The Fat vs Thin debate in America

Great Debates
121

My point is that it seems weight is actually a lot like financial status. Some elusive part of it is genetic. Mostly it’s situational. However, depending on where you’re coming from, you are going to either going to coast to the top or have to struggle to survive.

There are a lot of fat people who could lose the weight if they were willing to devote their lives to it. There are also a lot of poor people who could net more income if they were willing to devote their lives to it. However, while it seems to be acceptable to make fun of fat people (because it’s THEIR fault), it is not acceptable to make fun of poor people.

I wonder at the distinction.

If a poor woman is not reviled for failing to get a cushy Internet job because she didn’t have the same educational advantages as her peers, why is a fat woman expected to drastically alter the eating/exercise habits she was raised with?

By no means am I suggesting that we should start ridiculing poor people. I just wanted to point out that not all “situational” problems are deserving of scorn. Some people are born thin and will never be fat. Some are born fat and struggle to be thin (achieving either their ideal weight or incredible stress). Others are born fat and decide to be happy and fat. Same with money.

Why not treat the two the same? Congratulations to the people who overcome their problems. Sympathy for those who don’t. Respect for those who decide there are more important things than money or weight.

122

Uh, an error in phrasing a part of my last post. I should have said something like - "I think those bumper stickers are just a hateful and appalling thing, but your only response to my introducing the phrase “no fat chicks” to this thread was to say “Deal with it”.

123

Nacho -

LOL - I think Meara was trying to throw a sarcastic remark back at me in response to my new and improved Wendy’s description. I’m sorry you misunderstood her. After I read your response I had to go back and read her post again to make sure I wasn’t misinterpretting it myself…
Yosemite -

My response to that sentiment was a little more flippant than serious - many of the pro-fat defenders in this thread were talking about how the anti-fat side should quit trying to force their own healthy views on fat people and I was just trying to turn it around a little bit. Try, for now, to separate the sentiment from the manifestation - I think the idea is valid - if most men prefer thin women (which may or may not be true, I’ll grant that point - but I personally think it’s true), then why should they be forced by the establishment to like something or put up with something that all boils down to personal preference (which is what many on the pro-fat side have benn arguing…)? True, their opinions might be right or wrong, but why should anyone else try and tell them how to think or act? I mean, a guy might know rationally that there is nothing wrong with dating a fat girl, but if he’s not attracted to fat women he shouldn’t be derided and scorned because he chooses only to date thin women. This is exactly the same argument that many of you have made about overweight people trying to lose weight…

Now with regards to the bumper stickers themselves, yes I do think they are cruel in most instances and yes, I do think that there are some groups in our society about which it’s still OK to insult and poke fun where about other groups it’s no longer allowed - there is indeed a double standard. In that respect, I think it is cruel to the “fat chick” to be made fun of in the open like that. I would never, ever publicly display any such item.

And before Nacho says anything - I do however, respecfully disagree that pointing out big flabby bellies in a forum like this - where the entire stated goal is the pursuit of truth and and where folks have the right not to participate if they don’t like what they’re reading - is different than putting it on a bumper sticker for all the world to see.

124

OK, Here’s a thin person jumping in. At least, medical science tells me I’m thin. I’m 6’1 and 170 lbs, making my body mass index 22.4 (where healthy supposedly is 18.5 to 24.9).

I can’t stand exercise and am not eating differently from when I was 200 lbs - if anything, now that I’m not living at home I’m eating worse. Part of it was that I started to walk up the hill to go to my last school, and hit my growth spurt - I lost 20 pounds very suddenly. But now that I’m at university I take the metro to school, and I can’t always eat right (or even close :slight_smile: ) Nevertheless, I lost 10 pounds completely without meaning to.

Doesn’t it occur to you that if I can lose 10 pounds while sitting on my ass and eating whatever’s in the fridge, someone could be “making an effort” and gain 10 pounds?

