It's a British show called Supersize vs Superskinny where an anorexic/bulemic person exchanges diets with an overweight person for a day or two and then they talk about all of the health effects medically. It's a really brilliant idea, actually.

In this season they are interspersing each story with Christian's trip to Evansville. It's all pretty awful and depressing, as you can see from the clip at the beginning with amputees.

What ROUS is trying to say is "no".

Exactly this. It's like once someone is over a societally deemed norm weight-wise suddenly they're not a person any more and you can do whatever you want with images of them as long as you dehumanise them that bit further by removing their face.

If they were attractive women in bikinis at the beach it would happen as well. Despicable.

I've actually never seen that. I've seen them filmed from far away or behind but never heads cut off. I think there was an axe commercial where the lady was just a pair of boobs.

I've seen people take half-face images for dirty pictures, but that's not the same.

More like "Scared Skinny".

While I admit Americans have a lot of cultural issues that contribute to poor health, the so-called "obesity epidemic" is just the latest in a series of overblown bullshit provided courtesy of the popular media.

If I go out with a camera, I could make every city in the world look like it's swarming with extremely overweight people. It's easy to find groups of fat people clustered together because people tend to hang out with people who look and act like themselves. It's just human nature. Just the same, I could make it look like there are no fat people by finding clusters of lean people all walking together.

What they've done here is found rare extreme cases and implied that these peoples' problems are widespread. We could also find rare cases of people taking their health routines to extremes and doing themselves major harm.

I used to have a weight problem until I watched that one submission where Gunther Van Hagen dissected an obese woman. Something about how the fat gradually overtook and destroyed internal organs...

I was cured alright....

The obesity epidemic is real, but that doesn't mean that this documentary isn't sensationalist, or that its representative of the real problems of everyday Americans. Over a lifetime, I've biked and walked everywhere, and yet my weight has slowly crept up to the point where I'm pre-diabetic. I question whether the case of the woman whose leg broke off when she was getting out of the tub is going to provide any insight into my situation.

Foods high in fats and sugars trigger the same chemical reactions in the brain as many highly addictive narcotics. And when people addicted to these foods try to go "cold turkey" on them, they experience the same mental and physical withdrawal symptoms as drug addicts. Their brains really throw a tantrum and make them crave the fats and sugars even more.

Of course, when we hear about a really fat person having this problem, we blame the victim. "Just stop shoveling food in your face, fatty-fat-fat!" You never see us trying to treat drug addicts by screaming "Hey, junkity-junk-junky, quit shooting up!"

It is very scary to think that we might one day find out that there is an underlying pathogen responsible for the for the condition (enabled by efficient food production technology).

You also don't see us throwing fat people in prison for possession with intent for having multiple flavors of Doritos.

In response to Binro: I can confirm this. Last May I cut refined sugar, gluten, and most grains/starches out of my diet. For the first few weeks I had those 'withdrawal' symptoms... a bit like a low-grade influenza. I felt like shit, but it was nothing compared to the problems I had; problems that would keep getting worse.

It was worth it. I feel great now and I eat delicious food (meat, veggies, full-fat dairy, eggs, etc) and I've lost 73 lbs. :D My bloodwork went from abominable to awesome and I'm no longer in danger of developing diabetes.

It was all about the food. Sugar kept my insulin level fucked and no matter how much 'low fat' food I ate, my body would just store it and I'd gain weight. Now my body processes healthy fats like it's supposed to. My exercise level didn't change at all, though now I need to get toned to help take care of this loose skin.

@rustedmutt:

Congratulations on making a change for the better. I know how hard it is having struggled with weight myself.

But you and I probably have big advantages over the people who fail to make the change to a healthier lifestyle. Just as some people are better able to kick a drug habit, some people are better able to change their dietary and exercise habits. If you're dealing with emotional issues like depression or physical problems that make exercise difficult, the deck is stacked against them.

@TheOtherCapnS:

But more and more people are starting to see addicts for what they are, sick people who need serious help. Overeating is still seen almost universally as a shameful personal failing.

I, on the other hand, am perfectly content being muscular but having a round beer belly. Fat people rule. Also I'm never going to go bald. And my teeth enamel is awesome. Thanks, mom and dad!

And don't forget what we're doing to our kids. Many schools have cut recess altogether in order to make more time to prepare kids for taking standardized tests. They've even shaved down lunch time. After getting to the cafeteria and waiting in line, the average child gets about ten minutes to bolt down their food at school. Even if they bring their own lunch they may only gain a few extra minutes.

And of course we keep parents working longer and heap more stress on them so they're too tired to play with their kids when they do get home.

And we're afraid to let kids go out by themselves because of all the horror stories we hear. Even worse is the lack of sympathy or even outright blame parents get when tragedies do befall their children. "You let him go to the park ALONE? Well of course a pervert abducted, raped and dismembered him. What did you expect?"

