100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a circus sideshow.

http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/04/15/americas-obesity-epidemic-bringing-sideshow-freaks-into-the-discussion/

by yummyfajitas • 16 years ago

251 136 16 years ago

modeledbehavior.com

CoryMathews• 16 years ago

Sadly hes probably just over normal now.

smokinn• 16 years ago

Average maybe but definitely not normal.

GFischer2• 16 years ago

If you think that's anything remotely close to average, you have to get out of your country more often.

My mother really loved moving to Canada, because of that... over there she's not thought of as fat (heck, not even as overweight).

I weigh 175 lbs (80 kg) and for my height (5 foot 10 / 175 cm) I'm considered on the fat side for my country (Uruguay).

Whenever a fat consultant from the US comes, he is gaped at (much like the fat man on the freak show).. a TV figure from Argentina is famous precisely for being fat (Daniel "Tota" Santillán)

Edit: 3 other people made the point so far too.

chunkyslink• 16 years ago

Not in Africa, South America, Asia or even Europe hes not.

hackermom2• 16 years ago

In Europe, and Scandinavia in particular, that man would sit at a point way, way beyond anything defined as normal or even plump.

tjogin2• 16 years ago

True, here he would still turn heads.

pw0ncakes2• 16 years ago

No. I'd guess him at 99.5th percentile at least in the US, but you're right that he's not that out of the ordinary, given that we now have people who exceed 1000# and can't leave their houses.

gcb2• 16 years ago

the sum of the couple was around 900

corruption• 16 years ago

They probably would have paid to see someone over 60 too.

eru5• 16 years ago

Old people weren't that rare. Over 80 would been more of a show, I guess. (But we should find some data, before we speculate.)

byrneseyeview• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joice_Heth

P. T. Barnum traveled with this person, whom he claimed was 161 years old.

She was, in fact, about 80 when she died.

jonp• 16 years ago

Even 80 wasn't that exceptional.

In 1910 there were over 200,000 people in England & Wales aged over 80; about 1 in 170 of the population.

(Calculations based on data from http://www.mortality.org/)

david_adams• 16 years ago

The way that life expectancy works is that it was low because so many people died of disease in their youth that it dragged the average down. But people who lived to old age still lived to what we would consider an old age today. There would just be fewer people who lived that long, but not dramatically fewer.

astine• 16 years ago

Not likely. Average life-expectancy at the time was about that, so there were plenty of people over 60.

jdminhbg2• 16 years ago

Some clarifying comments on the link to the same story at marginalrevolution (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/04...):

"It says in the linked page that Morgan weighed as much as 875 pounds. I think that's still a bit unusual even today."

Apparently the photo is him at a younger, slimmer point.

chaosmachine• 16 years ago

I imagine that number was a generous estimate given by the guys selling tickets.

jdminhbg2• 16 years ago

I don't doubt it. But the guy in the photo doesn't look to even be half that.

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

I always find it interesting that sci-fi depictions of "evolved" humans (i.e. many years in the future) usually depict very tall, thin - even willowy - figures. That seems to fly in the face of general trend :)

gfodor• 16 years ago

Except in Wall-e

hackermom2• 16 years ago

Interestingly, WALL-E really nails the reality of western man's search for perfected convenience.

adamhowell2• 16 years ago

They got a lot of shit for it at the time, too.

Every time I see everyone in a train or line looking down at their phones, I also can't help but think of Wall-e.

btilly2• 16 years ago

And Idiocracy.

epi0Bauqu• 16 years ago

and Idiocracy

tensafefrogs• 16 years ago

Am I the only one that immediately thought of Wall-E when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad?

gaius3• 16 years ago

One thing that's always bemused me about scifi is future superhumans adapted for ultimate survival (e.g. the Nietzscheans in Andromeda) are tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent, etc.

