If it’s my opinion that most (not all) white guys are arrogant jerks, would it be inappropriate for you to hurt an insult at me? Are all opinions equally worthy and respectable?
It’s not the difference in opinion that caused Guin to respond the way she did. It’s that what you said is offensive.
You cannot be that dense. It is not your opinion that makes you an asshole. It is the way you express that opinion.. You come off as cold, uncaring, and extremely judgmental and dismissive of anyone who wasn’t able to do something as easily as you have.
To dismiss all poor and/or overweight people as weak, lazy, and stupid, the way you have, is indeed, being an asshole. I have never seen you express compassion, or understanding. Indeed, I seem to recall a time when you posted about how you used to drown your neighbor’s cats if you found them on your property, rather than simply take them to the pound. That alone makes you an SOB.
And I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way.
Guin: So it’s O.K. if I call you a self-centered, snobby, can’t-live-on-her-own, bitch? I can bring up lots of examples.
I really don’t give a shit what you call me.
I didn’t say we had to. I was asking what we WANTED to do, from what I see in real life and in threads like this, people only want to bitch. And that bitching is useless and moronic as it accomplishes NOTHING.
For you sir, you are in the minority. Far too many people DO care if others are fat, and are quick to decide what the one-size-fits-all answer is, even it it’s not something they understand or anything which will actually SOLVE anything.
That is the point I was making, not whether people had to do anything about it or not.
I was speaking to those who insist that it’s “as simple as that, ANYONE can do it, if they can’t, they’re useless lazy gluttons”. If it truly WERE “as simple as that”, our nation wouldn’t be 60% overweight and 35% morbidly obese.
And THAT is as “simple as that”.
Well, as with most other addictions, and emotional issues, the person suffering from them can’t be talked/shamed/abused/browbeaten (insert tactic of choice here) out of it.
The first thing to do is to stop oversimplifying it. Yes, technically (and technically, as in mathmatically ONLY) calories in=calories out to maintain weight. To tweak that formula so that the individual is not getting too much of a calorie deficit which “eats up” (to simplify it), muscle mass the person must know their lean body mass and their bodyfat percentage. They need to keep the calorie deficit at about 200-300 calories a day and not much more.
Same with the aerobic exercise, too much and the body is going to go for the most easily broken down fuel, and that is muscle, not fat. Scale weight is NOT the be all and end all of knowing if you are at the correct bodyfat percentage for your body type and height and unfortunately, there is a LOT of misinformation out there, especially among the undeducated, even the ones who ARE desparately trying to “eat less/exercise more”.
I hear a LOT of Pooh-poohing from people when they hear from a fat person (and I’ve had some severely overweight young ladies in my classes) say "I’ve tried everything, exercise, diets, nothing works.
These people aren’t lying, or being stupid. They probably have been on every diet that came down the pike and tried every newfangled piece of equipment that TV has to offer. The recidivism rate for Atkins is about 95%, at least according to our University’s textbook “Fitness for Every Body” (Bonnie Nygard). Most other diets fall into the 75-95 percentile for failure. www.hussman/eas.com
Why? Because few people address the REASON they overeat in the first place. And before anyone gets started. Yes, I KNOW there are people out there who are simply gluttonous, fat, lazy pigs.
There is a lot of pressure in our society today that never even would have been dreamed of by our slim hardworking ancestors. But that pressure is what creates the environment which tends to breed addictions (and food addiction is just one of them). People are lonely, sad, and pressured to keep up with the Joneses, among just a few of our society’s ills. Like anything else, food fills that void. That’s WRONG of course, but people in pain don’t often pay attention to what’s best for them, they just want the pain to leave, or at least dissipate somewhat.
A person who is exhausted from a hard week’s work and has only an empty house to look forward to for the weekend looks for something to occupy their mind and to fill the empty hole within. So it’s the CSI marathon and cartons of Ben and Jerry’s for the weekend. It blocks out the pain of those negative emotions. And yes, it’s WRONG, but what motivates humans, EVERY human is the seeking of pleasure and avoidance of pain.
