Why walk for solid, healthy exercise? Let's all buy scooters instead!!

[Deja Q]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10655557/site/newsweek/

:wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow:

I don't believe this! Our country has numerous health epidemics, most of which are based from obesity if not general inactivity/sedentry lifestyles (brought about by our own society that overly caters to the indolent), and we'd rather sell freakin' scooters to prevent people from doing what is necessary to FIX the PROBLEM?! (note that it's not the Segway; those go to thin people until their muscles atrophy and they balloon up...)!

:argh: (I know, I keep saying our society prefers to stroke symptoms than pry problems, so I shouldn't be surprised this time...)

Jan. 9, 2005 issue - Retiree Robert Knievel, better known as '70s motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, got an odd request a few years ago from an overweight neighbor. "He was outside and said, 'Hey, Evel, I'm getting some exercise. You should join me'," the 67-year-old recalls. Far from jogging, however, the neighbor was scooting—atop a three-wheeled, battery-powered vehicle with a top speed of 4mph. "I thought, 'Well, hell, he's not exercising, he's riding'," says Knievel. But the man who once jumped his motorcycle over 14 Greyhound buses went out and bought his own three-wheeler—and then signed up as a spokesman for a leading scooter company.

The article goes on from there, but :wtf: and OMG!

On the plus side, business is - uh - ballooning:

Once solely the domain of the barely mobile, scooters are becoming more lifestyle accessory than medical necessity as obesity rates skyrocket and life-expectancy rates creep up. "Our market size will double in the next 15 years," says Dan Meuser, president of Pride Mobility, the leading scooter manufacturer. (The company sold about 150,000 scooters last year, at prices from $800 to several thousand.)

Um, with diabetes and other health factors that are more likely to hit the obese because of obesity (as has been parroted by plenty), just how can they say that people will be living longer? Today's oldsters didn't grow up sitting playing Pong or Yar's Revenge all the doo-dah-day... :think: What can be said today cannot be said tomorrow. Well, you can say it - you just hope that the populace is gullible enough to believe it. And ours, by and large, is.

But, best of all, you can have your choice of colors! :woohoo: :sarcasm:

...comes in "candy apple red" or "viper blue." Disney World and Wal-Mart, among others, have invested in fleets of scooters for their customers to use. "There's not a grocery store anywhere in Texas now that doesn't have one," hyperbolizes Doug Harrison, president of the Scooter Store, the nation's largest scooter retailer. "We're trying to sell a lifestyle that says, 'This is fun'."

Fun? Fun! FUN!!! Don't get me started...

[matcom]

1. mine is pretty fun

[TahitiNut]

9. I like that!

:thumbsup:

[htuttle]

2. Those are mobility devices, not scooters!

THIS is a scooter (just like mine):



(and yes, it is fun...and at 105+ mpg, it's cheap).

[Deja Q]

3. For long distances, I obviously have no issues.

[Warpy]

4. Mine's neat, too

and don't you DARE try to judge me until you've walked around for at least six months with bad knees, bad hips, and back spasms. I've had arthritis since I was 14, thanks, and I've managed under my own power far longer than most, but can no longer do so.

[ret5hd]

7. jeebus...get indignant much?

he was talking about otherwise healthy people using them as a "lifestyle choice"...not those that need them.

[sweetheart]

5. Evil Kneivel could take a run at the grand canyon

He just needs attach his "scooter" ? to a large helium-filled airship, and drift across
the grand canyon at 4mph in the greatest jump of all time... i bet he's *THERE*. ;-)

[acmejack]

6. Scooter? This is a scooter!

[TahitiNut]

10. Crotch rocket.

:shrug:

[Fla Dem]

8. This is what the article is about. Used to be just for

disabled people. According to the story, people who are overweight are buying them so they don't have to walk.

[acmejack]

11. I see them everywhere, used as you say.

Squeezing out the truly disabled on public transportation too.