Attitudes and Lifestyle Survey

My, how the year has flown. Once again it's time for the New Zealand Attitudes and Lifestyle Survey. I've been doing this for six years, according to the website, but it always seems such a short time between the surveys that either I'm getting old and time is flying or they're sending it out more frequently than I imagine they are.

Just checked their website again. I'm getting old.

I do now think that I should've taken a note of all the questions and answers over the years, and then I'd be able to see where my answers have changed. Certainly I earn more money, have a better job, have developed a hobby into a completely non-lucrative business, have a wonderful and steady relationship, and take a lot more pills. That must have been an improvement?

They should certainly be less mopey. I had angst for a lot longer than the usual teenager.

But to do that would require effort and commitment to data-gathering, and although I'm happy to type it out on a blog for ten minutes, I'm not about to put the same effort into recording my answers twice. And I think a lot of the questions change.

They used to have quite a weirdly offensive one about how I felt about obesity-related diseases eg heart disease. Really? Heart disease. Because prior to the "obesity epidemic" heart disease was unknown in the Western World. Just like cancer. No one ever used to die of cancer. Or bollocks. Prior to the obesity epidemic there wasn't nearly the same amount of people dying of bollocks in the world.

It also amusingly lists fat people as an ethnicity. I'm not kidding. It asks you how much you feel anger or don't feel anger towards certain ethnicities and then lists NZ Europeans (always first - no they don't reveal their own prejudices), Maori, Pacific Islanders, Arabs, Asians and Fat People.

Nice.

Maybe I should try listing that one on my next passport application form and see if it makes it through.