Killer at Large
Shinebox Media Productions
Review by Tim Boyd
“Killer at Large” is a clever name for a video about obesity. First, we get a front-row seat to a liposuction operation performed on a twelve-year-old girl. I found it unnecessarily gross but one of the better points in the DVD was made during the process. After more than one operation trimming all the fat off, the surgeons got her to the point where she looked very slim and pretty. Seven months later we see her again. The weight was back and the operations were ultimately a failure.
There is nothing extremely new about the ensuing list of reasons as to why obesity is a problem in America today. Emotional factors, stress, marketing pressures and modern laziness are all covered. Stress may be a factor but the video makes no mention of the possibility that poor nutrition could be making us more stress-prone. The lamest explanation is the suggestion that we used to be hunter-gatherers so our metabolism is not geared for video games, TV and cubicles, but rather for relentless workouts. I agree that propping oneself up in front of a display screen all day is not a healthy lifestyle, but the other extreme can also be a problem. The fantasy of what a hunter-gatherer life may have looked like is accompanied by an equally simplistic animation that suggests such people exhaustively exercised almost every day—and didn’t eat well. The DVD “Fathead” did a much better job of explaining all of that (and is a much better DVD overall).
For those contemplating liposuction it might be good to watch the first part of the video but even there one won’t find much about the associated risks. In summary, thumbs down.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2009.
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