“I honestly think they would have if they could have gotten away with it”
“I really do fear that one of these days I might be hurt or killed by a group of violent drunken teens who hate “fatties”.”
Pure histrionics. I would suggest that if you really and truly have such pathological fears that psychological counseling and perhaps medication is in order, because what you describe is so freakin far from reality as to be laughable, unless you’re actually serious and not just trying to win a “my life is worse than your life” online pissing contest, in which case it’s pathetic.
AFG, I’m not trying to pick on you, it just so happened that the two comments that jumped out and made me want to respond were made by you. That being said, I submit that it is impossible for someone to bike 4 miles a day with a caloric intake of 1800 not to lose weight, baring a RARE physical ailment (no matter how many times fat people claim to have such an ailment, they are not at all common. I’m overweight myself, but it’s because I like beer and food too much and exercise not enough, not because of some mystery “ailment”.) Losing weight isn’t a magic formula, it’s not a mystery, it isn’t the lost secret of the ancient Aztecs, it’s simple chemistry. Someone who says “I bike 4 miles every day, am vegetarian and my daily cal intake is only 1800” yet is still overweight is lying, plain and simple. You’re ignoring reason if you believe them, and if you give their crap credence you’re enabling them.
I’m just saying I’m 25 pounds over what the American medical community currently considers to be the middle of the “healthy” weight for my height. I’m not saying I think I’m fat or that my weight causes me health problems (I don’t and it doesn’t); I’m just providing my weight in a general sense as a frame of reference for the post that followed, so people know that I’m not some wafer-thin heroin addict or somesuch.
I was a fat kid too, often beat up and called names in elementary and middle school. But I too think that your present-day “fear” is a bunch of histrionics summoned up to prove how mean skinny people are. Nope, sorry. Nobody’s going to kill you because you’re overweight.
Not necessarily, unless they’re biking uphill against the wind all the time in 12th gear while racing Lance Armstrong. Four miles is nothing for the average cyclist. Biking is not nearly as strenuous as you seem to think:
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First, let me make clear that I would not want to see any individual experience abuse or derision based on their weight. I do, on the other hand, think it perfectly appropriate that we should look with disdain upon the level of obesity in our country, wage war against it, or what have you, to do whatever we can to lower the rates and the associated problems.
If you want a real eye-opening experience, look at this PowerPoint presentation from the CDC showing the rates of obesity in the United States from 1985 – 2004. It is quite sobering. It also suggests that unless one can demonstrate some epidemic of thyroid problems or big-bonedness exploding from 1985 to 2004, some other cause is more likely. Perhaps it is a virus (although I’m exceptionally dubious of that), because it spreads like a fucking nightmare from Outbreak across our country.
It is a mistake to suggest that the non-obese are unharmed by others’ obesity. Not only does it cause problems for eleanorigby’s poor back, but obesity related problems sap the resources of the health care system we all rely upon. This data, also from the CDC, place the estimated costs for overweight and obesity related health care at $78.5 billion in 1998. The vast majority of that is paid for not out-of-pocket, but by private health care companies (who don’t absorb costs without turning around and raising the rates for everyone else), by Medicaid and by Medicare. You know who pays for the latter two sources, right?
Finally, I think much of the animosity (not to be excused, mind you) directed towards the obese can be explained by a truism that has worked for me for quite some time in my clinical activities: We detest most in others that which we fear true about ourselves. So, most people who are not obese can nevertheless understand weight gain and may fear their own weight gain. At a more basic level, however, I think it is true that most people would explain obesity at least in part as due to a lack of resolve, fortitude or willpower. We fear our own weaknesses in this regard, and detest it in others. Again, this isn’t to excuse the loathing some have for the obese, but merely to offer one possible framework for it.
Obesity is a serious problem for our country, and excusing it away is as bad a solution as is mocking or abusing the obese.
Who the hell are you to claim that? You weren’t there when groups of 4 or more guys -yes, guys, not girls- would hold me down and kick the shit out of me. Did you know kicks to the gut can cause ruptured organs, which can cause internal bleeding, which can cause death? You can’t fucking tell me they didn’t know that too. Lucky for me I just got away with some dry heaves and nasty sore fucking bruises. I was chased one time, while minding my own goddamn business walking to to bus, by a group of total strangers, teenage guys who ran after me yelling, “C’mere, you fucking fat cunt, C’MERE!!” there was a convenience store across the street that I ran to, and the cashier called the police for me, but the assholes ran off before they got there. If you don’t think that was fucking terrifying, then you can go to hell. I HAVE been to counselling and AM on medication. You have absolutely no right to tell someone who’s been through hell that their situation is “laughable” or “pathetic”. And your deluded allusions to me trying to win a “my life is worse than your life” contest is disgusting. I related my experience to try to show why the way I feel they way I do about the hate towards fat people. And a few other posters said that they went through the same thing. You’re unfeeling and cold, and I didn’t do shit to you. Were you a bully in school? I bet you were.
