25 April 2009

Dying to be thin....

With all of these countless commercials and advertisements for diet remedies, followed by desperate resolutions to drop 10-20-30- even 40lbs and beyond (even I'm guilty!), I got to thinking about how God-damned lucky we are as Americans to even have that option. The above photograph (Nachtwey, 1993) depicts a starving woman suffering from the famine in Sudan and reflects that of many images and faces of millions of others just like her - all across the world! Universally, millions of people are dying for a crumb of bread; while as Americans, we aim to (as many diet books will tell you..) "cover half of your meal with a napkin to avoid picking at it and to eat smaller portions." But, where does that half uneaten meal go? It goes to decompose in a waste... you know, much like the wastelands millions of poverty-ridden human beings must not only reside in, but search through to find rotting morsels of food that even a maggot wouldn't touch - just to satisfy their hunger enough to survive just one more day! So, instead of dwelling on that trivial extra winter weight, picture those people starving around the world who would KILL to be pleasantly plump, rather than continue DYING to be thin.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

8 comments:

  1. I knew someone would take a stab at my blog series. I am aware of famines across the world. I thought it would be nice to keep people updated on arbitrary nutrition facts.

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  2. Also, that first photograph reminded me of this one image that was discussed in my South Asian Art History class: http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/famine-in-india.jpg.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. I like the conflicting opinions.

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  5. Yeah, I'm writing a paper on the problem of world hunger and surprise! Wealthy nations are the cause of it. So not only are we wasting tons, literally, tons of good food, our meat rich diet that people drive to us, that we drive to get, is causing food prices to go up tenfold around the world. The U.S. and the European Union preach free markets but are in blatant disregard of trade rules and constantly tweek them to their advantage. The U.S. produces way too much of the wrong thing(corn) and then dumps it on third world countries which in turn removes [those countries'] incentive for local production. Totally fucked! I don't eat meat anymore.

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  6. i agree with arv, and i like your conflicting opinions and your slightly ambiguous stance

    Reading anonymous' comment, reminded me that some countries actually have very few things that can be locally produced (that happens a lot of island countries and the situation becomes that food HAS to be imported, because the land is only good to produce certain crops). i mean this situation is a lot more complex than what can be explained in a paragraph or two. take some parts of new guinea. i remember watching a special on pbs and a guy asking "why does the US have so much cargo, and why not us?" (cargo meaning goods) and then the special proceeded to break down and explain why the area never got industrialized and is not able to produce for itself.
    i agree, a lot of us are wasteful. as long as we're consumers, and i dont just mean food, we are going to waste. if we eat out at a restaurant, waste. if we buy new clothes, industrial waste. it would probably help us stop wasting if we didnt have marketing that constantly convinces us that we are some how inadequate (hungry for something) and needed to buy more and newer things to feel satiated
    its very complicated and all i can do is try to do my part
    thanks for the reminder, we should appreciate what we have.. and not take more than we need

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  7. Although Anonymous is right to point out that some problems of world hunger can be attributed to the "West," a new threat is probably going to emerge from China and India. These two emerging countries are getting wealthier, and richer people tend to eat more meat. Considering that within the context of their enormous populations, who knows what's going to happen to the world food supply?

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  8. lets all be anorexic

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