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New York, 5:12 AM
Fri Nov 27
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/16/09
But they will buy it. God knows, they will buy it.
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But they should introduce lifestyle changes at the same time. You have to think of being overweight as a disease. Similar to someone with diabetes, you're never going to be able to eat exactly the same way again.
07/16/09
"Virtually everyone who is overweight would be better off at a lower weight," said Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health. "There’s been this misconception, fostered by the weight-is-beautiful groups, that weight doesn’t matter. But the data are clear."
No one is going to be able to live on a grapefruit diet indefinitely, which is why the person featured in the lede failed. You have to make lifestyle changes that last the rest of your life.
If you're seriously overweight, it's a long and difficult road, but it is possible. I don't believe that medical doctors with no stake in the weight-loss industry would continue to urge people to lose weight were that not the case.
07/16/09
'dieting' IS the enemy, that doesn't mean the obese should give up on losing weight, however. they need to hit the therapists couch instead of the next BS diet.
diets have never worked. and most obese people would rather blame the diet rather than get clinical therapeutic help find out WHY they're eating themselves into diabetes, heart disease, back, joint and hip problems, depression and hormonal dysfunction.
it's not just the food, people. it's the BRAIN.
07/16/09
My weight fluctuates like crazy and it's better when I go to the gym because I'm focused on what my body can do rather than what it looks like.
Also, diets don't work for me because they lead to a feeling of failure that just encourages more binge eating. When I focus on how the food makes my body feel, I'm more in tune with myself and will make better choices. Then it's about taking care of myself instead of punishment if I eat "bad foods."
If this all sounds like nonsense to you, then be glad that you don't have hangups about food and body image. A lot of people do. I don't think it's healthy to be overweight and the "fat acceptance" crowd usually goes too far in my opinion, but I also think that chastising people for being fatty-fatty-fat-fats doesn't help either.
Also, can we end this notion that I see popping up in the comments that all people who are overweight don't go to the gym? Every week I get at least an hour of spinning, an hour of pilates and an hour of belly dancing (hey, if you have one, use it, I say). That's my minimum.
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http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/
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I'm not going to accept a lot of things I don't like about other people and that's my perogative. Whether it's their conservative political views or their tendency to wear Crocs. If I accepted everyone, oh the raggedy group of friends I would have!
AND these fatties always squeeze me on the subway and buses. They see I'm not quite taking up my whole seat so they squeeze in beside me. And I can't breathe. When that stops happening on a daily basis maybe I'll be in a better mood. I don't need them with more power than they already have. The power of suffocating me. Enough is enough.
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I didn't say the loss of knowledge is the main factor. But I do think that we can deal with this ONLY with a combination of education from a young age and fewer character judgments based on one's size.
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The sudden rise in obesity among the general public, which to my knowledge has never really happened before in human history, should indicate that the problem isn't as simple as calling fat people lazy and irresponsible. What, do you think that Americans used to be aware and responsible about their health and weight up until the 1980s, and then spontaneously and collectively gave up? Much bigger factors must be behind the obesity epidemic, and those are what we should be focused on rooting out and fixing. Placing the blame on fat people themselves only distracts from finding real solutions.
07/16/09
Instead of trying to change ME just put down the donut and we'll all get along.
07/16/09
And they can't accept my unacceptance. Now who is intolerant? Hmmmm?
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Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, now is it?
And my personality is actually quite sunny by New York standards.
07/16/09
Well said. Of course you're being attacked for being "conservative" and "judgmental" and "vitriolic."
Where's the vitriol? What did you say that isn't the simple truth?
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The personal is cheek-by-jowl with the political. We have an over-burdened, outrageously expensive health care system and millions of people are militantly abandoning the responsibility of taking care of themselves. Obesity causes health problems and aggravates others.
07/16/09
You have a classic New York personality. You don't suffer gladly fools and people who make lame excuses.
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Thank you, skahammer! Forget my remark below about the ad hominem argument.
Should get out of here and do something productive and physical.
07/16/09
Thanks. Fortunately, I don't know what she's* talking about.
*Only a woman would call herself a "cat," right?
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Next time, try being less cryptic.
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and on your face...
and on your shirt.
