(June 7, 2017 at 5:24 am)Nymphadora Wrote: Not sure if this was already mentioned (didn't feel like wading through 8 pages of back and forth to find out) but....

Not everyone that is obese is that way because they ate too much. There are medical conditions which cause people to be obese.

Being stressed out can cause someone to gain weight.
Having insomnia or not getting enough sleep can attribute to weight gain.
Psychological trauma that leads to someone using food to comfort oneself, can lead to weight gain. And yes - while food is there, it is NOT the main factor or cause. It is the catalyst. The trauma is the main factor.

There are medicines that cause people to gain weight. I work with a person who is on chemo and steroids for an auto-immune disorder that I can't even pronounce. It causes her to gain weight. People keep asking her when her baby is due. She's not pregnant. Her youngest is six years old. But so that she can live, she has to take a pill form of chemo, daily.

People need to consider all the reasons to why someone is obese and not just contribute it to over-eating or eating the wrong thing.

I think in a lot of these cases though, the weight gain isn't so dramatic. You are absolutely right, some people do have issues, both mental and physical, that make it harder to keep some extra weight off and easier to gain weight.

That said though, a lot of these people who only gain weight due to stress, due to medicine or even due to a thyroid issue or slow metabolism, they only end up being moderately overweight at most and often the weight gain is temporary. I don't think any of these issues, alone, would make someone actually obese, unless it was like a very rare extreme case. My Mom has struggled losing some of her extra weight over the years, I guess genetically she is a bit more predisposed to put on weight. But even then, she's never been like crazy obese, she's never had serious health problems or been left physically inactive from it. She is quite healthy.

For me there's a distinction to be made between merely being overweight and being outright obese, and I do think the difference between that is almost entirely lifestyle. It's incredibly difficult to sustain extreme weight without constantly eating and being physically inactive. You can see that because as soon as someone very obese starts eating right and getting even light exercise, the weight drops off them very fast. I also think, statistically, the concentration of obesity in developed/Western countries is a dead giveaway that it has more to do with lifestyle than genetics.

I'm not sure if this has been brought up already, and I'm not feeling up to reading every post of the last 8 pages. The phrase 'fat acceptance' has been used in two different ways in my experience, and they tend to get conflated.

1) The folks who really do think that being obese is just a-okay health-wise and that everyone (including doctors) should keep their mouth shut and any suggestion of negative effects or health problems is akin to a personal attack. These are the nutty folks that a lot of the comments in this thread are directed towards, and I agree 100% with those comments.

2) People who are advocating not for 'obese is healthy', but that you shouldn't treat obese people like shit for being obese. And I mean, as ridiculous as it is for the people in #1 to suggest that obese = healthy, there is some real vitriol directed against obese people that views them as almost sub-human. Just think about a cell-phone picture of an obese person on the treadmill at the gym with an insulting caption (instead of a supportive caption since they're at the gym in the first place). Those kinds of things are a dime a dozen online.

If all we're talking about is #1 above, then yes, they're fucking looney-toons, and in some cases directly harmful in the ideas they're pushing. But #2 is something I can get behind completely - don't treat people like shit in general. I mean, I've struggled with my weight in the past (note: my username), but at no point did I think I was being healthy at my previous weight... I just really didn't want people to keep making fun/insulting me over it.

(June 7, 2017 at 8:26 am)Regina Wrote:  I also think, statistically, the concentration of obesity in developed/Western countries is a dead giveaway that it has more to do with lifestyle socioeconomic status than genetics.

Fixed that for you.

The morbidly obese are poor - statistically.  The food they have available to them leads inexorably to obesity -as well- as malnutrition.  They are stuffed and fat, but starving. That, ultimately, is why they eat so much. Thy don;t have the sort of food industry in third world shitholes that we have here. If you uprooted those people, here, and moved them there with all other things remaining the same..they'd be emaciated and starving. As to excersize....since when? I think an 80 hour work week qualifies as exercise (and if it doesn't, it doesn't exactly leave much time for "exercise", does it)............. and yet the chubby remain chubby, why might that be?

"Lifestyle" has just become a convenient smear-word for -any- group a person has a distaste for, particularly when they don't understand them or why they are in the position they are in. Whats the problem with gays? Lifestyle. Blacks? Lifestyle. On and on it goes.

