#791 X-Mortality

It’s bad news that America is so obese. Especially when it turns out that America is so obese because of bad news.
The results are finally in; America’s obsession with bad news causes obesity. Wow. And for years we thought it was our sedentary lifestyle. Our heavily starched diet. Our vitamin-less fast food.
Perhaps those are contributing factors. But the big bottom line sits on a very simple principle. You only gain weight when you put stuff in your mouth.
A recent study tested a theory. Do thoughts of mortality affect how we eat? Different students were asked to write an essay contemplating either their own death or a trip to the dentist. Afterward they were exposed to a plate of fresh cookies and told to help themselves. Those that wrote about the dentist hardly took any. Those who had been dwelling on death for the previous hour gorged themselves.
Further tests helped researchers decide that things that reminded people of their own mortality caused them to eat more—an apparently hard-wired biological response to fears of termination.
The conclusion is obvious. If there is one thing that has steadily increased in America during the time obesity had steadily increased in America, it’s bad news.
Some of it, ironically, bad news about obesity.
More Americans have more access to more news outlets than ever before. There are more TVs in every room, from wall monsters to tiny sets under the kitchen counter. Every desk has a computer to click on news. There are even automated news alerts you can have pop up on your computer all day long.
Is it any coincidence they call them “feeds”?
Used to be America would tune into one channel of evening news once a day. That’s when we were on a sensible news diet.
Now it’s bad news gluttony. Wifi bad news flowing out of our laptops is making our laptops overflow. There’s bad news on big screens in every bar and every mall, with main screen sound and silent crawl.
We are bad news junkies.
And apparently, junk food keeps the jitters down between fixes.
America, ya gotta love it.