Ah, crappity. I thought Clarke didn’t sound right, and if only I’d turned round in my seat and looked at the bookshelf… :smack:
“Fat fuck” I’ll deny, though it was highly applicable for thirty years of my life. I’ll cop to “Fathead” on the strength of that fuck-up, though.
I have friends who are both obese, and when their first child was born were determined to break the cycle. I wish I could say that they are now both thin people - I can’t - but they are both thinner people. However, neither of their children have weight issues - both are active. In part because they decided to break the cycle, bring more healthy food into the house, get the kids out of the house and move as a family. Mom and Dad haven’t shed their bad habits completely, but they do try and keep them out of the house or moderate them.
The only thing I have to add in this mishmash of a topic is that when I read the title of the thread, I hear it in my head as Binky the Clown says “Heeeeeeeey KIDS!” on the old Garfield and Friends show.
By the way, SFG didn’t say she was “fucking hot”. She said she was “Smoking hot”. If you’re going to quote someone to make a point, at least get the quote correct.
Look, unless you have a brain tumor, thyroid disorder, incredibly specific ethnic background, or are a genetically engineered rat, you are fat because you eat too much.
This is common and really hard to resist for some people. Most, and in particular Western/American, cultures have a long tradition of food as a reward system (ice cream, pizza parties), food as celebration (Thanksgiving, birthday cake), or past-time, or comfort. There is also a strongly competitive corporate presence which continually increases portion sizes while reducing costs. This involves a lot of heavily processed ingredients, and things like HFCS and white starches have extremely high GI impacts. Things like fats, sugars, and salts are for good and obvious genetic reasons things we like and seek out.
So, you have a strong evolutionary and cultural impetus to overeat, and a ridiculously abundant food supply, where ‘healthiness’ is often inversely correlated with convenience and cost. You might get a little pudgy, a little squishy around the middle once your youthful metabolism wears off (or you might have idiot parents and start as a fat child, but that’s another matter). That’s okay. I understand.
But at what point, between getting ten and two hundred pounds overweight, do you stop and decide to really analyze your food intake? Fuck the complicated question of how you LOSE weight once you’re morbidly or even slightly obese - how did you let yourself get like that in the first place?
If you’re seriously fat, it’s because you’re lazy and you eat too much. Shot From Guns is absolutely right.
And, honestly, I’m very disappointed with your defensive internets-war capabilities, SDMB fatties.
Do you want a lard-tini? You seem tense.
Could I get that with some deep-fat fried pork hocks and a side of bacon greese for dipping?
Half right. If you’re seriously fat, it’s because you eat too much.
Lazy doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. For one thing, even physically active people can still eat too much and thus gain weight. For another, not everybody who leads a sedentary lifestyle is lazy.
However, it is incontrovertible that people who are seriously fat get that way by chronically consuming more calories than their bodies can use: in other words, by eating too much.
Nonsense. I am not fat because I eat too much, so you are absolutely incorrect.
(I am fat because I used to eat too much. I currently am maintaining my substantial status largely on inertia.)
I am lazy, though.
Hey, now, don’t be using logic on people who want to hate other people who aren’t like them.
Frankly it’s flawed logic at best…given that the entire point of the thread is that overeating/being fat is NOT an addiction. Smoking (and alcoholism for that matter as has been said) is.
I’ve been practicing saying “First Law” like “Denny Crane.”
First Law!
“First Law, then Chaos, so the balance is preserved,” said Elric to Oonaugh.
First Law and Order, then came Special Victim’s Unit.
“[sub]The[/sub] first [sub] thing we do, let’s kill all the [/sub] law[sub]ers.[/sub]”
Drink up, but remember to hydrate as well!
Except for all the research in neuropsychology that indicates that it is.
(This article is not so heavy on the science, but Kessler’s book is, for those of you who are interested.)
One finding among many discussed in the book: rats in a laboratory test were willing to work almost as hard for a high-fat, high-sugar substance (engineered to resemble the same fat/sugar combo as many processed foods) as they were willing to work for cocaine.
Well, that’s not much of a revelation. People have known for years that you can substitute cocaine for a high fat diet and lose weight.
Seriously though, I don’t really buy it. First off, your linked article really doesn’t say “all the research in neuropsychology” shows fatty food is addictive. It’s one guys research, it doesn’t indicate in any way that all other studies back him up.
There have been lots of studies indicating that food is an addiction for many people. To say that you don’t buy it because it isn’t a problem you have is like telling people who suffer from depression to cheer up because hey, you’ve been sad too and it isn’t that big a deal.
For me, 15 pounds. I’ve got a little gut, and I feel HUGE. I couldn’t imagine being 25 pounds overweight or more.