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Why is it that obesity rates have tripled since 1980, but somehow it is now no one's fault, and we have to have pity parties for people who can't help themselves? Not all of 'em have genetic issues or big bones. Dammit, I am so sick of the victimization of everyone who doesn't want to put themselves through a minimum of discomfort. Did you molest a kid or rob a bank? It must have been your awful childhood! Did you not study or do homework? It must be your background - social promotion fory ou! Are you obese, even morbidly so? Then sit back on the Barcalounger and accept it!
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Just because it's convenient and cheap doesn't mean you should EAT it. And McDonald's can put all the "healthy" stuff it wants on the menu. No one is going there for the salad.
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If you're pissed about obesity, then you should also be pissed about poverty, and the issues of healthy food availability in poor and rural communities.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040105071229.htm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/50785.php
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Here's my answer to the people who complain about "having to pay for so-and-so's healthcare"...
Do you drink alcohol?
Take drugs?
Eat candy?
Smoke?
Have sex with different people?
Ride a motorcycle?
Go boating?
Play sports?
Lift weights?
Eat greasy food?
Go hiking/camping?
Hunt or shoot firearms?
Walk on icy sidewalks?
Ride a bicycle?
Travel outside the U.S.?
Go swimming at the beach?
Sunbathe?
Drive a car?
Ride in a car?
We're all pretty much a walking collection of risk factors. Deal with it.
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I differentiate, though, between three-times-a-day eating, and weekly-or-monthly hiking, drinking, sunbathing, etc. The numbers are too huge - 2/3 of the population is overweight. Only 25% of Americans even hold a passport, much less use it to travel abroad a lot. It isn't the fact of risk, it is the tremendous frequency with which the obese take the risk.
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Determining how often people engage in risky behavior would be a ridiculously expensive undertaking. And how do you determine how often someone smokes? Or drives? Or goes hang-gliding?
07/16/09
But look, I respect your comments on other topics and I'll level with you on this one: Why do you take such an interest in other people's personal health regimens? I mean, the main change I'd like to see in other folks' personal lives is that they stop birthing so many children of their own, especially if they subscribe to various schools of institutionalized hatred that their children will be compelled to subscribe to or fight against. But I don't pretend that this is a viable public policy, or anything more than one person's idle utopian dream, because the more important fact is that I benefit enormously from living in a free country and everyone else deserves to derive about the same degree of benefit from it.
So if folks are on the large side, I'm not convinced it's even productive for others to inquire into why -- whether it's genes or personal choice or whatever. The folks who carry that weight probably know what it feels like, what the risks are, and where it comes from much better than I do. I can accept that they're the ones who should make the decisions regarding what to do about it. If that policy winds up costing the public fisc a hefty extra sum, well, there's always that bloated, corpulent, gluttonous, blimp of a $500 billion defense budget to, ahem, put on a diet.
But I'm really asking here: Have you always been this interested in the personal regimens of the folks around you?
07/16/09
I also work very hard at being healthy, since I am actually one of the few people who has an actual medical condition that causes lots of weight gain (my primary MD is an endocrinologist). But I was able to get into shape by eating right and exercising, as well as taking an insulin-regulating medication.
For the overwhelming majority of overweight people, it's only a matter of deciding to eat less and move more, and stop making lameass excuses.
I know that many overweight people have lots of emotional issues that drive them to eat, and I have much sympathy for them, but they have to admit it and do something about it. There is NOTHING healthy about being fat.
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It is not just "the fats" or whomever. What riles me on this or any topic is the idea that people do not have responsibility. That they just can't help themselves. My dad (and his father before him) worked like fucking dogs to make sure our family had food, that we studied and didn't goof off; that we had chores and then summer jobs after that because he wasn't going to shell out for us to buy trinkets, go out, etc. That we respected other people AND ourselves.
So what I HATE about what has happened over the last, say, 15 years is watching society forgive destructive behavior, or chalk it up to something the person "can't control" - be it drug overdoses, unplanned pregnancies, visits to "soul mates" in Argentina, inability to control weight - whatever. My family came over pretty recently on a boat and didn't speak English - yet somehow, worked hard at the most menial jobs and learned English at night so that they could support themselves and not take from their relatives or the system.
