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Transportation United States Idle

New Crash Test Dummies Reflect Rising American Bodyweight 144

Posted by timothy from the my-self-esteem-has-certainly-taken-a-beating dept.
Ever thought that all those crash-test dummies getting slammed around in slow-motion were reflecting an unrealistic, hard-to-achieve body image? One company is acting to change that, with some super-sized (or right-sized) dummies more in line with current American body shapes: Plymouth, Michigan-based company Humanetics said that it has been manufacturing overweight crash test dummies to reflect growing obesity trends in the U.S. Humanetics has been the pioneer in crash test dummies segment since the 1950s. But now, the company's crash test dummies are undergoing a makeover, which will represent thicker waistlines and large rear ends of Americans.
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New Crash Test Dummies Reflect Rising American Bodyweight More

New Crash Test Dummies Reflect Rising American Bodyweight

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  • What did you expect.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bazmail ( 764941 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:08AM (#48268825)
    ... from our country that now judges food quality in calories per dollar?

    Its disgusting seeing my nation turning into a bunch of blubber-pods.

    • Re:What did you expect.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:52AM (#48269133) Journal

      Seriously? The old self-loathing OMG-I-hate-my-country-because-we're-all-so-fat! trope? What are you, a sophomore in his first PoliSci class?

      Lookit - you're dead-wrong in that this is somehow just an American thing: Europe [www.dw.de] and many parts of Asia(!) [asianscientist.com] are seeing a large rise in obesity as well.

      This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture. The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo.

      Now if you're that worried about folks whose physiological evolution hasn't caught up to relative prosperity, then crash the global economy and drive civilization back into the dark ages. Otherwise, dude, grow up already... this is much simpler (and at the same time more complex) than you think.

      • Re:What did you expect.. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Person147 ( 1924818 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @11:06AM (#48269261)

        This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture.

        Actually in the UK (and I expect other countries) the poorer members of society are the fatter ones (citation [abdn.ac.uk]). So the evidence collected thus far completely contradicts your comment. It may well be the case that as a culture (or country) itself raises its standards of living the population as a whole get fatter - but that wasn't your observation.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by C0R1D4N ( 970153 )
          It's because low paying jobs are very sedentary and people working two or three of them don't have the time to hit the gym or go out jogging like all those upper middle class moms with their land rovers.

          • Re: What did you expect.. (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Well to do people are well because they are smarter. They do not smoke. As soon as it was proven cancer bla boa, they stopped. Same with excessive drinking or drugs. And now that it is so obvious that food plays a important role in health, they handle that too. The poor/ stupid don't care. It is well proven fast food is absolutely more expensive. It's just fast. I eat fast food once a month, then I feel sick. Then I forget, and try again. Eat less, eat well. Except for children. So many studies have be

        • Re:What did you expect.. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Moof123 ( 1292134 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @11:42AM (#48269579)

          In poor countries is is often cheapest to eat meals like rice with vegetables, or noodle soup with vegetables. In the US and other developed countries vegetables and fruits are fairly pricey relative to high calorie processed foods. I can get a 500 calorie sausage McMuffin for $1 (ready to eat no les), about the same price that I pay for an 100 calorie apple, and less than I pay for a 25 calorie bell pepper. I can get 3-4 boxes of mac and cheese at 700 calories a box for that same $1.

          Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience) compared to a vat of spaghetti with red sauce ($3-4, or $7-8 if you toss in a pound of meat). Poor people are making rational economic choices based on how we have driven down the cost per calorie in processed foods.

          The rising standard of living brings great economies of scale (and subsidies), but not to everything equally. So veggies don't get relatively cheaper, but meat and cheese do.

          In a sane world we would respond by backing off of meat and dairy subsidies and heavily subsidize fresh fruit and vegetables. Maybe outlaw checkout aisle candy and put baskets of fresh fruit there. Some euro countries are doing this, we probably never will.

          • Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience) compared to a vat of spaghetti with red sauce ($3-4, or $7-8 if you toss in a pound of meat). Poor people are making rational economic choices based on how we have driven down the cost per calorie in processed foods.

            First off, $20-25 seems really high unless you're feeding an army.

