The Science of Stephen King

Released in 1984, Thinner follows the story of what happens to the main character after he commits vehicular homicide one night. Being a lawyer, and with good connections, Billy Halleck faces no legal repercussions from his crime. He faces real consequences, though, when he is cursed by the father of the victim saying a single word to him, “thinner,” after his trial. There are numerous examples of “gypsy curses” being used in horror media over the years, often in retribution for an unpaid debt of some kind. This trope is often seen as harmful and demonizing to the Romani people. It is estimated that there are currently over one million Romani Americans living in the United States. Having originated from Northern India, the Romani people were first brought to America as slaves in 1492 and later immigrated during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The term “gypsy” is frowned upon by the Romani people as they have been unfairly persecuted for centuries and stereotyped as fortune tellers, kidnappers, and thieves. The truth, of course, is that the Romani people, like everyone, can’t fit into a narrow definition. Unfortunately, some stereotypes persist in the media.

There are other examples of “curses” throughout history among various groups of people. One of the most famous curses surrounds the finding of Ötzi the “Ice Man” in 1991. Rainer Henn, a forensic pathologist who examined Ötzi, died in a car accident a year later. Kurt Fritz, the guide who led Henn to Ötzi’s body, died in an avalanche shortly thereafter. Helmut Simon, who first discovered the body, died from a fall while hiking in 2004. Dieter Warnecke, who headed the rescue team looking for Simon’s body, died of a heart attack just hours after Simon’s funeral.3 These could all be coincidences, of course, but it doesn’t stop the human imagination from wondering about another explanation for these deaths.

Susanna Lemke, the woman killed in the novel Thinner, is trying to cross the street as a pedestrian when she is struck by Billy’s car. How common is it for people to be killed in traffic accidents? According to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, pedestrian fatalities have increased 41 percent from 2008 and are at an all-time high.5 That amounts to 6,227 deaths in the year 2018 alone. Some contributing factors include the use of smartphones, by both drivers and pedestrians, and bigger vehicles.

Ötzi the “Ice Man” was found to have sixty-one tattoos and an intestinal parasite!

Almost half of car crashes that resulted in a pedestrian death involved alcohol for the driver and/or the pedestrian.4

Something that is more common, especially in the United States, is the epidemic of obesity. Since Stephen King wrote Thinner, the obesity rate has almost tripled. To be considered obese, a person’s body mass index (BMI) has to be over thirty. In 1960, less than 14 percent of Americans were considered obese while in 2019, 40 percent were.6 When considering the definition of being overweight, the percentage jumps to a staggering 80 percent of the American adult population. How did we get here? The common medical advice is to eat less and exercise more. If the answer is so simple and readily available, it seems like that percentage should go down. A number of factors contribute to people trying to lose weight and not being able to keep it off, including the popularity of fad diets, which can work but are unsustainable and can even biologically change your metabolism.

A study in a province of Thailand determined that approximately 16 percent of the population had some form of a parasitic infection.8

After the curse, Billy Halleck isn’t having trouble with his weight loss anymore. The pounds are flying off and he’s able to eat just as much, and even more than he previously did. What are some possible causes for this rapid weight loss, besides curses, that could be explained by science? One example sounds like it’s straight out of a horror movie: a foreign creature inhabits your body and feeds off your food supply. Fiction? Hardly. Tapeworms and parasites can absolutely infect humans and sometimes grow up to eighty feet and live as long as thirty years!7 (No, thank you!) Women in the Victorian era were known to swallow tapeworms willingly to try to lose weight and the fad hasn’t disappeared. In recent years, people have been ingesting tapeworms in the hope of losing a few pounds. Medical professionals do not recommend this fad diet, however, as it can cause complications including diarrhea, infection, and blockage of the intestine. (Not to mention a creature living inside you!)