phouka and slackergirl I’m a PCO chica too. Sucks, don’t it?
I carry around too much weight, and I almost always have. At the same time, I work out(I was running 3 miles a day, until I seriously injured my foot last year, now I either go to the complex pool and swim laps for an hour, or go to the workout room and spend quality time with machines). Yet, it’s very difficult for me to take weight off, and very easy to put it on.
I watch what I eat very carefully. I almost never step foot into a fast food restaurant. I rarely eat the full portion placed in front of me at a restaurant.
I finally accepted the fact that my weight will always be a struggle for me, and that society will always consider me overweight. But I have huge amounts of sympathy for obese people. Because I cannot know what led to their condition. And it’s not my place to judge them because of their weight.
*Originally posted by webmastr *
Today’s rant is the US and black people.
~snip~
And I get absolutely *sick to my stomach *when I go to the US and see the sheer percentage of people who are black.
I am not talking about ‘tanned’, or ‘dark’ or ‘colored’. Those, I can deal with. Hell, I am probably a shade too dark myself.
No, I am talking about the black. The black. The tanned, the darks the coloreds. In the US, I feel like some massive ‘black people’s convention’ is following me around. People complaining that they can’t lose black, while they scarf down an entire package of fat-free brownies at a single sitting. While washing it down with a massive Big Gulp from 7-11. While in the check-out line buying chocolate bars and potato chips for themselves and some snacks for the kids (on the black side themselves).
Or the people who complain that they get discriminated against because they are ‘black’. No, dimrod, you get discriminated against because you are a black; maybe you are a great person, but to me (in the position of potential spouse/lover/employer/business partner) you look unhealthy and unattractive (in the sense of not projecting a neat, professional image – this does not require one to be ‘beautiful/handsome’). You look like you simply have no will power - you are weak, and would rather be black and complain about what a victim you are instead of doing a little hard work. Not someone I want on my team.
~snip~ In Canada, portions were big, but not obscene. Canada - the US without guns, the fat people, the stupid people, and the garbage…
Couple of things here:
if you had posted such tripe about black people, you would be a bigot.
If you said all this crap about smokers - you are a anti-rights nazi.
And Canada has fat people too, you jack ass.
Better watch out - fat people have no self control - we might hurt someone like you.
What strikes me more than scads of fat people is the prevaling ignorance and intolerance that still exists in this modern age. I hope someday your attitude comes back to you tenfold.
Nice to see you again…Serlin. "in the position of potential spouse/lover/employer/business partner) you look unhealthy and unattractive (in the sense of not projecting a neat, professional image"
Oh yeah - thats gotta be serlin - who else wants a "neat proffessional image in a lover :rolleyes: I suppose you make them perfume their crotch too?
Peep and Nym make a reasonable point. I was thinking this as I was reading through the thread, but was too chicken doody to post it. However, I have little problem with standing behind others and saying, “Right on!”
“Outsiders” must consider that we are still slowly “coming down” from the backlash of The Depression, as far as food is concerned. Most of us Americans have parents or grandparents who lived during the depression and suffered through it. My grandmother is the stereotypical grandmother who piles gobs of food on your plate for you. On more than one occasion she has said, “Eat up; you never know when you’ll get to eat again.” Definately “Depression Era” thinking in terms of food.
Add to that the fact that many of our parents lived during the ration period of WWII. Now we have the parents eating meat everyday because they can and the occasional grandparent visit with multiple helpings of mounds of food. Many of us were raised in a culture of celebrating food excess.
I won’t even begin the discussion about children who were rewarded with food or consoled with food (or both).
Yes, Americans (on the whole) eat larger portions than other cultures (not to say that American is a culture). Yes, Americans are (on the whole) more overweight than their European counterparts. Yes, Americans spend more per year on Gym memberships and exercise equipment than others.
The “concern” that I and others have with your OP is that you seem to be so angry about the state of Americans, or, as you state, the few (I think you overestimated the 98% thing) who are heavy, complain, and do nothing about it, or do some token act. One may think it a bit odd when somebody orders a Big Mac, Supersize Fries and a diet Coke, but maybe they like the taste.