            But regardless of that, if you're looking to get the calorie count up, a salad is exactly the wrong way to do that. There's a reason why dieters eat so much salad, after all. Take a look at your basic staple foods -- flour, rice, potatoes, etc. They beat out typical processed foods in a calorie-per-dollar comparison any day.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              To add, if price (per calorie) is what the poor look for, I wager they will save even more money if they make and cook themselves.

              The bigger reason I think people choose processed or fast foods is convenience.

              It's probably cheaper to buy muffins, sausage, and eggs in bulk and make your own McMuffins. But that takes time.

          • Re:What did you expect.. (Score:4, Insightful)

            by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @12:27PM (#48270111) Homepage Journal

            I can get a 500 calorie sausage McMuffin for $1 (ready to eat no les), about the same price that I pay for an 100 calorie apple,

            Wow..where do you pay that much for an apple? When they are in season (and I try to only eat fresh veggies and fruit that are in season and mostly local)...I buy 6-8lb bags of apples for $4 or so.

            Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience)

            Where are you paying this much?? I mean, chicken breasts in the meat dept on sale are about $1.99/lb....whole chickens often are $0.89/lb...so a veggie and chicken dinner to feed a family of 4 isn't $25?!?!

            Where in the US do you live where food is so expensive?

            I find that I spend far less money buying whole foods like veggies and fruit in season, along with good animal proteins, cooking from scratch..that I would for crap processed food.

            I certainly feel MUCH better doing it that way too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like a good pizza or occasional Taco Bell..but if I eat that crap for 2 days in a row, I feel physically less better than I do when eating good for you foods.

            And again...it isn't a money thing, at least not anywhere I've lived before.

            • Re:What did you expect.. (Score:5, Informative)

              by butalearner ( 1235200 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @01:56PM (#48271075)

              Go compare what is costs in most cities to put a veggie loaded salad with some white meat chicken on the table ($20-25 in my experience)

              Where are you paying this much?? I mean, chicken breasts in the meat dept on sale are about $1.99/lb....whole chickens often are $0.89/lb...so a veggie and chicken dinner to feed a family of 4 isn't $25?!?!

              Where in the US do you live where food is so expensive?

              It's almost certainly the veggies that are the problem. In Colorado, the thinnest state in the nation (though even 1 in 5 adults there are obese), I could get all manner of cheap but high-quality fruits and vegetables all year round from Sprouts (a chain grocery store that calls itself a farmer's market). Bell peppers were almost always on sale for $0.25 - $0.50 apiece, and that's including orange ones, which are generally more expensive. Where I live now, 1 in 3 adults are obese, and I'm lucky to find green bell peppers, which are usually the cheapest, for $1.00 apiece. The parking lot farmer's markets (they also had those in CO, by the way, but prices were rarely better there than at Sprouts) are all over now, and their prices weren't much better anyway, so crappy grocery store produce is once again my only option.

              As a result, we often end up buying frozen veggies, which don't taste nearly as good, so we don't do it as often. We ate a lot more rice and veggie dishes and salads in CO, but we eat more pasta and meat dishes here.

              Over the course of making this post, I found out that Sprouts is coming to my city in 2015. I am very excited about this.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              I mean, chicken breasts in the meat dept on sale are about $1.99/lb....whole chickens often are $0.89/lb

              <kenobi>That's no chicken.</kenobi>

              For someone who seems to care about what they eat, you should really know that. Chicken that was raised (as opposed to manufactured) costs quite a bit more than that in the United States.

            • Fresh apples are available all year round. They store them in huge Nitrogen filled warehouses.
          • Poor people could even save more by eating less. The money saved could be used to buy some vegetables.

          • Maybe because we're not fascists trying to create some kind of micromanaging bureaucratic dystopia.

            I mean, regulating checkout aisles? Putting fruit there isn't going to make people buy it. Michele Obama pressured schools into putting tasteless, low-quality versions of "gourmet" dishes and fruit on kids' lunch trays, and they responded by throwing it out.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture.

          Actually in the UK (and I expect other countries) the poorer members of society are the fatter ones (citation). So the evidence collected thus far completely contradicts your comment.

