Moonrise Kingdom made me think

On Friday night I was flying back from Melbourne to Perth, Western Australia and one of the movies that I could choose from was Moonrise Kingdom. I was on a Qantas A330 (my favourite plane), which has seatback screens. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Qantas is anything but brilliant. I love that airline. In the last few months Qantas has taken me  from Perth to Sydney, Dallas, LA to Sydney, back to Perth,  Adelaide, Melbourne (three times), from Perth to Singapore to Frankfurt and back. I have done a lot of flying and watched a lot of movies and I still haven't managed to watch all that Qantas has on offer.

Moonrise Kingdom is set in 1965 and what struck me was that no-one in it was overweight or obese. I had been watching it for half an hour or so before I realised this and that made me think that this must have been before we all weighed too much.

All the kids had skinny legs with knobbly knees and I thought that's how kids are probably meant to be built. I wondered how recently the overweight epidemic started. The film-makers had obviously done their research regarding body types!

Kids with skinny legs
Photo by Escape2Destinations

I went to Japan in about 2004 and again in 2008. The first time I went I saw probably two or overweight or obese people and the second time there were lots of them. I wondered what had changed in that four-year period. Were there more Western style fast-food outlets? Did people now eat more of a Western diet? Were they more sedentary?

Why do the US and Australia top the charts for overweight and obese people? 

Unfortunately, I am nearly one of them. I need to lose three or four kilograms and will work on doing this in time for Christmas.

Would anyone like to join me?