Whereas for survival, you want humans that are small (so they need less food), weak because they have slow metabolisms, hairy to keep the heat in, fat because they are good at storing food in case of famine, cowardly so they avoid risk at any cost, dumb so they just repeat procedures that are known to work, and so on.

cema• 16 years ago

You don't want them dumb: adaptability is paramount for evolution. Smart people are more adaptable.

DrSprout2• 16 years ago

You're at least partially confusing individual survivability with group survivability. Absolute cowardice, while beneficial to an individual, is ultimately so problematic for the group that it will result in everyone's death.

Dumbly repeating procedures that are known to work without analysis will not only cause stagnation, but also likely cause industrial and environmental collapse unless a system is so tightly controlled that it is impossible for any procedure to lose effectiveness. And unless technological improvement is impossible, this is clearly a suboptimal survival strategy, as survivability may not be improved.

ganjianwei• 16 years ago

Short of a disaster that pushes humankind to the brink of extinction, natural selection is likely to be based on traits of people who mate and reproduce. The more likely you are to mate and reproduce, the more likely the traits you have get passed on. It might be a logical leap but perhaps because of this, humans might evolve towards whatever is more attractive to other humans.

krschultz2• 16 years ago

It isn't about survival. It is about procreation. If you survive to 100 years old and have no kids, you "failed to survive" in an evolutionary sense compared to a guy who died at 30 but has 3 kids.

So if the tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent guys can have more kids than the short, fat, hairy guys, those guys will have a greater influence on the future species than the survival in the face of catastrophy.

jules3• 16 years ago

Except that humans don't (or will not) need these qualities anymore. Humans will evolve to be desirable to the other sex, i.e. "tall, muscular, lean, brave, intelligent".

jamii• 16 years ago

Some of Alistair Reynolds' books feature Neotonic Infantry - genetically engineered super-soldiers that look like children. They take up less space, eat less and being forced to kill a small child causes serious psychological damage to the enemy.

SamAtt2• 16 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with that.

I think the fast food industry gives a false impression because they started out with fattening food. But all the current fast food places were founded a relatively short time ago (McDonalds: '55, Burger King: '53, KFC: '52, Taco Bell: '62, Pizza Hut: '58) and as they've evolved their menus have become healthier.

Beyond that technology is paving the way for a less fattening diet. Diet soft drinks, soy burgers, and other low calorie foods have gotten dramatically better tasting in just the last 20 years or so (It's actually getting to the point where those Diet Dr. Pepper ads are almost true). At the same time we've developed Appetite Suppressants (the most popular of which, Hoodia gordonii, wasn't even patented until 1996) and other prescription drugs to fight obesity.

So really the trend seems to be towards healthier, less fattening food. We're just at the beginning of the curve.

timwiseman3• 16 years ago

* they've evolved their menus have become healthier.*

Have you looked at the nutrition facts lately? Or seen the new commercials for KFC heart attack of two pieces of fried chicken with bacon and cheese in between?

I wasn't around when the fast food places you mention were founded, but if this is the trend towards healthier then I am amazed people survived for any length of time after they emerged.

(Granted, many have added healthier options lately, but that is in addition to pushing junk food to even greater extremes.)

eru5• 16 years ago

Anything with "diet" in the name is not automagically healthier.

jseifer2• 16 years ago

None of the things you mention are actually healthy though. It's terribly unfortunate that they're going in the wrong direction.

MikeCapone2• 16 years ago

If humans survive long enough to become highly advanced technologically, we'll almost certainly have a high degree of control over our bodies. Tall, thin and handsome is probably to be expected.

See Iain M. Banks's Culture novels for a fictional depiction of this pushed to the extreme (people there can even chose to switch from one sex to the other whenever they feel like it).

Periodic• 16 years ago

That's always been the dream, hasn't it? Eventually technology will become good enough that we won't have to worry about being responsible.

