Crash Diet

There’s an interesting and direct correlation between a country’s standard of living and the waist size of its citizens. As the standard goes up so increases the waist size. And that increase in waist size is mostly an increase in stores of energy, of fat. A need to preserve energy is reasonable if we live in a feast or famine scenario. But a higher standard of living should mean there’s little chance of famine. Or is there?

Venezuela used to be a darling of the oil exporting countries. With high oil prices its citizens enjoyed a very high standard of living. Recently though the low oil prices and poor management has changed the standard. How do we know? Well, people’s waist lines are shrinking. By one account there’s observation of a 8kg drop per person over a year. That’s almost 10% of a typical body. It seems that the reduction in the standard of living has people immediately entering a famine state.

With help, Venezuelans should return to a higher standard of living. And likely increase their weight sizes again. But what if no help was available? What if there was a general lowering of the standard of living across the world? Such as with a drop in supplies of energy. Would there be a general reduction in everyone’s waist size? Or would our baser instincts take over?
Bird

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