And underweight models!
Really? You want to pass some law imposing portion control? You would take away people’s responsibility for making their own choices? Getting the government involved is not the best idea.
And you know stores have a whole aisle just filled with candy with great big bags of fun size bars. And great big bags full of things like M&Ms. Are you going to restrict those from purchase, too?
This idea is unworkable on so many levels.
Shaming doesn’t help. It really doesn’t. All it does is drive the conversation underground and leave it in the hands of the assholes.
No, there has to be some reason why this is happening pretty much to the entire civilized world, and in this era. And it’s not just about being lazy. It’s just like drinking, in a way - you drink in your twenties and pay for it in your forties.
You eat too much and don’t work out enough in your twenties, so in your forties you’re fat. Once you’re fat it’s almost impossible to lose weight - 95% of the people who try don’t lose weight by diet or exercise. So you need to keep it off in the first place. GREAT! Good lesson for the future…but I guess you’re just fucked if you’re already fat!
It’s also not about eating everything in sight. Fat loss programs always say “Don’t eat the entire bag of chips. Don’t eat all the hamburgers”. But the fat people I know don’t eat like that. They just eat a little extra, every day, and don’t get enough exercise. They are not shoveling down fries, but they are having a bowl of ice cream in the evening for dessert. You can get fat on very little extra.
And of course it’s related to metabolism, and everyone’s is different. I can look at a couple that’s been together for 20 years and they’ve eaten most meals together and eaten the same things. Yet she is fat and he is just a little bit overweight.
I think it’s a lot more complicated than people like to simplify. Limiting candy isn’t going to help. It’s a major crisis and really I would have no problem with a magic pill - I don’t see anything wonderfully moral in doing something that 95% of people can’t (taking the weight off and keeping it off without outside help).
But if you’d rather get on your sanctimonious high horse because you think that will help, I guess we could do that too.
What evidence?
Right, it’s not that people used to be much better at moderation, it was just harder to get a lot of high calorie food, but companies realized they could make more money with selling more junk food of bigger sizes.
Actually, fat shaming doesn’t work, and actually backfires. Here’s one study, here’s another, and here’s one that says people who are shamed about their weight have worse health than those who aren’t.
It makes sense to me, because it can be hard to choose healthy food instead of junk food and to go out and get some exercise, and can take some motivation and willpower, but if someone makes you feel like crap emotional eating is what a lot of people will turn to.
I’m not for shaming per se, just eliminating the current environment which seems to be sending the message that it’s OK to be obese.
on which planet are people saying that? Seriously, I’d like to know. because I can tell you about many billboards I see on my way to and from work talking about childhood obesity, or imploring parents to “eat healthy” and “exercise” and “your kids will too!” and a bunch of other ones.
and besides, a few hours ago you did literally say “bring back the shaming!” Shaming people is literally nothing more than you lording your supposed superiority over them, and making people feel like shit isn’t helping them. In fact it helps feed the same behavior you’re trying to discourage.
This planet.
I find all the cries about “FAT SHAMING!” amusing, yet nobody seemed to bat an eye about all the catty remarks in this thread. Apparently “obese” is more offensive than terms like “walking skeleton”, or saying, “eat a cheeseburger!” :rolleyes:
The fat people whose posts I run across on social media (reposted by those who aren’t generally heavy) would probably scoff at the idea that the experiences of shaming fat and thin people are at all equivalent, and argue against the inherent idea that fat must necessarily mean unhealthy.
They seem to think all the “concern” about health as an excuse to be condescending and superior, even from medical professionals, who they see as reacting to everything from a headache to sniffles with an automatic and dismissive “lose weight,” linking back to the last phrase in the paragraph above.
ETA: it also seems that many of them think that non overweight people see all overweight situations as equivalent, and thus are equivocating obvious 600 pound morbid obesity to everyone who’s got a positive BMI. This isn’t even getting into the implication that being overweight automatically makes one unattractive.
