The Fat vs Thin debate in America

[ignatiusjreilly]

And if you really, really want to earn a Ph.D. in math, you can do it. I’ve done it.

I agree with you 100% RT. If you’re trying to rebuff my argument, I don’t see how… The point is, anything is possible if you want it bad enough. That’s my own personal economic philosophy. And the physics of weight control are very easy to understand and master. If you say you want something, but then don’t do it for whatever reason, then contrary to what you may think or say, you really don’t want it as bad you say.

Example: Say that Jimmy decides he needs to exercise, and given his work schedule, the only time he can make is in early the morning. Jimmy claims that he wants to make exercise a high priority, but he never can seem to get out of bed, citing the excuse that he’s too tired. Ask why he’s tired and he says that he went to bed too late. Why did he go to bed too late? Because he was busy watching “NYPD Blue” the night before and it’s his favorite show and he can’t miss it and it’s not over until 11:00 so by the time it’s over he’s in bed late and can’t get up early. Voila! Contrary to everything Jimmy has said about exercise, in truth, his real priority is watching television. He can say one thing, but his actions reveal the truth of his priorities.

Another Example: Suzy needs to quit eating fast food. But Suzy keeps going to McDonald’s for lunch. Ask why and she’ll answer that McDonald’s is the only place nearby to buy lunch every day. She could take her own lunch to work, but never does so because she doesn’t want to make the effort before work every morning. Voila! Contrary to Suzy’s stated desire to quit eating fast food, her convenience and routine in the morning has the actual priority in her life over eating healthy.

Same concept with anything else. I have some personal debt right now. I know that if I want to eliminate that debt within the next year, I will need to make major sacrifices in my lifestyle to try and help to repay that debt more quickly. But the truth is that I haven’t made enough of those sacrifices yet to accomplish that goal. It’s not because I have to have cable TV. It’s not because I am forced to live in my nice apartment complex. It’s because I choose to have those expenses and therefore I know that I am putting a greater priority on (and therefore receive a greater personal economic benefit from) those other expenses than I do on/from the repayment of the debt. I know I can control it and I don’t just throw up my hands and get “depressed” because I can’t have both things at once.

So whenever I hear people bitch about not having the time to exercise or being too busy at work or that they’re just plain unable to lose weight, I think that 99% of them are full of shit. There are some legitimate medical instances where people are obese due to circumstances beyond their control, but for the vast vast majority of people, being overweight is nothing more than a function of their own lifestyle choices. I’m not saying that everyone can easily look like popular actresses on television, but with effort and a little committment just about everybody can certainly get down into the ranges that the government and health care professional consider to be healthy and normal. And if they don’t do that, then it’s their own damn fault. It’s not the fault of McDonald’s for having fatty hamburgers. It’s not the fault of their divorce lawyers for making it a stressful process. It’s not the fault of the kids for having soccer practice and piano recitals every afternoon. It’s their own fault for not accepting responsibility for their choices. I’m not saying that one choice (exercising) is better than the other choices (watching television), all I am saying is that it’s dishonest to just try and blame your problems on things you can’t control, because if you really really want it, you can do anything. Period.

[and if you want to start another debate, I’ll tell you that this exact same argument applies towards the gun contral debate as well… ]

[ignatiusjreilly]

Make that “rebutt”. Oops. :embarassed:

[ignatiusjreilly]

Make that “rebutt”. Oops. :embarassed:

[QuickSilver]

RTFirefly wrote:
Hardly. Amidst the maelstrom of emotion, we also pretty much sliced, diced, and dismantled QuickSilver’s argument, such as it was.

Really? Where was that?.. I must have missed that sound thrashing along the way.

And if you really, really want to earn a Ph.D. in math, you can do it. I’ve done it.

Really? A Ph.D. in math. That’s great. Truely. I do admire you for that. On a slightly sarcastic note… you shouldn’t have any trouble balancing the formula of weight loss where: Weight loss = Calories in - Calories out.

Absent some strong supporting evidence, there’s no reason to believe such a claim simply because it’s asserted.

Hmmm… let me see. The assertion is: If you exercise regularly and reduce fat and sugar intake in you diet, your health will improve and you will experience fat loss (which may mean overall weight loss in obese individuals).

