February 02, 2010

Solving the Worlds problems

Periodically the topic of a conversation will orbit around solving the worlds problems. The notion is that the world is bad and overall people are sheepish and dullards. If only they would adopt a certain mindset etc. life would be come utopia.

Childhood Obesity is one of those "save the world" issues, that everyone has a good idea about how to fix.

The problem is that someone took a couple of surveys (1976–1980 and 2003–2006) that show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%.1, 46

This was reported in the media with their typical doom and gloom flourish, that makes you wring your hands in worry and shame. Of course there is a spin on this that points badly at the lifestyle in the USA. Fast food, video games, bad parents, processed foods, not enough tax dollars etc.

When solving the worlds problem conversations crop up there is usually a chorus of "someone should do something!"

It occurs that the problem could be the survey, if we stopped taking surveys....?

2 comments:

Tina said...

Tax the Doritos. The tax will can offset the 'free' health care.

Don't worry - even if they're $8.00 a bag, people will still buy them because of the secret addictive ingredients :P

flyingvan said...

Lee--58% of people like surveys. 89.2% of survey results are made up on the spot though.