The obesity 'pandemic'

[BlaqueKatt]

it also does not take a high level of activity to produce positive effects. 15-20 minutes of exercise a day is usually enough to make a person healthier.

The thing is, just because something works for YOU does not mean it will work for everyone, yet everyone and their cousin feels compelled to say that oh, it is just exactly this easy, for everyone, all the time.

hmm as far as I'm aware basic human biology proves that 15-20 minutes of exercise a day will make someone healthier. And that does go for everyone, all the time-biology usually does.

remember healthier: enjoying health and vigor* of body, mind, or spirit

antonym-sick

not as you seem to be assuming....which appears to be healthier=thinner-it does not-being health means the absence of illness-so a thin person with a cold is less healthy than a heavier person without one.

I'm healthier than my sister at the moment, not because she is overweight, but because she has whooping cough. Once she's done with her antibiotics she'll be just as healthy as I am. If I catch the flu next week once she's done with her antibiotics-guess what, she'll be healthier....


*vig·or
active strength or force.

[ladyneeva]

I am not the one who assumes thin=healthy. Rather, it is society as a whole (including at least three people in this thread) who assume fat=unhealthy.

Basic human biology my ass. I've seen studies and been harped on by internet MDs such as yourself, and been bitched at by doctors my whole life and damn near every single one of them has a different magic formula that will "cure" me.

Everything from the 30 minutes once a week that was the in thing to harp on when I was in grade school, to a study in November of 08 that said roughly 30% of European derived Caucasians would require 3-4 hours *a day* in order to maintain any meaningful weight loss.

Everyone requires a different amount of exercise and food in order to become or maintain 'average' weight. And for some people, the amount of exercise required is exorbitant and the amount of food allowed is insufficient. They should not be subjected to either punishment or pity because of that since, for the most part, they are as healthy as anyone else most of the time.

As far as reporting offensive posts... yeah. That does a lot of good. Because it's totally ok to say that an entire group of people are any demeaning, dehumanizing stereotype you care to use, but heaven forbid you actually call an asshole an asshole. I guess people who are part of a group aren't allowed to have feelings or anything.

[MaggieTheCat]

Could someone please tell me where Crazedclerk ever said that 15-20 minutes of exercise a day would make you THINNER? He stated that it would make you HEALTHIER. How is taking a 15 minute walk every day not a good thing for anyone? Even if you don't lose ANY weight from it -- which he never claimed in the first place, as far as I can tell -- it will still help your body in other ways. You'll get fresh air and stretch your legs and work your lungs and heart, even just a little bit, making them stronger. All of those things are good for your body, even if you don't lose an ounce of weight in the process.

Also, I'm failing to see where BK ever stated or even implied that fat=unhealthy. She even explicitly states thin people can be less healthy that fat people depending on the circumstances (illness, etc.)

[Nyoibo]

Everyone requires a different amount of exercise and food in order to become or maintain 'average' weight. And for some people, the amount of exercise required is exorbitant and the amount of food allowed is insufficient.

If a person is maintaining their weight then the amount of food is not insufficient, if the amount of food you're eating is insuficient then you will start to loose weight and eventually muscle tone. insufficient for their appetite perhaps.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Could someone please tell me where Crazedclerk ever said that 15-20 minutes of exercise a day would make you THINNER? He stated that it would make you HEALTHIER. How is taking a 15 minute walk every day not a good thing for anyone? Even if you don't lose ANY weight from it -- which he never claimed in the first place, as far as I can tell -- it will still help your body in other ways. You'll get fresh air and stretch your legs and work your lungs and heart, even just a little bit, making them stronger. All of those things are good for your body, even if you don't lose an ounce of weight in the process.

Also, I'm failing to see where BK ever stated or even implied that fat=unhealthy. She even explicitly states thin people can be less healthy that fat people depending on the circumstances (illness, etc.)

Thank you! My comments were with regards to general health.