<Sarcasm on full> Nope. I see no reason to believe that. Not at all. Not nearly enough emperical evidence gathered on this subject to date. <Sarcasm off>.

You don’t know the choices that are facing a person at any given time… you don’t see that the overweight person you’re looking at has all of a sudden developed panic attacks, and has no idea what’s happening to them. You don’t see the person whose brother killed himself last month. You don’t see the person who’s putting in such long hours on the job that they barely have the energy to go through the drive-through. You just see their weight.

Panic Attacks - studies have shown that a regular exercise program and proper nutrition will lead to a reduction of stress on the human body. I have personal and intimate knowledge of the kinds of things stress can do to one’s health. I don’t say it lightly when I claim that exercise has perhaps saved my life or at least helped me to avoid very serious and life altering surgery.

Dead brother - indeed a tragedy. Though I fail to see what role that may play in one’s long term fitness goals.

Long hours at work - I hear fit people have jobs as well. I suspect that proportionately just as many work long hours at jobs equally demanding of their time and energy.

To get back to what people have been saying in this this thread since the beginning, overweight people would bitch a lot less about their weight if the rest of the world didn’t constantly make it an issue for them. Then they wouldn’t have to piss you off so much.

That claim sounded silly at the start of this thread and it sounds just as silly now. Doctors who care for their patients will advise them, repeatedly if necessary, to quit smoking or quit drinking or lose weight. It’s their job as caring health professionals. Family members and friends who love and value you will do the same because they would like to see you healthy and alive for many years to come. I see how having our faults repeatedly pointed out to us is painfull but we must bear in mind that more often than not, it’s done out of genuine concern for our own well being… and yes, often love.

I don’t find that fat people piss me off. People who litter and drive badly piss me off.

And then they’d be able to deal with their weight in their own way, at their own time, as a health issue, rather than being perpetually tired of being made to feel like shitty human beings because of their extra weight.

I know that sentiment very well. I know how hard it is to get up when you are down. I know how easy it is to justify scarfing down a family sized bag of chips in front of the TV because you just gained another 10 pounds and need to go up another pant size. I know how angry it makes you feel when a 30lb gain seems more likely than a 70lb loss.
No one can make you feel like a shitty human being if you don’t already think less of yourself in even the smallest way. Fortunately I also know that choosing not to give up and forcing yourself to rise above that kind of depression is very rewarding… though it may not seem that way at that low moment.

Bottom line, you can choose to wait for the right moment (which may never come) or you can choose to make the moment right and begin to change your life in positive ways.

It’s all up to the individual.

And finally, I’m sorry if I made anyone here feel singled out or ridiculed. It was never my intent. I do think that the Hollywood ideal is much closer to an overall healthy body image than the overweight figure many North Americans sport now a days. I don’t think Kate Winslet is full figured. I do think that Emme could stand to lose a few. I absolutely cannot stand Calista Flokheart, any of the women on “Friends” and the rest of the lollypop shaped stars in Hollywood. But if anyone here thinks that they are powerless to improve their health and self image by shedding unneeded fat then I unabashedly say they are dead wrong.

And Falcon… no one says that if you are fat you need to drop everything you are doing and head to the gym. Trouble is, many overweight people don’t care and have abandoned all hope in ever being fit again. The trouble with the “Not everyone can achieve a fit lifestyle” argument is that it easily becomes the “Nobody should expect to achieve a fit lifestyle” argument. Pretty soon, you’ve got a self fullfilling prophecy. Glad to hear you are working to better your health.

[ignatiusjreilly]

::pops head up from the foxhole::

And here’s another bomb from the back bench -

The truth is, people on television are thin because that’s what the vast majority of people in this country find to be attractive. Not the other way around. It’s hardwired into our brains - right or wrong - that physically fit people are better capable of reproducing effectively. Ergo, we as humans are going to be attracted to people who are physically fit because we want to reproduce effectively. That’s evolution and it’s not the fault of the media or Hollywood that most men don’t find overweight women to be attractive.

Granted, Hollywood might be responsible for overidealizing the stick figure, but even in the absence of those negative influences from television, most men are going to choose the 5-7 woman who weighs 140 pounds over the 5-7 woman who weighs 200 pounds. That’s not unfair media bias; that’s genetic selection.