I have the good fortune of working from home, so at lunch time I eat a salad and run for an hour, every day.

And even with that, my weight holds stable. And I don't pig out or eat a lot of potato chips or anything, this is just with cereal for breakfast and a normal dinner, no dessert.

If I did not work from home, I would probably be putting on weight just from having a couple of drinks in the evening.

Agreed. Particularly from a European perspective. I almost feel violated as an American when you get a BBC special on this topic. Similarly with the Louis Thereaux "Weird America" stuff. It's like we're being treated like animals in a zoo for the British audience. Indeed even my favorite Richard Dawkins likes to yelp about how 50% of Americans are creationists, and he'll go to small towns in South Carolina and Colorado and find the worst examples.

Yes, there are problems, big ones. But to single out "America" as the problem isn't doing justice to the issues. As you said - much more complicated. And simplifying it by searching for easy "wow factors" for a British audience doesn't help anything, really.

The ease with which you can get a relatively cheap meal has definitely caused an unwillingness in a lot of people to prepare their own meals, but I think it's less a matter of convenience and cost and more a matter of people preferring the taste of a Big Mac to real food. You can eat healthy for cheap if you learn how to prepare root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, celery), frozen vegetables, whatever cheap vegetable is in season (cabbage, pumpkin, etc.), beans, rice, oats, etc., but the average person would rather shove a bacon double cheeseburger in their mouth.

Europe is a capitalist place, and they're not this fat (aside from England) so the problem goes way beyond that.

Europeans have done well in curbing the overworking which we Americans have a problem with. Their cultures give them breaks and long holidays whereas our culture is more GO, GO, GO, WORK, WORK, WORK.

Actually in America, the economics of it do have a lot to do with it. Fast food is designed to be cheap, with dollar menu items that are mostly greasy fried garbage loaded with cheese and ranch dressing. If you can get a salad for a dollar at one of these places, it's literally just lettuce and a slice of tomato. If you want fruit at a fast food place, well ha ha ha -- it's either mixed in with sugary yogurt or ice cream or else it's literally just half an apple.

But the craziest is our grocery stores. First of all, if you're poor in America, there's a good chance you don't even live in a neighborhood with a grocery store, and might not have transportation to make going to one convenient. I mean, if your choice is spending an hour on the bus to go to a grocery store versus walking to a McDonald's (fast food chains are ubiquitous), the choice is obvious. Secondly, half the food in most grocery stores in America is instant, processed food loaded with high-fructose corn syrup. So even if you're avoiding fast food and TRYING to eat healthy, you still have to be vigilant to get healthy foods. Meanwhile, fresh produce is fucking expensive as hell. Even middle-class households in America have trouble affording fresh vegetables and meats week after week. You really have to go out of your way to eat healthy, quality food in America, and that assumes you have the budget for it.

It's had a pretty devastating effect on our cultural food ways. Since at least the 40's, our grocery stores have been flooded with processed food, and with microwaveable food since the 80's. The consequence is, many American households simply don't have the skill to cook an entire meal from scratch. If you go to, say, an American barbecue or Thanksgiving dinner -- the very place you would expect to see a family cooking a meal from scratch -- it's totally normal for half your meal to be processed or bought pre-made at the store.

If there's one topic that turns ordinary people into median youtube commenters, it's physical appearance.

You misspelled "every video on a video comment site" but thanks for your personal bias leading to a double standard.

That undertaker would probably be considered obese or overweight, himself.

Hell, according to the BMI, which was created back in the early 1800s, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt are "overweight" and George Clooney is "obese".

"Work?" - They don't.
"Wipe your ass?" - Shower/Bath
"Pay for the food you eat?" - Foodstamps/Disability/Welfare
"Buy your wheelchair mobile device?" - If you can't afford it it's given to you for free.

How do I know all this? Because I lived with my morbidly obese, 4'7, 500+lbs aunt for six years growing up. She and her bedroom typically smelled putrid because of the aforementioned lifestyle she was accustomed to.

After years of being a morbidly obese, shitting herself, not working, welfare leeching, legally blind diabetic who was on kidney dialysis, she died at age 45 shortly after eating a whole boiled chicken slathered in mayo, one of her favorite meals. I'm not kidding.

Don't feel bad though, she did it all to herself and she was one of the meanest, selfish, most evil people I've ever known, who took glee in the misfortune of others and was extremely abusive to us kids, as was her husband. She looked a lot like the woman in the preview image as a matter of fact.

Needless to say, I don't need this video to tell me not to eat myself to death, so if anything positive came out of living with that evil bitch it's that.

Damn

double damn.

daaaaaaaaaaamn

One more damn for the dirty burger! Daaaaaaaaaaamnnnnn