can you just give us glib folk the bottom line quotes here? i’m too lazy (:D) to read this entire thing.
edit: also, does this article answer a question like this: if there is something other than cultural/social/personal control factors at play in the number of morbidly obese fatties waddling around, can you explain why the “The state with the lowest rate of obesity in 2008 has a higher rate than the state with the highest rate in 1985”
Well, that would explain why I never had any remote chance of being pumped like a superhero (and I did pump iron and eat past the “I’m full” stage for a number of years). Apparently no matter what we do, we are locked in at some predetemined range of weight.
While I know what you were getting at, this nearly made me laugh out loud. In fact I’m gonna go wayyyy out on a limb and suggest that your very own body does in fact have a physiological dependence on food. Don’t believe me? Try not eating for two weeks and see what kind of “withdrawal symptoms” you get
care to explain then what biological factors have caused people to explode in weight over the past 20 years? it’s not like those people nowadays (or whatever year) suddenly wind up having “genetic weights” far, far greater than what was known to history. it’s just asinine to claim that there has been some undetectable, overnight genetic change that makes all of these fatties have obese ranges of genetic weight.
Well, I actually wasn’t trying to be annoying, I just thought it was funny and figured you’d laugh as well. But have it your way - I won’t apologize :).
Former FDA head Kessler to a significant extent blames the food industry for capitalizing on our own inherent evolutionarily derived tendencies to seek salt, fat and sugar. He might have a point, but I’d lay an awful lot of blame on the increased sedentarization of modern society as well. It certainly isn’t an explosion in genetic disorders, but I doubt we’re seeing an epidemic collapse in willpower relative to previous generations either.
I have no idea, and won’t even take a guess. I could make something up, but you’d catch me.
It does sort of make sense though. People diet. They reach their personal “bottom end of the scale”, but they can’t maintain it for long and they are miserable. So they “zoom” up to their personal top end of the scale and they are miserable. And they keep going back and forth like a yo yo.
Who knows? Maybe this new “theory” has something to it, even if it turns out to not be the final word?
More fun things to keep us sedentary. Seriously, the Internet and things like DSs are likely factors.
Less home cooking than ever.
Larger portions at restaurants. In my lifetime they have really grown and even over the last 20 years they have gotten even bigger.
Sexual tastes are different for everyone. One mans pig is another mans goddess. I have never chose to be with a woman because of her size, weight, looks, …really the only thing that ever turned me off was what came out of her mouth. And to be honest I’m one hostile looking MF so it took work to get any woman to even give me the time of day.
I’m a big ugly fucker. 6’3’ 300 pounds and ugly like a 3 month overdue mortage payment. Most women look at me and I can see the fear and disgust in thier eyes.
I’m more than happy to say I have a woman who both appreciates that I’m hard as a diamond and as soft as sheeps wool.
My old lady is “THE FUCKING BOMB”
Did I forget to mention that I like big butts and I cannot lie?
I will begin by saying what I think is obvious: if you eat fewer calories than the number at which your current weight is staying (approximately) stable, you will lose weight. Indeed, you are probably familiar with data from the WWII era that showed obesity essentially disappeared from populations where starvation was a reality (e.g. in Leningrad during the siege). That being said, it’s pretty clear from “the literature” (and I’m not going to give a cite for this, nor for that matter, for a number of other things I’m going to say here. References available on request ;)), that the rate of weight loss drops off as you lose more and more weight. People can even reach a new ‘set point’ where ingesting the same number of calories with which they once lost weight, actually leads to weight gain.
Looking at things from the other direction, I will be the first to admit that you will gain weight if you start taking in more calories than the amount for which your weight had been stable. Still, almost as if it’s the mirror image of what I described above, after an initial fairly rapid weight gain, your rate of gain drops off despite continued intake of the same number of calories. Eventually, you may reach a point where you won’t even gain any more weight.
The previous paragraphs apply to essentially everyone. It’s quite a different thing, though, when you talk about people with massive obesity. For someone to weigh 200 or 300 percent of their body weight, it is not simply enough just to overeat. Other things are going on, most of which nobody understands. Similarly, for someone to keep overeating, to continue to have a voracious appetite, even when their weight is WAY above what it ‘should be’, requires that there be more going on than just “lack of will” or “poor self image”, etc. Some of the lines of evidence for my assertions in this paragraph are listed below (which is basically just a re-posting of my earlier post in this thread):
There are several genetically fat animals (e.g. ob/ob mouse, fa/fa rat, etc.). I hope everyone will agree that things like “low self esteem” and “lack of will” can’t apply to these animals. Note also, that in these animals, it’s not just that they eat more than their normal cousins. Even when given exactly the same amount of calories, the genetically obese animals gain more weight than the normal ones.
Identical twin studies give amazingly interesting and, IMO, important results regarding the nature of obesity. Identical twins reared apart (i.e. adopted by separate families) wind up weighing almost the same as each other, despite their environments being totally different (and have no relation to the weight of their adoptive parents).
If you take a group of pairs of identical twins and feed them a strictly enforced intake of excess calories (i.e. something like 4000 calories a day each) the weight gain within twin pairs weight gain is tightly linked, but there’s large variation between pairs (again, this is for identical calories ingested).
To me, some of the most convincing evidence to support an “organic” cause for massive obesity is the tragic, but oft repeated set of events, where a previously normal, and thin, person has a tumor or trauma in the region of their hypothalamus (that part of the brain controlling things like thirst, temperature regulation, etc.). Such individuals may double or triple their pre-illness weight, and sometimes that can happen in a very short time (e.g. a weight gain of 100 pounds in something like three or four months). I recall a ballerina (an amateur, but quite highly talented) who went from delicate grace to almost three hundred pounds. Think about that.