::ducks and runs for cover::

[Falcon]

Okay, easy one first, then a general comment.

johnnyharvard: I would disagree with that assertion. (big surprise, I know.) Not too long ago, curvier women were considered attractive. Marilyn Monroe, for one. Go back further, and you can see that there HAVE been periods where larger women are considered attractive. The research I have seen (give me a day and I’ll find the cite…) says that this was originally true because prehistoric man LOOKED for larger women. They were better able to bear children, and to get through harder times of finding food. How is finding physically fit women more attractive “hardwired”? I have never seen this assertion anywhere.

What I think has happened is a self-fufilling prophecy. Hollywood thinks thin women are attractive. That becomes all they show. Therefore, it’s what men see all the time. Therefore, they find those times attractive. Therefore, that’s all Hollywood shows. It’s a circle.

Moving on.

Quicksilver said:

I know that sentiment very well. I know how hard it is to get up when you are down. I know how easy it is to justify scarfing down a family sized bag of chips in front of the TV because you just gained another 10 pounds and need to go up another pant size. I know how angry it makes you feel when a 30lb gain seems more likely than a 70lb loss.
No one can make you feel like a shitty human being if you don’t already think less of yourself in even the smallest way. Fortunately I also know that choosing not to give up and forcing yourself to rise above that kind of depression is very rewarding… though it may not seem that way at that low moment.

True enough. I think what most of us are asking here (correct me if I’m wrong, folks) is for people to realize that rising above that depression IS NOT EASY. And for people to just treat it as the easiest thing ever is…slightly hurtful, and can be discouraging. And it’s not “waiting for the right moment,” really. It’s waiting for the time when you know you can give it everything you have. I made a conscious choice to not concentrate on my weight for over two years while fighting depression. Beating that was more important to me. Does that mean I thought I would never lose the weight? No. Just meant I had placed it on hold.

[Biggirl]

**
I mean also pisses me off to hear people bitch about their weight and then see the hoards of people -with big 'ole flabby bellys hanging over their waistbands - standing in Wendy’s line in the food court during lunch. Jeez, have a little pride and little common sense. Small stuff like that makes all the difference…

**

Ah, there’s the rub. Fat people should be ashamed of themselves for going to Wendy’s and having a burger.

It is unhealthy to be fat. No one is arguing this point. It is an individual’s choice as to how much they exercize and how much they eat. This is also true. What does not follow, however, is if a fat individual chooses not to make his weight the focal point of his life and spend 30 hours a week in a gym and forsake all fatty foods, than that individual deserves to be vilified.

Calories in, exercize out. Sounds so simple, and it is. So why is it that some people can eat a Big Extra and a Big Mac, super size their drink and french fries, yet still weigh only 102lbs? I can’t even imagine putting that much food in my belly.

Personal testament here. I don’t want to be skinny. I do want to be more healthy. So I walk across the Brooklyn Bridge 3 days a week and hope this will help. I don’t want to spend 30 hours in a gym. This does not make me lazy.

What gives anyone the right to make personal judgements about me without even knowing me? But this is what happens to fat people all the time. Now the OP states that this is what everyone should do. Let’s hold up these emaciated people as role models and do our best to make sure fat people know they are not accepted.

[yosemite]

Johnny Harvard, you said:

I agree with you 100% RT. If you’re trying to rebuff my argument, I don’t see how… The point is, anything is possible if you want it bad enough. That’s my own personal economic philosophy.

Are you just being purposely dense? You completely missed RT’s point.

We are not all created equal. If we were, all of us would have a keen sense of innate direction (I don’t, and I don’t believe that “if I put my mind to it”, I could.) All of us could have a good sense of artistic color and line (I do, my friend Annie, who tried and tried and tried to learn, does not.) All of us would have perfect pitch. (My mom has excellent pitch, I have decent pitch, Annie’s mom cannot carry a tune to save her life.) And no amount of “putting our minds to it” will change that. If you don’t understand that, you are in for a lifetime of disappointments. I’m not saying that there is no point in putting effort into things that are hard, but even with that extra, heroic effort, not all of us are going to have the same amount of ability in certain areas.

