Maher/Corden and obesity

[EgoDeath]

And, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as personal responsibility (or dietitians would be out of a job), but the people in this thread who have been insinuating that the solution to the maddeningly complex and multifaceted epidemic of obesity in America is: “fatties need to put down the fork” are demonstrating their bold-faced ignorance of the subject. You’re no better than the Trump supporters who say the solution to poverty in America is: “all the lazy people need to just get a job.” The guy I described above isn’t even the worst of what I’ve seen. Not even close.

That's not fair at all. No one is in here saying "fatties need to put down the fork," or anything close to it. That's completely disingenuous.

I don't think anyone is denying the complex issues that contribute to weight gain, or to someone failing to build the motivation to lose weight. Obviously, at least to me, the obesity epidemic in this country is an issue that runs much deeper than food. I think we have issues with mental health in this country that are largely ignored, and I would argue that people who are obese, and plenty who are overweight, are probably using food as a mechanism for comfort, and not just blindly eating too much without realizing it, or ignorantly eating unhealthy foods (though I'm sure that happens in plenty of cases too). It doesn't mean everyone is completely aware of what they're doing either, and that's part of the problem as well.

However, this doesn't deny the simple fact that if you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Analyzing the problem to death doesn't change that. If someone needs to get help for depression or something, great. Go do that, more power to you. Tackling the deeper issues behind the overeating is probably gonna help someone, so that's fine. But at some point, a person has to decide what is important to them. I have to ask the over-eater, "What kind of person do you want to be?"

Do you want to be the person who overeats because they're depressed? And then in turn feels more depressed about themselves, causing more overeating? If so, continue on the cycle you're on. Or, do you want to take control of your life, start eating healthy, tracking your calories and getting some daily exercise in?

At the end of the day, it truly does come down to a simple decision. No one is saying it's easy. I know that just as well as anyone else. It's hard work. And it takes a lot of persistence; I almost gave up a couple dozen times, but I didn't. It is, however, simple.

I really do feel bad for people. But we cannot take away the concept of personal responsibility, and that's what a lot of this talk sounds like. It sounds like a way to excuse the behavior, and that, if anything, is condescending. People have the power to choose.

Grown adults who decide to continue the patterns of behavior that are making their lives worse should not expect anything other than what they've gotten before. In other words, if you keep eating unhealthy foods and keep deciding to not exercise, you deserve to be fat, and shouldn't be surprised when you have a host of health complications later in life because of it.

Treating people like they're too stupid or unaware to make their own decisions is so fucking condescending. And in your mind, people like me who are saying, "hey, you have the power to change, get up and move" are the ones looking down on people? LOL that's funny.