She is hot.  Delightful misanthropic film.

The Romans during the empire were obese on the labor of other poor souls.

...I absolutely loved it!

Biod,

What Dan Engber, and anyone else who analyzes this movie the way he does, fails to get is that fictional movies generally use symbolism and metaphor.  "Fat" symbolizes overconsumption.  It doesn't necessarily have to be overconsumption of food, and overconsumption of other things is probably more responsible for ecological devastation.  That said, the attitude that being overweight is not caused by the eating and exercise habits of the affected individuals, however, is ludicrous.

Seems like the key phrases in the critique and Dan Engber's rebuttal are "in the same environment" and "in a given population". So some people in America will be fatter than others and that will be due to heritable DNA oriented differences. Comparing obesity levels between our American population and most other populations on the planet would pretty obviously show that our mean level of fatness is higher than most of the other populations. Given the dramatic shift towards chubbiness and beyond over the last few decades it would be hard to say it's DNA driven. We eat more, and much of what we eat is crap.  

I suggest you go to youtube and check out George Carlin's skit on "Fat People."

I think George made a very convincing argument that obesity and the environment are linked.  Unless there are people out there who doen't believe that obesity is linked with consumption, and consumption is linked with the environment.  Factory-farmed meat (with growth hormones), soft drinks, refined carbs from cheap grain, and dairy products (with growth hormones) are all linked to an expanding waistline...and to a bigger ecological footprint.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Hypochondriacs are nuts about germs...always scrubbing down with antimicrobial soaps, sterilizing their bodies, and constantly convinced that they've got some malady or other.  I've seen this whole gene thing working out to the same type of mentality over the last few years....everybody is scared that their genes cause this or that.  It's a lot of BS.  Genes are not an excuse for a rediculous lifestyle.  My grandmother lived the last twenty years of her life hooked up to an oxygen tank because she smoked....should we say that smoking isn't bad but that certain people have a genetic disposition to lung disease?  BS!  The reason why genes get switched on to cause disease is because we're putting something into the human body that doesn't belong there...cigarrette smoke, pesticides, growth hormones, trans-fats, chlorine, fluoride...

We need to quit being hypochondriacs and worrying that our genes are going to make us succeptible to disease.  Get the crap out of your body/environment.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

the link between bad government and obesity?

or corruption and obesity?

or No Child Left Behind and obesity?

how about ToysRUs and obesity?

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Out here, the gene BS is used to avoid personal responsibility for overeating/bad eating and lack of exercise.  In Berkeley, some people have gone so far that they consider calling on people to take this responsibility prejudicial.

The issue of personal responsibility is second only to giving the natural environment priority in where I part ways with the left.  While I think any fair person would agree that personal responsibility should be commensurate with the amount of money/power one has, EVERYONE has some amount of it.

...in Wall-E, that's at least what I got out of it -- everybody was on a moving bed all the time, and they didn't move except to put the straws to their lips.  Warning -- a bit of a plot twist here -- but when they actually get up and try to walk, it's a big deal, and I don't think it was just the fatness, it was that their muscles had atrophied.

And of course they were taking liberties with everyone looking ridiculously "buttery", in the real world, plenty of people would be skinny no matter how much they ate -- but they would still have trouble walking if they didn't exercise.

...a more obese population has a larger ecological footprint in that they consume more(thus more industrial agriculture), and that what they consume is generally unhealthy (and thus more chemicals) and more likely to take cars than walk of bike...

...however, a more obese population also usually has  a more limited average lifespan.  In other words, they die sooner.  So though their immediate ecological impact is greater, I wonder how it compares to someone who has a smaller current impact, but ends up livin' a third or maybe even twice as long as the more overweight person, and thus consumes resources over a longer period?

The current human path of increased technology and decreased living naturally is an evolutionary dead end.  Not only is it destroying the Earth and all other life on it, it's not good for humans, either.