The answer to that is to get new friends or find activities that you can share with your current friends. It’s probably not a good plan to shame them into changing for your sake.
What you value and what you should value are not necessarily the same.
Plus, if you’re really worried about opportunity cost, seems like exercise would be a wise investment. If you spend a few hours a week in exercise and change your diet, which takes virtually no time, there’s a fair chance you’ll extend your life by a few years. More time in which to read or do macramé or build ships in bottles or whatever you value.
And no, I’m not interested in brow beating people into doing what I wish. If you read through the thread I linked to in the OP, or read through this very thread, you’ll see people are quick to make really wild and unmerited equivalencies. “If you think people should be fit, you hate fat people,” and other such rot. Hell, one poster up thread implied I wanted to open concentration camps.
My goal is to counteract that.
I swear some people have a shame fetish.
I’m not sure why I’ve been singled out for “absurd reductions” when several other people in this thread have made similar remarks.
Your OP suggests that we should make fitness – not exercising, not eating a healthy diet, not sleeping a decent amount – “[O]bligatory in the same way our culture deems brushing your teeth or supporting oneself if at all possible…”
I asked how you – or anyone else looking – will know how someone lives? And why?
Not sure why those questions have set you off; they are valid ones.
Even wellness programs sold to companies have found that losing weight and more exercise changes less than you’d think WRT labs and blood pressure. Wellness companies have had to seriously jigger the data to make the programs seem worthwhile to companies buying them for their workforce.
And some people have a fetish about making others live up to their desires. I’m a hiker/skier/runner/biker, and I have plenty of friends who don’t do stuff like that. We find activities that we enjoy together. What do you propose I should do differently?
Read the entire post you quoted. I said it wasn’t only you. And I’m not set off, I’m defending my position.
I’ve already answered how you can tell someone’s commitment to fitness. Body composition, which is not to say being fat, is a fairly good indicator of diet and exercise choices.
If somebody begs off taking the stairs or walking a few blocks because it’s too hard, that’s a good indicator.
If a coworker has a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke at lunch everyday, that’s a good indicator.
And yes, of course you can mention somebody with a thyroid condition who can’t lose weight despite eating a caloric deficient and running 15K a day, but that’s far, far from the norm.
Also, and more importantly, BlasterMaster and DrCube both posted upstream about people they personally know who have atrocious habits regarding fitness.
Why are we acting like everybody’s exercise and diet choices are so shrouded in mystery?
Plus, think of it like this. Suppose an individual has absolutely awful habits, but it does not show at all to an outside observer. Does this prove that fitness is therefore unimportant? I think not.
I propose you stop acting like willfully neglecting your health is okay.
I don’t willfully neglect my health. What do you propose I do about some friends who sometimes do neglect their health?
I answered this in the previous post. Nowhere did I claim you neglected your health. I said you should not act like it’s simply a matter of taste that others chose to do so.
Waymore, the short answer is that none of this is any of your business.
Since we’ve both posted several times since then, I think you can assume I already saw it. bldysabba’s post doesn’t have much to do with what you’ve been arguing.
bldysabba’s speaks to it actually carrying a societal cost, not just a personal one.
Neither is it any of my business if somebody brushes their teeth and showers regularly. That’s not the issue. The issue is, should paying no attention to fitness carry a taboo like poor personal hygiene does.
Oprah once said that her weight has brought her more discrimination than being a woman or being black.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being black or female. Besides, those aren’t matters of choice.
That’s true when society pays for your health care, which is not always the case. That idea has some unpleasant undertones. The bottom line is this: like I keep saying, I’m all for encouraging people to be in good shape. That’s a worthy goal. Educate everybody about nutrition, make sure healthy food is affordable and easy to get compared to junk food, etc. Judging people or guilting them doesn’t accomplish that. Our culture already treasures people who are in almost unattainably good shape, and people who are in less than ideal shape get enough crap as it is.
…Ooops.
Again with the appeal to guilt and shame.
It’s really very simple. People should take the time to exercise and control what they put into their bodies. If an individual fails to do so, then I have no problem saying they are making a mistake. It would be dishonest to say otherwise.
If my saying that causes guilt or shame in that individual, that’s on them. I’d rather be honest than agreeable.
Are you really acting like obesity doesn’t damage health? Stating facts and stigmatizing are different animals.
Plus, as I’ve said numerous times now, I’ve never said that being fit is identical to not being fat. Ergo, making a claim along the lines of “fat people are judged in society” doesn’t address my argument.
Yes, they should.
Who asked you?
And if they don’t, then should it carry a taboo? That’s the question in this thread.
See post 18 supra.
Golf-clap Cheers
People are masters of their own souls and no one else owns them. The minute one person wants control of other peoples choices based on their whims, That person is the problem.
For. The Win.
Yes, but You don’t get to decide for the rest of society.
No. Answered. Your hat…?