Be that as it may. I have a healthy weight right now, and I find myself attractive. My attractiveness can be objectively proven by the number of people I’ve been able to get to sleep with me over the last little while (that’s a different issue :wink: )

And yet. And yet I still get depressed about my body. I still hate parts of my body occasionally - my breasts, my wide hips (which are completely due to the size of my pelvis!), whatever.

These are usually accentuated when I feel bombarded with pressure to look, not healthy, but perfect. Such as when the last issue of Fugues magazine came out detailing all the lovely surgery and drugs you could have if you didn’t look stripper-perfect.

Gee, I could go out and have cosmetic surgery right now if I wanted to. No matter that people find me attractive anyway - bviously the fact that I don’t want to look like a stripper reveals that I’m too lazy to do anything about my hideous, hideous appearance.

I mean obviously, if I can’t even make the little effort to have my face cut open and the remaining fat surgically sucked out of my thighs, stomach, and breasts and have my pelvis smashed and reshaped and have electricity shot through my muscles and eat nothing but diet supplements in order to look like a movie star, I must be a lazy pig.

Seriously. If the mainstream media can even make people with a healthy weight depressed because they don’t look like movie stars, then I don’t think their little let’s-make-the-nation-healthier scheme is working. Or else it is working perfectly at what it is in fact meant to be doing - make people all over the civilized world so ashamed of their bodies that they will do anything to lose weight, especially spend large quantities of money on the many fine dietary supplements, exercise appliances, fitness clubs, cosmetic surgeons, makeup, and prosthetics on the market.

It’s not altruism. It’s body fascism.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering, I’m an 18 year old gay male - and therefore, a member of the segment of the male population most at risk for anorexia nervosa.

125

Nope… sorry… couldn’t find any obvious or hidden messages in any of the previous posts suggesting that fat people or 18 year old maturing men need to visit the plastic surgeon in order to look like strippers.

Hasn’t it been said enough in this thread that going to extremes like Hollywood does in not considered a healthy or correct alternative for anyone? What makes you think that your ridiculous exagerations of even further extremes is a compelling counter argument to anything suggested in this debate?

It’s my OP premise that a thin, “healthy looking” figure currently portrayed by Hollywood, though in reality perhaps not all that healthy, is somewhat inspiring to lose real excess weight through proper diet and exercise in the hopes of achieving a healthier lifestyle. I never claimed that it behooves us all to go to that ridiculous extreme. I never claimed that all should/can be successfull. But for crying out loud, if it’s true that 50% of the population simply cannot do it for overwheliming medical and emotional reasons then I must suggest that there is a problem that our health care specialist have not even discovered yet.

As for that silly thread where “poor” was so cleverly substituted for “fat”, I suggest that it was simply very low brow pandering to reader’s emotions. For future reference you ought to substitue ethnicity characteristics like “black”, if you really want to get the mob sympathy votes. It works marvelously for switching from the real subject matter. You’ve got a real future in politics, Meara. Well done.

126

Actually, I found meara’s excellent bit of sarcasm to be an unusually on-target argument by analogy that flippant remarks can’t dismiss.

To provide an actual rebuttal, you’d have to show where and how the analogy breaks down.

127

As the rest of the posters have detailed, Quicksilver, making people feel bad is not going to cause them to lose weight. It is going to cause them to gain weight. So, the answer to your op is no, Hollywood is not helping, because it makes people feel bad. How clearly need it be said?

128

Matt, it seems that you and everyone else are automatically making the assumption that ultra-skinny people make fat people feel bad. That’s precisely the assumption that Quicksilver is proposing is untrue. Quicksilver’s point in the OP is not simply to make people feel bad and cause them to lose weight. Perhaps your answer may be that seeing Courtney and Calista causes them to feel bad, but Quicksilver isn’t necessarily saying that in his post. That may be your opinion, but it’s not necessarily the truth of the matter.

