It's hearing stuff like this that makes me ok with the recent determination that obesity is a disease.

There's a definite line between obesity like this and simply being overweight. Lots of people are overweight, but this guy is insanely obese and apparently has no self control..his wife apparently has no self control either.

I have to admit, part of me shares Yogi's sentiment. Part of me wants to simply let people like this die. But they're going to be a massive burden on the health care system no matter which way you look at it so we might as well try to learn something from the guy. sociologically and medically, then maybe we can prevent this shit in the long term.

Obesity is our next national concern. As much as I want to blame people like the guy in the video. They don't deserve 100 percent of the blame.

Shitty food keeps getting cheaper and cheaper and healthy food keeps getting more and more expensive. We have a health care system that is designed around covering up symptoms instead of solving the root causes.

It's not impossible to live a healthy lifestyle in spite of these factors, but it certainly isn't getting easier.

There is clearly some psychological issues at play here, not just purely eating too much and not exercising.

Please take McDonalds off the cooking channel....They don't cook at McDonalds-They kill while cementing diabetus and obesity into the genetic code

Reading the comments, my fear is that the outrage people are feeling is being framed in the wrong context. If we don't get the proper handle on this, all that outrage is going to fall on deaf ears. The people who are at the root of this are going to sense that we don't understand what's going on and dismiss all protests as irrelevant.

This is certainly not an issue of "evil government" or "power hungry institutions". This is an issue that involves people. People that are just like you and me. In fact, the ones who are responsible for the monster that's been created ARE people with the same motivations and rational capacity as you and I.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." - Pogo

We are almost all guilty of making personal, selfish, idealistic and altruistic choices with blinders on to the larger impact of our choices. We all have a frustrating capacity for focusing on small picture goals and ignoring the big picture results. How many of us work for industries that have horrible environmental and social impact? Do you ever take into account the contribution you make to those disasters? Or are you comfortable in the belief that one person, "you", making fried chicken isn't responsible for the agregious level of child obesity in your country? Or you satisfied that building servers for BP doesn't in any way make you culpable for the massive negative impact of the industry as a whole?

We want to frame the ills of our societies in terms of villains which we can name...and even put a face on. But in the large chain of decisions that must be made and actions that must be taken, there is almost never one individual with the power to change the course of events. If one is ever identified, that person is almost certainly a scape goat, selected by popular consent for the very purpose of putting a face to the atrocities.

Governments and corporations are collections of individuals with the same strengths, weaknesses and short sightedness that we all posses.

So this problem arises from a troubling mentality that's very common in all orginzations. The tendency to view our individual actions and contributions as discrete from the larger result of the group. A small minded focus on results over impact.

This issue needs to be addressed in those terms, the troubling realization that good people with good intentions lost sight of the bigger picture. Only then will our protests ring true to the people involved.

And understand what's being discussed here also. This is not about personal invasion of privacy. That's certainly not how the architects of this see it. This is not the local police wire tapping "you". This is about a massive collection of data that could never be utilized effectively in those terms. It's complete historical data that exists for the purpose of analyzing as a whole, to learn the patterns that signify the actions of people who would do you harm. It is at the point such patterns are identified that investigation at an individual level, within that data, would begin. Perhaps that's why the people who created and manage this system don't feel it's a threat to you. Because they have no interest in you and didn't design the system for you...assuming you're not a terrorist.

But the danger that WE know is real, that they've lost sight of, is a matter of degrees. What happens when the definition of "enemy" begins to slip? What happens when, over time, all dissent is viewed as disruptive to the security of the country?

That's the big picture and that's the danger. Make sure you're protesting the right thing, if you want to be heard.

Just to be clear, Chiropractic care is VERY MUCH "Western" medicine. It is a bit over 100 years old, but just as much pseudo-science as the grand-daddy of quackery, Homeopathy.

There are many practitioners that mix it with non-quackery, like Physical Therapy and Massage Therapy. There are some that mix it with traditional "Eastern" medicine, like acupuncture and herbal medicines. But that doesn't reduce it's quackery.

And certainly, there are many questionable practices in non-alternative medicine, especially with behaviorally-difficult children. But it isn't their fault that there is medication that lessens the severity of these outbursts. Don't blame the doctors for giving parents what they ask (and pay) for. Blame the parents who are looking for a quick fix, rather than spending time with their kids to fix the real issues. These are cultural issues, not specifically issues with the medical establishment, the same as obesity and diabetes.