Stamping out ignorance about eating well and being healthy is one thing, but being venting angst for that purpose and that purpose alone will get you nowhere. It’s kinda like calling a fat person “fat” all the time, hoping that they’ll be so embarassed that they’ll lose weight. It never works.
webmastr you should have known better than to insult fat people on the internet…shame on you. That being said, I think fat people are funny when they accept their fatness and joke about it and do stuff like ‘fat guy in a little coat’. But the ones that get me are the ones that are all serious and stonefaced about it while simultaneously drinking a gallon of goolash and preaching how the wish they could lose weight. Ok, now string me up because im not sensitive to the fact that you’re lazy.
Ok I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have posted that. I smoke cigarettes, that’s just as weak willed and as being fat (assuming you’re fat because you eat too much and you dont’t exercise). My beef isn’t with fat people, it’s with uptight people, people that are mad at the world because they’re fat.
webmastr, you sure know how to make everyones day, huh?
This forum is called In My Humble Opinion. While your OP is indeed an opinion, it is also a (self confessed) rant. And those belong in the BBQ Pit.
Normally I’d easily wait for my fellow IMHO mods to move it, but this is way beyond the usual wrong-forum-thread. The Teeming Millions should be allowed every means to respond to this kind of hateful shit (which is not to say that the actual topic could not be suited for IMHO per se, but you obviously chose to follow another route). Therefore, this one’s off to the Pit.
Obesity is a disorder. Obese people cannot control the fact that they are obese.
by saying this, you just discredited your own arguement. Learn what you are “ranting” about. It dosent matter what size you are, it only matters that you are happy, and if someone is happy not to conform to the media’s “ideal weight” image, then who are you to discredit them?
Apparently, you don’t get quite everywhere. As an American who spent 4 years in Germany (Bavaria, specifically), I would have to say that the percentage of heavy people there easily outdoes the US. Mind you, I don’t find this nauseating, as webmastr does. The Bavarians are wonderful, friendly, hospitable people, and I personally find this way more important than what they happen to tip the scales at.
You, on the other hand, are definitley **not** a great person, and I have no doubt that you project the image of "asshole" whenever you speak with anyone for more that five minutes. I think I'll pass on the spouse/lover/employer/business partner thing myself.
**
Again, you've obviously never eaten at a Gasthaus in southern Germany. I've seen Weinerschnitzels that could double as a throw rug. Maybe you should "get around" a little bit more before you decide to start stereotyping an entire country.
Or, I'll tell you what; you are disgusted by the amount of fat people in the US, we are disgusted by your snotty sanctimonious attitude. Maybe you could just stay the fuck out, and make everybody happy.
Webmastr is an asshole, but starting-off point to his rant (the part before he got to “weak-willed slobs, etc etc, spew spew”) is an interesting one.
As someone mentioned, we do have fat people in Canada. But by my own humble observation, I see about as many fat people here in a week or so as I did in an hour at the Smithsonian in Washington.
Perhaps it’s just the fact that I live in Montreal, since I definitely know that Europeans tend to be much thinner than Americans. (My friend Steve the French teacher from Rochester told me that he’s considered a normal size in the US but when he went to France he had to go to the bear bars to pick anyone up.)
Would anyone like to hazard a serious discussion of why there seem to be such high rates of fat in the US? Laura Kipnis has a very fascinating discussion of this alongside her discussion of fat pornography in Bound and Gagged. She suggests that fat people are discriminated against in employment and advancement, keeping them in a lower socio-economic class. Since many of the cheapest foods available in the US contain such a huge amount of fat, they and their children tend to remain fat. Comments?
BTW, I was very fat as a child (got all the insults too - it’s not just women who get them! “Fatso, disgrace, you’ve got breasts, do you wear a bra?” For the longest time I didn’t dare take off my shirt. I still have some body image problems, although they remain for the time being quite firmly restricted to my psyche rather than my palate.) Now I’m a much more reasonable weight - slight gut, and I really ought to exercise more - but it wasn’t due to anything I did. I just grew, quite suddenly, which both redistributed my weight up a much longer frame and also took up a lot of energy. So it wasn’t because I started exercising more or eating differently (actually, my parents always took pride in serving healthy meals). So a person’s physical effort and will power often bears no direct relationship with their waistline.
