现代大学英语精读第二版（第四册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——8B - All This Progress Is Killing Us, Bite by Bite（这一切的发展逐渐地置我们于死地）

Unit 8B - All This Progress Is Killing Us, Bite by Bite

All This Progress Is Killing Us, Bite by Bite

Gregg Easterbrook

Your great-great grandparents would find it hard to believe the Boeing 747, but perhaps they'd have a harder time believing last week's news that obesity has become the second-leading cause of death in the United States. Too much food a menace instead of too little!

A study released by the federal Centers for Disease Control ranked "poor diet and physical inactivity" as the cause of 400,000 United States deaths in 2000, trailing only fatalities from tobacco. Obesity, the CDC said, now kills five times as many Americans as "microbial agents," that is, infectious diseases.

Moon landings might seem less shocking to your great-great grandparents than abundance of food causing five times as many deaths as germs; OutKast might seem less bizarre to them than the House passing legislation last week to exempt restaurants from being sued for serving portions that are too large.

Your recent ancestors would further be stunned by the notion of plump poverty. A century ago, the poor were as lean as fence posts; worry about where to get the next meal was a constant companion for millions. Today, America's least well-off are so surrounded by double cheeseburgers, chicken buckets, extra-large pizzas and supersized fries that they are more likely to be overweight than the population as a whole.

But the expanding waistline is not only a problem of lower-income Americans who dine too often on fast food. Today, the typical American is overweight, according to the CDC, which estimates that 64 percent of American citizens are carrying too many pounds for their height. Obesity and sedentary living are rising so fast that their health consequences may soon supplant tobacco as the No.1 preventable cause of death, the CDC predicts. Rates of heart diseases, stroke and many cancers are in decline, while life expectancy is increasing—but every-rising readings on the bathroom scale may be canceling out what would otherwise be dramatic gains in public health.

OK, it's hard to be opposed to food. But the epidemic of obesity epitomizes the unsettled character of progress in affluent Western society. Our lives are characterized by too much of a good thing—too much to eat, to buy, to watch and to do, excess at every turn.

Sometimes achievement itself engenders the excess: today's agriculture creates so much food at such low cost that who can resist that extra helping?

Consider other examples in which society's success seems to be backfiring on our health or well-being.

PRODUCTIVITY

Higher productivity is essential to rising living standards and to the declining prices of goods and services. But higher productivity may lead to fewer jobs.

Early in the postwar era, analysts fretted that automation would take over manufacturing, throwing everyone out of work. That fear went unrealized for a generation, in part because robots and computers weren't good at much. Today, near-automated manufacturing is becoming a reality. Newly built factories often require only a fraction of the work force of the plants they replace. Office technology, meanwhile, now allows a few to do what once required a whole hive of worker bees.

There may come a point when the gains from higher productivity pale before the job losses. But even if that point does not come, rapid technological change is instilling anxiety about future employment: anxiety that makes it hard to appreciate and enjoy what productivity create.

TRAFFIC

Cars are much better than they were a few decades ago—more comfortable, powerful and reliable. They are equipped with safety features like air bags and stuffed with CD players, satellite radios and talking navigation gizmos. Adjusted for consumers' rising buying power, the typical powerful new car costs less than one a generation ago.

But in part because cars are so desirable and affordable, roads are increasingly clogged with traffic. Today in the United States, there are 230 million cars and trucks in operation and only 193 million licensed drivers—more vehicles than drivers! Studies by the Federal Highway Administration show that in the 30 largest cities, total time lost to traffic jams has almost quintupled since 1980.

Worse, prosperity has made possible the popularity of SUVs and the misnamed "light" pickup trucks, which now account for half of all new-car sales. Exempt from the fuel-economy standards that apply to regular cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks sustain American dependence on Persian Gulf oil. A new study in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty showed that the rise in SUVs and pickup trucks "leads to substantially more fatalities" on the road.

So just as longevity might be improving at a fast clip were it not for expanding waistlines, death rates in traffic accidents might show a more positive trend were it not for the SUV explosion.

The proliferation of cars also encourages us to drive rather than walk. A century ago, the typical American walked three miles a day; now the average is less than a quarter mile a day. Some research suggests that the sedentary lifestyle, rather than weight itself, is the real threat; a chubby person who is physically active will be OK. Studies also show that it is not necessary to do aerobics to get the benefits of exercise; a half-hour a day of brisk walking is sufficient. But more cars, driven more miles, mean less walking.