129

Matt, it seems that you and everyone else are automatically making the assumption that ultra-skinny people make fat people feel bad. That’s precisely the assumption that Quicksilver is proposing is untrue. Quicksilver’s point in the OP is not simply to make people feel bad and cause them to lose weight. Perhaps your answer may be that seeing Courtney and Calista causes them to feel bad, but Quicksilver isn’t necessarily saying that in his post. That may be your opinion, but it’s not necessarily the truth of the matter.

130

Okay, then, let’s do an experiment. Take a bunch of people, some thin and some fat, and split them up into two groups. Group 1 is shown episodes of Ally McBeal. Group 2 is shown a sitcom that does not feature emaciated characters – The Drew Carey Show, for example. After watching a certain number of episodes, members of each group are polled as to (A) whether the shows they watched made them feel good about themselves, and (B) whether the shows they watched inspired them to lose weight. To eliminate experimenter bias, the people asking the poll questions are not know or ask whether the people they are polling come from Group 1 or Group 2 – although they will know and record whether the person they’re polling is thin or fat.

Then, tabulate the results and see if there is a statistically significant difference between the answers given by Group 1 and Group 2.

Has any study of this sort been done yet?

131

RT - Well, I guess that’s another thing we can agree to disagree about. I believe sensationalism, pandering to basic emotion and shouting discrimination the instant someone steps on your sore spot does not make for a good debate. Clearly you do. So be it.

Matt - Perhaps it’s not as clear as you believe it to be. Roll models of every kind are valid for people from many walks of life. Between you and me, I keep a small magazine picture of a young Arnold Schwartzenager taped to the inside of my medicine cabinet door. Every morning I look at how incredibly muscled and thin he was and it psyches me up to stay my course wrt diet and exercise. It helps me avoid that bag of chips or chocolate bar - for that day. But hey, that’s just me. I must be the only human being in the world who looks at a role model not as the ultimate personal goal but simply for inspiration and realization that great things can and have been accomplished by living, breathing, thinking human beings. I’ve also got a small picture of Einstein and a very good friend who is just about the best sailor I’ve ever known. They both motivate me in many other areas of my life. I try to emulate them but I have no illusions about matching them at their best. They are just guiding principals to me. Geez, I didn’t think I’d have to explain the purpose of role models at this point.

Now you may say that neither you, nor RT, nor Meara, etc… choose Hollywood personna for your role models. That’s fine. I have a pretty rough time admiring any of them myself most of the time. However, neither you, nor the rest of the posters here represent overweight people as a group. As such, you cannot in clear consience deny the fact that some do admire celebrities for their looks and look to them on some level for inspiration. (I’m not talking about obsession here folks!) I’m just suggesting that it’s not an altogether bad thing when, like all things, it’s done within reasonable bounds.

Salut.

132

QuickSilver, you do realize your role-model got that way by taking dangerous doses of anabolic steroid early in his career, don’t you?

133

I’m actually starting to look forward to this.

Okay, first, Meara, I thought your analogy was brilliant, obviously I was upset about it b/c I thought it was serious. I thought it might be sarcastic, but this thread had proven to me that what’s right is not always what’s believed, so I wasn’t sure. I apologize for calling you a self-righteous snob.

Clearly, I feel passionately about all people who are stepped upon in this society, whatever their issue.

Now, to the juicy stuff:

“Why not treat the two the same? Congratulations to the people who overcome their problems. Sympathy for those who don’t. Respect for those who decide there are more important things than money or weight.”

Right on.

“And before Nacho says anything - I do however, respecfully disagree that pointing out big flabby bellies in a forum like this - where the entire stated goal is the pursuit of truth and and where folks have the right not to participate if they don’t like what they’re reading - is different than putting it on a bumper sticker for all the world to see.”

Good call. I’m impressed :slight_smile: Anyway, I understand that this is a debate forum, but it is still our of line.

The reason I was so offended by and incredulous of the cruelness of the “Wendi’s comment” has to do with it’s embodiment of every fat stereotype. Oh, fat chicks just go to wendi’s and stuff their fat faces while they bitch about being fat. That is simply not univeral.