I think you misunderstood me. By ‘‘all the research in neuropsychology’’ I was not, of course, saying that all research in neuropsychology points to food as addictive, I was saying that there is quite a bit of research that does so, and it would be stupid to discount it all. I then pointed to an article that briefly discusses this fact and explained quite clearly that it didn’t contain the scientific rigor of the book, so I’m no sure why you’re pointing out to me what I already said.
The book is basically a meta-analysis of the existing research on the neuropsychology of overeating. It’s not ‘‘one guy’s research’’ it’s a summary of the existing literature on the topic.
Here is information about an Obesity and Food Addiction Summit which I hope makes it painfully obvious that there is more than one scientist in the world that believes there is strong evidence for the addictive properties of processed food. Professors of Yale, UCLA, and Princeton were speakers at this summit. You can even fight your ignorance by watching webcasts of their presentations, which have all sorts of interesting, scientific-sounding names such as:
‘‘Genetic and Biological Systems: The Connection to the Dopamine Pathway’’
‘‘Mechanisms of Food Cravings’’
‘‘The Addiction Gene’’
‘‘Inside our Brain: Obesity and Dopamine Deficiency’’
and my personal favorite,
‘‘Is Sugar as Addictive as Cocaine?’’ (spoiler: this french guy says the answer is ‘‘yes’’)
Full disclosure: I am not a food addict. I’ve never had this issue of being unable to control my eating, so I can’t speak from personal experience. I just, you know, like science.
Everybody is addicted to food. Living creatures need it to survive, just like air and water.
Should you work to overcome an addiction to overeating, or is it acceptable to submit to it, unlike addictions to alcohol, drugs, porn and so on?
Besides, if you’re addicted to food, it’s still just another place to put the blame without taking personal responsibility for your actions. “I’m addicted to food. I can’t help it!” If you consider obesity rates, it would seem that so many more people are “addicted” to food now than 20 or 30 years ago.
And this is what it’s going to be, I think: we’re looking right now at getting a family pass to one of the bigger health clubs in town. We’ll be able to go swimming with the little Torqueling, do karate, what have you, together. I’d rather exercise at home, but space is already at a premium, and treadmills and such that are sturdy enough to withstand my godawful girth cost a pretty penny. For the record, I do chase her around her gymnastics class (note the leotard she’s wearing in that picture I posted earlier), but for her age group, that’s only once a week.
I see some people mentioning smoking, which is a somewhat apt analogy, except for one thing: a person can quit smoking, and never smoke again, for their entire life. But it’s impossible to quit eating altogether. If you could, I think it would actually be easier; instead, it’s like trying to quit smoking while still having to smoke three cigarettes a day to survive. You’re forced to confront the temptation to overindulge constantly, which for me at least is tougher than just cutting it out entirely.
The heart-attack thing wasn’t hyperbole; I recently had to start taking blood pressure medication just to get myself healthy enough to start exercising, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs. I don’t like having to take medicine chronically. I can tell that it fogs my brain up, which really irritates me, but if I can get things under control, maybe one day I can stop taking it.
And another thing for the record: the little Torqueling is absolutely awesome about food. She’s the only kid I’ve ever encountered who we have to tell, “No more green beans until you eat some meat!” At age 3 (well, she’s turning 3 in a month), she’ll eat an entire zucchini by herself and ask for more. She once ate half a container of snacking tomatoes before we got home from the store. Hard to believe, crazy-skinny as she is, that she has my genes.
One reason levels of obesity have changed is because the composition of food has changed. Most of the stuff people eat nowadays is processed and that didn’t used to be the case. Processed food is less filling, so we eat more of it to stay satiated. The environment in which most Americans live has also changed fundamentally… we work more hours than ever before, women have entered the workforce too, by necessity, and people are no longer as likely to cook homemade, healthy meals for their families due to time constraints. Then there is the fact that so many jobs entail sitting on our asses all day, and a lot of people come home and sit on their asses some more, which has recently been shown to have catastrophic effects on normal metabolic function.
I don’t know from whence this idea came that identifying environmental, social and physiological factors that contribute to obesity is the same thing as not taking responsibility for it. Any meaningful solution to this problem must address all of the factors going into it. Kessler’s book The End of Overeating, after presenting the current literature on the neuropsychology of food addiction, follows up with the evidence-based therapeutic techniques that help to break the cycle. These techniques are predicated on a deeper understanding of the nature and causes of obesity. In other words, learning about why things happen helps us prevent them from happening.
In sum, the idea that the obesity epidemic is a result of some moral failing on behalf of the individual is bullshit. In fact, I’m confident that most serious scholars of obesity point to environmental and physiological factors rather than lack of willpower. Also complete and utter bullshit is the notion that accepting the scientific consensus on this matter is the same thing as refusing to take responsibility for the problem.