Actually, having worked for years with the poor and in a homeless shelter, I’d agree with most of the above.
Who said there were no obstacles? And while it is true some people have low metabolisms (like me), it does not mean it’s impossible for them to lose weight.
I would disagree. It works every time it is tried.
Right. As I stated above, a fat person should eat less, while at the same time ensure they are not depriving themselves of the daily recommended nutrients.
Perhaps. But giving a PC/feel-good solution doesn’t do anyone any favors, either. The best approach is to simply tell the cold, hard truth.
No research needs to be done. People overeat due to depression, boredom, and habit. And many overeat simply because food tastes good. I think you’re trying to overcomplicate this.
I think your problem is that you’re trying to come up with a PC/feel-good solution that absolves a fat person from any blame or personal responsibility for their condition. This is a very bad approach, IMO. Not only for obesity, but many other things.
And yet only one or two few generations ago, there WERE NOT fat people everywhere.
Our genes have not changed that much.
One or two generations ago, when I was in school, there was always that one chubby kid in class while the rest of us were fairly thin. Nowadays, I see alot of chubby kids coming out of school everyday.
One or two generations ago, my family (and most I knew) went out to a fast food place once or twice a month if we were lucky. Nowadays, kids are living on fast food and overly processed, microwaved foods several times a week instead of healthy/ home cooked foods.
Kids are sitting at home playing video games for entertainment instead of riding bikes or playing ball. It used to be a common sight where I lived seeing a big posse of kids on their bikes or a kids baseball game at the neighborhood field. I don’t see that anymore.
Nowadays, many people I know hire lawn services to do their yard work. Not when I was a kid. Most people in my neighborhood used one of those manual push lawn mowers that took some real muscle to push.
When I was a kid and I was in the mood for a late night snack, my mom would hand me a peeled orange and that was enough to satisfy my hunger. The foods I see kids snacking on nowadays on a regular basis are usually chips, soda, …etc. No fruit.
Childhood obesity and diabetes has gone up alot in the last couple generations and it’s just my opinion, but I don’t think it has anything to do with bad metabolism.
So, in your view, any further obesity-related research would be a waste of time?
And keep in mind, if someone’s over-eating because they’re depressed*, your first priority is taking care of the depression. You can’t just say, “Snap out of it, you’re getting fat!” Most of the time, one won’t care. That’s not “PC” (god, I’m so sick of that stupid term!), that’s just common knowledge.
So sometimes, you have to take care of the underlying cause for over-eating first.
D’oh! I meant to use the * to then add that when I was depressed (when I first started college), I actually LOST weight, because I constantly felt nauseaus, and couldn’t eat. No, it wasn’t a good thing. (Sorry, I forgot to add this on!)
It always amazes me on these threads how many people come out of the woodwork with some illness or disease that makes them gain weight. I thought the number of people with genuine disorders that made them fat was fairly small.
My best friend in the world is obese. She was born with a very mild case of cerebral palsy that crippled her right foot. She can’t run, she can barely climb stairs, she can’t ride a bike. A lot of the physical activity available to most of us is barred to her. But she made the choice a few years ago that she wanted to lose weight. She began walking regularly, taking water aerobics classes at college, she pumps iron at the gym, and she and I went several times a week to the pool to exercise. She’s lost weight – not a ton – but it’s steadily coming off her. She made the choice to change her habits and begin exercising regularly, as much as she could, and as much as she’s capable of.
What about that Sit and Be Fit program, for seniors and disabled people?
I used to catch that on TV while flipping channels. It involved as much exertion as turning a page in a book. But, yeah, there are certainly exercises for every ability level. Remember isometrics? I had a girlfriend with CP in one leg. She would go swimming for exercise. One day I noticed her biceps were getting huge. She told me that every time she’s in the kitchen, she’d do a few leaning pushups against the kitchen counter, and eventually, it added up. Not that she lost weight, though.
I have had 2 friends who had MS who were eventually confined to scooters, and once that happens, your weight will balloon. You have to eat a near-starvation diet to not gain weight when you can’t walk or roll under your own power. I suspect that many obese people on scooters are there because of underlying conditions, and then the weight really gets out of control. I think before scooters came along, people had to propel themselves one way or another, by cane, crutches, or manual wheelchair, whereas now you just hop on a powered scooter and get large.
I used a scooter several times at Costco when I had a busted foot two years ago. They were a blast.
That’s where I used to watch it too. That’s really the only thing I could think of.
It’s just I don’t know what else you could do for people who are pretty much immobile.