If you said, “I saw this black guy make a speech about black pride. He bitched and moaned about how it is difficult to be black and yada yada yada. Have a little pride!” I would have been offended too. It just strikes me as supporting every stereotypical falsity that we nurture towards people who are not perfect. If you judge people solely by the merits of their character (and I have found that you have a greater appreciation for people if you do), you will see that no one is flawless and that you lose most of the misconceptions you carry but are unaware of. With that comment, you wrote off all fat people as whiny, moaning fatasses who sit on their asses all day eating Doritos. That’s shallow and cruel, and most importantly, not true. You made me (and all other people who have had weight problems or are overweight) feel harpooned (purposeful word choice) by the reality that they are judged entirely on the size of their ass instead of the size of their intellect or the extent of their kindness.

“I mean obviously, if I can’t even make the little effort to have my face cut open and the remaining fat surgically sucked out of my thighs, stomach, and breasts and have my pelvis smashed and reshaped and have electricity shot through my muscles and eat nothing but diet supplements in order to look like a movie star, I must be a lazy pig.”

Matt, you are awesome. Thank you so much for saying that.

“Nope… sorry… couldn’t find any obvious or hidden messages in any of the previous posts suggesting that fat people or 18 year old maturing men need to visit the plastic surgeon in order to look like strippers.”

It’s present in Hollywood, which is what we are debating - does the thinness of Hollywood influence Americans?

I think about 5 people at least have answered no. Is that no relevent to the debate? The original OP was does the extremely thin Hollywodd actresses affect fat people’s desire and willpower to lose weight. NOOOO! That’s what we are saying. NO, it does not.

Also, every day we see magazines with Hollywood actresses and supermodels on the cover. Inside these magazines are stories about makeup that will cover up your giant zit and exercises that will tighten your thighs and clothes that will make you look slimmer and plastic surgoens that can remove your cellulite. Hollywood = magazines and print journalism = making people feel as though their healthy weight is unacceptable. I have a friend who weights 108 lbs and has awful cellulite. I weight 140 lbs but I have none. SHould this girl have platic surgery to remove the genetic cellulite? Should a girl who is overweight have it? Why should Holly - whose weight is low but she is 5’0 and looks fine - feel less than perfect when she is fine the way she is? Hollywood, as Matt said, directly influenced many aspects of our lives - who we see on tv, what clothes we wear, our standards of beauty. I think his point is that no one can live up to that standard, thin or fat, so why should fat people be targeted?

“Quicksilver’s point in the OP is not simply to make people feel bad and cause them to lose weight. Perhaps your answer may be that seeing Courtney and Calista causes them to feel bad, but Quicksilver isn’t necessarily saying that in his post. That may be your opinion, but it’s not necessarily the truth of the matter.”

Jesus, that was the question!!..

“So is the latest Hollywood body image largely a good example or a great detriment to us and our highly impressionable kids?” from the OP.

NO! It’s detrimental.

Matt said no, Nacho said no, Meara said no, VeraGemini said no, along with quite a few other posters. I think it a highly detrimental because it makes people feel bad about themselves. I don’t want to speak for anyone, but I think we all said NO. Get it. NO!

Of course it’s our opinion, but your claim that it is a good example has no more proof than ours. I believe quite a few of us are speaking from personal experiance (me too) and that experiance proves that seeing thin beautiful people on TV makes us feel bad about ourselves. The same way that sitting next to the most beautiful girl in class makes us feel ugly by comparison.

Jeez, someone answers the OP and gets attacked! And Quick’s point was JUST THAT - that seeing thin people on tc, watching them endorse health products and exercise tapes will SHAME (or inspire, depending on your viewpoint) people into losing weight.

Again, sorry if I put words in anyone’s mouth, and Matt and Meara, your replies were awesome. :slight_smile:

I refer back to my past statement:

I think it is easy to write off people with any sort of problem - be it weight or poverty - as weak-minded and stupid. It’s not true. I see it as a way to make you feel better about yourself because you are not that way and not doing anything to change it.

