The fatter arrow is just the icing on the cake.
This person attentions to detail
This would encourage me to choose physical fitness, or to laugh as my tired ass goes up the escalator. I certainly see where there is room for hurt feelings (especially with regards to health issues), but this is pretty effective given that it is in a different language and I instantly understood it.
I think it’s a good nudge tbh. Stairs are proven again and again to be an incredibly healthy workout given that you don’t have issues with your knees.
I just came back from Japan and 20k steps a day and hundreds of stairs for a month really put me in shape and made me realize how important good shoes are lol
Stairs are proven again and again to be an incredibly healthy workout given that you don’t have issues with your knees.
I think stairs on the way up is good for health and fine for knees, stairs on the way down doesn’t do as much for health and hurts my knees if I do too much.
That’s why on they way down you grind on the railing with your skateboard.
Nudge isn’t real there is no evidence
Dunno it works on me 🤷♂️
Anecdotes are not evidence. I’d suggest reading more about the pseudoscience first but you seem to not care that you’re spreading bs.
Sure thing buddy
Given the current political climate, being on the side of posting lies and misinformation on the internet seems an odd choice. But someone has to be the bad guy, I suppose.
What a stretch my neckbearded dude. Just posting “WRONG” is not helping anyone and just makes you look like a douchebag. Bye
Godammit you have to make such a good and insightful comment and then use lol as punctuation. Fuck that. You’re not laughing out loud, liar.
haters gonna hate lol
I literally lolled at this lol
I think it is more of presenting a choice.
Do you want to be fit and slim? Take the stairs.
Do you want to be fat? Take the escalator.
Anyone know what the speech bubble says?
it’s not any less problematic if that’s the case because it still assumes people taking the escalator do it because they want to, rather than having like a limp or something. that sort of normalized stigma isn’t good.
Don’t normalize stigma, normalize sigma
I think I disagree with you on this one. With obesity reaching pandemic levels internationally, I think forcing simple healthy choices is actually a great solution that helps a larger majority than those who may be stigmatized by using the escalator (for what may or may not be a visible reason to choose the escalator). At the very least it increases awareness of those healthy choices.
Still curious what the speech bubble says though…
Hard disagree here.
“Forcing simple healthy choices” completely disregards the many and varied causes of obesity.
This type of thinking reminds me of the war on drugs approach to drug abuse.
Quite obviously, the underlying causes of obesity are many and varied. The only way to resolve an “obesity pandemic” is to have more services directed at understanding an individual’s unique circumstances and helping them develop strategies to improve their health.
This sounds expensive, and doesn’t sound like an election-winning policy in 2025, but that’s where we are at.
To be fair, I didn’t propose this approach as an absolute solution to the obesity pandemic. I said I agree with this method. There are obviously contributing factors that I’ve listed elsewhere, but I stand by that - you don’t have to agree with me. It can easily be part of a broader strategy.
If you wanted to solve the obesity pandemic, 100% resolved, absolutely you need systemic change and individualized services. And yes lol it would be a wildly expensive endeavour.
Edit: phrasing
if obesity is reaching a pandemic level, it is obviously no longer treatable with “why don’t you walk up the stairs for once, fatso?”. if a majority of people are obese it is no longer a question of lifestyle choices.
That’s the thing, obesity isn’t as much of a problem in Korea.
Something is working.
they also have massive problems with body image related depression.
Then we likely disagree on the cause of the obesity pandemic. In my view, obesity is a choice moderated by increasingly inactive lifestyles, high volumes of low quality food, and genetics (obviously not a choice).
Add in contributing factors of affordability, general apathy towards nutrition, ready availability of food, grabbing food for all occasions (stress/joy/boredom), and corporations (esp. major corporations; food engineering for addictiveness and flavour, rampant marketing, and low quality offerings to bolster profits and scale).
So in my view, still largely long-term lifestyle choices, with corporate influence definitely playing a part.
But you seem to think differently, what do you believe I’m not seeing?
increasingly inactive lifestyle are caused by inaccessible cities, car reliance, and multiple-job wage slavery
no one just up and decides “gee whilikers im going to start having an inactive lifestyle” one day lol
You make a great point - the built environment is absolutely a contributor!