Well sure, but it’s so much easier to sit on the couch and eat chips and drink soda and blame your obesity on some illness or disease… Remember, they’re victims!
Brandon, if you believed in karma, you wouldn’t be so nasty about people who are different than you.
Can you give any reasons for assuming this other than ‘everyone knows’ or ‘it’s common sense’?
Yeah, there are a lot more fat people now than then.
But it’s not because chubby kids and adults are lazy or huge overeaters. It’s because of the KIND of food they eat. Chips, soda, fries, candy, pizza, microwave meals. Non-stop sugar and starch. Being fat does have genetic components and does run in families - because some people are more sensitive to the effects of the Standard American diet than others (like me - I used to live on sugar and I was still thin as a pin).
I’m not trying to be “nasty,” but the reality of the situation is this: obese people are obese because in general, they overeat and do not exercise. Those are two things that 99% of the time, they control themselves (I’ll save the 1% for the people that have debilitating illnesses BEFORE they became obese). And ultimately, their poor choices affect me in higher insurance costs. Making up excuses or blaming diseases (many of which probably didn’t exist until after they became obese) does nothing to help the situation.
I’ve met a lot of obese people who swear up and down they’ve tried dieting and exercise and it doesn’t work. And in 100% of those cases, I’d be willing to bet they’re delusional and didn’t actually give it a thorough, honest attempt and gave up prematurely. Weight loss is not a mystery. Expend more calories than you take in and you will lose weight. That’s why it’s often helpful for people to document everything they eat and let them see for themselves why they’re overweight.
Brandon, you’re really talking out of your ass here. 99%? How do you figure?
So 60% of Americans are delusional liars who are too stupid or lazy to just stop stuffing their faces and get off the couch. If you really think that… well, god help you, because I can’t.
Yes, yes they are. Maybe I’d think otherwise if this country had always been this fat, but guess what? It hasn’t. You don’t even need to travel more than 20-30 years back to see that.
If you don’t think America is fat because we eat crap and are lazy, then you’re the one that needs help.
Obese people that claim diets and exercise don’t work for them are no different than creationists. The scientific proof and evidence is sitting in front of their face and they choose to ignore it. I have no doubt that obesity is a complex issue with underlying mental causes, but that doesn’t change the fact that the “cure” for obesity is as simple as eating better and being more active.
Why am I fat?
Because I fucking love food. I hate the taste of most veg. Broccoli and Cauliflower taste like farts to me, green beans, cabbage etc are too bitter. Carrots I can stand, but only just. Eating food I like is pleasurable to me. I live for pleasure, pretty much.
The thing is, I know I eat to much (now). But from an early age I’ve been taught to clear my plate, I always snuck foods I liked and had been denied, and I viewed ‘nice’ food as a reprieve from the horrible stuff my mum used to try to make me eat.
I’ve always also had the belief (from wherever) that I need to eat until I’m full.
Which led t me essentially gorging on foods I loved (the not good stuff) when I started cooking for myself.
And when I get down to it, it’s hard to realise how many more calories can be added to a meal, by just having that ‘one more slice of bread, that one more dollop of mayo’ etc.
Given also, that ‘common knowledge’ holds that a man needs 2500 kcal a day, and a body composition found I need around 2000 a day (as a 5"9’ 20yo male), and you’ve got more problems).
However, I refuse to let my wait go above 15 stone.
At the moment I’m at 14 stone 8, dropped from 14 stone 12 a fortnight ago. (I dropped from 14 s 10 to 13 s 10 this spring, but started eating crap again)
I know I can lose weight if I eat healthier, and drop my calorie intake to 1500 a day, but it’s hard to get a grip and keep it under control. It just takes willpower. Sadly, some don’t have as much as others.
If I can plan meals around how many calories I need, get used to not stuffing myself at every meal, and do a little weight exercise every other day, I’ll eventually get a body I can be proud of. But it takes effort, and sometimes the fact It’ll take the best part of a year to get in good shape, but around a month to get out of it, it sometimes just feels like too much effort.
I think for me, and probably a lot of other people, problem behaviours and a poor attitude are the defining factors of why we each so much, which is why we’re fatties.
I just can’t see why some people don’t just think ‘This is it, I’ve had it with being overweight’.
Cite?
Nobody is arguing to the contrary. It’s thermodynamics; the human body can’t create fat (stored energy) out of nothing. What we’re talking about is simple willpower has prove ineffective at making a modern population lose weight over the long term. People just have a very hard time losing weight and keeping it off for whatever reason. The question is, why? What causes this? Can we change some of the causes of this? Should we stop at simply expecting people to abstain? I would say no. People should be encouraged to abstain from unhealthy diets and encouraged to exercise, but that doesn’t mean our work is done. I argue that ultimately the obesity problem will not be resolved on a grand scale without major medical and cultural changes.