STRESS

It's not just in your mind: Researchers believe stress levels really are rising. People who are overweight or inactive experience more stress than others, and that now applies to the majority. Insufficient sleep increases stress, and Americans now sleep on average only seven hours a night, versus eight hours for our parents' generation and 10 hours for our great-grandparents.

Research by Bruce McEwen, a neuroendocrinologist at Rockefeller University in New York, suggest that modern stress, in addition to making life unpleasant, can impair immune function—again, canceling out health gains that might otherwise occur.

Prosperity brings many other mixed blessings. Living standards keep rising, but so does incidence of clinical depression. Cellphones are convenient, but make it impossible to escape from office calls. E-mail is cheap and fast, if you don't mind deleting hundreds of spam messages. The Internet and cable television improve communication, but deluge us with the junkiest aspects of culture.

Americans live in ever-nicer, ever-large houses, but new homes and the businesses that serve them have to go somewhere. Sprawl continues at a maddening pace, while once-rustic areas may now be gridlocked with SUVs and power boats.

Agricultural yields continue rising, yet that means fewer family farms are needed. Biotechnology may allow us to live longer, but may leave us dependent on costly synthetic drugs. There are many similar examples.

Increasingly, Western life is afflicted by the paradoxes of progress. Material circumstances keep improving, yet our quality of life may be no better as a result—especially in those cases, like food, where enough becomes too much.

"The maximum is not the optimum," the ecologist Garrett Hardin, who died last year, liked to say. Americans are choosing the maximum, and it does not necessarily make us healthier or happier.

参考译文——这一切的发展逐渐地置我们于死地

这一切的发展逐渐地置我们于死地

格雷格•伊斯特布包鲁克

你们的曾曾祖父母们会很难相信有波音747的存在，但是也许他们更难相信上周的新闻，那就是在美国肥胖已经成为导致死亡的第二大原因。过多的食物成了一种威胁，而不是食物不足！

联邦疾病控制中心发布的一份研究将“不良饮食和缺乏锻炼”列为2000年40 万美国人死亡的原因，仅次于抽烟导致的死亡。联邦疾病控制中心表示，现在肥胖导致的美国人的死亡人数是“微生物传染源”（即传染病）导致的死亡人数的5倍。

由食物的丰富导致的死亡人数是病菌导致的死亡人数的5倍，这看起来也许比登上月球更让你们的曾曾祖父母们震惊。美国众议院上周通过立法，豁免了饭店因提供过于大份的食物而被起诉，比起这个，流浪者合唱团对他们来说看起来也许就没那么怪异了。

让你们的近代祖先们更为震惊的是“肥胖的贫穷”这个概念。一个世纪以前，穷人们瘦得像栅栏桩一样；让数百万人一直担心的是下一顿饭的着落。如今，美国最不富裕的人们周围充斥着双层芝士汉堡、炸鸡桶、超大的比萨饼以及超大份薯条，以至于他们比整体人口更容易超重。

然而，不断变大的腰围并不仅仅是常吃快餐的低收入美国人的问题。根据联邦疾病控制中心估计，如今，美国人普遍超重，64%的美国公民身高和体重比例失衡，体重偏重。联邦疾病控制中心预测，迅速增加的肥胖和久坐不动的生活方式所导致的健康问题可能很快会取代烟草成为排名第一的可预防的致死病因。心脏病、中风和很多癌症的发病率在减少，预期寿命在增加——但是，体重秤读数的不断增加可能会将其抵消，否则这会是公众健康上获得的显著成果。

是的，要与食物对抗是很难的。然而，肥胖的蔓延成为富足的西方社会发展不稳定这一特点的典型例证。我们生活的特征是好东西太多——太多要吃的、要买的、要看的和要做的，事事都过量。