Then, ofc, there are people like my daughter. She's not poor, she eats well, and appropriately, daddy see's too it. She plays all day, I'm guessing she could run circles around anyone here. She's also super chubby. Go figure, lol. There's nothing unhealthy about her, she's just chubby the way some kids at some points in their development put a little weight on before the next vertical growth spurt. Her grandmother, on her mothers side...though, shames the shit out of her, like she shamed her own daughter....who wasn't chubby at all.

(June 7, 2017 at 8:35 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: there is some real vitriol directed against obese people that views them as almost sub-human.  Just think about a cell-phone picture of an obese person on the treadmill at the gym with an insulting caption (instead of a supportive caption since they're at the gym in the first place).  Those kinds of things are a dime a dozen online. 

I absolutely agree, I hate this. Then some of these same people complain the most about obese people not taking responsibility to lose weight, Milo Yiannopoulos. I don't know what they expect really, when they bully fat people out of the gym.

Like I said in my earlier post, I think a better goal of this "movement" should be to create a more supportive environment for people who want to live healthier lives and lose weight, in a more health-oriented than aesthetics-oriented way. Like what LadyforCamus was saying really

@Khemikal - Yes I have heard that before and it does make sense given the abundance of cheap shitty junk food. Although still, that is down to the food their are eating moreso than genetics or conditions

(June 7, 2017 at 5:50 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: If someone is sitting next to me enjoying his tasty platter of whipped cream and gravy, it does me no harm. On the other hand, the thoughtless cunt who sits next to me with a lit cigarette is a real danger to my health.

This seems to be a pretty significant distinction.

Boru

If you had bothered to read the thread, you would find that my point about banning junk food from pubs wasn't entirely serious. I enjoy the odd cigarette or cigar every now and again but I wouldn't ever light up near a non-smoker, and I think there should be separate smoking rooms in pubs and restaurants.

I stand by my point that junk food should be taxed as long as tobacco is being taxed.

Good luck with that, the "junk food" that's making americans fat is all the shit that wic and food stamps cover.........

We've actually realized this, institutionally, and theres a big push for what are called "farm fresh stamps" - basically, assistance that can be used to buy something that -isn't- made of corn and cardboard.  OFC, look at how pissy people get when they see poor people buying healthy food with their food stamps?  

"OH em gee, that grifty grifter just bought seafood with his sin moneyz!"

As another poster touched on, either here or in another thread, food stamps (in actualioty, not in principle) exist to prop up industries through the ag dept, not people, and our biggest industry is unequivocally the thing making us fat...so, gordian knot?

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(June 7, 2017 at 8:46 am)Regina Wrote: @Khemikal - Yes I have heard that before and it does make sense given the abundance of cheap shitty junk food. Although still, that is down to the food their are eating moreso than genetics or conditions

They eat what they can afford.  I'm not sure what else there is to do?  Say they understand, which most or many don't..that the food they're eating isn't good for them or for their children.  

Even then...what can -they- do?

---

-Continuing on the above, wherein some person with access to better food presents the solution "they should eat what I eat".  Ignoring that they can;t afford it, do the people offering that solution realize that what they eat is heavily subsidized by those fatter poor people eating all the dietary trash?  That the producers could not afford to provide them with such quality sustenance if they could not also fob off the much larger portion of lesser quality products that are an intrinsic part of their operation?  That the middlemen in purchasing and procurement offset costs?  That the end processor engages in loss leader models of sales?  That the consumer retailer reenforces all of this in shittier products with greater shelf space to match their greater shelf life?  

Imagine the lolworthy scenario in which they choose to be richer, the fatties, I mean. Suddenly you're competing with them for a limited product and the price goes up. Now even more people are cut out of the lions share, as it were.

No.  No.  It's lifestyle.  It's choices they make.  It's on them.  Our entire country just suddenly chose to be fat. Thusly, we can righteously pile shame atop them. Fat shaming and sin tax, no matter how politely described...would be comic if it weren't so damned cruel - and this is coming from a guy with a high tolerance for a mean joke.