If we were created equal, I’d be able to eat the entire pizza that I see my skinny friend Ryan eat. (He doesn’t excerise, he burns off all that energy by being generally hyper as he sits in front of his computer screen.) But Ryan and I are not created equal.

I also want to reiterate here - who died and made some of you the weight kings? Like you are appointed to remind the rest of us how fat we are? Hey, I want to be the polyester queen, and go up to strangers and tell them not to wear it. But that would be presumptuos and rude - people make their choices, it’s none of my business.

I also want to know - where the hell do some of you live? What part of the country accepts fatness? Maybe I should move there. Because in my experience, most of America is pretty anti-fat. Especially in Hollywood and S. California, like I mentioned before. It’s not enough to remind fat people that they’re fat all the time, it’s also OK to have “Save a whale, harpoon a fat chick” bumper stickers, and to insult them in cruel ways to their face. Hey - some of you out there think Hollywood is perpetuating a healthier attitude towards weight. And are looking the other way (and ignoring) the extreme and cruel way fat people are treated. Since you ignore it, I guess you think it’s OK.

[QuickSilver]

Ah, there’s the rub. Fat people should be ashamed of themselves for going to Wendy’s and having a burger.

Not at all. But Dave Thomas somehow manages to stay relatively fit for a guy his age, height and occupation.

… What does not follow, however, is if a fat individual chooses not to make his weight the focal point of his life and spend 30 hours a week in a gym and forsake all fatty foods, than that individual deserves to be vilified.

Again… of course not. But I suspect that if fat people spent 30 hours in the gym, we would not be on this subject. More to the point… why go to such extremes as 30 hours a week. 5 to 8 hours a week of exercise (including walking) is all it would take to improve the health of 90% of all people (fat and thin alike).

…why is it that some people can eat a Big Extra and a Big Mac, super size their drink and french fries, yet still weigh only 102lbs?

OK. Now I’m going to have to ask for a cite. I know that this is a popular misconception among many people. Somebody very thin, putting away tonnes of food without gaining an ounce. I believe that there are any number of good explanations for this anecdotal example. The most obvious of these is… the person in question is very active through his/her day and eats little else after such a meal.

Personal testament here. I don’t want to be skinny. I do want to be more healthy. So I walk across the Brooklyn Bridge 3 days a week and hope this will help.

Okay a personal question here. What do you consider skinny? Are you in any danger of becoming as skinny as Calista? No? So what are you affraid of?

Does your walking make you feel healthier? Does it make you feel as healthy as you want to be? Have you attained your desired goal? If so, then that’s great for you. If not perhaps longer, faster or more frequent walks are in order. You are doing the right thing but just like learning a new skill, i.e. learning to play a musical instrument or acquiring new language or new trade, fitness takes time and effort. If you want to be good at something you need to practice it. People are not created equal - we all know that. Some people have more aptitude in certain areas than others. Why is it that people don’t want to accept that fitness, like any other desireable pursuit takes time and effort? Why is it that people begrudge that time and effort in this instance? Because in the grand scheme of things, it’s not important to some people.

This does not make me lazy.

No it does not. But having your doctor, friend, relative suggest that you lose weight does not make them mean or insensitive either. Just means that they are looking out for you.

What gives anyone the right to make personal judgements about me without even knowing me? But this is what happens to fat people all the time. Now the OP states that this is what everyone should do. Let’s hold up these emaciated people as role models and do our best to make sure fat people know they are not accepted.

We all make judgements about people’s appearance. How they behave, how they dress, how they carry themselves in public. We are all drawn to certain human characteristics and revolted by others. It’s all part of what makes us human. Society draws all kinds of conclusions about all kinds of human characteristics and traits. Show me an identifiable group of people on this planet that is not subjected to some stereotype by some other group. I’d love to see an example of such a person(s).

To clarify the OP (for the last and final time I hope) - I simply postulated that Hollywood, in it’s awkward, misguided, unrealistic way, is encouraging people to embrace a healthier life style by glorifying thin and fit individuals in all aspects of popular (mainstream) media. It may be over glorifying the emaciated look but in general, it’s encouraging the public to pick fit over fat.