134

I am proposing that Quicksilver is incorrect.

That was only the first page of responses. I don’t see how much more personal testimony I need about the deleterious effects to self-esteem of supermodels’ proportions being forced on real people.

Oh, and Quicksilver -

There’s a difference between a role model and an impossible standard. Nobody complains if you don’t have the good will of a Gandhi or the intelligence of an Einstein, but they DO complain if you don’t have the body of Kate Winslet (or, in my case, Leonardo DiCaprio). And they complain, and complain.

Nobody accuses you of being lazy if you don’t get four physics degrees and unlock the atom, but they do accuse you of being lazy if you don’t look like Michelangelo’s David.

I submit that Hollywood stick figures are standards (impossible ones), not inspirational role models.

Nacho, thanks for your post!

135

I’m actually starting to look forward to this.

Okay, first, Meara, I thought your analogy was brilliant, obviously I was upset about it b/c I thought it was serious. I thought it might be sarcastic, but this thread had proven to me that what’s right is not always what’s believed, so I wasn’t sure. I apologize for calling you a self-righteous snob.

Clearly, I feel passionately about all people who are stepped upon in this society, whatever their issue.

Now, to the juicy stuff:

“Why not treat the two the same? Congratulations to the people who overcome their problems. Sympathy for those who don’t. Respect for those who decide there are more important things than money or weight.”

Right on.

“And before Nacho says anything - I do however, respecfully disagree that pointing out big flabby bellies in a forum like this - where the entire stated goal is the pursuit of truth and and where folks have the right not to participate if they don’t like what they’re reading - is different than putting it on a bumper sticker for all the world to see.”

Good call. I’m impressed :slight_smile: Anyway, I understand that this is a debate forum, but it is still our of line.

The reason I was so offended by and incredulous of the cruelness of the “Wendi’s comment” has to do with it’s embodiment of every fat stereotype. Oh, fat chicks just go to wendi’s and stuff their fat faces while they bitch about being fat. That is simply not univeral.

If you said, “I saw this black guy make a speech about black pride. He bitched and moaned about how it is difficult to be black and yada yada yada. Have a little pride!” I would have been offended too. It just strikes me as supporting every stereotypical falsity that we nurture towards people who are not perfect. If you judge people solely by the merits of their character (and I have found that you have a greater appreciation for people if you do), you will see that no one is flawless and that you lose most of the misconceptions you carry but are unaware of. With that comment, you wrote off all fat people as whiny, moaning fatasses who sit on their asses all day eating Doritos. That’s shallow and cruel, and most importantly, not true. You made me (and all other people who have had weight problems or are overweight) feel harpooned (purposeful word choice) by the reality that they are judged entirely on the size of their ass instead of the size of their intellect or the extent of their kindness.

“I mean obviously, if I can’t even make the little effort to have my face cut open and the remaining fat surgically sucked out of my thighs, stomach, and breasts and have my pelvis smashed and reshaped and have electricity shot through my muscles and eat nothing but diet supplements in order to look like a movie star, I must be a lazy pig.”

Matt, you are awesome. Thank you so much for saying that.

“Nope… sorry… couldn’t find any obvious or hidden messages in any of the previous posts suggesting that fat people or 18 year old maturing men need to visit the plastic surgeon in order to look like strippers.”

It’s present in Hollywood, which is what we are debating - does the thinness of Hollywood influence Americans?

I think about 5 people at least have answered no. Is that no relevent to the debate? The original OP was does the extremely thin Hollywodd actresses affect fat people’s desire and willpower to lose weight. NOOOO! That’s what we are saying. NO, it does not.