有时候本身会引起过量：当今的农业以那么低的成本创造了那么多的食物，谁还能忍住不吃那份额外的食物呢？

想一下其他的例子，社会的成功似乎与我们的健康或康乐背道而驰。

生产力

更高的生产力对生活水平的提高和商品及服务价格的降低来说至关重要但是更高的生产力可能会导致工作机会更少。

战后早期，分析家们便担心自动化会控制制造业，让所有人都失业。那种担忧在一代人身上并未变为现实，其部分原因是机器人和计算机在很多方面并不擅长。如今，接近自动化的制造业正在变成事实。新建的工厂与其所取代的工厂相比，通常只需要一小部分劳动力。同时，如今，办公科技使得几个人便可以做曾经需要一群人才能完成的工作。

或许会出现一个阶段，那时更高的生产力所带来的成果在工作机会的丧失面前变得黯然失色。然而，即便没有出现那个阶段，快速的科技变化正在引发对未来就业的焦虑：这种焦虑使得人们很难欣赏和享受生产力所创造的东西。

交通

现在的汽车比几十年前的汽车要好很多——更舒服、功能更强大也更可靠。它们配备了安全装置，比如安全气囊，装上了 CD播放器、卫星广播和语音导航设施。随着消费者购买力的日益增强，一辆动力强劲的新车比上一代人购车时的价格要低。

然而部分原因是汽车如此诱人且价格合适，所以路上的车也越来越多。现在在美国，有2.3 亿汽车和货车投入使用，但是只有1.93亿有驾照的司机——车辆比司机要多！联邦公路管理局的研究显示，在30个最大的城市中，自1980年以来，因交通堵塞所损失的总时间几乎增加了4倍。

更糟糕的是，繁荣兴旺使得SUV和被误称为“轻”皮卡货车的普及成为可能，现在这些车占新车总销售量的一半。除了应用于普通汽车的燃料经济性标准以外，运动型车辆和皮卡货车使得美国持续依赖波斯湾的石油《风险和不确定性杂志》上刊载的一个新的研究表明，SUV和皮卡货车的增加“导致了道路上更多的死亡事故”。

所以正如如果没有不断增长的腰围,人们的寿命可能会迅速增加一样，如果没有 SUV数量的激增，交通事故中的死亡率也许会呈现一个更加良好的趋势。

汽车的激增也促使我们开车而不走路。一个世纪前，一般情况下，美国人每天走3英里，而现在每天平均不到0.25英里。一些研究表明，真正的威胁是久坐不动的生活方式，而不是体重本身；一个爱运动的胖乎乎的牧师是没有问题的。研究还表明，通过做有氧运动来获得运动的好处是没有必要的，每天半小时的快走就足够了。然而，更多的车，行驶更多英里的路，则意味着步行的减少。

压力

这不只是你的感觉：研究者认为压力水平确实在上升。体重超标或者不活动的人会比别人感受到更大的压力，而这一点现在适用于大多数人。睡眠不足会增加压力。现在美国人平均每晚只睡7个小时，而我们父母那一代睡8个小时，曾祖父母那代睡10个小时。

纽约洛克菲勒大学的神经内分泌学家布鲁斯•麦克尤恩的研究表明，现代的压力除了让生活变得不愉快以外，还会损害免疫功能——再次抵消本应该出现的健康收益。

繁荣兴旺带来很多其他喜忧参半的事情。生活水平不断提高，而临床忧郁症的发生率也在日益增加；手机十分便利，却也使人们不能摆脱办公电话；如果你不介意要删除数百封垃圾邮件，那么电子邮件又便宜又快；互联网和有线电视可促进交流，却让我们淹没在垃圾文化中。

美国人住在更好、更大的房子里，但新家和为他们服务的公司必须有地安置。城市以令人发疯的速度继续杂乱无序地扩展，曾经的乡村地区如今可能堵满了SUV和汽艇。

农业产量在持续上升，这也意味着家庭农场的需求更少了。生物科技或许能使我们活得更久，却可能让我们依赖昂贵的合成药物。类似的例子有很多。

西方人的生活会越来越多地被发展的悖论折磨着。物质环境在不断改善，而我们的生活品质却没有变得更好——正如同食物由充足变为过剩而导致不良后果这种情况。

“最大化并不意味着最佳结果，”去年去世的生态学家加勒特•哈丁常这样说。美国人在选择最大化，这未必会让我们变得更健康或更快乐。

Key Words:

synthetic [sin'θetik]

adj. 综合的，合成的，人造的

参考资料：