much identical to these. Places where people don’t have enough work or enough to eat, and what work they do have is hard manual labor, tend to be full of skinny people.
nonce93893 16y ago
People in the US opt to be overweight or to ignore that they are overweight, as is their right. We have an abundance of tasty, high-calorie food, and many people prefer constantly satisfying their desires to exercising and eating healthy, both of which are difficult to sustain and may not provide a benefit that people realistically value over a shortened, satisfying life. Fat people spend money on weight-loss measures (some don't), not because they dislike their lifestyle, but because they want to change their appearance. They give up when they decide the boon to their appearance is not worth the damage to their lifestyle, which they value. I guess that the people in the pictures would, very nearly, be statistically as fat as we are had they access to the same food and leisure. I think a lot has changed about our culture since then, but I don't suppose the amount of self-control that people possess has decreased significantly, if at all. This to me would be the more interesting discussion than whether or not we are fatter than people from the depression, which is clear. Certainly our marketing culture is responsible for much of the overeating that occurs now. But what about the people themselves? Does a depression era person have a smaller or larger reserve of self-control, and would they bother to allot a portion of it to weight-control? I think we would agree that people are more selfish these days. Whether people are less able to set and achieve goals is a another question. Is a given adult more or less capable of keeping his hand out of the treat jar? The original comment speaks volumes in its terseness, so I will lay it out: the comment poses that people now are less capable of controlling themselves than they were back then. (The alternatives: to indict the role of food in our culture, or to celebrate our improved capacity for producing food, are not what it is intended.) If so, then I would like to see that demonstrated. As a side discussion to poke fun at the negative implications of the statement: If obese people enjoyed a legally protected status (as many other minorities do), would you still feel compelled to make the same comment? What might a discussion protecting obese people look like?

Not sure which slides you were looking at but 3(old guy on the left is arguably larger than he should be), 12(portly gent on the right), and 66(a fine double chin if ever I saw one) have overweight people in them. Also it was the great depression not exactly known as a time of plenty.

tibbon 16y ago
Yet we're in an economic downturn, which is supposed to be a time of lacking as well and people are fatter than ever.
- brianobush 16y ago
  snacks and heavily processed foods are cheaper than healthy fresh vegetables and fruits. the easy path...
- duck 16y ago
  I think relating this so called downturn to the Depression is impossible for any of us (and media) to do. From the stories I heard from my grandparents and others, I'm not sure if the generation today would do so well in a true great depression.
run4yourlives 16y ago
3 is an illusion, but your other two examples are certainly heavy set people. I would call neither "overweight" though.
joshfinnie 16y ago
I think the point is that it is almost impossible to take a picture today like #6 without getting one overweight individual in it. Definitely a different world back then.
- randallsquared 16y ago
  You clearly don't live near me. It would be easy to take such a picture in Chinatown, DC (unless I was around... ;) ) without overweight people in it. The vast majority of people I see on the street going to and from work are pretty thin. Maybe cities are different, or maybe DC is.

jacobolus 16y ago

Go find poor rural places in the developing world today (or even more so 20 years ago), and you’ll see scenes that look pretty much identical to these. Places where people don’t have enough work or enough to eat, and what work they do have is hard manual labor, tend to be full of skinny people.

nonce93893 16y ago

People in the US opt to be overweight or to ignore that they are overweight, as is their right. We have an abundance of tasty, high-calorie food, and many people prefer constantly satisfying their desires to exercising and eating healthy, both of which are difficult to sustain and may not provide a benefit that people realistically value over a shortened, satisfying life. Fat people spend money on weight-loss measures (some don't), not because they dislike their lifestyle, but because they want to change their appearance. They give up when they decide the boon to their appearance is not worth the damage to their lifestyle, which they value. I guess that the people in the pictures would, very nearly, be statistically as fat as we are had they access to the same food and leisure. I think a lot has changed about our culture since then, but I don't suppose the amount of self-control that people possess has decreased significantly, if at all. This to me would be the more interesting discussion than whether or not we are fatter than people from the depression, which is clear. Certainly our marketing culture is responsible for much of the overeating that occurs now. But what about the people themselves? Does a depression era person have a smaller or larger reserve of self-control, and would they bother to allot a portion of it to weight-control? I think we would agree that people are more selfish these days. Whether people are less able to set and achieve goals is a another question. Is a given adult more or less capable of keeping his hand out of the treat jar? The original comment speaks volumes in its terseness, so I will lay it out: the comment poses that people now are less capable of controlling themselves than they were back then. (The alternatives: to indict the role of food in our culture, or to celebrate our improved capacity for producing food, are not what it is intended.) If so, then I would like to see that demonstrated. As a side discussion to poke fun at the negative implications of the statement: If obese people enjoyed a legally protected status (as many other minorities do), would you still feel compelled to make the same comment? What might a discussion protecting obese people look like?