          Comparing the standard of living of modern urban poor to that of the urban poor of even a century ago - yeah, it's definitely improved greatly. (Regulated working hours, minimum wages, improved workplace safe

      • "The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo."

        In the 1950s the US was not in the dark ages. We did not have to sweat our butts off just to put food on the table. We enjoyed a huge wave of prosperity. And yet, as a nation we were thinner.

        • Actually, you are wrong. There was more industry and correspondingly far more blue-collar workers, who typically engage in a lot more physical activity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sudon't ( 580652 )

        I'm pretty sure it has to do with the rise of the gaming console/personal computer, and parents no longer forcing their kids out of the house to play. Kids no longer burn off the fatty, sugary, starchy food they eat. These kids nowadays!

        [Citations forthcoming. You'll see!]

      • As a number of people have responded to you, the issue, while simple, is not what you're stating. That's something that can be adjusted for and overcome pretty easily.

        The real issue is that more developed nations have found methods of mass-producing cheap consumables -- cheap to produce, cheap to buy, lacking in nutrients, rich in other stuff that causes obesity (or sometimes just the wrong balance for your body to process as "working" food). These consumables have replaced grown vegetables in the diet of

      • At no point did the GP say this is something exclusive to Americans.
        What the GP implied is that he was sad that America is part of it, and he's right. I have the same feelings about the lardarses in Australia.

        We're getting bigger. We shouldn't accept that just because the rest of the world is too.

    • ... from our country that now judges food quality in calories per dollar?

      Who does that, Captain Strawman?

  • Obesity (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yes, Americans are fatter than ever before. But "overweight" and "obese" are completely arbitrary terms. It's about time someone did some kind of science in this area. There's nothing scientific about BMI, for example. We act like there's some sort of cutoff for what's healthy, and that's not borne out by real data.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by binarylarry ( 1338699 )

      Sounds like something a fatty would say.

      • Take a look at Mike Tyson circa 1990: 5'10" and 218 pounds. According to BMI metrics he's obese. (31.3)
        • BMI was invented as an accommodation to practitioners involved with the general populace such as dietitians and physical trainers, for whom proper evaluation is beyond their intellectual reach. For the majority of the population existing within the bell curve, BMI fits reasonably well. Athletes don't fit the bell curve and anyone running in those circles doesn't give BMI serious consideration. In other words, it was a tool invented to call fat people fat.
        • You're right, maybe that's what the problem is. Maybe America isn't getting incredibly fat, maybe we're just getting incredibly muscular.

          *goes to Walmart*

          Nope. Incredibly fat. Sorry.
          • It's a combination of many things - including how we work out. A couple of years ago I spent some time in Italy. I came back to my gym and there was this real fat fck. Oh sh*t he's fat. But then he does shrugs with 7 plates. OMG. And then benches with 4. Shit that mutherfck3r is strong.

            In 5 minutes I go from thinking he is a fat slob to being super impressed.

            To those not into weight lifting saying someone puts on 4 plates is someone putting on 4 45 pound (20 kilo) weights on each end of a 45 pound ba
            • Consider that only 58,000,000 Americans have gym memberships, and that only 1/3 actually make use of these memberships, and you're looking at fewer than 1 in 10 Americans that actually go to the gym. Furthermore, many of these people focus more on cardio than strength training. Additionally, let's not forget the rather sizeable proportion of gym people that are only there for their first or second time, will shortly stop going entirely, and are, frankly, fat as fuck.

              The percentage of Americans that engage
        • People often seem to bring up world class athletes when criticizing BMI but these people are the absolute outliers. The vast majority of people are not like Mike Tyson in their physical build and as such BMI gives a reasonable indication of if they are at a healthy weight.
          • I could not disagree more. I think a lot of Americans (including myself) who go to the gym regularly are not suited well by the BMI chart. A far better calculation would be a chest to waist measurement (or a caliper measurement of fat around the waist). Both of those would be more time consuming but would be a better judge of obesity.

            A 5'10 male is considered over weight at 174lbs(https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi_tbl.pdf) and obese at 209. I'm 5'10. If I weighed 174lbs I wou

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      There's lots of actual science done in that area. And a lot of crap "science" too, plus a LOT of random incorrect assertions. The "overweight" and "obese" ranges aren't arbitrary, they were chosen to correspond to bands of health risk. BMI is "scientific" and it works pretty well as a population health metric, as do the weight ranges based on it.