And another thought comes to mind. If Marilyn Monroe was the female ideal in her size 12 glory, while a size 4 is now normally accepted as the norm, why is it that more and more Americans are becoming dangerously obese? Why is it that weight related diabetes and heart disease is on the rise? Despite whatever body image Hollywood is projecting on our movie screens and televisions, the general fitness level of the average american has been in decline due in part to a significant rise in obesity.

[RTFirefly]

j.harvard:

If you’re trying to rebut [single t - I fixed it for you] my argument, I don’t see how…

Try this:

It’s common to feel at one time or another…that our experience is wonderfully representative and emblematic of human experience in general…we’re usually wrong. Absent some strong supporting evidence, there’s no reason to believe such a claim simply because it’s asserted.

You continued:

The point is, anything is possible if you want it bad enough. That’s my own personal economic philosophy.

I’m glad reality bends to your philosophy. I guess they taught you that in Harvard? (Maybe my wife has degenerative arthritis in both knees because she doesn’t want healthy knees badly enough. I’ll pass it on.)

If you say you want something, but then don’t do it for whatever reason, then contrary to what you may think or say, you really don’t want it as bad you say.

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Past a certain level, we have no control over what we ‘want bad enough’; I will probably never be a multimillionaire because I couldn’t get myself to care that much about money if I tried. Too much of what I want, or don’t, is tied up in who I am. So it cycles right back around to something inborn - only this time, it’s not your metabolism, it’s your gut-level, inalienable desires and priorities.

Plus the genuine physical limitations we run into, of course, like those arthritic knees my wife has. Yes, she could get the same amount of exercise as me if she wanted to badly enough, but to get the same amount of exercise, she’d have to want it a hell of a lot more badly than I do, and the actual work involved would be much greater for her.

So whenever I hear people bitch about not having the time to exercise or being too busy at work or that they’re just plain unable to lose weight, I think that 99% of them are full of shit.

And as I was saying, they’d bitch about it a lot less, and have to be less full of shit, if the health vigilantes weren’t making it an issue in their lives.

If there were Clutter Police that acted the same way, you bet there’d be a lot of people, everywhere you go, griping about how they’re just too busy to deal with the stacks of paper on their desks, with the same level of sincerity. (I’d be one of them.) But there aren’t, so we don’t have to always pretend to the world that we’d deal with the clutter if only this or that. Instead, it’s our private matter, because nobody’s making it a public-domain issue everywhere we go. Capiche?

Oh yeah:

even in the absence of those negative influences from television, most men are going to choose the 5-7 woman who weighs 140 pounds over the 5-7 woman who weighs 200 pounds. That’s not unfair media bias; that’s genetic selection.

Yeah, only the 5’7", 140-lb. woman is supposedly a cow, remember? Keep up with the discussion, please.

When the TV starts portraying such a woman as normal, then you might have a point. But when she has to weigh 108, it’s media distortion. It makes even healthy women feel embarrassed to show their bodies at the pool or the health club. That’s where we’re at, and that’s not healthy.

Enough of you; it’s QuickSilver’s turn.

[RT]Absent some strong supporting evidence, there’s no reason to believe such a claim simply because it’s asserted.

[QS]Hmmm… let me see. The assertion is: If you exercise regularly and reduce fat and sugar intake in you diet, your health will improve and you will experience fat loss (which may mean overall weight loss in obese individuals).

Actually, the ‘claim’ was that one’s experience was representative of that of the general population. But WTF, if you can’t read, it’s got to make it harder for you to keep up.

Panic Attacks - studies have shown that a regular exercise program and proper nutrition will lead to a reduction of stress on the human body.

And if the panic attacks hit when you’re in the best shape and the lowest weight of your adult life? (This is a true story, btw.) It just might take your eye off the ball while you’re trying to figure out whether you’re nuts or what, before you’ve even put a name to what’s happening to you, let alone while the doc is having you try drugs one at a time until you find one that works - and the side effects of at least one of the drugs is, you guessed it, weight gain. (Bad choice, to have been hit by panic attacks.)

Dead brother - indeed a tragedy. Though I fail to see what role that may play in one’s long term fitness goals.

Another all-too-real story. (These aren’t all happening to the same person, fortunately.) Again, when you’re reeling from the shock of such a loss (and, trust me, the reeling goes on for awhile), you’re going to lose focus on other goals. How much weight can you gain in just a few months of feeling like your life is a shipwreck, and how long will it take you to lose it again, once you’re back to some semblance of normal? That’s the role it can play.