There is also compelling evidence for a strong genetic influence on obesity from observations made on groups like the Pima Indians of Arizona. They have essentially a 100% prevalence of obesity. Other genetically defined populations such as other first nations peoples, have a similar propensity, but not quite so pervasively.
I won’t repeat here the results of the ‘prisoner overfeeding study’, but will note how they also imply there is more to obesity than mere overeating.
My interpretation, my opinion, is that we’re seeing the effect of predisposed genetics coming to fruition by virtue of an overabundance of food availability (and a coincident reduction in physical activity from things like urbanization, computer games, etc.). You also see this type of thing “all the time” in immigrants from places like India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, etc.
I used “twenty pounds” as a placeholder, almost figuratively. Sorry. My point was there is a threshold at which more than “will” comes into play.
You know, people who are obese have enough problems with low self esteem and depression without the likes of you adding to them.
It is not beyond the realm of possibilty that some are depressed enough to be border line suicidal. Then along you come with your mockery and perhaps someone goes over the edge.
I used to be fat when I was depressed. I ate shit loads of food because I felt depressed. And the fatter I got the more depressed I became.
I am no longer obese. But, if I had to choose between being obese and being a smug, insensitive asshole I would go back to being fat. At least I could eventually lose the weight again.
You make some valid points, Imasquare, but as I like to say, fuck babysitting on the internet.
If some anonymous poster on the world wide web can send someone over the edge with their meaningless post, then that someone has bigger issues that they need to focus on with the help of a therapist or something. The internet isn’t responsible for depressed people getting ‘pushed over the edge’.
Sure, and I don’t take issue with this. But our genetics don’t change this rapidly over the course of 100 years. Our ancestors weren’t obese at the levels that we are.
Sure, and here is a biological problem that is causing weight gain. No one would fault a person inflicted with a brain tumor for gaining massive amounts of weight. But, again, it’s not like suddenly mother nature or god decided to go and screw around with the genetics of 25% of the people in this country to suddenly turn them into “biologically obese” people.
And I think that you are generally correct here. Low historical food supplies concealed (maybe caused) our mild genetic disposition (like most animals) to overeat. Development of agricultural technology and scientific breakthroughs in foods make calorie-rich yet extremely unfulfilling foods extremely economical. Decreasing usage of physical exertion to convey ones self around and to provide for life essentials causes people to expend far less calories than is the historical norm.
BUT.
When you contrast this to an animal, we are in possession of one major thing that distinguishes our situation: we have brains and we have the ability to affect our environment. No, I’m not suggesting that obese people are brainless. I am suggesting that none of the things which “cause” fatness are inescapable conditions. Yes, I understand that for some people it’s really difficult to put down the family size bag of chee-tos.
Acting, however, like you’re possessed by a demon and unable to escape the mandates of your genetic composition and your consumer-good centric life is lame. Just put it down, and walk away. I think, however, that the root cause of this is cultural. Our culture is now focused on satiating personal desire with minimal cost to the end-user, and absolving said user of any guilt for engaging in the rank fulfillment of this desire to the detriment of everything else. There is some sort of expectation in our society that one should get whatever they want, whenever they want it. So I place the blame squarely on people who cannot fight back against this because culture, while powerful, is relatively easy to repel.
Basically while I won’t blame obese people for having “food” as their desire that craves satiating, I will absolutely blame* them for engaging in the fulfillment.
*to the extent that I actually do any blaming. I don’t really care apart from the already discussed issues of public seating and increasing health costs. I’m not particularly judgmental beyond this.
Oops. I decided to take a look at our charming OP’s profile to find out if she’s Shot Her Wad here in this thread or simply been offline, and while there I found thispic from the homepage in her profile.
Don’t you just hate people who don’t care enough about their own hair to take care of it?
Or who don’t have any friends to take a photo of them with their new diploma and have to resort to shooting it themselves in the bathroom next to a shower curtain and mouldering towel?
Or who are “totally fucking broke”. (That diploma hasn’t done you much good so far, has it?)
No wonder this woman has such a bad attitude! Maybe we should start being nicer to her after all.
Nah! She was probably a bitch already. Besides, everybody knows all you have to do to make money is to do some kind of fucking work, even if it’s only cleaning windows. (Hey, it was good enough for Van Morrison.)
And besides, it’s the Pit. I can be an asshole.
Disclaimer: This post is not to be construed as a slam against people who may genuinely find themselves friendless or who may be out of money. It’s satire, an ironic observation made toward someone who has an ugly attitude toward people who struggle with their weight and who knows all about how they should be able to lose it, yet still can’t seem figure out how to make a buck despite a diploma and having been out of work for a year.
I think what you may be failing to realize is that to someone with one foot already on the banana peel of suicide, that post can have considerable meaning and may be enough to push them over the edge. I’ve certainly moderated my internet comments at times when I felt they might cause harm to an emotionally fragile person.
I imagine your response will be that if they are that close to the edge something else will push them over soon anyway, but I don’t believe that. I read a comment once by a psychologist who said that research has shown that if a potential suicide would only wait 24 hours before pulling the trigger, most suicides would never happen. I’d hate to think that my careless or dismissive attitude toward the emotional state of someone else might push them over the edge.
Just sayin’ is all with no offense intended. You’re one of my favorite posters.
Starving, what do you think of shows like Family Guy, or SNL skits? Surely, there is always going to be crude comments about fat people, everywhere we look in this society. Are the writers to blame if one of their jokes pushes someone ‘over the edge’?