The true way to tell if someone really understands alternative medicine's issues with mainstream medicine is to bring up Chiropractic care. If they can fault mainstream medicine for treating the symptoms and not the core issue, and they feel like adjusting alignment of bones is better than a PT working to heal your body so it can handle it's own alignment, they're really just being contrarian and anti-authoritarian, Not actually being logical with their choices.

Later Heart (especially later than this) is kind of analogous to the middle age American heart, grossly obese and suffering from cardiovascular disease that kinda killed it.

Easy upvote though for the Wilson sisters (the first live concert I saw was Heart) and for 80's music videos. Love everything about it.

But still, I gotta say, omg, this stuff from the same people who made Barracuda? This is from another quality tier altogether:
LOOSELY *related=http://videosift.com/video/Heart-1977-Barracuda

The Obesity Epidemic. Classic.

(All wet cat facial expressions are funny)
Bitch-slap the owner of the cat maybe and chastise the news anchor for laughing at what? I know poor kitty hates life in her floaty but her cat-loving, orally-imprinted and likely obese OWNER is the asshole here....

*edit Oh my GAWWWWD and using the word clearly in writ or statement sounds so FUCKING sophomorically smug and pretentious....

What is "clear" anyhow, hmm?? Cleeeearly you have a clue! (See how fucking inane that shit sounds??)

What B.S. The health risks of diet colas are very tenuous. And the health risks of normal colas are pretty much the same as any other sugary treat. Even then, there's very little evidence that sugary treats are linked to insulin resistance. Obesity is linked to insulin resistance, though.

yeah I always figured that if I won the lottery, my life would actually be sadder because it would be so much harder to figure out if my friends were genuinely my friends or they just wanted to mooch off the cash. same thing when it comes to finding a significant other.

our entire society is built around the idea that we don't have enough resources to go around for everyone to live comfortable lives and wanting for nothing. so we create a system by which attributes and skills that think are desirable are rewarded with more resources than those who don't.

which is fine, It was necessary for the time, but as our technology improves, we're going to have re-think many things. We're already at the point where the ability to clothe and feed everyone is rather mundane, in fact we have an obesity problem.

problem is, change is hard, people have a hard time letting go and adopting new ideas. People have become extremely wealthy off of the status quo so in their view, we should never change.

society as a whole is probably going to go through a major upheaval when we solve our energy problems and energy is cheap and renewable, but that is precisely why some people are going to not want it to happen.

It was more a comment on lazyness in general, which has direct relations to sedentary, and therfore obese lifestyles, than one pointing directly to these drive through ATM's as the sole cause of overweight people......

I didnt think that needed to be explained

I find this whole discussion fascinating. First, I would like to point out that my original reaction was to the statement "This is why you have an obesity problem, America.". I highly doubt that it is just because of a drive-through ATMs and I find that statement too flippant. I am in Canada, and I think we have an obesity problem, too, just probably not as bad as the folks down south. I think the core problem is diet and exercise.

Second, and again speaking only for Edmonton, Alberta, there aren't hundreds of these things around. I know of 2 drive-through ATMs in the whole south-west area of the city, and they are specifically at the large bank branches. They exist, there just aren't everywhere. The only people probably using them are folks that bank at that bank.

Third, as charliem mentioned, we also have hundreds of these mini-ATMs around everywhere. They are very convenient, but they come with a $1-3 transaction fee on top. Most of my transactions are with credit/debit cards, so cash is pretty rare. When I need it, I don't feel like handing out extra monies to 3rd parties. If I need some cash I will probably go to the bank near my house that has this drive-through. I doubt parking my car and going inside to the ATM will help me lose weight

....drive through ATM? What laziness was this invention borne of?
This is why you have an obesity problem, America.

Oh please. I'm so tired of this comparison to cars. Can you not see the difference between a weapon designed to kill or injure with only niche use and a car? Hey, if cars are so fucking dangerous why not use them to defend yourselves :3

But hey, I agree with you on lifestyle. Its obviously not healthy, but people are choosing to do it to themselves, you aren't putting others at risk by being obese. By all means stop advertising fast food to children, improve physical eduction at schools and lets all start talking about mental health, but don't drop that argument as if it makes the gun control one go away.

Half of these products are really only useful for morbidly obese customers.

I guess it is America's biggest growth market though.

Conservative Logic:

1) On the day Obama took office, somehow the slate was wiped clean, and the economy was reset to 0.
Logic: The house should stop burning as soon as the firetruck pulls into your driveway.

2) If you just patch the hemorrhage, the economy will rebound.
Logic: An obese person who gets a liposuction doesn't have to change their lifestyle and diet to maintain their new weight.