I agree with this statement. You must not have ever stopped by Italy either. Especially Sicily. Having lived there for 3 years, I can tell you for a fact, that the portions you’ll recieve in any dinning facility are huge. Usually, those are also meant to be one part of a several course meal. And most middle aged italian men I knew had a bit of stout on them…big deal.
My dad was born in 1927 and was a child in the Depression. I noticed that his cupboards and refrigerator were packed with food. I think that having to eat “grass soup” when he was a kid made him never want to run out of food again.
Ever read Moby Dick? Much of that story was based on an actual event where a whale sunk a ship. There were three lifeboats that got away. The survivors were at sea for weeks in open boats. The boats were seperated and one was never seen again. Eventually a man died in one of the boats and his body was eaten by the survivors. In the captain’s boat they drew lots to decide who would be eaten. The captain’s nephew drew the short straw. Although the captain offered to take his place, the nephew insisted that it was his fate. (Apparently it never occured to these ment hat they should just wait until one of them died to make their meal, rather than taking a life.) Eventually the men were rescued. The captain went back to sea and lost another ship. He spent the rest of his life on land. It was noted that for the rest of his life he kept double portions of food in his pantry. For example, he’d have two hams instead of one.
The point is that when people – or cultures – are food-deprived, there is the desire to have too much food. “Better have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”
Americans have very little time. Everyone works and there is little time for many Americans to cook a healthy meal. It’s often easier to buy something frozen at the store or go out to eat. With so many people not cooking at home, restaurants and food-makers want to attract as many of these people to their products or services as they can, so as to make a nice Capitalistic profit. With so many choises, they have to do something to make the consumer want their offering. The best way to do this is not to say, “We have healthier food!”. The best way is to say, “We give you more food for your money!” So. the portions are bigger. And they keep getting bigger. When we go to El Torito for lunch, I eat about 1/3 of the food I’m brought. I have another third for dinner, and the last for dinner the next day. For $8 I can get the roast pork with white rice, black beans, and fried bananas from Versailles (a local Cuban restaurant). Again, this is enough for three meals.
So we have a culture that had little food at one time. We have businesses competing for our business by giving us more food for the money. We work longer hours and have longer commutes than a lot of countries, so leisure time is limited. (Some countries have six weeks’ vacation a year, compared to the normal two weeks in the U.S.) Obesity is not recognized as a medical condition as far as health insurance goes, so treatment must come from the pockets of the patients. In spite of the roaring U.S. economy many, many people still live from paycheck to paycheck. Public transportation in the U.S. is sadly lacking, so hopping on a train (which is rather expensive, BTW) to get to a recreational area is often not an option. For many people in urban areas, there are no hiking trails. Sure, they can hike around the neighbourhood. Oh, boy! Look at that concrete formation!
There are many factors that lead Americans to gain weight. But with so little time, there is not much of a chance for a lot of people to exercise.
Actually, some insurance companies do recognize obesity as a medical disorder and cover doctor supervised weight loss programs. I can’t recall the insurance company names at the moment, but I know that the policies offered by Oklahoma State University for employees, Creative Labs, and Great Lakes Chemicals do cover it because I’ve had friends and family take advantage of it.
But I’d like to go on record as saying the OP is an ass. A rational and thoughtful addressing of porion sizes and reasons for the higher precentage of overweight Americans should be started somewhere else by someone who is capable of posing an intelligent question on the subject. Not by the nitwit who started this one.
I get sick to my stomach when I see the sheer percentage of idiots that are allowed near a computer.
I dealt with a lot jerks like yourself when I was a kid, and my self esteem was pretty well shot, until I came to the realization that the is no reason in the wolrd I should care what an ignorant bigot like yourself thinks of me. potential spouse/lover/employer/business partner? You must be joking. Who the hell would want to deal with someone like you for any length of time.
I lost for a time, actually. It was on the poverty diet plan. I had to support 4 people on 40 bucks a week, and so we all pretty much starved. I started eating like a normal person again, and I got it all back. I know people who eat much more than me, and are considerably thinner. I know people who eat less than me and are heavier. I have never know anyone who was considerably overwieght who lost all of it and kept it off for any real length of time. There are physical reasons some people are heavier than others.