Also, every day we see magazines with Hollywood actresses and supermodels on the cover. Inside these magazines are stories about makeup that will cover up your giant zit and exercises that will tighten your thighs and clothes that will make you look slimmer and plastic surgoens that can remove your cellulite. Hollywood = magazines and print journalism = making people feel as though their healthy weight is unacceptable. I have a friend who weights 108 lbs and has awful cellulite. I weight 140 lbs but I have none. SHould this girl have platic surgery to remove the genetic cellulite? Should a girl who is overweight have it? Why should Holly - whose weight is low but she is 5’0 and looks fine - feel less than perfect when she is fine the way she is? Hollywood, as Matt said, directly influenced many aspects of our lives - who we see on tv, what clothes we wear, our standards of beauty. I think his point is that no one can live up to that standard, thin or fat, so why should fat people be targeted?

“Quicksilver’s point in the OP is not simply to make people feel bad and cause them to lose weight. Perhaps your answer may be that seeing Courtney and Calista causes them to feel bad, but Quicksilver isn’t necessarily saying that in his post. That may be your opinion, but it’s not necessarily the truth of the matter.”

Jesus, that was the question!!..

“So is the latest Hollywood body image largely a good example or a great detriment to us and our highly impressionable kids?” from the OP.

NO! It’s detrimental.

Matt said no, Nacho said no, Meara said no, VeraGemini said no, along with quite a few other posters. I think it a highly detrimental because it makes people feel bad about themselves. I don’t want to speak for anyone, but I think we all said NO. Get it. NO!

Of course it’s our opinion, but your claim that it is a good example has no more proof than ours. I believe quite a few of us are speaking from personal experiance (me too) and that experiance proves that seeing thin beautiful people on TV makes us feel bad about ourselves. The same way that sitting next to the most beautiful girl in class makes us feel ugly by comparison.

Jeez, someone answers the OP and gets attacked! And Quick’s point was JUST THAT - that seeing thin people on tc, watching them endorse health products and exercise tapes will SHAME (or inspire, depending on your viewpoint) people into losing weight.

Again, sorry if I put words in anyone’s mouth, and Matt and Meara, your replies were awesome. :slight_smile:

I refer back to my past statement:

I think it is easy to write off people with any sort of problem - be it weight or poverty - as weak-minded and stupid. It’s not true. I see it as a way to make you feel better about yourself because you are not that way and not doing anything to change it.

136

Thank you for helping me illustrate the importance of moderation. I’ve admired Arnie for a very long time. After my bad fall (ski team thing… remember… anyway) I did weights to get back in shape and strengthen my back and legs. I got pretty fit and pretty big (muscle wise). My friends were amazed. Anyway, at the gym where I worked out, plenty of guys were using god knows what. I didn’t. Not even for a second would I ever consider it. Arnie looks great but I’d never do what he does. It’s enough for me to admire him for his physique. How he lived his personal life was of no interest or influence on me.

But since you brought it up, did you know Einstein cheated on his first wife? Married his cousin? Was an awful father who never cared for his kids? Abandoned one of his children who was born retarded to a mental hospital where the child died several years later? All true. Know many people who admire him for that? No, me either. And yet there is no lack of admirers of this great man accross the entire world. No Hollywood star deserves that kind of admiration, that’s true, but are they all completely undeserving of admiration on some level?
You see, it’s not a question of absolutes, it’s choices and degrees. Ex:

Good Choice -
I will eat better today than yesterday and walk more.

Bad choice -
Oh why bother, I’ll never look like Ms./Mr. Hollywood anyway.

Worst choice -
I will feast, then purge and take phen-phen.

137

Actually, QuickSilver, I was discussing argument by analogy, which is a legitimate form of argument: the more precise the analogy, the stronger the argument. And meara’s analogy appears to me to be an unusually close analogy, which was why I was suggesting that you needed to show where the analogy broke down: unless you can point out where it does so, you’ve more or less got to concede the point.

Or, in your case, you could simply claim that she’s resorting to “sensationalism, pandering to basic emotion and shouting discrimination,” which doesn’t do much to dispel an apparently strong argument.