One thing I've become annoyed with lately is how little planning anyone does. Who needs to make solid plans when you can can just call someone via cell phones and make the plans as you go? It makes coordinating more than a few people very hard.

exit• 16 years ago

if we can manipulate neurological details like gender, why not lock ourselves into a happy-loop and be done with history?

alexgartrell• 16 years ago

I think the general trend is a social one. I suspect that the naturally thin people are having more children on average than the obese people, so the evolutionary trend will be towards faster metabolisms.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

Naturally. We wish for things that we don't have. It's the same as flying cars- there sure as heck isn't a trend indicating we will have such a thing, let alone cars at all.

It's the same as how everyone in the movies is beautiful, nobody in the future will go hungry, and even aspirations to 'the good ol days', even though everyone back then was too busy dying of dysentery, cholera, starvation, or drowning in caulked wagons to realize just how great they had it.

mhb• 16 years ago

From: http://men-in-full.livejournal.com/111937.html referring to additional photos there:

The image was taken by a photographer probably during the 1890s-1910 era. The cabinet photo measures approx. 4" x 6". It pictures a super view of a young man and woman, but both of a very large size! The back of the photo read "Chauncey Morlan, Age 25, Wt 602, Wife age 22, Wt 526". A quick "google" search revealed that they were a circus side show attraction of some type. The photographer turned out to be famous circus / sideshow / freak photographer Wendt of Boonton NJ. He was famous for his rare images of midgets, giants, fatmen, sword swallowers, jugglers and bearded ladies!

Chauncy Royse Morlan and Annie Bell were married in 1892 at Huber's Museum in New York. Afterward the couple toured with the Barnum & Bailey Circus in Europe. Upon returning to the US, they continued to travel as the fattest married couple in the world "with a combined weight of 912 pounds". During the off season the Morlans returned to their home in Indianapolis, Indiana - Chauncy's home state. Annie would die at age 31, and Chauncey at age 43.

seiha• 16 years ago

Now that's one creepy livejournal community.

davi• 16 years ago

I don't think it's creepy, at least not after giving it a brief read. It's interesting, and everyone is being very polite and well spoken with one another, and talking about what they're interested in. We should do as well. (I upmodded you anyway because your comment made me go look.)

dkimball• 16 years ago

So, 100 years ago, this kind of weight was sideshow-worthy (and remember the other things one would see in a circus sideshow...); today, it wouldn't turn heads on a subway.

However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity.

I think this is due, at least in part, to the drastic reduction of fat consumption relative to carbohydrates; but changes in lifestyle and in modes of entertainment must have something to do with it, too. No one mindlessly eats high-carbohydrate foods while playing poker, after all...

The increase in number of sedentary jobs relative to others probably has a role, too, but it must not be a very major factor on its own; otherwise, there would have been as much obesity among white-collar workers then as there is among everyone today.

There are things that man was not meant to know: not the coordinates of Cthulhu's tomb in the watery depths and the nature of spells to manipulate the Great Old Ones, but the unholy and arcane arts of transistors, CRTs, and low-fat yogurt.

[Edit: typo.]

pw0ncakes2• 16 years ago

People here are exaggerating the fatness of the average American. Yes, obesity is an unsightly problem, but the man in that photo would still be a stand-out today-- just less of one. Instead of being someone we'd only see in a circus, he's the noticeably obese fat guy in the line at McDonalds.

He's definitely not sideshow-freak material today, but he'd definitely be the fattest person on an average subway car. I'd eyeball him at 350-400 pounds.

Also, one thing to keep in mind regarding the rightward tail is that, once you cross into the 400+ pound range, you're at constant risk of weight-related death, regardless of age. We can now keep people at that weight alive into their 50s and 60s at 500+ pounds. A hundred years ago, most of them would have died long before getting to the "circus-worthy" range (700+) today.

smallblacksun2• 16 years ago

You also have to remember that the guidelines for what is considered obese was changed in 1998. It changed 30 million people from being considered normal weight to obese.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/guideposts/fitnes...

nandemo• 16 years ago

He's definitely not sideshow-freak material today, but he'd definitely be the fattest person on an average subway car.

