Blame Vanna White for the Obesity Epidemic

The other day the Missus and I were sitting on the couch flipping through the channels when we stumbled upon a current offering from The Wheel of Fortune. Now to be honest, I haven’t actually watched the show for about 20 years, and I’m sure I’ll be dating myself here when I say that back then, Vanna White looked a lot different.

Well..

She apparently looks exactly the same, but that’s neither here nor there.

I had a moment where I almost threw a throw pillow (seriously, why else are they named that!!?!?) at the television when I saw one of the biggest travesties in the history of humanity.
See, way back in the day, before the interwebz and smart phones and the Google, Vanna used to have a cushy job where if some slack-jawed mouth breather guessed a letter that was in the puzzle, she had to smile and walk and smile and turn the letter, then smile and walk to the other side of the display, all while smiling. In reality, it’s probably the cushiest job in the world, and she gets paid more than the GDP of some small countries each year to walk, smile and turn letters.

Here’s the big travesty.

I watched about 1.23 minutes of the show, and observed that in the digital age, Vanna no longer has to TURN the letter over with the deft press of a hand, exerting the equivalent of about 1 pound of force to do so. Now she has a touch-screen there she simply has to make physical contact with the screen for it to show the letter. She essentially went from expending 15 calories in a half hour show to expending 13 calories (hey, the walking 20 feet and smiling all the time has to burn a few).

 I know everyone out there wants to look at the sexy touch screens these days with the iPods and iPads and TouchMe’s and what not, but this is getting ridiculous. This is convenience for the sake of convenience. I seriously doubt that this was an occupational hazard where Vanna came into the producers office with carpal tunnel syndrome, unable to turn the letters, and the producers thinking “well shit, if she can’t turn those letter, no one will ever watch our show, so we better do something…..I know!! Touch screens!!” This is just flash for flash sake. Sure it looks cool, but look at the image it’s setting: Vanna doesn’t have to work hard, so why should you? You shouldn’t have to expend some much energy, so sit back and relax with your own touch screens and feel good about yourself. It’s no wonder we have an obesity epidemic in North American society with everyone trying to find an easy way out of burning even a single calorie.

We have a society where a physically demanding workout is walking from the second bank of the parking lot to get to the grocery store instead of the first. We have a society where buying six donuts is easier than buying three. We have a society where if two guys are eating dinner, and one guy has a big plate of ribs and a 50 inch gut, and the other guy looks like he can actually see his penis and orders a salad, the guy with the ribs will look over at salad boy and say “Pussy,” as if the salad is a bad thing. What?? I can’t like a little lettuce and a tomato once in a while???

So yes, I blame the hell out of Vanna White for our obesity epidemic.

It started to really pick up speed right around the time she went to the touch screen, so there has to be a correlation somewhere in that, right? I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm by it. She just wanted to find a way to make her super-cushy job just,

Slightly

….Easier.

Can’t blame her for wanting more out of her work, but we sure as hell can blame her for causing the global collapse of the health care system and the proliferation of type II diabetes.

So what’s next Vanna White? You want to come and kick my dog in the face too? Maybe pour some sugar into our collective gas tanks? Maybe cause some more financial collapse on Wall Street, because I know it was you behind it. We all do. It’s only a matter of time  before the authorities figure it out Vanna.

It’s only a matter of time.