      BMI doesn't work as well when applied to individuals. There are some other reasonably simple measurements that work better, such as waist to hip ratio. Being o

    • Overweight and obese are medical terms based on associated health risk. BMI is fairly good for average people, not so good for athletes.
       
      Want to know if you are fat? Try this - lift your shirt, and grab a fold of skin 2 inches to the left (or right) of you belly button. How thick is the fold of skin (and fat)? An inch or less, ok. More than an inch, you are carrying unnecessary extra body fat which will damage your health.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by itzly ( 3699663 )
        Doesn't work well for people who carry their fat around their internal organs, which is the most dangerous place to have it. Unfortunately, BMI doesn't necessarily work that well either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
        • One can always find exceptions to rules. Rules of thumb such a pinching fat, or looking down to see whether or not you can see your toes, etc. work pretty well on the general populace.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by itzly ( 3699663 )
            1 in 7 men is a considerable amount, though, and that's only in the 20-25 BMI category. There are probably more in the 25+ category that still consider themselves not really overweight and can still see their toes. And considering these are higher risk people, that's a big exception.

  • Average body size (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:15AM (#48268871)

    Kinda relevant, Average American Male's Body Compared To Bodies Of Men From Other Nations [huffingtonpost.com]

  • This makes no sense (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The Crash Test Dummies are Canadian.

  • Automakers do not want (Score:3)

    by codeButcher ( 223668 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:20AM (#48268909)
    They might not want to buy these crash test dummies, because they do not fit so well in some of their cars.
    • When I was in college, we fit 21 people into a station wagon and 19 people into a pickup truck. This was years before the practice was made illegal by state law. I doubt they can get that many dummies into today's cars.

      • When I was in college, we fit 21 people into a station wagon and 19 people into a pickup truck. This was years before the practice was made illegal by state law. I doubt they can get that many dummies into today's cars.

        Back when I was in college, I fit in 5 people into a 2x seater Datsun 280Z, along with a case of beer.

        We had to leave the hatch up and it was only about a couple miles or so....

        Thankfully the cops didn't see us...hahaha.

  • What about the "old normal"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:22AM (#48268927) Homepage Journal

    Might this have bad implications for those who can keep their appetites and activity levels in decent proportion?

    I'm thinking about the fact that airbags can be harmful to kids, because they're tuned for adults. What happens when we start tuning our restraint systems for the obese? Will they continue to function properly for trim people, will they work less effectively, or might they actually become harmful, like airbags for kids? (I would expect that they might become too stiff for old-normal body proportions, for instance.)

    • What happens when we start tuning our restraint systems for the obese?

      Many cars have sensors in the seats that can measure the mass of the occupant, and use that data to adjust the force of the restraint systems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bob9113 ( 14996 )

      What happens when we start tuning our restraint systems for the obese? Will they continue to function properly for trim people, will they work less effectively, or might they actually become harmful, like airbags for kids?

      Perhaps there will be restraint system option packages. The Kid-Size, Fit-Size, Fun-Size, and Super-Size. Of course, then there might be size inflation like women's dresses, so eventually fit people will be driving size zero cars and slender people won't be able to buy off-the-rack at all.

  • Air bags (Score:5, Interesting)

    by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:22AM (#48268929)

    As long as it doesn't lead to an increase in the power of air bags such that they become (more) unsafe to people with a healthy weight, I don't see this as an entirely bad thing.

    • This was the first thing that came to mind. Then again, American car companies have been specifically catering to overweight customers for some time now; American cars typically have wider seats to accommodate larger posteriors, and the popularity of SUV and Pickup Truck frames in the American markets cannot be overstated. Sure, both have replaced the Minivan in recent years, but the larger frames, higher ground clearance, and wide-open entryways are not a coincidence.

      • That, and they're partially exempt from CAFE and gas guzzler taxes (or were at the time of their wildly increasing popularity)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by plover ( 150551 )

      I also thought it sounded like a good thing. When safety components have to structurally withstand higher impact loads, that really means they cover a wider range of occupants. It doesn't mean they won't continue to test with infants and children.