---

haha, ranting cuz it;s near and dear to my heart and hearth.  

I know that the comparison between cigarettes and being overweight seems compelling, but I would suggest that this is due to a slight misapprehension regarding why we placed those taxes on smokes.  Sure..health was the pretext, but not the purpose.  The purpose was revenue generation for the state.  It was so easy to demonize tobacco companies (mostly, because they acted the part) that our government found it useful and convenient to place a sin tax on..wait for it.....-the smoker-.  OFC they had no actual interest in reducing smoking...they flatly depended on those taxes to pay bills.  The army, a part of the federal gov..... still puts smokes on it's ration cards.  Insurance companies use smoking as a way to deny benefits. The whole sorry thing just shits money for everybody. Rinse and repeat with casinos. Rinse and repeat with any "lifestyle" choice that an insurance company can deny benefits for.

The same would happen with a sin tax on being fat.  The consumer would be made to pay an extra sum, but the industries would still receive ag subsidies (just like tobacco). While telling our children (and ourselves) that smoking was unhealthy worked to some extent..it didn't work quite as well in the same poor demographic that's getting poisoned while being blamed for it - and it's not like we can tell people the same thing about that food that we did with smokes..that the best way not to be a smoker, is to never start. They kindof have to eat. Oh but hell, why stop there....being gay is a "lifestyle" choice if -any- of this other shit is a lifestyle choice...and I distinctly recall there being an increased risk of some diseases x or y. Perhaps they should be made to pay a gay sin tax, for their unhealthy lifestyle decisions? Perish the thought, amiright? At the very least we should stop accepting them. I can hear the insurance adjustors now. "Are you sure you didn't get that from being gay, you know..being gay is a pre-existing condition....we have pamphlets for you, if you;d like to choose not to be unhealthy anymore...also...your premium just went up."

(June 7, 2017 at 8:39 am)Khemikal Wrote:

(June 7, 2017 at 8:26 am)Regina Wrote:  I also think, statistically, the concentration of obesity in developed/Western countries is a dead giveaway that it has more to do with lifestyle socioeconomic status than genetics.

Fixed that for you.

The morbidly obese are poor - statistically.  The food they have available to them leads inexorably to obesity -as well- as malnutrition.  They are stuffed and fat, but starving.  That, ultimately, is why they eat so much.  Thy don;t have the sort of food industry in third world shitholes that we have here.  If you uprooted those people, here, and moved them there with all other things remaining the same..they'd be emaciated and starving.  As to excersize....since when?  I think an 80 hour work week qualifies as exercise (and if it doesn't, it doesn't exactly leave much time for "exercise", does it)............. and yet the chubby remain chubby, why might that be?  

"Lifestyle" has just become a convenient smear-word for -any- group a person has a distaste for, particularly when they don't understand them or why they are in the position they are in.  Whats the problem with gays?  Lifestyle.  Blacks?  Lifestyle.  On and on it goes.

Then, ofc, there are people like my daughter.  She's not poor, she eats well, and appropriately, daddy see's too it.  She plays all day, I'm guessing she could run circles around anyone here.  She's also super chubby.  Go figure, lol.  There's nothing unhealthy about her, she's just chubby the way some kids at some points in their development put a little weight on before the next vertical growth spurt.  Her grandmother, on her mothers side...though, shames the shit out of her, like she shamed her own daughter....who wasn't chubby at all.

I still can't get my mind around that.

Last week I worked 86 hours from Monday to Sunday.  I had to to go to the gym for over 3 hours, I hour per day for 3 days Monday to Wednesday.  If you don't have a gym it's easy enough to lift some weight or do some step ups or sit ups.

When I used to do a manual labor job then my work was my gym but I'd still go to the gym ontop of that.

Admittedly my gym motivation is basically that there's good looking women at my gym and it's nice to see some nice ass after being sat in work for 12 hours.

I still had time ontop of that the other days to go visit my daughter.

And as for food, I don't know how it is in America, but you can get instant cous cous, pasta and rice for so on for fairly cheap.  Boil in the bag veg.  
A tin of chick peas is 33p, same with beans too.

I've just visited a website which asks the question why are poor people obese in America, but even on their charts the difference is still less than 10 percent between high earners and very low earners.  High earners being above 75000 and low being below 25000.