IF and until these people address those issues that cause such an overwhelming, driving need to block the pain, no diet in the world, no matter HOW well laid out, and how much they educate themselves on it, is going to work.
I don’t believe this is ANYONE else’s responsibility but the overweight person’s to address.
But what WOULD be a good first step would be for the non-overweight, (but severely OVER judgmental), to educate themselves on the disease of addiction, and then put down their giant brushes and stop their constant refrain of “oh it’s oh so simple, you’re just stupid and lazy”.
And yes, I know, some people don’t want to and don’t care. Okay, don’t then, that’s your bag. If you (collective you) must, you must. But you’re wrong about why this is happening, and what the cure is and you’re just bitching to be bitching and judgmental and not only doesn’t it work, it makes things worse.
I know, I see a lot of these young ladies in my classes each semester. Being young and decidedly NOT hot and being told so by young men and the hot girls of their class, does NOT make them lose weight.
Thanks tdn. You bring up a really good point too! With some people a “kick in the ass” IS just what the Doctor ordered.
But that doesn’t then translate to “Oh, this is THE answer” (ta DAH lights from heaven shining down, chorus of angels sing…).
(not that you’re saying that, the second sentence was meant for others in this thread :D).
Well, since I was living below the poverty level when I had two preschool-aged kids and a pregnant wife (and two jobs) I’ll call you an asshole. Because you are. Also, because you’re shooting your mouth off and have no idea what you’re talking about.
Wow. I didn’t think anyone on this board ever listened to me. I’m glad I could help you, in whatever way I did. 
Not that I agree with the guy, but your experience is clearly meaningless. Unless you ARE “cronically poor”.
Let me say that in another, less offensive, way: You don’t seem to be the people to whom he is referring.
Part of my weight loss solution was a gastric by-pass. But that did not completely solve the problem because the compulsion to overeat was still there. Relief for that came in the form of a medication which is also used to treat seisures. Interesting enough, it has also affected my compulsions to shop and smoke. That is pretty convincing evidence for me that my body’s physical chemistry plays a large role in how I relate to food. Apparently it’s that way for a lot of people.
If you are able to maintain a healthy weight, it may not be because of your sterling will power after all.
Surely someone in this thread has mentioned that scientists are now working on testing an obesity vaccine. If this is a repeat of information, please excuse me.
When people are dieting, their stomachs produce high levels of ghrelin to slow down metabolism, **increase the appetite **, and promote fat retention. That’s why dieting gets harder and harder and it becomes more and more difficult to lose weight and keep it off.
Scientists are hoping that the new vaccine will inhibit production of ghrelin in human beings as it does in animals.
Sorry, Crafter_Man, no word yet on the vaccine for assholes.
Late to the party…
To get back to the OP, the shame to me with overweight kids is that it isn’t too hard to drop ten pounds (the last ten sticks like glue, but it really only takes a few months to lose it), but its hellish to drop fifty. Add ten pounds a year from the time you are five until twenty, and you have 150 pounds to loose - easy to get discouraged. So parents who feed their kids in such a way where they are overweight are setting their kids up for failure once the kid can control his own diet and tries to lose the weight.
But, I’m not sure how much of an epidemic this is…I see really overweight kids, but of the forty kids in my two children’s classes, only one is obese. Most look just like I remember the normal kids I went to school with 30 years ago. We are a pretty median elementary school - right on the average for ratio of kids getting free/reduced lunch, a little bit better test scores than average, etc.
Thank you for the support and great ideas! I am taking it day by day and some days feel better than others. I’m on antidepressants and have been in therapy before, but I should go to a specialized counselor, and a nutritionist. I also came up slightly hypothyroid (they are rechecking soon) and have mild sleep apnea which probably doesn’t help with the whole get good rest and be able to make better choices thing. (I checked for your e-mail but it’s not available…)
I live in New England, home of Cabot cheese (yum). And I have access to good and varied stuff through our co-ops. I think you might be right that small changes are the way to go right now; don’t be too severe but cut out the obvious things like fast food and snacks that have no nutritional value. This whole high fructose corn syrup thing is interesting too…I need to pay more attention to that.