I don't get your point. He might be the fattest in a subway car, but the point is that there's another like him in just about every subway car.

One hundred years ago the fat guy was (say) 1 in a 100_000; nowadays it is 1 in 100.

david927• 16 years ago

The US has become more health-conscious but also, in the last 50 years, has began to be exploited by manufacturers. Note, this person would be shocking still in Europe.

Chemicals and corn by-products are stuffed everywhere in American products. Even in crazy places like maple syrup and ketchup. I went back to the States at Christmas and we went to an upscale grocery store, yet my wife couldn't find almost anything (yogurt, etc.) that wasn't processed and littered with crap to make it "taste better" and save the producers money. I'm sorry but there is nothing in yogurt that needs corn.

The Heinz ketchup here in the Czech Republic tastes identical to the one in the States, but without any serious additives and no corn products at all. People don't eat fast food and they use natural ingredients. You can't sell GM foods here; it's not allowed.

The obesity in the U.S. is staggering, and what's worse, no one cares enough to force the companies producing it to shape up and stop getting their profit from poisoning their fellow man.

fugue88• 16 years ago

Corn products are stuffed into maple syrup? I think you got that backwards: we stuff a little flavoring into corn syrup and then call it maple!

eru5• 16 years ago

While I share your sentiment about too much processed foot, may I ask what's there to say against genetic engineering?

nollidge• 16 years ago

You're confusing a few separate issues:

1) Cheap, high-yield corn. Upside: cheap carbs. Downside: Probably unsustainable. Crops require crazy chemical fertizilers to support the increased yields. Because it's cheap, people want to use corn for all kinds of crap it's not really suitable for, such as feeding livestock despite it being outside of their normal diet, which has ballooning negative effects (antibiotics, animal suffering)

2) High-fat, high-sugar foods becoming cheaper. Upside: Tastes good. Downside: Not good for you. Higher health costs, greater human suffering.

3) GM crops. Upside: all kinds of stuff. Downside: mostly unfounded FUD.

4) Chemical additives. Upside: longer shelf life, ergo cheaper products. Downside: certain additives are downright scary in doses far greater than normal presence in foods; AFAICT there's not enough research on the long-term effects of the normal doses.

jseifer2• 16 years ago

I couldn't agree more. However, even if you were to find yogurt without corn odds are that the cows were fed corn their entire lives. It takes serious effort and commitment to find high quality food in the US, though it is possible.

philwelch2• 16 years ago

"However: the US has become _more_ health-conscious in the past 100 years, not less. We must have something wrong, if concern for exercise and good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with this kind of obesity."

Naturally--as health and fitness became more of a problem, people became more concerned about it.

Anyway, it's not like fatness was totally unheard of: this guy even got himself elected President in 1908, and I don't think anyone with his shape could accomplish the feat today, over 100 years later: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/William_H...

gcb2• 16 years ago

so, Botticelli ladies were the photoshoped playmates of the time?

GFischer2• 16 years ago

I think I heard mentioned on art classes that fat equaled wealth, and so fat ladies might be desirable.

But you have a point.

troystribling• 16 years ago

But, they were not obese.

rauljara• 16 years ago

I had a Bangladeshi friend explain to me ~8 years ago that all the female Bangladeshi movie stars (not to be confused with Bollywood stars) were fat. For most of the population, being thin was a sign of not being able to afford much food, so fat women were the ideal. Just goes to show how subjective certain kinds of beauty are.

stusmith1977• 16 years ago

Ditto, a couple of hundred years ago being pale was fashionable - it meant you were rich enough to not work outside. Nowadays of course, we mostly work indoors - so being tanned is fashionable.

lmkg• 16 years ago

It's true in a lot of cultures. I know in pre-colonial Hawai'i, being huge was attractive. I hear it was true in parts of Africa, too. It's not true in the states just because the bar isn't that high to get 2-3k calories per day. I think it's generally true that standards of beauty follow whatever implies a higher standard of living. Look at America today: facial and hair complexion to show quality, not just quantity, of food; muscle tone and tan to show spare time out of a desk job doing exercise; and of course flamboyant displays of money, the ultimate objective measure of success.

