HP's Photo Slimming Effect

I understand that we as a nation are overweight. I know they've made movies about it that can make you sick as you watch. The Atkins craze was enough to make me want to hit somebody. The Special K diet is out there and available to all you cereal junkies (a serving size has never looked so small… let me assure you). The Triplets of Bellville portray all Americans as walking balloons - and not the kind used to make poodles and swords (it's a great movie, by the way).

Hewlett Packard, in case they didn't have enough to worry about, has now endorsed obesity in our culture by adding a slimming effect to digital cameras, so you can just click a couple buttons, and the camera will automatically adjust the photos to make the people in your photos skinnier. Although I can agree that it would behoove quite a few of us (me included) to lose a pound or two, endorsing doctored photos to make people feel less self-conscious about their weight is ridiculous. Afterall, Katie Couric did it, why can't we?