New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | August 26, 2005

Jacob Sullum follows fat detectives from the Centers for Disease Control as they go on the trail of a whole generation of Caspar Gutmans.

Comments

Jeff P.|8.26.05 @ 9:18AM|#

Off subject: We need a Murder By Death style gathering of all the great fat detectives. Nero Wolfe, the later versions of Hercule Peroit and Charlie Chan, and Frank Cannon. We'll have some borderline chubbies like Ironsides and Quincy show up.
They will swear vengeance on suave handsome dicks like Spencer and Banacek...

|8.26.05 @ 9:28AM|#

Ahh, no matter what ya heard from the Swish, Father Brown was as tubby as G Chest, Wimsey was no bantamweight and the book ya want filmed stars Sergeant Beef.

Jeff P.|8.26.05 @ 9:34AM|#

The League of Extra-Wide Gentlemen.

|8.26.05 @ 9:40AM|#

I've got a simple solution for the clustering of fast food outlets near schools: closed campuses (or perhaps closed campi).

Make it so the students can't leave the school grounds for lunch.

Perhaps this is too simple a solution.

|8.26.05 @ 9:43AM|#

Alkurta-

For liability reasons, a lot of campuses ARE closed these days. But to the nannies, that's not enough--too many kids go and buy unhealthy things on their way to or from school.

Windypundit|8.26.05 @ 10:00AM|#

Maybe the problem is not the location of the fast-food restaurants (and gun shops, and liquor stores, and tobacco retailers) but the location of all those damned schools.

Clearly the solution is for the federal government to give block grants to the states to fund the construction of giant educational compounds located on rural property just outside major cities and surrounded in all directions by 1000 yards of cleared land patrolled by guard dogs.

|8.26.05 @ 10:01AM|#

Alkurta,

So you'd lock them up to protect them from themselves?

|8.26.05 @ 10:20AM|#

Well, David, that's what we already do with drug users. Why shouldn't the Twinkie eaters be next? And then we can maybe do something about those people who bite their fingernails down to the quick and run the risk of getting blood infections.

|8.26.05 @ 10:27AM|#

When I was in ninth grade. School officials tried to prohibit students leaving our HS campus. Our response was simple. On one day every single student went to the cafeteria to get lunch. The line stretched outside the cafeteria well into the playground. Our half-hour lunch got stretched indefinitely as they strained to feed everyone. Around 1:30 they were completely out of every food stuff they had in the place and there were still a substantial amount of students who hadn't eaten.
That shut them up for the rest of the year. It was one of the few demonstrations that I have ever been involved with that actually had the intended result.

|8.26.05 @ 10:28AM|#

Jennifer,

Think of the problems that will be alleviated when most of the population is imprisoned. No more addiction, abortion(no unexpected pregnacy), obesity(and with it, heart disease and cancer), or accidental deaths caused by not wearing helmets . I do wonder how we'll choose the guards though?

|8.26.05 @ 10:29AM|#

Note: this happened, of course, before the more modern privatized cafeterias you see nowadays. They have taco bars in some schools now! You can have pizza every day ffs! It's a new world.

|8.26.05 @ 10:31AM|#

Maybe they can put us all into solitary confinement. Maybe something similar to the farms in The Matrix, but without all the lousy acting.

|8.26.05 @ 11:32AM|#

My, the 1980s are beginning to look quaint. Closed campus, hardly any choice in the cafeteria, and nobody thought to complain about it. When did kids get the crazy idea that they should be able to leave school grounds during the day?!

|8.26.05 @ 11:43AM|#

SCENE 32 - McDonald's

INTERIOR: Ronald 'the Fondler' McDonald fires MSG laced, hollow-point fries at screaming children.

EXTERIOR: Parents stare through the windows and unlocked doors - yelling and horrified.

Parents: (to government bureaucrats waiting in drive thru) Save them! Save them!

Larry A|8.26.05 @ 12:14PM|#

Unintended Consequences Department:

Close the fast-food restaurants within a short walking distance of campuses.

Students then drive/catch rides to fast-food restaurants further away, reducing the amount of exercise they get.

Timothy|8.26.05 @ 12:38PM|#

My question is: who takes 10 minutes to walk 800 meters? Fat people? I mean honestly. That's not all that far. More like a six minute walk.

Larry A|8.26.05 @ 12:48PM|#

My question is: who takes 10 minutes to walk 800 meters? Fat people? I mean honestly. That's not all that far. More like a six minute walk.

But first you have to get through the line at the metal detectors.

|8.26.05 @ 1:20PM|#

Timothy,

800 meters is about 1/2 mile. Taking 10 minutes to walk that far is about 3mph, which is a very typical (brisk) walking speed here in the West. Most typical walkers out here go closer to 2-2 1/2 mph. Going 1/2 mile in 6 minutes would be 5mph. VERY few people out West walk that fast.

|8.26.05 @ 1:27PM|#

Just curious here - I haven't entered a high school since 1988. How widespread are metal detectors now? And are they even necessary, or are they another symptom of the modern nanny-state? Cos I keep hearing that schools are somewhat *safer* now than twenty years ago, yet I don't recall my high school being particularly dangerous then.

Larry A|8.26.05 @ 1:49PM|#

Rhywun, surely you jest.

I don't know about 1988, but in Mark Twain Junior High in 1960 they served cheese enchaladas (every Wednesday, and that was the only choice) in the cafeteria, we played dodgeball in gym, half the kids carried pocket knives, and every teacher had a paddle to administer swats.

How on earth did we survive?

|8.26.05 @ 1:57PM|#

So you'd lock them up to protect them from themselves?
Comment by: David at August 26, 2005 10:01 AM
---
Well, David, that's what we already do with drug users.
Comment by: Jennifer at August 26, 2005 10:20 AM

Do you really believe that there is no drug dealing in prison?

|8.26.05 @ 3:04PM|#

Do you really believe that there is no drug dealing in prison?

Do you really believe my comment was serious?

|8.26.05 @ 3:26PM|#

Oh, just make it illegal for kids under 18 (ID required) to buy food at a fast food restaurants. Except maybe the diet soda and salads.

Unintended Consequences Department: Close the fast-food restaurants within a short walking distance of campuses. Students then drive/catch rides to fast-food restaurants further away, reducing the amount of exercise they get.

That's a good point. I wonder if these nearby FF restaurants actually act as an attractant/motivation to get kids to take midday walks they ordinarily wouldn't, thereby increasing their daily exercise. A 10-minute walk, each way, is a 20 minute daily walk. That's not so bad. The kids' "calories consumed to calories burned" ratio might even be lower with the restaurants around than without them. (That depends on what they'd choose to eat in place of the FF fare, of course.)

|8.26.05 @ 3:30PM|#

"Country Roads" is about west Virginia, not West Virginia.

|8.26.05 @ 6:07PM|#

"Cuntrie Rhodes" would be a good name for a porn star.