Weight loss is another matter. There are no magic potions or pills for weight loss but the basic formula for weight loss is using up more energy than you take in, forcing your body to use fat stores to cover the difference.

Usually people who want to lose weight make a point of cutting calories and increasing activity level. Having said that, it can be very challenging for someone to cut back calorie count. You will endure times of intense hunger that you must learn to fight.

Diets can work, but if you are talking about taking it off and keeping it off you need fullscale lifestyle changes, not a short term diet.

My concern is that soceitally we don't really motivate people to lose weight and be healthy as much as we motivate them to eat plenty of junk food and spend their time fiddling with the newest laptop or cell phone or Xbox 360 instead of being active.

[AdminAssistant]

You will endure times of intense hunger that you must learn to fight.

Yeah, you know what? I'm not willing to go through intense hunger and sugar crashes to better fit society's idea of what I should look like. I'd rather stay a bit overweight.

[Rapscallion]

As far as reporting offensive posts... yeah. That does a lot of good. Because it's totally ok to say that an entire group of people are any demeaning, dehumanizing stereotype you care to use, but heaven forbid you actually call an asshole an asshole. I guess people who are part of a group aren't allowed to have feelings or anything.

As a general rule, if someone mentions a person's size once in a way we consider to be non-derogatory, then that's setting the scene.

"I was in a queue at the fast food joint, and I could barely see around the huge guy in front of me, but I could hear the SC loud and clear" - perfectly fine.

A post that harps on about someone's weight is going to get trimmed to within an inch of its life. "Land whale," "Hambeast" etc - not going to cut it.

We often get them before people see them, but some (usually from non-moderated posters past the new user moderation) get through, and we don't see them all. Of course, we don't expect someone to have too thin a skin and report anything that could be even remotely offensive. We aim at a middle ground between taking too much offence and giving too much offence.

I can't remember a reported post about weight in some time. Sounds like it's easier to curse the darkness than to light a candle.

Rapscallion

[bhskittykatt]

Throwing my two cents out there.

As someone who lost 65 lbs last year (and is still shrinking), I can tell you that if it was as simple as cutting calories and exercising more, we wouldn't even be talking about this issue. Sleep, stress, and cultural influences play huge roles. Don't even get me started on how food manufacturers taylor their products to give the highest "bliss point" to get people hooked so they keep people hooked on buying their products. Just because one is overweight doesn't mean they are lazy slobs. I worked hard at my career, my home, my social life...I wasn't by any means lazy, the problem was I wasn't taking the time to work hard at myself.

Obesity is a big problem, though, especially in America. Rates of obesity-related diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are on the rise. Projections based on BMI may not accurately reflect how much of the population is actually overweight, but when we look at other factors such as obesity-related diseases, it's clearly a growing problem (pardon the pun). At least here in the states, I think "pandemic" is an appropriate term.

One thing is certain: fat biases and stereotypes won't help. People don't need to be told they're lazy, smelly, fat slobs. That doesn't motivate anyone, and in fact can have the opposite effect. What people need is positive support and encouragement to make healthy lifestyle changes.

[ladyneeva]

Why light a candle when it'll just be blown out? By, for example, claiming that derogatory imagery is just "setting the scene".

Sure, walking will make you healthier, maybe, a little bit. But being "healthier" will not reduce the amount of hate you are subjected to, which is what I'm talking about. It won't make a health insurance company offer you the same rate as a thin person who is LESS "healthy" that way than you are. It won't keep you from being kicked off a plane. It won't keep your every comment on any subject from being dismissed with "yeah well, cheetos!" or other similar assumptions.

Being healthier in a culture that worships thin at any cost is worth exactly nothing. Absolute best case, it just means you have to live longer with the same bullshit.

[MaggieTheCat]

Why light a candle when it'll just be blown out?

*snip snip*

Being healthier in a culture that worships thin at any cost is worth exactly nothing. Absolute best case, it just means you have to live longer with the same bullshit.