What we’re disagreeing about is the rules of debate - over and over again, now. I believe that if one side makes an argument, the other side can’t just say it’s wrong; they’ve got to show what the problem is with it. Here, you’re refusing to do that, and calling it “senstaionalism” instead. Earlier, we rebutted your claim in the OP about the beneficial nature of the Hollywood beauty archetype, and (rather than rebutting it) you kept on repeating it, as if we’d never said diddly. At another point, you claimed that we had ‘successfully’ argued that you should give up trying to lose weight, when in fact we had not remotely implied that overweight people (you or anyone else) shouldn’t try to lose weight. And so on.

So you deal with other people’s arguments by ignoring them, by distorting them, and by waving your arms and calling them (the arguments, that is) names. No, that won’t cut it. Sorry.

138

Nacho:

I can see why you would be offended by that statement. I am offended by that statement. Unfortunately, I didn’t make such a statement.

I said that I have noticed that many fat people (NOT all fat people) engage in activities that are inconsistent with their stated goals of wanting to be thin. Going to Wendy’s for lunch is one of those activities. There are a lot of fat people in line at Wendy’s. Methinks there may be a correlation between the two, no? Quicksilver’s comment about the hoho’s and recliner were closer than mine as a generalization, and even then he didn’t make an all-out blanket indictment of fat people. I think one of your problems with this thread is that you’re reading too much in to my comments and making things up (“Johnny doesn’t like sex with fat girls”, “Johnny said all fat girls go to Wendy’s”, “Johnny thinks thyroid problems aren’t legitimate excuses for being overweight”).

No, the question was whether showing thin people on TV will lead to less fat people in the general population. Whether or not such portrayals cause fat people to have a low self esteem might be a valid answer to the question, but it’s not the unarguable dogma as you, and many of your colleagues, seem to want to assume that it is.

I will demonstrate.

A valid answer:

You:

There is a difference between advocating a point of view as a possible answer to a question and then voiding the same question because you assume your point of view to already be correct. You are doing the latter.

You can’t use your own personal experience as valid evidence to answer the debate. (I tried that to a lesser extene earlier and RT called me on it :wink: )My underlying argument in the subplot, that a net outtake of calories causes weight loss, is based on fundamental scientific fact. Furthermore, there are studies that have proven a scientific relationship between the lack of alcohol and tabacco on television and a decline in their use. There are studies that show that children act more violently when exposed to violent television shows and act less violently when not exposed to them. The OP was making an attempt to extend those results to being overweight. Your answer of “it makes me feel bad personally so it’s wrong” doesn’t cut it.

What the hell does this mean? Sure it’s easy to write off people with problems - it’s also just as easy for them to shrug and make excuses and do nothing about it themselves. What’s hard is to come up with real solutions for problems that consist of something more than just compassion and empathy.

Finally, are you implying that I somehow am responsible for changing fat people’s lives? I thought that it was none of my business whether they’re fat or not… Which is it? My own personal self esteem has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you or anyone else in this thread or anyone else in the world is fat. Why do I need to feel better about myself? Do you know something that I don’t know?

Jeez, just start making better arguments and quit calling me names or trying to turn this into something personal. I have said nothing personal about you (or anyone else in this thread) and I don’t plan to. I don’t see why you can’t afford me the same courtesy.

139

The question I have is why are there more clinically overweight people per capita here in the U.S.? Is it our diet? Is it the steroids they put in our meat? Is it our lifestyles? Is it genetic? If it’s genetic, why are these genes congregating here in America? I’ve been to other countries where their average citizen makes our average citizen look gargantuan. I’m not trying to be slanderous toward anyone, large or small. I seriously want to know why this is.

140

The question I have is why are there more clinically overweight people per capita here in the U.S.? Is it our diet? Is it the steroids they put in our meat? Is it our lifestyles? Is it genetic? If it’s genetic, why are these genes congregating here in America? I’ve been to other countries where their average citizen makes our average citizen look gargantuan. I’m not trying to be slanderous toward anyone, large or small. I seriously want to know why this is.