Long hours at work - I hear fit people have jobs as well. I suspect that proportionately just as many work long hours at jobs equally demanding of their time and energy.

Actually, I doubt it. Once the job gets beyond a certain number of hours per week, there just isn’t enough time to take care of yourself very well, period. I’d always been one of the healthiest people I knew, up to then, but I lost a lot of ground during those years, though I still look fairly trim. It was a lot harder on my wife.

Of course, it gets back to what you want, and both of us wanted to at least not embarrass ourselves in front of our classes, and, beyond that, to try some new things that might make it a bit more fun for kids to learn math. We figured the workload would get less demanding a lot faster than it actually did. When it became clear that we’d never have time for a life during the school year, we found new jobs. (Note to harvardboy: economic theories work better when you know the costs and benefits of your choices in advance. Life ain’t always so accommodating.)

Doctors who care for their patients will advise them, repeatedly if necessary, to quit smoking or quit drinking or lose weight. It’s their job as caring health professionals. Family members and friends who love and value you will do the same because they would like to see you healthy and alive for many years to come. I see how having our faults repeatedly pointed out to us is painfull but we must bear in mind that more often than not, it’s done out of genuine concern for our own well being… and yes, often love.

Frankly, if I were seriously overweight, and my family were ‘lovingly’ showing their concern about it every time I saw them, I’d see them a hell of a lot less. And I’d re-evaluate who my ‘friends’ were. (The doctor’s another matter, of course.)

I know people who smoke. I know it’s bad for them. They know it’s bad for them, and I know they know. What’s to be gained by pointing it out to them? If they raise the subject, I try to be supportive, but otherwise, I keep my mouth shut. (They just can’t smoke inside my house or car, but that’s another issue.)

Maybe I just don’t know what ‘love’ is. Maybe I need to go up to smokers on the street, and ask them why they don’t quit; maybe I should go ‘moo’ at any overweight people I see. I need to get out and be more ‘loving’.

Bottom line, you can choose to wait for the right moment (which may never come) or you can choose to make the moment right and begin to change your life in positive ways.

And as Falcon has already pointed out, the first thing to work on may not necessarily be your weight. Hell, it may not be the second or third thing. Sometimes life is like that. The job of the rest of us (doctors exempted) is to leave overweight people alone until they seek our advice or support in dealing with their weight. And (to get back to the OP) it would be a lot more helpful if the media made stars out of gorgeous women who were only ten pounds underweight, rather than the ones who are thirty or forty pounds below their natural weight.

[tracer]

Most of the thin people I know are thin not because they “work at it”, but because they simply don’t crave food as much or as often as I do – or the food they do crave isn’t as fattening.

Some of them also seem to ingest an inordinate amount of caffeine in the form of coffee, which has been known to act as an appetite suppressant in some people while at the same time increasing their activity level in subtle ways they might not even be aware of.

[QuickSilver]

Oh man!

That’s it. You guys win. You wore me down.

RTFirefly, Biggirl, Yosemitybabe et al… I capitulate to your compelling arguments. You seem to have far many more excuses that I have counter-arguments. There is no shame in losing if you’ve been beaten by your betters.

I give up. In fact you’ve got me thinking… why the hell have I been abusing myself with all this diet and gym stuff for years. I’m only 20lb from my goal but what the fuck. Who needs it. I’m going to quit this nonsense and concentrate on getting my Ph.D. in … oh, I don’t know… something. I know that my body will thank me when I roll back those 40lb and then some.

What the hell was I thinking…

[Biggirl]

Yay!
Just kidding Quick.

**
Oh man!

I give up. In fact you’ve got me thinking… why the hell have I been abusing myself with all this diet and gym stuff for years. I’m only 20lb from my goal but what the fuck. Who needs it. I’m going to quit this nonsense and concentrate on getting my Ph.D. in … oh, I don’t know… something. I know that my body will thank me when I roll back those 40lb and then some.

What the hell was I thinking…
**

Now Quick, it was never my intention, or anyone elses, to convince people who are trying to lose weight to give it up. If you want to work hard to lose weight there is no reason for you not to. Just don’t beat up on the people who don’t.