Wow, what a great attitude to take. Why should people bother trying to do a little something to make themselves feel better? For that matter, why should people even bother getting out of bed every day? They're just going to have to face the big bad world and the end result will be the same for everyone eventually. Why don't we all just lay down and die now and save ourselves the misery?

[Rapscallion]

Why light a candle when it'll just be blown out? By, for example, claiming that derogatory imagery is just "setting the scene".

Giving up before you even try and then condemning people anyway? That's like not voting and then feeling you have every right to complain about the politicians you end up with.

You also ignored what I wrote. We edit more posts than you realise. This isn't enough, is it?

My standard offer remains. There are plenty of free options out there for running a forum. Invisionfree is one such offer. Hosting can be fairly cheap if you're looking for something like phpBB (a relatively low CPU board software, but also open source and free). Try it.

Seriously - try it.

You'd get eaten alive.

Rapscallion

[iradney]

As far as reporting offensive posts... yeah. That does a lot of good. Because it's totally ok to say that an entire group of people are any demeaning, dehumanizing stereotype you care to use, but heaven forbid you actually call an asshole an asshole. I guess people who are part of a group aren't allowed to have feelings or anything.

I am a mod on CS.com - you have no idea how many posts we have edited, and infractions have been given for that type of "generalising" behaviour.
It's kind of like a duck in water - it's all serene on the surface, but below, there's a frenzy of activity. We work damn hard to make sure that CS.com is a welcoming site, but we are not allknowing, allseeing, allpowerful beings. If a post offends you, report it.

I am fat. Yes, I am actually THISCLOSE to obese - I am about 65 pounds overweight. Is it my fault? Yes. I ate too much junk food and didn't do anymore exercise other than walk to and from my car. I am losing weight, slowly but surely. How? Eating healthily (I still have a full plate of food, but instead of grease, I have veggies and grilled meats), and exercising. It's a simple formula -> energy in/energy out. If you consume e.g. 1800 calories in one day, and don't do any exercise other than your usual desk-job, then you will gain weight. If you consume 1800 calories and do an hour of exercise (walking, anaerobic etc), you will maintain your weight.

My fiance does body building. At his peak, he had to consume 12 000 calories in one day to MAINTAIN his weight, because his resting metabolism was so high. Why? Because of all the lean muscle he has.

I don't even know why I bothered typing all of this, as it will go straight over your head, and you will twist my words around to suit whatever mood you are currently in.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I will also state that a lot of people have a very warped idea of what "fat" is; especially in the modelling industry. "Oh, it's no wonder she can't get any work, she's covered with flab. She must be a size twelve!" "Urgh, thunder thighs; get yourself down to a zero or kiss goodbye to that modelling contract." Sadly, it's not just them; I've encountered a few men who believe that any woman who is bigger than a twelve is fat. I'm 5ft 9in. I'm an hourglass. If I were a ten, I'd be too thin... and my hips would still stick out, cuz that's what my body shape is. It's sad really, that people think this way; and this kind of mentality is probably one of the reasons why there are so many teenagers suffering from eating disorders.

[ladyneeva]

I am not "condemning" you. 99% of the time, the mods at both these sites do an excellent job. I'm saying that you appear to have a serious blind spot when it comes to references to people's appearance being used as a casual insult.

Take your 'setting the scene' example. No way a post that said "I couldn't see because there was a nigger in my way", or "I couldn't see because there was a faggot in my way" would be allowed to stand. Because the attitudes towards blacks and gays expressed by those sentences are vile and mostly because the race or orientation of the person blocking the poster's view is not relevant. But you said yourself, it would be ok to say that the guy blocking the poster was fat, thus implying that the reason the person was blocking their view was because they were fat. If someone is so fat that you can't simply take half a step to the side and see around them, it is unlikely that they would be able to support their own weight seeing as they'd need to be over a thousand pounds. I base this on the fact that I go to zoos a lot, and even if the hippo is rubbing it's ass on the exhibit fence 6" in front of my face, I've never had to step more than a couple inches to the side to see around them.