      Besides, they run many thousands of simulated crashes before they expend real dollars on actual crash tests. The dummy is nowadays just the "proof" test.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:30AM (#48268975)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      model 12707: Mary Lou: Mary Lou stands 5'-2" and weights 95 pounds. Limbs are articulated to allow feet to be placed on the dashboard or out the window in the front passenger seat. Meant to test limb injury or loss due to air bag deployment or rollover.

  • For all the snarky and negative comments .... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:53AM (#48269139) Journal

    I have to say that IMO, this is a pretty good idea.

    The whole idea of doing crash tests and designing vehicles around one standard dummy size means you have no way to know if the safety systems work well with anyone outside that narrow parameter.

    Not everyone heavier than the 167lbs. or so of the current crash dummy is unhealthy, for starters. Should America's vehicles be higher safety risks for all of our professional athletes with more muscle-mass than average? (Chevrolet just sponsored the World Series .... Maybe they better rethink their strategy if they don't design cars to be as safe for some of those guys?)

    Even the "ideal weight charts" say a 6'4" person is still in the "normal" weight range at 197lbs. - so what about tall people like that? (Are the crash test dummies tall enough to see what happens when someone's head is that much higher up in the vehicle? They probably should check into that.)

    But even putting all of that aside for a moment? The people bringing up those comparisons of average body types in other countries to ours don't really convince me that we're so bad off as a nation. Honestly, I used to be as skinny as the depicted "average sized 30 year old Japanese male" in that Huffington Post article -- and you know what? I hated it. As a general rule, women found me too skinny to be physically attractive to them (with many preferring the larger-framed guys who were clearly in the "overweight" category). The only praise I ever received was from the "gym rat" types who cared more about achieving the numbers the charts or stats said you should achieve as "ideal". And even then? I was never really very strong. They always assumed I would be a "quick runner" though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pavon ( 30274 )

      Yeah, more test data across the spectrum of body types is always a good thing. The article mentions that they are working on building dummies to better model elderly people as well.

  • A prediction (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aaron4801 ( 3007881 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @11:15AM (#48269349)
    Car companies will purchase a few test units, then realize all their 5-Star Safety cars are now only 3-Star safe for bigger passengers, then go right back to the smaller dummies. Seriously, what's the incentive for car companies to voluntarily take on more difficult metrics to reach? Unless the government mandates an increase in dummy weight, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt by the CTD manufacturer.
    • I think it's interesting that we give so much emphasis to "stars" (that is, controlled tests) and so little to accident statistical data. I would never argue against controlled tests, but there is a risk of overlooking some important variable - like variability in occupant size, for example. If we focused more on the bottom line - safety the real world - then the car companies would have an incentive to do a wider range of tests.

    • Actually, car companies will probably add these to their test beds; safety ratings aren't based off of manufacturer's internal testing results, they're based off of the national testing facility results.

      Which means the only time the 5-star rating is going to go to a 3-star rating is if the national testing facilities start using these dummies. And if they do that... the auto manufacturers had better start using them too, or they're going to lose a LOT of money as their cars' ratings go down the drain compa

      • "the only time the 5-star rating is going to go to a 3-star rating is if the national testing facilities start using these dummies. And if they do that..."

        If they do that, you'll need twice the number of cars to sacrifice in crash tests and the dummies will wear out twice as fast. Likely, you'll need twice the number of testing facilities as well. A decision to make such tests mandatory should not be taken lightly.

        My guess is that these dummies will be used to gain knowledge on how to translate standard tes

  • Old Physics Joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by VorpalRodent ( 964940 ) on Thursday October 30, 2014 @11:19AM (#48269389)
    So, the punchline is now reality? "Assume a spherical driver."

  • I'll be very interested to see how the data plays out, comparing the old dummies with the new ones.

    For example: Does the extra fat provide a sufficient additional layer of protection, resulting in less severe injuries?

  • lighter dummy head.

  • Can we have some crash test dummies reflecting taller people too? *NCAP tests with 180cm/6' dolls (I asked them).
    I want to know which cars will kill me because the ceiling is too low for a 6'4" (193cm).

  • The U.S. is no longer the official "most over-weight" country on Earth: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]

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