Let me give a wild-ass example to try to take some of the emotion out of this discussion. Let’s say an alien ship comes down from space and infects 10% of the population with a new virus called the Dark Unpleasantness. Dark Unpleasantness, for mysterious reasons, causes your immune system to be suppressed if your body takes in too much oxygen. Therefore, the sufferer of Dark Unpleasantness must decrease the amount of breathing they do each day. If they merely spend a half hour a day, five days a week, consciously holding their breath for several minutes at a time, they generally will not suffer the immune system problems. Some sufferers can get by with a little less or a little more, and a very small number need a lot more breath reduction to not suffer the effects. Many of the people affected find that breath reduction in the long term is unpleasant. If they start to be affected by immune system suppression, their skin will start to turn plaid.
Do you think it’s appropriate to discount plaid-skinned people, in this discussion, as lazy and that they “deserve” what they get? Do you think that the solution is that people should just control their urge to breathe as much as possible, and that science shouldn’t pursue a better solution? Because behavior can fix the problem given life-long dedication to it, should medicine go “Well, problem solved, let’s move on?” Of course not. Yes, it should be encouraged in the meantime, but in the end it’s not really the be-all and end-all “solution”. Any solution that requires people to struggle against their natural bodily urges indefinitely is just impractical for wide use. Some individuals will manage; most won’t. I wouldn’t go to a group of people and say, “just never have sex, you don’t need this birth control pill”. It’s preposterous to expect everyone to do that.
The fact of the matter is, based on what we know now, that 10% of people are affected by the obesity gene. The obesity gene CAN be overcome with calorie reduction. Again, nobody argues otherwise. But it’s a form of adversity in the lives of many people that is extremely difficult to overcome. Some people find that being forced to reduce calories and exercise more is sufficiently unpleasant as to make being fat (despite all of the health reasons, bias, and other negative effects) apparently more desirable in comparison. Thus, if we can find ways of making weight loss more pleasant, we make it more achievable. That’s all.
Should we celebrate and encourage people to overcome obstacles in their lives? Yes! We should congratulate people that beat the odds. Oscar Pistorius, for example, is a renowned runner despite using two prosthetic legs! That’s awesome! We should encourage people to meet their potential, and that includes using all the tools that are available to us. We should encourage people to use tools like food journaling to become more aware of what they eat, to exercise more, to eat healthier. All of those things are great and the vast majority will benefit from these things whether they meet their scientifically-determined ideal weight or not. I just argue that it’s simple hypocrisy to label someone “lazy” for eating what they want if they’re fat, and not if they’re skinny. Who’s more lazy – the student who was born smart and picks up every topic in school with ease and gets an A, or the kid who was born with a learning disability, works as hard as he can, and gets a C? It’s the judgement of others that I have issue with, and the lack of treatment of obesity as a real health issue and not just a moral issue.
Some people are apparently born with, or develop somehow, a sense of hunger and appetite that is wildly out of sync with their metabolic needs. Some people cope with that problem more easily than others based on a multitude of factors including culture, education, income, and location. Both of these aspects of obesity should be studied in the interests of finding additional methods and/or medicines that can assist people with maintaining healthy weights as the methods we have today are insufficient in helping everyone lose weight in the long term. Should we celebrate being overweight? No, not really. I wouldn’t clap for someone with a disability who chooses not to do anything with their life, either, but just because they’re not running in world-class races like Oscar Pistorius doesn’t make them horrible people.
There are no reliable medicines that help with overeating. Phentermine (that was half of the now-illegal Phen-Fen) is prescribed off-label but it can interfere severely with sleep (it’s basically a legal “upper”). There is promising research, but no magic bullet or even close. Just for the record.
Roddy
Just wanted to chime in as someone whose doctor put them on Phentermine for roughly 6 months a few years back.
I lost maybe 40 lbs, which was great, but it was otherwise hell on earth and certainly not sustainable for the long term. I felt nauseous all of the time, I was grinding my teeth the couple of hours that I **could **sleep at night and I was angry the whole time I was awake. My heart was jumpy and at some point I realized that the medical industry must really HATE fat to consider this quality of life superior to just being a fatass.
I went off of it and gained WAY more within the following year than I’d lost on it. Bad scene. YMMV.
Anyway, my point is that you are correct. It certainly was no magic bullet.