I have to point out - the thread that spawned this one was about a rude woman who flopped onto her seat mate.
I must say - I really don’t care what anyone weighs - none of my business, really. BUT when someone’s overweightness is sitting in my lap it’s difficult not to obsess.
YaknowatImean?
I know I’m coming in here late, but I’ve been following this.
Lay off of Coldfire. He hasn’t posted anything offensive, and he’s making a lot of sense. Calm down and re-read what he wrote.
I’m also getting tired of all the “stop obsessing over other people’s weight” posts.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The only one “obsessing over your weight” is you. The rest of us just don’t care. I would care if you were a family member or a close friend and had health issues relating to your obesity, but you’re not, and I don’t.
It only becomes an issue for me when you try to make your problem my problem. Why is that so hard to understand?
If anyone has the time, I would also request an explanation of why “intake less expenditure equals storage” is not accurate, because I thought I had a pretty firm understanding of the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Exgineer, that only works if you define “intake” as “metabolized intake”. The body passes some stuff through without making use (or full use) of it. When people are on the Atkins diet and their urine and breath starts to stink? That’s ketones, which are not being fully broken down for all the energy they could yield before they leave the system.
The First Law remains intact, but it applies only to closed systems.
Thank freeking god, Exgineer, I have read this thread through and the entire time I have been curious how a human could create mass.
I am not sure what point you are trying to make, ENugent, with regard to the first law of thermodynamics.
If something was passed unused then it did not create or deplete mass, it simply passed through the system. Perhaps I have not understood your point??
If this and Alice’s responses were posted in my general direction…Alice, tell me. How many times has this happened to you? Did the large person apologize for the space they were taking? Would you be as upset if it were an oxygen tank incringing into your space?
And Exgineer, personally, I don’t obsess over my weight. I go about my life and listen (on a regular basis) to people who know nothing about my medical history come up to tout their particular brand of snake oil. And I am polite, and I thank them for their interest. And I refuse to buy whatever it is that they sell. (Anybody remember the Metabolife MLM scam? “Lose Weight Now, Ask Me How” They didn’t die, they just found a new scam.)
As I said earlier, wouldn’t it be nice if all this thought and energy went toward a good cause??
And Exgineer?? Why do you object to the dialogue? Are not fat people allowed to express an opinion? (Yes, I AM taunting you. Start a discussion and then get bent when the topic doesn’t go your way…that’s one thing, but YOU didn’t even start this one.) I don’t think I was being mean or dismissive to Coldfire, nor was anyone else. I don’t think your valiant defense is necessary.
I do think that the American Public, as an entity, concentrates too much on externals, appearances, and not enough on substance.
Also, “calories in = calories out” only works if you burn the food, since that’s the definition of a calorie. Last I checked, that’s not how my body worked. To assume we all process food at the same efficiency level is probably not realistic. Cars don’t process gasoline at the same effeciency, so why would we?
And even without ketones, one only need check the toilet to know that our bodies aren’t a closed system. I won’t comment about the detail of eating corn. 
“calories in - calories out” works no matter how you get energy from food.
I am fat, no doubt about it. I have never been on a diet, I exercise for my mental health but seriously, I love food and I don’t give a damn about my size. I do not consider myself lazy or undiciplined, I just do not care about this aspect of my life one iota. I know lots of folks on diets and seriously, I don’t see the point. Food is too damned good and I really have no great desire to live to 103 anyway.
I do care about impinging on other people though and was recently mortified after inviting another doper to a concert with me to find that our primo front row seats were temporary seating, very narrow chairs locked together, no arm rests. Poor chap spent the evening on an uncomfortable angle while I tried to hold myself in. I will not go to that venue again without ensuring a spare seat between myself and my companion. I would have been as embarrassed had the performance been bad or the floor sticky.
Normal theatre seats are fine, I carry weight in an unwomanly way and most of it is in in bum, thighs and forward thrusting belly controlled by armrests in that scenario or indeed on aeroplanes where the only real inconvenience is the damned headphone jack sticking into my own thigh. If I did find myself spilling over I would pay for an upgrade, no question.
You may look at me as a loser or undisciplined or lazy if you wish but reality is I have other priorities. If my weight offends you that is your problem. Not mine. I do not engage.
