Here is something quite interesting to chew on

I just read the latest (er, 4th, ?) book from the Uglies Trilogy, by Scott Westerfeld. This is a great science fiction series for youth, btw. Apparently there is a movie to be made by Fox in the works too. Fox might butcher it tho.

However, it is this 2008 news clip (thx to wisewebwoman), which disturbs me with the parallels between the child discussed in the clip, Brooke, in 2008, and the 'surg' heads from Westerfield's futuristic post-Rustie world (with Rustie being the term for today's humans). Surg heads are humans that constantly change their body figure/form with surgical modifications for style/popularity gaining reasons (popularity ranks are very important in this future world...I find it an ironic mirror to today's world....).

A 12 year old child in Texas has become the youngest surg head that I've ever heard of. And her 'popularity rank' certainly has increased, hasn't it? Sounds to me like popularity is the only motivation for her entry into perpetual surg head mode.

And also, not once in the clip do they talk about her diet (past or current). The female interviewer looks like a bit of a surg head herself and probably lives on protein bars and boost. That's a bit harsh eh? But to not ask about food consumption when someone is obese is pretty messed up in itself. What were the child's parents FEEDING her for 12 years for goodness sake? And why are there no abuse charges applied when children are obese?

Silly questions when we all know that there is money to be made when people are obese.

Surgery is just one income stream opportunity (and that is a renewable stream, Brooke has hopped onto one surgeon's deluxe christmas card list eh?). Think of long term medications required by most aging obese people and the cash flow they generate - worldwide. And then there is the advertising base for the products that obese people need.

Wholesome/Unprocessed fresh food choices have never exactly been regarded as 'cash cow' endeavours due to the labour and time to table issues. That is, of course, until humans discovered how to best make money off of the darned cow.

So why not disregard something obvious....and hope that the masses don't notice these anomolies.....and continue pumping trans fat, gluten, dairy and sugar into the populace by the poundful....or tonful......????????

This capitalist based strategy seems to have worked for hundreds of years so far.....at least the gluten and sugar part.....trans fat was the latest killer food added 30 years ago and of course dairy really made excellent headway with the onset of pasteurization and refrigeration technologies not to mention gaining it's own box in Canada's food guide (and the mighty US pyramid).

And then there is the whole matter of our food also being the product of surg head modifications (ie GMO). But I'll leave that for another rant.