Squirrels, Squiggle and Obesity
From: Matthew Green UK
Subject: Nutrition
Date/Time 2008-04-02 14:07:24
Remote IP: 80.7.184.201
Message
There is a breed of squirrels on the Pacific Island of Tafbrac called the Ragus Squirrel. They have been around for about 10,000 years and have always lived on a diet almost exclusively of acorns. They also eat various plants and inssects but mostly acorns and this is their preferred choice. They have always been a lively, active wild creature.
About 50 years ago, Tafbrac scientists messing around in a lab came up with a new compound which they called 'Squiggle'. They found that this compound was attractive to Ragus squirrels, had lots of calories in it and was extremely cheap and easy to produce. So they started disseminating Squiggle all around the Island in parks and woodlands hoping the squirrels would benefit from it. Never again would they have to worry about running out of acorns, the scientists reasoned.
The squirrels found the Squiggle extremely tasty and enjoyable and it made hunting for food a hell of a lot easier. It was extremely addictive though. After eating it, teh squirrels would get a high which would then go away and leave them depressed and craving more Squiggle. Over the next 10 years, the squirrels started to get fat. they also became a lot more tired and developed various diseases. All these things were completely new to the squirrels and, being a very unintelligent creature, they couldnt work out what could possibly be causing them.
Fortunately, the Squirrel Health Institute of Tafbrac (SHIT) had the answer. After ploughing lots of money into research, the SHIT worked out that the cause of all these conditions affecting the squirrels was..... acorns! Of course! What else could it possibly be???
So the SHIT set about spreading the gospel that acorns were making squirrels fat and that they should be reduced and preferably eliminated from the diet. The SHIT also advised that all squirrels start doing more exercise even though they were already exhausted all the time.
The Ragus, being such an unintelligent species, followed this advice. They stopped eating acorns and started exercising. To compensate for not eating acorns, they started eating more Squiggle. Over the following 20 years the squirrels got even fatter, more tired and developed even more of these diseases. This had been going on for 30 years now and nobody could figure out what was happening.
One day an intelligent squirrel called Dr. Snikta proposed a solution. He recommedned that the Ragus squirrels actually STOPPED EATING SQUIGGLE and started eating acorns again. This 'extreme', 'unrealistic' and 'unscientific' advice was labelled quackery by the SHIT and Dr Snikta was sentenced to death. This despite the fact that all the squirrels who actually took the Dr's advice lost weight, stopped getting ill and actually started to feel better again. Unfortunately, because of the addictive nature of Squiggle, many squirrels found that, despite losing weight and feeling better on Dr Sniktas high-acorn, low-squiggle diet, they just couldnt stop eating Squiggle and many of them slipped back to their old ways. The SHIT pounced on this and labelled it as evidence that Low-Squiggle diets were faddy and extreme and unrealistic. Nobody stopped to consider that it might actually be difficult for the squirrels to stop taking this drug.
And so for the next 20 years the squirrels got fatter and fatter, lazier and lazier and ate more Squiggle and less acorns. The SHIT continued to press them into doing more exercise and eating less acorns. Presently the squirrels are fat, tired, miserable and angry and getting worse by the day.
Of course this story is entirely fictional. There is obviously no species that could be this stupid... surely?
- Squirrels, Squiggle and Obesity: (383) Matthew Green UK (1137) - - 2008-04-02 2:07 pm
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