There is no pride anymore in working hard or a job well done anymore. Everyone right out of college wants a serious job with major responsibilities, even though they have minimal real-world experience - work your way up? I deserve to be there already! Or there's others who want to be celebrities and will literally prostitute themselves (if not from accidentally "leaked" sex tapes, then from outrageous BS on any reality show who'll take them).
Sorry for the long post. It's the whole "I want something for nothing" culture that gets me. Sorry. Really.
07/16/09
Listen, I hear what you're saying about personal responsibility, and, personally, I may agree with you. However, legislatively, I just don't understand what you want? I mean, why not target gun owners, too? Or, bicyclists? (both as Botswana mentions above). If you don't plan on having children, should you get a discount? Do I get tax credits for the amount of steps I can record on a pedometer every day?
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I wonder if I could convince you that the issue here isn't the mental states of the overweight. I can only speculate about this, but it seems to me that few folks are completely indifferent to being overweight, or think it's just fine. The issue instead is what is the optimal influence that other folks can have via their attitudes. Given the difficulty of parsing individual risk factors, I suggest that the best role for us other folks is a small one, consisting mostly of positive reinforcement. That's how we'll have the greatest positive effect.
Beyond that, though, people's personal habits are pretty much their own business. Look at it this way: Suppose I wanted to inquire into and then evaluate one of your personal habits -- your decision to have children -- according to my own personal values. How much interest would you have in my opinion about that?
07/16/09
I'm sure I'm just whistling Dixie here, but granting victimhood to the overweight and subsidizing them strikes me as the opposite of what universal healthcare should stand for - making sure those who need it get it. edited to add - of course, if you don't have children or engage in high-risk behavior, of course you should get a break for that. It's what auto insurance does.
07/16/09
Your point is quite valid. A lot of the people eating at McDonald's can't afford much better, and it's convenient. More education and healthier alternatives are required.
But I don't think the people quoted in the NYT article are poor.
07/16/09
I have overweight people in my family who were once thin. They buy a LOT of food, the wrong kind. An evil genie did not blink and make them fat overnight.
07/16/09
Some of those risks are unavoidable, say, driving a car if you live in a city that has no mass transit. You still can minimize the risk by wearing a seatbelt or driving with care.
Being overweight is a risk inflicted by people on themselves every single day in full knowledge of the consequences, which are certain, not speculative, as in some of the situations you suggested.
I actually don't score all that high on that list. If an insurer wanted to charge you more because you choose to engage in riskier behavior than I do, I think that's fair. But in a public system, we all will pay.
07/16/09
Exactly.
07/16/09
As FormerEnglishMajor said, it's the frequency that matters. People who are engaged in high risk fields have higher premiums.
By contrast,the state of being unhealthily overweight is not hard to monitor. How about you can't climb a flight of stairs without gasping?
07/16/09
OK, so you're lower on the "BMC FC List of Risk Factors," what if, despite ALL that careful lifestyle pruning, you STILL end up getting cancer because of your genetics. Should we go back and charge you fees for that? What's the point of even having health insurance if we're just gonna charge people for their risk factors?
Besides, I have a hard time with this whole idea that fatties somehow are pulling one over on the rest of us.
Being fat has to suck. I'd MUCH rather just be healthy and not NEED medical care. I'm not jealous of the guy who's getting all the healthcare. I don't care HOW FREE you make it, I don't want to need it!
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Have you always been interested in ad hominem arguments? That's what this is, if put more politely than usual. Millions of people care about this. It has wide-ranging consequences.
And parents who raise their kids with poor eating and exercise habits are evil.
07/16/09
Note that I'm just arguing the "public attitudes" side of this dispute, but my contention is that these ad-hominem attacks are also inappropriate on the policy side of the argument. (Although I don't have similarly strong views about the policy argument's other, more technical components -- some of which may in fact be good ways of grappling with the complex questions there.)
07/16/09
Where we disagree (and I feel this way about much of the whole "my bad things need to be accepted" Kumbaya stuff) is that I don't think giving positive reinforcement for bad behavior is a plus. If someone is overweight - and Go Like Hell Machine, I absolutely do believe gastric bypass should be covered if a patient on his or her own voluntarily wants it - then shouldn't there be a carrot and stick approach - we'll get you coverage, you get help or you must contribute to your coverage?
