http://www.slate.com/id/2083612/

Man... this is a breakthrough in torture technology studies. Make them fat so that they develop heart diseases, high blood, diabetes, etc... later on in life. Make them fat so that they wont be able to escape from prison... since digging, running, going through small spaces... and training in an al quaeda camp requires stamina.

kyupol, did you even read that link you posted (do you ever)? The description you gave is far, far away from the content of the article. Sometimes I think you just like to pose anything vaguely anti-American to try and stir things up, or something. I don't have any problem with people pointing out America's shortcomings, but I do have a problem with people who go looking for any tiny criticism and then being willfully ignorant about it so they can cry about how evil America is.

Firstly, the category Slate put that article in is "Food" not "Politics" ... you are trying to turn a nutrition article into a political issue.

The article basically said that after a stay of average 14 months, prisoners have gained an average of 13 pounds. 13 pounds is hardly the torture flamewar you're trying to incite here. Someone can lose 13 pounds in 3 months without really trying, and 2 months if they were trying even a little. In fact, it doesn't have anything to do with torture at all. The entire article talked about nutrition and weight management issues.

Like all institutional food, the manufacturers do their best to make it healthy, but it ends up being a balance between nutrition, mass-production, and palatableness (is that a word?). The soldiers got the same food as the inmates, and other types of food as well (some even less healthy) and they also struggle with weight gain. Double that with the fact that prison is by definition a sedentary lifestyle. Triple it with the social and psychological outlet that food becomes in prison. The prisoners' situation is no different than the situation of inmates in any other prison, or even (as the article noted) a student's first year at college.

To be critical of the article itself, it's really an article about nothing very much at all. I'm not sure what news the author was trying to reveal. It all read as very pedestrian to me.

I've half a mind to lock this just because your first post is so obviously written to incite an issue that isn't even there. That is not what this forum is about. We'll see where the discussion goes.

skoolmunkee
I've half a mind to lock this just because your first post is so obviously written to incite an issue that isn't even there. That is not what this forum is about. We'll see where the discussion goes.

I don't see where the discussion can go Skool. You've refuted the connection between the article and Kyupol's topic pretty conclusively.
And the fat prisoner idea is pretty silly anyway: eating is a great pleasure, that's one of the main reasons people become obese. It's also easy enough not to eat if you don't want to.
...
Sorry Kyupol, you've had some good, popular debate topics, this one seems like a stretch. I'm going to lock it because I think it'll just turn into something silly.
If another Mod or Admin sees potential here, they can unlock it.