And a hippo is MUCH wider than even the fattest human who can still stand up without breaking their own legs.

Whats wrong with leaving physical descriptions out if they are not material to the story? The story there was not "there was this fat person and because he was fat, X happened". It's "there was a person standing in front of me, so I couldn't see". The person in line was not a fat cow, or a hambeast, etc.

Generally, the mods do a damn fine job, because on the few occasions I've seen someone use an epithet based on race, orientation, religion, etc... if I go back to that post it is almost always gone (the epithet, not the post though I think that happened once last year) or at the very least a mod will have posted that it's not appropriate to mention race if it had nothing to do with why that customer sucked (or whatever).

The hambeast references, the disgusting blob comments, the cheeto stained fingers too fat to press a phone keypad comments? Those are still there basically every time. I can't actually think of a single time a post with some derogatory casual insults either of a specific customer's appearance or of fat people in general has been edited when I've come back to it.

So either there isn't a single racist, homophobe, religiously prejudiced, etc user on the entire site-- which is highly highly HIGHLY unlikely given the anonymous nature of the internet.... or the moderation staff is very very good and on the ball.

And if we assume that the moderation staff is so good that nearly every racial/orientation/religious slur is edited out before anyone ever sees it and those that do slip past are removed within a day tops (which simple observation proves)... well, what other reason are people to draw for why appearance based slurs are allowed to stand other than that it is ok to insult people based on their appearance (and/or insult an entire group by using their appearance to infer some other negative quality like sloth or gluttony)?

--

As for the whole "we're just worried about health!" thing... if that were the case, and fat was not being near universally considered to be worse than illness, why is it called an OBESITY pandemic and not an "ill health" pandemic or an "unfit" pandemic or even a "people doing unhealthy things" pandemic?

Pretending that oh, of course you think discrimination is bad and you agree that fat people can be healthy... in a discussion about a topic whose very name includes the word obesity in a negative context (obesity epidemic/pandemic... war on obesity... etc) is kind of... well not very convincing.

Of course people are going to take "just exercise more!" to mean "if you exercise you'll lose weight and this is good because weight is bad!" when the topic under discussion is "should we as a society treat obese people the same way we treat a global outbreak of contagious disease" and not "should society become more fit".

Yes, people should have access to more and healthier food, have enough money to buy that food, and have enough time in a day to cook that food. Yes, people should get more exercise if they are physically able to and they should have enough time in a day to do so without having to skip other more important things like laundry, pet care, child care, sleep, etc, and enough money to go to a safe place to exercise in if their neighborhood is not safe. Nobody is ever or HAS ever argued against these things being good.

There are ways to promote those without shaming one group of people who may or may not do those things already anyway. It's just very condescending to make fat people prove over and over again that they DO eat well, they DO exercise, they ARE healthy before you'll deign to treat them like people first and fatties second. Thin/average people never have to reassure every single person they come in contact with that they eat well, exercise, and aren't sick. It's just assumed.

Thats really all most of us want. To actually have it be assumed that we're people first and unless we're actually stroking out in front of you that we're as relatively healthy as anyone else who is also not actually dying right then and there.

[Nyoibo]

Being blak or gay are things someone has no control over, appearace, more specifically being overweight is something people have control over (barring certain medical conditions) it is a lifestyle choice of either too little activity to offset the amount of food being eaten or refusing to decrease the amount of food being eaten to match the activity level, something that is a choice, especially one that is detrimental to your wellbeing will always be met with derision from others, if you choose to live that way then grow a thicker skin and deal with it.

Smokers get the same treatment, even on CS there's comments about them being nicotine stained smelly smoke stacks, but it's a lifestyle choice that is detrimental to their health, intentionally harming yourself boils down to basically being dumb.