Wall-E is a Fat-E

Daniel Engber at Slate Magazine has written a mouthful about the recent Pixar film Wall-E.

For those of you that have seen the film, chime in, but those who have not, be warned!  Mr. Engber summarizes Wall-E’s message as a simple tenet: “if we don’t change the way we live, we’ll all get really fat and destroy the world.”

Not only does he go on and on about the film and it’s link between obesity and ecology, he makes quite a number of bold claims:

• “there’s little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting.”
• Two months ago, the Washington Post compared childhood obesity to global warming.
• Last year, an AP story called “Fighting Fat and Climate Change” claimed that we could cut annual CO₂-emissions by 64 million tons if every American just got out of his car to walk for half an hour a day.

Gosh.  As if you needed any more reason to cry… “All this may be enough to leave some overweight viewers of Wall-E in tears.”

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