I suppose growing up being called dyke! at every turn trained me well. You will not guilt me into changing this, I am completely unrepentant and I know exactly how much that annoys the stuffing out of some folks. Tough.
Shoot, this is probably gonna double post, but I need to explain more.
“calories in - calories out” (c[sub]i[/sub] - c[sub]o[/sub]) works no matter how you get energy from food. Furthermore, that’s only one half of the equation. The other is “energy change” ([symbol]D[/symbol]E). If the human body were a closed system, no weight change would be possible. Fortunately, it’s not.
That’s where we stand. [symbol]D[/symbol]E = c[sub]i[/sub] - c[sub]o[/sub]. Makes sense, if you think about it. Whatever excess calories you take in (i.e., process) are stored, and when you need to expend more calories than you’ve taken in, you have to dip into those stores.
That is the first law of thermodynamics, so there’s not much room to dispute it.
The human body is most definitely not a closed system, and I don’t recall claiming it was.
If you want to talk systems, we’ll talk systems. Take your body as an open system and place the control volume boundary at your skin.
Fuel goes in. Said fuel is burned or stored. Energy output from the control volume is mechanical work (excercise and normal movement) or heat (metabolic processes and everything else). Waste products come out. That’s pretty much it.
The energy balance looks like this:
(calories consumed) - (unused calories excreted) = (calories expended) + (storage)
First Law of Thermodynamics. It’s inviolate.
Some people here also seem to think that nutrient requirements are somehow tied to caloric content, which is not necessarily the case.
Well said Ultrafilter. But, what I am curious about is ThatDDperson. I am quite sure this would be documented in journal articles–would ThatDDperson be so kind as to share the journal article and name?
I just re-read my post, and it’s a lot more harsh than I meant it to be. I’m not unsympathetic to the problem, because I had it.
“Eat less and excercise more” is, in fact, an oversimplification. It should be something more like “consume fewer calories, and expend more energy.” A kilocalorie is just a unit of measurement of energy.
That really is the bottom line, and there’s no way around it.
This part of my post:
“Some people here also seem to think that nutrient requirements are somehow tied to caloric content, which is not necessarily the case.”
was unclear.
What I meant was “the nutritive quality of food is not necessarily tied to it’s caloric content.”
Sorry, I didn’t mean your name ThatDDperson, just the name of the journal and the article.
I used to have one rule with regards to the threads I decided to read (and/or post in) on these boards. It was a clear guidline, and one I still adhere to: Avoid questioning an individual’s faith in a relgious belief. Faith, in my opinion is something you either have or you don’t. (That didn’t mean I couldn’t question or give an opinion on blind fanaticism, it just meant I refused to say to a specific person, "it makes absolutely no sense to me why you believe A while I believe B).
I used to make broad, sweeping generalizations on just about any subject, (and still do from time to time). That included several somewhat nasty posts in the usual round of obesity threads that pop up every now and again.
Sure, I mocked The man who was so large he couldn’t urinate like an average sized male. It was unbelievable to me at first, but a big target nonetheless.
And yes, I chimed in on this ditty…Entitled: Eat another pie, fatty I was just trying to be helpful. (Even though I’m posting here, I realize being helpful is not the main purpose of The Pit).
I still remember the Airlines charging extra for “large” fliersthread and how so many people had so little to say.
I saw a thread just today at work asking men, “What wouldn’t boink even if offerded a million british pounds?” or some such nonsense. But, similar to driving past a car accident, I did read the posts. Aaaah, I said to myself, you already posted your opinions about body size here and there.
I know why I feel the way I do about obesity (and in some cases gluttony). It’s the way our Mom raised us. She hates no one, she just started teaching us at a very young age that, “the heavier you are the harder life is”.
I stopped posting my opinions, rants, what have you, the day I came across an older thread about Bariatric weight loss surgery. I was going to relay a 2nd hand account about what my employer’s experiences had been with his operation, but decided after reading so many of the posts that I’d be best off keeping my mouth shut.
A few things I read there made me realize that no matter what the cause, I’d be best off including “No more obesity threads” to my list of taboo subjects.
Things like
From a nice & sincere person who’s super intelligent and who’s post I always enjoy whenever I come across them.
and
From someone, who (though a self-described slacker according to her screen name) made me feel guilty for my tendency to shy away from larger people.