It can't be all "oh, it's OK". If you give someone "reinforcement", isn't that - by definition - strengthening what s/he is doing? I think the fact that there ARE XXXL shirts, seatbelt extenders, super-sized ambulances and hospital beds, etc. are not positives that hooray the obese can now be accomodated. It's like we have given up. If it's unpleasant and a chore, we don't do it. It's flipping HARD to lose weight, it's HARD to find time to exercise. But the problem is that the consequences are YEARS down the road. So "positive reinforcement" is only compounding this (and what do I know, seriously!).
I'm all for giving some therapy to the overweight. But ultimately it's like quitting smoking - you have to want to do it. And from the legions of overweight people I see (and I travel a lot for business), people don't want to.
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I return to the example of childbearing. While I have strongly held views on whether bearing more than two children is optimal for society, I don't think it's my place to express those views to parents of three or more -- since those parents are the ones in the best position to judge the risks and benefits of their decision. It's just not my business, and making it my business goes against what a free country should be about (on the childbearing question, anyway).
Is there no way I can convince you that this analysis might also apply pretty well to the problem of the overweight?
07/16/09
No one is talking about penalizing people who have no control over their circumstances.
Sh*t happens: Unforeseen accidents, idiopathic illness, genetic defects for which there is no known cure.
But that is not the case with being seriously overweight. In this thread two doctors have said that it is possible for most people to lose weight and it's usually beneficial. The Harvard Public Health doctor quoted in the Times article said the same thing. They didn't say it was easy -- I don't think anybody does.
If healthcare were an unlimited resource, maybe it wouldn't be as much of a big deal if people who didn't take care of themselves placed a greater burden on the system. But it isn't unlimited and it is very expensive. Healthcare is rationed, and may be increasingly so in the future.
07/16/09
The people who are skeptical about "fat acceptance" usually are not against "wellness care," or education, or therapy.
07/16/09
I am not a fan of the fat acceptance groups either, but only because many of them insist that there is no health consequence to obesity. It flies in the face of science, which pisses me off. There is merit, however, to the idea of not actively discriminating against people because of their size. It's a complicated issue.
07/16/09
(FWIW, I also believe 2 kids should be it for people. It galls me to no end that there are women who have children for whom they cannot provide - financially and/or emotionally. Not to mention, there are too many claims on the world's resources; it is a pet peeve of mine, if you must know. But if you tell people they can't have kids, they'll scream eugenics.)
07/16/09
No, I'm setting the policy question aside because in my view it's too complex to address all possible risk factors here. I think the childbearing illustration applies here too, although Botswana's discussion of the complexity of weighing all risks is much more complete and convincing.
I'm just talking about attitudes. The obese aren't entitled to any particular attitude from others toward their obesity -- no positive reinforcement can be expected, etc. But they're still entitled to a certain minimum respect for being people, which I think we can agree they are. And in my view that "minimum respect" includes a certain level of acknowledgment that many lifestyle choices are personal, and not open to criticism by others, even the constructive kind. Smoking, drinking, obesity, childbearing, drug use, risky sexual behavior -- a wide range of activities fits in this category, in my opinion. As an outsider, I try to limit any comments I offer on these habits -- and when I do comment, I try to limit myself to positive comments made in response to positive lifestyle changes. But I try not to judge the decisions that differ from what I would choose for myself, unless my opinion is somehow solicited or implicated. I figure everyone deserves that minimum amount of respect from me.
07/16/09
It is indeed complicated. In defense of FomerEnglishMajor, fat people do their share of ranting.
07/16/09
I was responding to the post, where Cajun boy wrote: Yes, it's perfectly okay for people to engorge themselves silly every day as long as they can trick themselves into believing that their bloated bodies are "normal" .
This is a place for Comments that are made specific to the post at hand, ergo I Commented.
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I'm not partial to either type of rant, but I find the smugness and judgment in the thin people rants more grating.
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Old XL shirts are the same size as new L shirts.
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