adrianwaj• 16 years ago

I had to call the US last night for webhost support (this host needed a call to cancel a domain from being hosted, and an email to add a new one - a paper trail), and as she had to pause between sentences for labored breath, it was then that I felt a little bit sorry for her, but at least she was employed. That was my trip to the circus.

dpritchett• 16 years ago

She could have asthma or emphysema. No reason to assume breathing issues are weight related.

josefresco• 16 years ago

100 years ago you had to visit the traveling circus to see a fat person.

Now we just turn on the television and turn to TLC or Discovery Channel to see the same thing.

What exactly has changed besides the technology? Any good circus promoter or television producer will find a fatter guy than the last fat guy.

I get it, we're all fatter today, but I don't believe this example proves anything.

tjogin2• 16 years ago

You don't need technology to see what was then considered "freakishly" obese, today. You can just go to any public place. Technology has nothing to do with it.

Avshalom• 16 years ago

I think the point was that people tune in in massive numbers for say Biggest Loser just to play look at the fat guy. Ditto with anything about the enormously obese on random Discovery channel shows. The money comes from advertisements instead of ticket sales but people are still making money by showing us fat people.

At least one implication is that just because people were willing to pay money to see a show that included fat people in 1910 doesn't mean it was actually considered freakish any more than it is today.

mrshoe• 16 years ago

Classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljv1knm9N4o#t=5m40s

TotlolRon• 16 years ago

It is amazing what people are willing to pay for.

(Don't focus on the circus stunt. Instead, pay attention to the business lesson :)

jrockway• 16 years ago

In this day and age of cheap video games, movies, and pornography... there is not much of a market for this anymore.

smallblacksun2• 16 years ago

All those "500 lb mom", "the 1000 pound man" show on the discover channel (and similar), not to mention the Biggest Loser tell me otherwise.

staticshock• 16 years ago

sociological images recently wrote about this. here's their article, which provides some interesting information omitted by the parent link: http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/02/08/the-last-sideshow-f...

the most interesting omitted point is this: the last Fat Man actually retired as late as 2003

mikecane2• 16 years ago

People of Walmart. http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=12413

gojomo• 16 years ago

I like Walmart, and I've noticed this phenomenon.... though much of my experience may just be noting geographic differences in obesity, as the Walmarts I visit tend to be in the less-urban areas of California, Nevada, or central Texas.

I'd love to see guerrilla-installation of some sort of weight-strain gauge under the entrances/exits of major eatery chains, so as to collect and publish data on the average weight of their customers.

mikecane2• 16 years ago

I don't live near a Walmart, but this kind of physique is no stranger in NYC. Just yesterday at a supermarket I saw a pre-teen child about 4-ft high, who was bursting just like that.

Semiapies• 16 years ago

Stop people working behind desks and get them back out in the fields, then stop people taking advantage of national and global markets for food and put them back at the mercy of regional farm production, and you will see far fewer obese people.

Mind, that's ignoring the huge pretense of the linked post that the pictured level of obesity is "normal" or "unremarkable" anywhere. Obesity is a medical definition, and most people who meet it look far thinner than that.

83457• 16 years ago

"Imagine, if you will, what society would look like if 100 years from now if what passed as spectacularly obese today would not even turn heads at the mall."

I don't have to imagine it -- I saw WALL-E

frankus• 16 years ago

There's another article on obesity at the site that I like:

http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/04/16/hoisted-from-the-comme...

Particularly this line:

> In order to stay within one pound of your current weight > over a year, calories-in have to match calorie-out with > 99.7% accuracy. The calorie testing equipment that > determines what goes on food labels is not even that > accurate, so it seems implausible that people are > achieving this through conscious equation of calories-in > with calories-out.

100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a circus sideshow.

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