I would add attitude too. I know ppl who will not do a 40 minute walk, even if it’s a viable option. “Why not Uber, that’s sooo faaar” is still a choice haha
I would add attitude too.
i wouldn’t 🙂
you list it all, but i think the things you class as “contributing factors” are more significant, because it would explain the numbers better. i just think that it’s statistically improbable that that many people would choose sedentary life. it doesn’t match with my perception of my surroundings.
a parallel: if some people have better teeth then average, it is probably because they care about their teeth. but if the majority of a community has better teeth than the rest of the country, there’s probably something in the water.
That’s fair, I can see why. My surroundings have a higher rate of knowingly sedentary behavior/wild overcomsumption, which affects my bias. I like your analogy.
I still think personal autonomy has an impact. I’m a food nerd and in my experience the average person does a terrible job of assessing energy in (ooh donut) versus energy out (one calorie is harder to burn than ppl like to admit). Hell, it took me 15 years to figure out.
So maybe not a conscious choice of a sedentary life, as much as the lack of understanding or awareness of how that unintentional choice affects them (plus all the factors we’ve discussed).
But this is just my two cents, I’m no pro lol thanks for digging into this with me 🙂
Exactly. Go to a grocery store and load up on unhealthy shit, then go back to the same store and load up on healthy shit. The price difference is insane, especially when considering shelf life.
I buy frozen vegetables mostly, but I could feed my family a whole lot cheaper on cheap TV dinners.
Now we have (at least in my part of the US) dollar generals popping up in food deserts with the lowest quality shit on the planet. In the neighborhood I grew up in, most people didn’t have cars and the nearest grocery store was 30 miles away. That community is surviving on dollar general groceries now. When I was a kid we bought brown beans and white rice in bulk and lived mostly on that. We drank powdered milk.
When my brother and I refused to eat beans and rice, my mom would color it with food coloring to get us excited. “Who wants BLUE RICE AND BEANS?!” “WE DO! WE DO!”
If we had grown up in the world today, we’d probably be struggling with obesity.
“Go to a grocery store and load up on unhealthy shit, then go back to the same store and load up on healthy shit. The price difference is insane, especially when considering shelf life.”
This intrigues me, and definitely isn’t my experience. Do the same thing in my country and you come out with a comparable amount of food, perhaps influencing the choice element I describe above.
One commentary I’ve come across about American food is that the shitty stuff is intentionally priced so cheaply as to make the good stuff seem insanely priced. My experience above suggests that this might have a grain of truth to it. If willing to share, how do you feel about this commentary (i.e., what do you think of it)?
I think it has to do with the healthier stuff having a shorter shelf life more than anything. They end up throwing a lot of it out and that probably has something to do with it being priced higher.
I can’t say for sure, that’s just a guess. The stuff that doesn’t expire for 3 or 4 years is naturally going to be a safer bet than the stuff that expires in a week.
America is huge too, and moving stuff around the country isn’t cheap.
I’m just an idiot from the middle of nowhere spending a fortune so my kids can eat healthier. We have broccoli or asparagus almost every night (mostly broccoli because I don’t buy asparagus frozen), fresh fruits, some chicken, fish, or pork, and it is insane what my grocery bill is every month. I also have a big family though. I have 4 children living at home, so there are 6 of us.
That’s super interesting. For me, healthier stuff is expensive but affordable, so buying in balance is easier. It goes bad, sure, but ppl seem gravitate to the fresh stuff? So it sells.
In my experience, long preserved foods are typically seen as like, in case “I need a meal on a Wednesday.” Just a very stark difference in experience/culture that is absolutely intriguing to me, I don’t know if I have anything valuable to add haha.
I’m Canadian so I know what you mean about moving things across the country (much of our winter veggies are Californian or Mexican).
Big family or no, that’s awesome - it’s expensive enough raising a family, so just a wholehearted good on ya! Food is hugely personal (for obvious reasons), and we’re exactly the type of idiots caught up in the chaos of making life work. Thanks for sharing and I hope you have a happy, healthy year 😊
Surely those people can disregard a picture on the floor, no? Anyone with any form of disability has to deal with far more nonsense than this (revolving doors, for example).
it’s not about the people who have to take the escalator. it’s about what people who have the choice think about them.
if you’ve ever been mad at someone who parked in a handicap spot only to then get out and have seemingly nothing be visibly wrong with them, you know the thoughts i mean.
Yeah as a disabled person seeing that would kind of suck.
People with meaningful physical disabilities that make it borderline impossible to climb up stairs account for… A very small slice of the population. The rest of the population should be bullied into a lifestyle that improves physical and mental health.
i’m sorry did you say bullied into a lifestyle that promotes physical and mental health?