Yeah, right. What was that just above, then?? :mad:
That was not an ACTUAL QUOTE from someone. That was a hypothetical example. I purposely made it sound extreme to try to emphasize the way these conversations sound. I even said it was an example, and didn’t cite anybody specific. I don’t know how you managed to read into it so literally.
Huh. According to that walking 4 mph uses almost twice the calories that bicycling does.
Bicycling at a reasonably leisurely pace on level ground isn’t strenuous, really. And biking four miles probably wouldn’t take what, more than 15-20 minutes?
<nitpick >, I know.
When I first read that, I misread it as biking 40 miles a day.
By the way, I recommend that if you are able to view the Power Point presentation, you scroll through the slides to see the growth in obesity from year to year.
If you are unable to view the slides, the less impactful take home message is:
Agreed that his larger point, that if one burns off more calories with activity than one takes in, one WILL lose weight, is perfectly valid. Certain medical conditions and medications do make this more difficult, and for many the effort either just isn’t worth it, or their natural willpower just isn’t up to the challenge; this doesn’t make being overweight their “fault”–everyone has a point where the effort needed for a goal exceeds the worth of that goal for them. Dieting and exercising is no different. And the body tends to conspire against a person trying to diet: when caloric intake drops, the body “helpfully” compensates by lowering the metabolism level in an effort to conserve energy; it’s a survival mechanism that once protected us from temporary food supply shortages but now just serves to make dieting successfully even more difficult. The success of stomach-stapling surgery is pretty good proof of all this; if eating more calories than required didn’t cause their excess weight, this type of surgery would be ineffectual.
These calculators pretty much assume a fixed bone-muscle-fat ratio. Your average 5’6" lady isn’t going to burn significantly more calories at 175 lbs than at her ideal weight of 120 lbs just lying around, mostly because she won’t have much more muscle mass (I’m pretty sure that one of Cecil’s columns made that point; any additional energy a fat person expands by hauling his extra weight is balanced by the fact that he does it -less often-). Much better to make the calculation at your ideal weight. Prolly still a slight underestimate, but it’s silly to think a 175 lb 5’0" lady is going to burn anywhere close to the same calories as a 175 lb 6" man.
All due respect, but is this really typical of how fat kids are treated?
Not minimising what sounds like repeated and horrible experiences, Amazon, but this surely isn’t the experience of the majority of fat kids, or fat adults for that matter.
You must have lived in one seriously fucked up place. Did your other overweight cohorts all have the same experience?
I mean once, that’s awful and I’m not saying it never happens. But repeatedly and often, to the same individual?
Did I say it happened to me several times?? No, I said it happened ONCE. You show me where I said it happened several times. I said I was beat up a lot in school but I was only chased down by a group of guys ONCE. And THAT was when I was in college. And why should I assume it would never, ever happen again? I still live in the same town as I did then. It only happened 5 years ago.
Jesus fucking christ, read all of what I said before you post your kneejerk ignorant bullshit.
There were only a few other fat kids at my school that I knew of, but they were several grades ahead of or behind me. I don’t know how they were treated. My school had a lot of bullies, a lot of gangs. I’m certainly not the only kid who was beat up there. I wasn’t beat up daily, but certainly weekly. Why is this so hard to believe??? Other posters even said they were treated much the same way as me.
Please try to keep your story straight. You said that one time a group of 4 guys held you down and kicked you and that your were lucky to avoid bleeding to death internally. You also said that another time you were chased into a convienence store for being fat. That’s several times, unless you contend that these guys were holding you down and kicking you while at the same time chasing you down the street. Quite a trick, that.
Absolutely gives the impression that this happened more than once. You’re letting your anger get in the way of your reason, and that makes you look bad. Take a few deep breaths and reread what you’re writing before you post it to be sure you’re saying what you mean to.
the point is that if someone in the weight ranges we’re talking about here is taking in only 1800 calories per day, they can just about burn that by sleeping.
If they actually have a normal day that involves walking around, even watching the tube, they’re burning off 1800 easily.
She was just using it as an example anyway. Silly thing to get het up over.
