There's a huge problem
which nobody has talked about yet: when this photograph was taken, there certainly weren't as many people who were this heavy, but the "ideal" body as portrayed in late-nineteenth century media was realistic, achievable, and healthy. That is LIGHT YEARS away from the situation today. At the end of the 19th century, when Chauncey Morlan was around, nobody would ever even have thought of idolizing size zero and double zero models and actresses. But now people like this are seen as appropriate and achievable body sizes, and not only that, but as virtually the ONLY body shape and size we ever see portrayed in an approving way in the media. The exceptions are rare, and they are just that: exceptions.

Check out this article:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/113689

And being so thin is only the beginning, because every photograph of a model is insanely digitized to the point where even near-anorexic models and media figures never, ever look as thin and "perfect" in person as they ever do in magazines. Virtually NOBODY can look like this, and there is absolutely no healthy reason why ANYBODY should. And I also think that the situation about societal messages and images is starting to change more and more for men.

Why is this important? One reason is that we look at these bizarre, 10 or 20-pounds-away-from-being-in the hospital-for-anorexia bodies and get incredibly discouraged. If we diet and exercise and never, ever get anywhere near that size double zero, then we feel like there's no point of even trying to do anything-- we will still never be acceptable.

There are so very few messages that we should improve our diet or exercise habits just for health reasons. Even nutrition textbooks don't say this! On the other hand, we are constantly, CONSTANTLY bombarded at every waking moment from every source imaginable with the message that only the tiniest possible size is acceptable or worthwhile. So we diet like crazy to get there, and then when we don't, we give up and binge like crazy. Then we're back to dieting like crazy. Then... well, that's how we ended up here...

Actually, all that this did in a way was to continue to provide more evidence in the same direction that we already had for human evolution.

Math frightens me and I must run far, far away from it. However, Max Tegmark is hot. :)

Tennessee is about the most "friendly to business" state you could ever imagine (so-called "right to work", which means extremely hostile to unions, low wages, few worker's rights, etc.), and what do you know-- our unemployment rate is almost as high as California's! The rate is several percentage points above states that actually protect workers' rights, such as Minnesota. There are NO JOBS here. I'm starting work as a nursing assistant next week for $10 an hour. How many of you want to do that job, running for 8-12 hours straight, and getting your hands as dirty as possible? How many of you want to take care of our sick and elderly for barely more than minimum wage and no benefits? That is what we are forced to do with an unemployment rate like that. My dad has been a union Teamster for 30 years and he will be lucky to get his pension; he's from the last generation of blue collar workers who will be able to do it, or to make a decent wage. Thank God I'm able to at least have a meaningful job where I can really help people,but I am so tired of people yapping away about taxes and parroting what they hear on right-wing talk radio as they sit in cushy jobs, never having to truly do any hard work. They need a dose of reality! I'd like to see you work as a teamster or a CNA for one day-- I guarantee you would NOT make it!

This is interesting and I'm glad I had a chance to read it, but it suffers from one major problem: we really don't have any proof that it can be generalized from mice to humans. Until this proof exists, I think that we should be skeptical about it (i.e., not thinking, "hey, we can eat gallons of ice cream as long as we eat it in the morning!" :P) Although I do wonder about something else... could this mean that people who are natural night owls might be more likely to be overweight because they have to eat during the day, when everyone else is eating, and that's not natural for them... someone should do a study! ;)

The way this article is written is extremely confusing, and I really don't understand why they didn't just talk about the statistics in terms of the percentage of unemployed adults who are actively seeking a job.

I don't know if there are ghosts or not, but ghost *photos* are ridiculous, both pre- and post- Photoshop era.

Also,to be fair (I wish they let you edit these comments, but they don't), it sounds like the 2 daughters are really trying to break the family pattern and both training for jobs.

I do have to admit that criticizing these people is a lot like shooting fish in a barrel (honestly, how can anybody defend them???) but it makes me curious as to how they convinced officials to give them money in the first place. Not to make excuses for them, but there HAS to be more to the story. We've all seen lots of people more overweight than this family who work every day-- there's got to be more to it that wasn't reported or it just doesn't make any sense.

Oh, this is so cool! :) But honestly, this is a good example of how people put so many limitations ON THEMSELVES. This woman refused to allow this to happen to her. The more we sit around and complain about our problems, the less we empower ourselves to the degree that we could. Think about how much time you hear other people spending doing this and QUIT WASTING YOUR TIME in doing it. If I can do this, trust me, you can... you probably don't have a severe traumatic brain injury and epilepsy, which I do!

Quite honestly, those people don't look all that overweight to me. Yes, they clearly could stand to lose some weight, but compared to people who really are morbidly obese, they're relatively normal weight. I'm quite mystified as to why they supposedly can't work.

I find it hard to believe that very many people out there can't hear this tone. It's loud, irritating, and clear as a bell, which seems to be what almost everyone is saying. (I'm 39, btw). This has been making the rounds of the net for quite a while, which can be easily gleaned by the silliness about "teenagers using it as a ring tone" (why would anyone bother with that when you can text message?)

The entire hypothesis is interesting,and it may or may not be backed up by actual evidence at some point. But right now, it's not. And if we actually examine what this woman is saying...

"We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist"

Does not in any way actually support the idea that

‘My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.’

First of all, she hasn't provided any proof that "small babies need constant reassurance that they exist"; so she's assuming facts that are not in evidence. But let's say just for the sake of argument that this supposition *has* been proven. The problem is that she doesn't go on to actually prove in what specific ways specific types of technology might actually cause the same type of effect. Yet another problem is that "needing constant reassurance that (they) exist" clearly isn't the same thing as having difficulties with attention and concentration. Then this supposed "top neuroscientist", who can't understand how her argument lacks the most rudimentary kind of logic, goes on to vaguely mention how she thinks all of this has been proven by some sort of attention problems she sees in children.

I really don't care that she's the Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford. She has to back up her statements with logic and reasoning. Credentials do not impress me and they should not impress anyone if they exist in the absence of basic logic and rational thought.

I am becoming the person I need to be, my real and stable self. I never thought this would be possible no matter how hard I worked, because I didn't think there could ever be any way to overcome severe trauma and neurological damage. Thank GOD for all the wonderful medications we have now!! I would rather live in a cardboard box on pennies a day than do without any of them (and who knows, it may yet come to that, considering how expensive they are.) My advice is for people with intact brains to count their blessings, because you don't know what it's like to have one that has been damaged and to fight for many years for the right treatment. Money problems are so trivial next to that.

Certain medications absolutely can cause sleepwalking , especially some of the newer atypical antipsychotics (and yes, those are prescribed for lots of things besides being nuts. Since I take one, I do get to use the term "nuts"if I so choose.;) Remeron is particularly bad in this respect. Basically, these meds "unlock" movement centers in the brain that are normally locked during REM sleep. I had a lot of sleepwalking when I first started Seroquel and some of it was actually pretty dangerous (walking into walls and falling against tables), although it did NOT cause me to do anything like what this guy did, which does make me a tad bit suspicious of the story. Also, it's not going to hold water unless he can prove he was actually taking one of these meds at the time.