Randall Parker comments on some interesting recent research on fat metabolism in sheep which suggests that powerful new treatments for obesity may be on the horizon:
Think about what the future will look like once weight control becomes possible by use of safe pharmaceuticals. Obesity will become rare. Given that substantial advances are being made in our understanding of both appetite and fat cell operation and also given that the rate of advance in biotechnology as a whole is accelerating it seems most likely that 20 years from now obesity will be a rare condition and mostly will be found either in people who want to be fat for some reason (e.g. for a movie role or for an extreme cold weather sport) or who have some unusual desire to be fat.
Before obesity becomes a rare condition I expect we will first witness the near total disappearance of both corrective glasses and contact lenses. While LASIK and other technologies for reshaping lenses are making some in-roads in fixing eyesight problems the real promising advances are coming from the ability to replace aged hard lenses with soft and flexible lenses. See my previous posts on this here and here.
Stephen wrote something similar to this a while back
A once-a-day oral medication that limits absorption from the digestive tract aids the battle against obesity. It quickly becomes the most prescribed medication in the history of the country. Some predict that exercise will be abandoned in favor of pill-popping. The opposite happens as Americans get out and enjoy their healthier bodies.
Health considerations aside, the elimination of obesity and any need for corrective eyeware strikes down two of the five factors contributing to "ugliness," going by the old schoolyard definition. For those who can't remember those days, I believe a person could be branded as "ugly" for possessing any of the following characteristics:
No doubt there were others. Any facial or physiological assymetry ran the risk of being branded ugly. But I think the five listed above capture the vital 80%. For the record, I have (over the years) met four of those five criteria.
Eyeglasses were an endangered species before Lasik. From the time contact lenses were introduced, they've been on the way out. Tremendous strides in dermatology, orthodonture, and plastic surgery have brought items 3-5 under control, although still at a substantial cost. Obesity remains a tough nut to crack, addressed generally through behavorial changes, which are difficult to implement and maintain; or radical surgery, which most people would be inclined to avoid.
Nonetheless, we seem to be moving rapdily towards an age when all of these "conditions" will be "curable." Moreover, the cures promise to become decreasingly expensive and traumatic. The Age of Affordable Beauty looms. How will we distinguish ourselves in such an age? Will smaller differences become more important? Or will looks cease to matter as much to us as they have in the past?
Maybe ugly will make a comeback. Consider this passage from William Gibson's Neuromancer (from whence I appropriated the phrase "affordable beauty"):
The bartender's smile widened. His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it.
Hang on to those physical imperfections, folks. They may be the stuff of tomorrow's hip, retro look.
John Varley discusses the implications of (inexpensive and low-risk) arbitrary body modification extensively in his fiction, especially in his "Eight Worlds" works, such as _The_Ophiuchi_Hotline_, _Steel_Beach_ and _The_Golden Globe_.
PS. When did you disable HTML in comments?
Posted by: Virginia at April 21, 2004 08:43 AM??? My Preferences Page says that html tags are enabled.
Posted by: Phil at April 21, 2004 09:33 AM"Ugly" might become more interesting aesthetically, but I would be surprised if humanity as a whole ever finds ugly attractive.
We are hard-wired by evolution to be attracted by certain characteristics. Men in all cultures want women with waists that are narrower than their hips and breasts. Symmetry and youth is important to both sexes.
BTW, I'm already taking something that limits absorbtion in the digestive tract - Phase 2 Starch Blockers.
1000 miligrams 30 minutes before a meal has proven to block 75-80% of starch absorbtion from that meal in double-blind studies. It does this by binding with amylase - the enzyme that converts starch to sugar. Starch can't enter the bloodstream until this conversion.
I'm certainly looking forward to the day that more advanced forms of absorption limiting drugs become available.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon at April 21, 2004 10:09 AMI haven't read John Varley in a while. I'll have to check these out!
Future M104 member Mary Woeste, age 13 said this in her first ITF post:
http://beyondwords.typepad.com/bonfire/2004/04/
In The Future:
-the majority of society will be so obese, men will gawk stupidly at a lovely 350 pound lady.
- there will be popular diets where eating as much sugar and fat as possible is how you lose weight.
Maybe they're contradictory, maybe not. Which is the better scenario?
I'll take option 2!
Posted by: Phil at April 21, 2004 11:22 AM