The level of obesity according to this chart, in people who earn less than 25000 is 30 percent, going up to people who earn 25000 to 50000 it's only around a 2 or 3 percent difference.

Also on this website it talks about the increase in cost of fruit and veg but I'm pretty sure I can find what anyone would consider to be cheap fruit and veg if I try.  Some of it might not be fresh it might be frozen or in tins though.

(June 7, 2017 at 9:19 am)Khemikal Wrote: Good luck with that, the "junk food" that's making americans fat is all the shit that wic and food stamps cover.........

We've actually realized this, institutionally, and theres a big push for what are called "farm fresh stamps" - basically, assistance that can be used to buy something that -isn't- made of corn and cardboard.  OFC, look at how pissy people get when they see poor people buying healthy food with their food stamps?  

"OH em gee, that grifty grifter just bought seafood with his sin moneyz!"

As another poster touched on, either here or in another thread, food stamps (in actualioty, not in principle) exist to prop up industries through the ag dept, not people, and our biggest industry is unequivocally the thing making us fat...so, gordian knot?

---

(June 7, 2017 at 8:46 am)Regina Wrote: @Khemikal - Yes I have heard that before and it does make sense given the abundance of cheap shitty junk food. Although still, that is down to the food their are eating moreso than genetics or conditions

They eat what they can afford.  I'm not sure what else there is to do?  Say they understand, which most or many don't..that the food they're eating isn't good for them or for their children.  

Even then...what can -they- do?

---

-Continuing on the above, wherein some person with access to better food presents the solution "they should eat what I eat".  Ignoring that they can;t afford it, do the people offering that solution realize that what they eat is heavily subsidized by those fatter poor people eating all the dietary trash?  That the producers could not afford to provide them with such quality sustenance if they could not also fob off the much larger portion of lesser quality products that are an intrinsic part of their operation?  That the middlemen in purchasing and procurement offset costs?  That the end processor engages in loss leader models of sales?  That the consumer retailer reenforces all of this in shittier products with greater shelf space to match their greater shelf life?  

Imagine the lolworthy scenario in which they choose to be richer, the fatties, I mean.  Suddenly you're competing with them for a limited product and the price goes up.  Now even more people are cut out of the lions share, as it were.  

No.  No.  It's lifestyle.  It's choices they make.  It's on them.  Our entire country just suddenly chose to be fat.  Thusly, we can righteously pile shame atop them.  Fat shaming and sin tax, no matter how politely described...would be comic if it weren't so damned cruel - and this is coming from a guy with a high tolerance for a mean joke.

Don't put words in my mouth please. That's obnoxious.

I'm not saying people are "choosing" to be poor or that they're fully knowledgable about how bad the food is that's affordable to them. To argue that people say "yeah I felt like being fat so I ate more" is silly, that's not what I'm arguing. I also agree with what you're saying about these stupid people complaining about poor people being given help getting access to better quality food. Whether that's education, whether it's a plan like the one you mentioned, both, I'm all for that. People do need more help to live healthier, that much is evident by our obesity rates.

My point is that, regardless of the "why" or "how", these people are still getting obese because of the food they eat. That's not genetics, that's external factors.

And secondly, I don't know the extent to which I agree with this argument of poverty either. It makes sense to a point like I said yes the healthiest foods are not very cheap and accessible, and that does matter... in theory though, neither is McDonalds or Burger King, for a very poor person. I have to look at an obese person who gets takeaways thrice a week, and wonder if it would really cost them more to get some frozen vegetables, some fruit and some granola cereal. I don't think it would.

I think if anything, maybe it's lack of education on cooking skills (which I'll admit I've suffered from and seen in other people while at university), as well as the convenience of fast food.

It's also the amount you eat too. Like I said, you don't sustain an extreme amount of weight if you are not constantly eating, and if you are constantly eating, then evidently you have money to spend on food, it seems.