[RTFirefly]

To clarify the OP (for the last and final time I hope) - I simply postulated [sic] that Hollywood, in it’s awkward, misguided, unrealistic way, is encouraging people to embrace a healthier life style by glorifying thin and fit individuals in all aspects of popular (mainstream) media. It may be over glorifying the emaciated look but in general, it’s encouraging the public to pick fit over fat.

Oh, we understood you, alright. Don’t worry about that.

We just disagreed with your proposition, and explained at length why it wasn’t true. Restating it isn’t going to undo those arguments. We’ve said, “here’s how these images really affect overweight people, and to a lesser extent, people of more or less normal weight,” and explained some of the dynamic of why it works that way. I’ve been speaking from the perspective of someone whose spouse has a difficult time with her weight; many of the posters have themselves spent long years struggling with their weight.

While the same is true of you and johnnyharvard, either I’ve missed something, or neither of you has so much as suggested that the images of unattainably thin people on TV and in the movies have somehow made it easier for you to lose weight yourselves. So you’ve not countered testimony with testimony; you’ve not countered argument with counterargument.

That must mean we’re right: Hollywood is no help to those who would seek a healthier lifestyle.

[ignatiusjreilly]

Quicksilver - I think you’re right. It’s not really a question of logic with any of these folks - it’s more excuse than argument. “I am fat. It’s because of depression/my thyroid/my job/my kids. I can’t help it so I give up and resign myself to being fat.” I get the sense that many of the folks in this thread aren’t necessarily disagreeing with you out of logic moreso than they’re disagreeing with you because they feel threatened by your premise.

RT - I’m sorry your wife has bad knees, but what does that have to do with being overweight? Yes, there are some physical limitations in life that cannot be overcome, like arthritis. Being overweight is usually not one of them, even though many people (some of them posting to this thread no doubt) take the easy way out and say that it is.

Look, I don’t see how my handle or my education got into this, and I certainly wasn’t planning on arguing economic theory with you (though you’re welcome to start a new thread anytime :D). All I’m saying is that there are a lot of fat people running around who bitch and moan about being fat and say that they’re serious about losing weight - but then they go make decisions and choices that are directly contradictory to that stated desire. In doing so they demonstrate that losing weight really isn’t their true focus. That’s all. It boils down to this: Do you really want to lose weight or do you really want a Big Mac for lunch? That’s all I’m saying. For a vast majority of the population, one’s weight is easily controlled through diet and exercise - just because someone doesn’t want to make those sacrifices doesn’t mean that they simply can’t get any results if they did. This is where my disagreement lies.

And as far as the OP - idealism is part of being human. Everything on television is supposed to be a fantasy world and is not supposed to be real. Jerry Seinfeld dated multitudes of beautiful women that he met on the street and lived quite a comfortable lifestyle with no other income but his stand-up comic gig… Are we supposed to go after NBC for promoting such an unrealistic lifestyle that might falsely influence young children? What’s the difference?

Quicksilver makes a good point - what’s the big deal about showing a bunch of attractive thin women on TV? If we’re gonna worry about instilling character flaws in the population, let’s worry about the excessive violence and gratuitous sex that permeates our culture - things that might cause real problems if people in TV Land tried to emulate them. If someone aspires to be thin, I don’t see how that’s so bad except that fat people might take it as a threat to their mindset that being fat isn’t really all that bad.

[Biggirl]

**
Quicksilver - I think you’re right. It’s not really a question of logic with any of these folks - it’s more excuse than argument. “I am fat. It’s because of depression/my thyroid/my job/my kids. I can’t help it so I give up and resign myself to being fat.” I get the sense that many of the folks in this thread aren’t necessarily disagreeing with you out of logic moreso than they’re disagreeing with you because they feel threatened by your premise.
**

You’ve got your story and your sticking to it. John, you have not been reading anything I have posted if this is what you believe I’ve been saying. Take a careful look at my posts. But here goes my stance just in case you still don’t get it:
I am fat because I am fat. You do not know the reasons why I am fat. If you choose to lable me as a lazy, shameful person because I am fat, it is because you are a prejudiced fuck.
I do not assume to tell you that you need to stop smoking, dye your hair, change your clothing style because I personally find this unattractive. Don’t assume anything about me. I do not whine about my weight, but I get downright nasty when people besmirch my character because I am fat.