I guess in these mundane “Fat vs. Thin” wars, I’ll continue bowing out…it’s not worth yelling and fighting over.
Let’s try this again. The thread that spawned this thread was a person complaining that a woman had put her gerth in the OP’s lap.
The OP was chastized for complaining.
YOU think about this for a moment - If YOU were on a flight and I plopped my purse/bad/leg/shoes on YOUR lap, would you be annoyed?
How about if I plopped my oxygen tank/wheelchair/seeing eye dog IN YOUR LAP? Would you find it uncomfortable?
Yes?
Then why the hell can’t the original OP be annoyed by someone else’s STOMACH sitting on her lap?
This really has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with weight - it has to do with respect.
When flying you DON’T PUT YOUR SHIT ON OTHER PASSENGERS whether it’s your handbag or your belly.
This doesn’t seem like a difficult concept. Really. It doesn’t.
It was the early 70’s, long ago, and I don’t know that Dr Leiser actually published anything about it.
I said originally that I did NOT have a cite. 30 plus years of medical journals are out there, and I wouldn’t know which one to look in or what issue/year. JAMA? Annals of Endocrinology? Any of a hundred other medical journals…I do know that he had never had another patient like me, and I don’t know that he ever had another one after me.
Sorry, I just don’t ascribe that much importance to medical information from over 30 years ago.
I could probably dig up some journal references to my being the longest surviving victim of bilateral ovarian carcinoid cancer (not by name, they don’t do that) but I really don’t want to spend the money on a Medscape search.
And I truly doubt that journal articles from 30 years ago would be available on line.
Sorry, keturah. (I had a friend in college named Keturah. I have always thought that it was a lovely name. She chose to go by Katie, however.)
I understand.
I asked HOW MANY TIMES IT HAD HAPPENED TO YOU.
I know what the OP said. I asked YOU a series of questions. It goes under the guise of dialogue, you know, I ask a question, you answer a question and possibly ask another one??
This doesn’t seem like a difficult concept. Really. It doesn’t.
That was snotty. Sorry. I’m new. Is dialogue forbidden, or merely passed over in favor of attitude?
Well D, had you read both threads in their entirety you would see that I had mentioned numerous times that I’ve flown beside large people and never had them encroach on my space.
Also, you would see that I’m one of the first people to point out when others are being insensitve and rude to other people based on their size.
Had you read some other threads you would see that my mother in fact has a weight issue due to hypothyroidism and I’m horrified at the thought that some ignorant shit might make a mean-rude comment to her or descriminate against her based on her size.
So, the short answer is no, I’ve never had another passenger put their stomach on me. Arm - yes. Knee - yes. Foot on my pants - yes. Stomach - no.
I have, however, had people be rude to me. I’ve had them try to encroach on me in other ways.
The person on the bus that won’t move their bag so someone else can sit.
How about the person who butts in line at a movie or a store.
Then there’s the person who parks taking up two parking stalls in a crowded lot.
Finally, there is the woman on the plane, who, with complete disregard for the person who was going to sit beside her, moved the arm rest and arranged herself in such a way that MOL was squished in her seat.
The thing these people have in common is that they are rude, not that they are large, small, tall, sort or elf sized.
I’m delighted that you’ve decided to point your sword at the fatists and the sizests that exist in the world. However, I am not the person to point it at.
If you want to argue about rudeness, by all means.
If you want to aruge about sizeism or fatism I’m afraid you obviously haven’t read enough of my posts if you conclude that I’m either of those things.
Thankyouverymuch.
Oh and BTW, welcome to the SDMB. 
Agreed. But the most common way to analyze diet seems to be to look at (calories consumed) - (calories expended at basal metabolic rate) - (calories associated with exercise). Positive = weight gain; negative = weight loss. All I’m sayin’ is that you also have to subtract (unused calories excreted), and usually people ignore that step. If all diets caused you to excrete about the same amount of unused calories, you might be able to roll that factor into BMR, but in fact, they don’t.
OK, now I’m confused. Energy requirements are tied to caloric content; requirements for other nutrients (e.g., vitamins) are not, except that if you eat foods that have more other nutrients per calorie, you have a better shot at getting everything you need without excess calorie consumption. Is that what you mean?