Correct, I did say that, and I’m not taking it back. Actually being healthy is better than pretending it’s fine to be fat. If everywhere you go, people tolerate your lard, you’ll forget the increased issues that come along with being overweight.
you know something interesting? your way is the norm. most fat people are ashamed all the time. the fat acceptance movement is not about saying it’s fine to be fat, it’s about saying that you, fat person, are not less of a human being for being overweight. the movement exists because the bullying is the default, and it is driving people into depression.
As a fat person I was able to live 99% of my life never thinking about or realizing I was fat. Able to live in denial, I always thought I was just “chubby” despite being 75 pounds too heavy for my health.
So I don’t buy that yours is a generalization one can safely make. You are arguing in defense of the fat acceptance movement here by pointing out that it’s not an absolutist thing, so you ought to also understand that despite someone using a word like “bully” it doesn’t mean everyone not supporting that movement wants actual bullying to occur. I certainly read what they wrote more tongue in cheek. I lived a decade as a fat person without even knowing it. A lot of people probably are in the same boat. When I visit family everyone looks fat AF to me but if I’d never moved away I certainly would see them and myself differently. I suspect most of those folks think they are “chubby” and are usually able to avoid feeling shame about it.
It would be nice if the conversation could be about feeling better, instead of shame about aesthetics… If I realized I could feel MUCH better 24/7 for years I would’ve lived my twenties very differently. And obviously shame wouldn’t have been helpful or necessary to get me to see that.
Obviously I’m obese because I decided to be born with a spinal defect. I should make better choices.
That’s the worst excuse for being obese I ever heard. Does a spinal defect prevent you from eating less food?
Have you tried walking up the stairs to fix your defect
But then they put a pole in the middle of the escalator access. LOL.
In Korea, the left of the escalator is for walking, the right is for standing.
(They have signs saying “no walking” but that’s what the divider is for; to double the capacity)
Yeah, we do that in America sometimes too. Most people ignore it, just like on the highway.
Same in Austria, and I’m pretty sure also in Germany
I was about to say, they put a giant pole in the middle, no one who is fat will enjoy fitting through that and some even fatter people will never fit lmao
The pole is to prevent people from taking carts and similar objects up and potentially causing an accident
Though it does have unintended consequences
Why do people have carts on the subway?
Not necessarily carts like the ones you see in shopping malls, but it’s also for things that would not be safe on the escalators like:
- Baby carts (forgot the proper name for them)
- Large carrier bags
- Those cart-like bags elderly people usually carry around that doubles as a walking assistant
Accidentally letting them go would be dangerous.
Stroller is the word you were looking for for baby cart. I hate when I can’t think of a word, it pisses me off until I look it up or somehow remember and I can’t focus on anything else.
Or parambulator if you’re still trying to meet your daily syllable count
You should see the names of asian big and tall clothing shops.
Asia doesn’t fuck around when it comes to conformity.
Baymax
finally, accommodations for Americans
Closeup for anyone interested
8 SECONDS FOR EVERY 2 STEPS CLIMBED? Did Korea just discover the secret of immortality and it’s to keep climbing stairs?
Its possible to climb 4 steps at once
Assuming you can do it in a second and that the way back down takes the same amount of time, you can increase your life by 8 seconds per second
If you do this for 20 years continuously, you could live to over 160 years old
Just spend 3 hours a day climbing stairs and you live 1 more day. Ez. Doctors hate this one simple trick.
I’m a skinny bastard, so I’m taking the escalator
Idk why you’re joking but i used to be underweight and couldn’t afford a lot of food, and i genuinely tried to burn as few calories as possible, making choices like you’re describing all the time.
Edit: some weird typo autocorrected, i meant to say ‘I know you’re joking but[…]’
calories are cheap, it’s nutrition that costs
Some of us even have to skimp on the rice and beans
Did you even try being born wealthy?
In your next life, do more crime.
It’s been less than a decade and it seems I’m already in my next life
Boy, the comment section should be fun with this one
Good chance to curate my block list.
Can I be in your block list?
I don’t have any major infractions but I have the capacity to be bad once in a while
Right to American embassy?
I think it’s more like parachute pants to the right, hipster pants to the left. No regular pants allowed.
What about us who don’t wear pants?
Then feel free to take either option via Zoom meeting
I go on the escalator but walk because I’m only half lazy and also want to go fast
It’s educational and a good initiative. I use stairs as an opportunity for exercise also.