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Try tneal at partners dot org.
What do you think has worked to cut down the rate of smoking in this country? Education from the 90’s on has helped immensely, as well as the high tax on cigarettes and, in part, the prevelance of an anti-smoking stigma in the country. Do you see the same things helping decrease the number of obese people? Education? Higher taxes on fatty foods? More stigma on obesity? Do you see any techniques from the substance abuse movement: interventions, 28 day treatment centers, FA meetings, forced commitment, that you would adopt for obesity?
I’m sure that many obese people could be helped immensely by learning not just eat less/exercise more, but also how to actually do that and make it part of your life. That would help. But your concern over the oversimplification of it seems to me to be meant more to protect the feelings of the obese than any real solution.
If I understand correctly, obesity is a symptom of a problem and not really the problem. Again, what should we, or the government, do to fight it?
Agreed. I’m not sure many of obese people will be happy to know that they’re sad, stress monsters with something missing from their lives.
Once again, HOW does that help the problem? I agree that it would make the world a better place, and it would stop fueling the self-pity of the obese, but do you really expect it to decrease the obesity rate in adults and children? Do you think that the stupidity of the over judgmental causes obesity in some way. I suppose you could say that the acting on the ignorance by mockery of strangers adds to the stress and sadness of the obese, which adds to their stress, so they overeat, but I don’t necessarily think less meanness will decrease the obesity rate.
Tell me about it. My slim hardworking ancestors had no stress. Well, there was raising twelve children on a farm. During the depression. There was the constant fear of polio and mumps and the flu. The year the locust came. Taking care of my grandmother’s unmarried pregnant cousin and passing off the baby as another sister.
But my other side - no stress there. 'Cause its a peice of cake to work 12 hour days six days a week at the slaughterhouse, only speaking a bare amount of English, half a world away from your family.
Course, my relatives weren’t overweight. My farmwife great grandmother was a little insane. My slaughterhouse great grandmother was an alcoholic. But they didn’t have enough food to be overweight. Their kids - some of them were overweight.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. We can now self medicate our stress with food easier than we can with booze or cigarettes (or even legal opiates - if you go back far enough). And the nature of the stress may have changed - but I don’t think our bodies really care if your stress is coming from a five figure Visa bill or from worrying that the back pain is going to keep you from getting the wheat in.
What I think we need to do:
On the food front, make sure that people do get educated on food. Do put some of the restrictions around food that we have put on cigarettes. Make sure that people do have access to the nutritional information available - I think its there - in the schools, at the doctor, on television, in magazines - and yet, so is a lot of misinformaiton (including “well, it might be thyroid” - yes, it might, but lets face it, not everyone who claims a hormonal weight issue has one - a lot of people just claim it because it keeps the judging down - or they’ve tried to lose weight and haven’t had success so they’ve self diagnosed a hormonal issue). We need to break the ease of “food is love” that grown ups teach their kids - “oh, honey, did you hurt yourself, here, have a cookie, you’ll feel better.”
However, on the bigger front, we need to make sure that people learn healthy coping habits so they don’t eat (smoke, drink, have sex, gamble, take Vicodin, do meth, hang excessively on the internet) past moderation and to the point of impacting their life or the lives of those around them in order to cope.
On the contrary, I often make a point of reading your posts. I don’t always agree, of course, but I usually find some value in them.
Good luck, you have access to the good stuff. I find having an ounce of 7 year old cheddar far nicer than 3 ounces of 3 year old. If you use very low callorie wafers or apple to go with it and avoid butter (really butter only serves to make the cheese taste milder) you can snack quite healthyly and still get a cheese fix. I forgot to mention cellary as an accompanyment as well (probably because I don’t like cellary)
I use the same philosophy to feed the chocolate addiction. Really, one peice of a good bar of chocolate is far more satisfying than an entire Hershey’s bar. However, it still takes discipline to stop after that one square.