Of course, this is just my impressions of what I read. YMMV.
well, if you go wander around the CDC’s website, you’ll observe they have a lot of information on the topic. They have pretty graphs showing what people used to eat pre-obesity problem and now. There are two striking things: people on average used to eat a lot fewer calories per day than now. A LOT fewer. They also used to eat more protein and fewer carbohydrates. Today, many people get a shocking 60+% of their calories from carbohydrates and they barely manage to meet minimal protein intake levels. Oddly, % calories from fat has remained fairly steady at around 30% despite the nonscientifically supported “low fat” campaigns.
The CDC data do not cover exercise, but most people today spend most of their days sitting vs. not sitting in prior years. Particularly for children. Children never used to sit once they were released from school; now they mostly do.
It’s not hard to see the causes of the problem.
Now I am on a different continent but Aussies are getting fatter too. I used to be morbidly obese and while doctors would say things like “losing a little weight may help with the knee issue” not one of them in 30 years of fatness said “you’re just too fat”.
The last time I saw a doc she had no obvious hesitation in telling me I was “too lean” (which I’m not by any usual standard, in fact I could lose 10kg and still be in a healthy range via BMI and waist hip ratio). Guess she is just used to bigger patients. Everything is getting skewed towards fatter. I was born too early.
As a fat person I would like to reach out and let you know that it all fucking sucks. I have just as many chronically underweight friends as I have overweight friends and none of them feel good about their bodies.
People are just awful sometimes.
Oh, I’m not saying people aren’t shamed for being fat. It’s just been my personal impression that there’s a double-standard. And you’re right, it sucks. (My mother’s underweight, and she gets a lot of flack for it)
And I found it disgusting that nobody seemed to get as angry in that thread as they are in this thread. 
No one should be made to feel ashamed of their body. No one.
Well, Jeffrey Dahmer shoulda been ashamed of his body(ies).
Gosh there are a lot of nice people around that understand so many others contributions to the site, you should count yourself lucky to be a part of those members.
As a pathologist, I’m used to seeing frequent cases of endometrial cancer in patients described as “morbidly obese”. Lately the oncologists’ notes describe the condition “super morbidly obese”.
The National Cancer Institute tells us the risk of these other cancers is also linked to obesity:
Esophagus
Pancreas
Colon and rectum
Breast (after menopause)
Kidney
Thyroid
Gallbladder
As Mrs. J. reminds me, “portion control”.
What bothers me is that people shrieking ‘Bring back fat-shaming!!!’ don’t seem to see any difference between saying ‘Being obese is unhealthy’ and saying ‘If you’re overweight it’s because you’re a bad person.’ Same for thin-shaming: there’s a huge difference between ‘Being underweight is unhealthy’ and ‘If you’re underweight it’s because there’s something wrong with you as a person.’ The first ones are plain fact, and important, and the one person in the whole world who doesn’t already know those facts should be made aware of them. The second ones are indicative of a societal attitude to weight that is terminally fucked up.
It’s not ‘OK to be fat’ or ‘OK to be skinny’ in the sense that it has no health consequences - it does. It is perfectly ‘OK to be fat’ and ‘OK to be skinny’ in the sense that it doesn’t mean you’re a worse person, it doesn’t in fact mean anything at all about who you are as a person, it shouldn’t expose you to any kind of ridicule or judgement, it shouldn’t be considered the most important thing about you or even an important thing about you, and it’s nobody’s business but yours. I’ve never heard anyone denying the first of those statements. But the second one seems to be so radical and outrageous that it just blows people’s heads off.
I’m a healthy weight and so are my kids, so it sounds like I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I really do. Because as long as people are being told that their weight is a primary indicator of their moral worth and their overall worth as human beings, and that any failure in this area will make you instantly totally unacceptable - which we are told, constantly - then my kids and I are living in a society where we’re constantly urged to hate and fear our own bodies. Which is not only fucked-up almost beyond description but is also, ironically, is an excellent way for someone to end up either overweight or underweight.
I have made a conscious decision never to give a single miniaturised fuck about the weight of anyone outside my immediate family, and our society would be a way better place if everyone else decided the same thing.
being “too thin” is not typically considered a personal and/or moral failing. being thin doesn’t get you derided as a “slob,” or “lazy,” or “stupid.”