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.
The fatter arrow is just the icing on the cake.
This person attentions to detail
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.
While I agree if you can take the stairs you should, however it really breeds ridicule if you are overweight and can’t do it
I think its a very good point. We should probably figure out how to distinguish representation here between “I’m not taking stair” sort of fat and healthy. Maybe it would make more sense to use a carrot here and instead if skinny stick man have a health symbol like a literal carrot maybe idk
But I do have issues with my knees lol
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
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 chortled.
Agreed… Moving to a perfectly flat city and living on the first floor isn’t helping me haha
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But then they put a pole in the middle of the escalator access. LOL.
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
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
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.
its not for the subway, its for the elevator. Its dangerous to have carts on elevator
I’ve seen these sorts of things at subway exits/entrances in airports, where you have carts for moving lots of bags at once. There might also be shops nearby with shopping carts that people have tried to take on the escalator in the past.
I’m not Korean(perhaps someone familiar with the place might be able to offer more insight), just offering some possibilities, but it’s difficult to know without more context.
It’s educational and a good initiative. I use stairs as an opportunity for exercise also.
You should see the names of asian big and tall clothing shops.
Asia doesn’t fuck around when it comes to conformity.
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.
Obviously I’m obese because I decided to be born with a spinal defect. I should make better choices.
Have you tried walking up the stairs to fix your defect
No
What about yoga and positive thinking? /s
Yeah… no.
Yeah as a disabled person seeing that would kind of suck.
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…
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.
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 😊
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 🙂
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.
I’m only mad if they don’t have handicap signage on their vehicle, because a lot of disabilities aren’t immediately apparent. For example, my sister-in-law has been diagnosed w/ POTS, but can walk unassisted over moderate distances and frequently doesn’t bother w/ a wheelchair (leaning on a cart is usually good enough). However, some days it’s much worse, and getting back to the car can be a real struggle. She usually carries a pop-up stool in case she needs a rest, so that would be the only indicator (and hers is pretty compact and not super obvious at what it is).
I’m pretty sure nobody actually cares who rides an escalator, and if they do, they could see a cane and quickly conclude why they made that choice.
but then you understand it, because some people get really mad at people with signage that don’t have visible disability. and the illusion of choice presented on this picture is part of that mindset.
analysing things like this is never about the consequences for a single person, but the consequences on the thought patterns of the society that puts these up and have them in their mind while going about their day.
if someone hurls a misguided insult at you for not taking the stairs, no biggie. if society at large quietly shuns you for it, that’s not gonna be good for your mental health in the long run.
some people get really mad
Sure, some people are douchebags. I highly doubt that is any kind of majority, just a very vocal minority.
I doubt most people would even look at this sign, and most of those that do probably won’t care one way or another if a visibly fit person takes the escalator. They might snigger a bit to their friends after (hey, I saw a dumb westerner taking the escalator, they obviously don’t care about health), but if this really is Korea, nobody will say or do anything about it, even if it’s someone they know.
I may be completely misguided here, but that’s my take from having been married to a Korean (moved from Korea after finishing K-12) for over 10 years (assuming this is Korea; the white text certainly isn’t Korean, but I can’t make out the black text). Nobody says anything to strangers in public, and especially not something that could embarrass them…
in Scandinavian culture there’s this thing called Janteloven. it’s from a Danish book about a guy that moves to a small town and is basically silently bullied by its population. it’s related to tall poppy syndrome in that it describes how society does “othering”. basically, if you are in any way different you will become an outcast, not because anyone does anything to you, but because nobody does anything for you.
if you’re a tourist it’s whatever. if you live there it can be soul crushing.
I don’t have any disabilities and I still hate revolving doors so much.
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.
just so we’re not having two conversations on the same topic, i believe my other response to you to be relevant here as well.
this is an interesting perspective though, and one i hadn’t considered simply because i’ve never seen a community of only overweight people.
i am used to seeing a lot of pushback to the fat acceptance movement from people who do not read past the headline, and that’s understandable because the initial read is provocative, probably intentionally so. but what else can i read into “bullying”?
remember my situation here, every overweight person i know is painfully aware of their weight, and i believe that if bullying worked they would no longer be overweight. same thing with motivational stuff. imo what these people need is acceptance, because society assigns them lower self-worth so they don’t feel like it’s worth it for them to take care of themselves.
in the situation you describe though? it sounds like the external factors affect the entire community. the obesity goes up not because mental health declines, but because the norm changes. it certainly sounds unusual. i think societal pressure at that point would also lead to othering, since you’re then declaring that a particular geographic area is doing something wrong… i’m reminded of the tooth thing from an earlier comment again.
I agree. I used to live in the south and knew I was chubby but had no idea I was fat until I lost weight and moved away (not a coincidence).
We need less coddling of fat people. I know most fat people are aware they are, but if you think your concern level should be a 3 when your doctor thinks it’s an 8, that’s a huge fucking problem.
I know people in their thirties who aren’t concerned that they’re obese and diabetic from their diet decisions which could be reversed if they just realized the severity of their circumstance. They just live in a world where it’s rare to get any feedback about it, and sadly a lot of doctors don’t even say that much to them about it from I can tell.
The idea that there are people advocating against extremely fat people having to pay for two seats on planes is a batshit example of the direction we need to go essentially opposite of.
We literally let kids be traumatized for life by bullies and do not much to stop it, yet somehow full-grown adults are so fragile they supposedly cannot handle any subtle implication that they are fat and need to live healthier…
We literally let kids be traumatized for life by bullies and do not much to stop it, yet somehow full-grown adults are so fragile they supposedly cannot handle any subtle implication that they are fat and need to live healthier…
i think those two things may be more closely related that you think…
Why not say what you mean? I’m guessing your point is that bullying makes people more fragile but that’s just a guess.
Speech bubble doesn’t have enough pixels to be read
That’s why they’re black.
Edit: To be clear here I was attempting a pun based on read sounding like red. Hence not enough pixels to be red means it’s black.
Thanks for explaining.
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 like how it says save energy, but also says you burn 0.5kcal per step
“Calories” that would otherwise be burned by the escalator (electricity), I’m sure it uses more when under load, some of them even go in low speed mode when no one’s on it.
I haven’t seen escalators that do that where I’m from, but I was just joking that the claims of saving energy were in reference to doing physical work instead of not using power for the escalator.
Right to American embassy?
I like the bollard that would make it uncomfortable for really fat people to get by.
I guess there’s an upper limit where they’re like, “Hey, this is getting ridiculous. Take the stairs.”
Apparently Americans aren’t welcome here.
Yeah well maybe an icon that usually tells people where to take a shit shouldn’t be so fucking critical.
I go on the escalator but walk because I’m only half lazy and also want to go fast
Walking fast on the moving sidewalks makes me feel like Captain America.
…moving…sidewalks??
Ohhhhh. I was thinking more of street sidewalks.
Hmm, would running make you feel like the Flash? Or is that just not in the cards?
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
K, jumping on a Zoom meeting in the subway. Not sure how that helps things, but you’re the boss.
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?
No, way too lazy for that. My own fault, i know.
In your next life, do more crime.
It’s been less than a decade and it seems I’m already in my next life
