Back to the Future

As I type this, Emily is burning the midnight, I mean noon oil at school. She is finishing up the final portion of her prelims for her doctorate program. She has to design an original study and write a pseudo-grant for it.

So, to support her, I have been doing some epidemiological thinking of my own. As you will (hopefully) read, I came up with a pretty good idea. Even if it's too late for her to use this idea for her prelims, she can always use it for her dissertation.

According to Emily I talked briefly about Segway scooters in my sleep last night. While I don't recall this, I am not surprised that my comments weren't flattering towards Segways. People are already sitting on their asses too much in this country as it is. And the logistical nightmares of a bunch of yahoos trolling around the streets of downtown Minneapolis on Segways would be enough to make me move to a spider hole, or at least I wouldn't work downtown. Some kids at work have those shoes with built-in wheels and those are already annoying enough.

And this brings me to a study design Emily may want to consider for her dissertation:

Why wasn't George Jetson fat? If you ever saw the The Jetsons, I'm sure you remember that:

1. George sat in a chair that moved around the office so he didn't have to walk.
2. Rather than e-mail, George communicated with his co-workers from his desk through telescreens, which requires even LESS effort than typing out a message.
3. People's houses and businesses had people-moving conveyor belts (like at the airport), eliminating the need to walk.
4. Rosie the robot maid did every damn thing that required any physical effort. And yet Rosie was the most portly charachter on the show.

The Jetsons and their peers should have weighed 250 pounds or more, given how little calories they had to burn a day.

Cartoons from the 60s are always thought of as quaint and charming and The Jetsons is no different. It never crossed the minds of the folks at Hanna-Barbera in the early 1960s that obesity and active lifestyles would be an issue.

Or maybe they were visionaries and they constructed The Jetsons' world with subtle features and built-ins that kept people fit and active, despite the fact that they could get all their daily needs met without getting out of their chairs.

The prudent epidemiologist should buy The Jetsons DVD and view each episode closely and look for clues as to how we should design our world so we stay as trim as George Jetson in the future.

And the careful viewer will note there are no Segways in the show.

I think that would make a hell of a dissertation.