[whiteperil] Sean: Suicide solution

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Posted by Sean:
Suicide solution
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1181291489.shtml


   [1]This story on The Onion isn't quite a classic--some of the
   adjective-choked phrasing makes it a little too clear the writer's
   trying to be funny, when a topic such as this requires that earnest
   SAm-the-Eagle deadpan. But the collision between two nanny-state
   impulses is still hilarious:

     A report published Monday in The New England Journal of Medicine
     warns that the nation's obesity epidemic has reached a new level of
     crisis, with many overweight Americans' increased girth rendering
     them physically unable to end their own, fat lives.
     "We've known for some time that obesity can cause heart disease,
     diabetes, strokes, and other potentially life-threatening
     illnesses," said report author Dr. Marjorie Reese, director of
     UCLA's Obesity Pathology Clinic. "But the fact that obesity impedes
     suicide is truly troubling. It appears that the more reason people
     have to die, the less capable they are of doing so. They are
     literally trapped in their grotesque, blubbery bodies."

   Given all the propaganda about how fat people are unidisciplined and
   ignorant and short-lived and...for the love of Pete, how many times do
   we have to tell you to put down that Big Mac and eat a fistful of
   carrot sticks?!--given all that, it almost makes sense that some
   actual "public-health" scold would point out the inability to off
   yourself as yet another risk of obesity, if only to score points by
   adding to the list.
   By contrast, there's no jest involved in Japan's latest
   got-a-problem-get-a-program [2]initiative to lower the suicide rate:

     The measures call for comprehensive efforts, including stepping up
     measures to tackle unemployment and bankruptcy, as well as early
     detection and treatment of depression.
     The measures include mental health support services such as
     counseling at workplaces, a network of community psychiatrists, and
     public campaigns to raise awareness of the problem and to reduce
     prejudice against mental illnesses.
     They also call for more support for suicide survivors and victims'
     families. Students and the elderly were the two groups that had the
     fastest-growing suicide rates.
     Most of the measures are to be funded by the government, though the
     Cabinet did not release figures on how much money was available.
     Nearly half of those who committed suicide last year were
     unemployed, the police said in their report published Thursday.

   Given it's track record, I'm not sure I'm going to put much faith in
   the federal government's ability to tackle unemployment and
   bankruptcy. The support programs and things don't sound like a bad
   idea; the Japanese are very, very slowly coming to accept the idea
   that professional counseling is a way for respectable people to deal
   with intractable emotional problems. It's going to be difficult for
   health care providers to address the big acculturation problem,
   though: Japanese workers are taught to invest most of their adult
   identity into their jobs, but they aren't taught to view skills and
   experience as assets that would transferrable from workplace to
   workplace. A lot of people, even sixteen years after the Bubble burst,
   simply have no idea what to do when they become unemployed. That's
   especially true of the middle-aged; the free-lancing phenomenon is
   probably not as common among youths as it's hyped up to be, but I
   imagine that most young people at least have a sense of how to be
   resourceful in patching together a living from temp work as they plot
   their next move.

References

   1. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/study_many_americans_too_fat_to
   2. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_GEN_JAPAN_STOPPING_SUICIDE_ASOL-?SITE=YOMIURI&SECTION=HOSTED_ASIA&TEMPLATE=ap_national.html