[RTFirefly]

Oh man!

That’s it. You guys win. You wore me down.

RTFirefly, Biggirl, Yosemitybabe et al… I capitulate to your compelling arguments. You seem to have far many more excuses that I have counter-arguments. There is no shame in losing if you’ve been beaten by your betters.

I give up. In fact you’ve got me thinking… why the hell have I been abusing myself with all this diet and gym stuff for years. I’m only 20lb from my goal but what the fuck. Who needs it. I’m going to quit this nonsense and concentrate on getting my Ph.D. in … oh, I don’t know… something. I know that my body will thank me when I roll back those 40lb and then some.

What the hell was I thinking…

You weren’t. But it’s a pretty sad ploy, in conceding, to imply that we weren’t arguing about X, we were really arguing about Y. That’s called ‘gamesmanship.’

We weren’t arguing about whether overweight people should try to attain a healthy weight. We were arguing about whether Hollywood, by having such thin TV and movie stars, makes that process easier or harder - whether they’re efective role models for good health and living at a healthy weight, or not.

Falcon, Biggirl, Yosemitebabe, etc. won that debate by default, really. As I pointed out in my previous post, we presented testimony and arguments; they weren’t countered.

Then there was a side-debate over, basically, the degree of difficulty of losing weight. Eventually you at least conceded that it was more difficult for some people to lose weight than others:

People are not created equal - we all know that. Some people have more aptitude in certain areas than others. Why is it that people don’t want to accept that fitness, like any other desireable pursuit takes time and effort?

But we were never debating whether people should try to attain a healthy weight. That’s a red herring that you’ve tossed into the discussion on the way out the door. Keep with your program, or don’t; we don’t care. More power to you if you do; no judgment, from these circles anyway, if you run into problems.

Just don’t put words in our mouths that we didn’t say. We fight ignorance, and that’s ignorant.

[RTFirefly]

Quicksilver makes a good point - what’s the big deal about showing a bunch of attractive thin women on TV?

No, he didn’t, johnny - he tried not to make the point that they were no big deal; he tried to make the point that they actually were beneficial to people at large, heathwise, as role models. A bunch of us have argued to the contrary - that they did more harm than good to efforts to live healthy lives - and we have not been countered on this.

If we’re gonna worry about instilling character flaws in the population, let’s worry about the excessive violence and gratuitous sex that permeates our culture - things that might cause real problems if people in TV Land tried to emulate them.

Hey, we didn’t bring this issue up. QuickSilver did. So don’t jump on us for raising it. Geez.

If someone aspires to be thin, I don’t see how that’s so bad except that fat people might take it as a threat to their mindset that being fat isn’t really all that bad.

Has any one of us suggested that it’s bad to live at a healthy weight? No. Has any one of us tried to discourage anyone from losing weight if they need to, healthwise? No.

Like QuickSilver, you’re trying to make it look like we’re saying things we’re not. There are sites devoted to promoting ignorance out there, such as http://www.leftbehind.com . If you must stoop to such tactics, feel free to post there; they’ll never notice what you’re doing.

[QuickSilver]

Quicksilver - I think you’re right. It’s not really a question of logic with any of these folks - it’s more excuse than argument.

Sure, easy for us to say! I’m not worried though. They seem like smart folks, they’ll eventually run out of excuses like you and I did.

Quicksilver makes a good point - what’s the big deal about showing a bunch of attractive thin women on TV? If we’re gonna worry about instilling character flaws in the population, let’s worry about the excessive violence and gratuitous sex that permeates our culture

I was with you there. All the way up to the gratuitous sex part. In my opinion, not enough gratuitious sex is permeating our culture. At least not enough gratuitous sex is permeating my culture… I say we need more gratuitous sex!

Sorry… didn’t mean to hijack the thread.

RT - you may get back to trying to tear me a new one. You seem to be enjoying yourself.

[tracer]

Quicksilver wrote:

In my opinion, not enough gratuitious sex is permeating our culture. At least not enough gratuitous sex is permeating my culture… I say we need more gratuitous sex!

Darn tootin’!

(Wasn’t there a country & western song that went, “There’s too much sex and violence on TV and not enough at home”?)