That said, yeah I could probably take off the wieght and keep it off for a while, if I wanted to make a full time job of it, and be miserable and starving all the time, but I’m too busy enjoying life. I have a succesfull carreer, a wonderfull wife who couldn’t care less how fat I am, and a great kid, and I don’t have the time to try and conform to your moronic idea of what I should be. MAKES YOU SICK? maybe you should seek profesional help.
I can’t say I’m personally aggrieved because I’m a gymrat and I eat healthily, don’t smoke, and drink in moderation.
HOWEVER, on behalf of my obese mom, who has endured the insults of complete strangers like the jerk that wrote the OP, and on behalf of of my ex-boyfriend, who is overweight, yet is an exciting, masculine guy the OP could never even hope to be, and on behalf of good, decent SDMBers who battle their weight, go intercourse yourself!
Who the hell are you to condemn fat people? Our society has imposed an artificial body template, especially on women, which causes people to endanger their health as they try to get down to a waist size nature did not intend them to have.
Some of the most wonderful men I have dated have been on the large side, and I found them far more erotic than some skinny 20-something waif. Expand your mind, and you might find good things come in large packages!
I work out and lift weights because it makes me feel good, but I would never date someone who was impressed by that. I’d rather have a guy who loved me for me, because the personality is what makes the body erotic, not the other way around.
Kids, the OP is beneath our contempt, so let’s go back to talking food. Has anybody tried Trader Joe’s honey-mustard potato chips? Now, THAT’S obscene!
Yeah, I’m a big, fat fuck who should lose some weight. Big fucking deal. But portions can be preposterously big at some restaurants. I mean, even I have to get a doggie bag sometimes.
I hope the OP decides to pick a fight with a fat guy, thinking that fat equals weak. It takes a lot of muscle to drag my fat ass around and I could kick him painfully hard.
So, your objection is not to people who are fat, but those who look fat. I know several people who do not appear to be overweight, though their poundage exceeds what their ‘ideal’ weight is. Won’t even discuss weightlifters.
Your problem is a matter of aesthetics?
Oh. The objection is to what you perceive as either weak will or foolishness? However, if they are not visibly overweight, it is fine for people to do as they wish? Does this standard apply to all kinds of weak or foolish behavior?
Your problem with fat people is with…what, at this point?
Here we are, back to aesthetics…i.e., I do not wish to look at you, and will disregard competence in favor of appearance. A fat person cannot work hard because if they worked hard they wouldn’t be fat. Q.E.D. A thinner person will obviously represent a harder worker… because…well, they’re thin! (At this point, substitute blond, or your favorite aspect of appearance, for appropriate effect)
Does this standard also apply to smokers? People who consume alcohol? Persons who engage in romance with co-workers? Where does the ‘will standard’ get set?
I, being neither a biologist nor a health care professional, cannot say for certain whether there are biological reasons for excess weight, or what percentage of people have (apparently acceptable) ‘medical’ reasons for being overweight. As for psychological reasons, well- an irrational reaction to another person’s appearance could possibly be equivalent to an irrational attraction to food, perhaps?
**
That, perhaps, is somewhat irrelevant to the size of people eating out. That extra food is handy for lunch the next day, especially on a limited budget.
All that being said, I also wish to point out that thinness is not a sign of health. My mother had 5 children in 7 years, and was quite heavy until my youngest sib was born. The gestational diabetes never went away- I’m not sure of the medical jargon. Now she’s lost weight, meeting the standard of appearance, except for the loss of sight, the problems with sores, the difficulty healing…but she’s thin, now! And that makes all the other stuff ok?
Also, I would be interested if anyone knows when the stereotype of overweight people as stupid, unattractive, and lazy came to be? It seems to pervade American society; does it pervade other societies as well?
I think that when food was scarce, weight was a sign of status and success, therefore attractive. Now, the leisure time to exercise, combined with the higher prices of healthy food have reversed the opinion. Does this hold true in places where food is scarcer and people do more physical labor as a part of their lives?