And also why does everything have to get compared to race and sexuality? These are not the same things, they're not the same issues. A black or a gay person cannot change their situation and those things have nothing to do with lifestyle whatsoever, so yes people are wrong for saying that. That's not the case with obesity, which is very obviously (not through conscious "choice" necessarily but still) affected by habits, eating disorders, knowledge of cooking and (to some level) lack of motivation to change it. I do see what you're saying, it's silly to argue that it's just a conscious "choice" in the sense of someone deliberately eating to get fatter, but at the same time extreme obesity is not in-born, set for life, or something the afflicted have no control over whatsoever.

(June 7, 2017 at 10:02 am)paulpablo Wrote: I still can't get my mind around that.

Last week I worked 86 hours from Monday to Sunday.  I had to to go to the gym for over 3 hours, I hour per day for 3 days Monday to Wednesday.  If you don't have a gym it's easy enough to lift some weight or do some step ups or sit ups.

When I used to do a manual labor job then my work was my gym but I'd still go to the gym ontop of that.

Admittedly my gym motivation is basically that there's good looking women at my gym and it's nice to see some nice ass after being sat in work for 12 hours.

I still had time ontop of that the other days to go visit my daughter.

You visit your daughter, do you raise her?  How many people are directly under your care (not your dime)..and how much gym time would you have if there were, say...three or four?
 

Quote:And as for food, I don't know how it is in America, but you can get instant cous cous, pasta and rice for so on for fairly cheap.  Boil in the bag veg.  
A tin of chick peas is 33p, same with beans too.

It's getting better, but it got pretty bad.  Nevertheless, it;s not getting better uniformly.  A Whole Foods is unlikely to materialize in the ghetto.  We have what are referred to as food deserts.  You probably do too.  

Quote: High earners being above 75000

A family of six qualifies for assistance to 80k, here..because they are below the adjusted poverty line.

Quote:and low being below 25000.

that's super high for a low range.......lol.  

Quote:The level of obesity according to this chart, in people who earn less than 25000 is 30 percent, going up to people who earn 25000 to 50000 it's only around a 2 or 3 percent difference.

..because there is no middle class in america.  People who feel wealthier because they have moderately increased access to what they believe are healthy foods are very often eating the same shit that the poors eat..just prettied up in a nice package.  Like..instant this that or the other meals.  That's just the way food has gone in the us.  Ignoring the reality of the country and market we live in as though any human being made their decisions regarding what to eat in a vacuum won;t tell us anything at all about those decisions.

Quote:Also on this website it talks about the increase in cost of fruit and veg but I'm pretty sure I can find what anyone would consider to be cheap fruit and veg if I try.  Some of it might not be fresh it might be frozen or in tins though.

Cheap to you, where you are.  I work in healthy food, as it were...and you know what..I think there -are- more people who could afford what I sell.  I do sell it less than retail..though.  Trouble is, they don't have access to me, if they know about me, if i have capacity for them.... and our system strongly favors the Kroger.  

@Reg
Everything beyond the quoted response, below the line, was me rambling about the topic in general, not in specific response to you.  I should have made that clear.  

I agree that external factors are constraining a great many people to obesity.  That's -why- I don't think that it makes much sense (laying aside that it's just nasty..lol) to shame those people or force consequences like a tax on them.  They're already being used.....I can't bring myself to pick their pockets.

Lack of cooking skills, lack of a functioning kitchen, lack of access to healthier alternatives..-and fast food is more convenient..even the fast food at the grocery store.

When you are malnourished, you feel constantly hungry - no matter how full you are.  They eat, because they are hungry.  They'd have to be capable of denying the most basic urge of all life.  Not just skipping the cake.  To be honest, the only way for them to get sufficient nourishment is to -be- fat..to overeat.  Consider the lens through which you are viewing this.

They're only the same issues when people describe them as such...using a shared language of buzzwords.  If we want to tax their lifestyle choice, fine.  You know as well as I that there are other "lifestyle choices".  I'll be honest, I haven't seen anything pro fat-tax that hasn't also been levied at them.  The afflicted have many choices, 99% of them bad.

Someone mentioned mental illness, along with other health conditions, and that it would only result in so much weight gain. I have to point out that is not true. Obesity can be a direct result of mental illness. Hugely obese people aren't paragons of mental health. If you go ahead and tie lack of access to good health care in with the other problems leading to obesity, you've got the U.S. in a nutshell.