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.
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.
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.
matt_mcl wrote:
I’m pretty sure you meant “they DO complain if you don’t have the body of Kate Moss,” not Kate Winslet. Ms. Winslet is currently carrying around sooooo much fat that she’s actually a healthy weight (horrors!).
I won’t quote anyone or comment on the arguments. I will say that seeing the current “type” on TV is depressing. It’s more than just the fact that, even at my best weight, I will never look like them. It’s also that the fashionistas design clothing for that type of body… and I can’t wear that sort of clothing.
I am working to get to a healthy and comfortable weight, but even when I achieve that goal, I will have to face going into stores and seeing clothing that anyone with more curves than your standard coathanger would look ridiculous wearing. So, your “heroin chic” role models punish even normal sized women.
They encourage nothing positive.
Johnny - you are very good with twisting people’s words, particularly mine. Apparently you did not read ALL of my paragraph about why I hated your rude comment. If you had, you would have seen that I said that, although you never specifically said ALL fat people stuff their faces at Wendi’s, you said MANY. That comment just enforces a) the idea that MANY fat people are hungry cows, and b) that it is acceptable to make fun of fat people. And that is what you were doing, no? Big rolls of fat…seemed like a flame to me. You could just, I don’t know, look away? Too hard? I understand, why miss the opportunity to snicker at and judge the fat people?
A major topic in my politics seminar is how seeing primarily black criminals on TV and hearing negetive comments about them enforces the stereotype that all black people are criminals. The same way that hearing about poor people abusing the welfare allows us to think ALL poor people do this, when it is not true. The same is true of overweight people - if we constantly get bombarded with attacks on a personal choice such as weight, we will begin to think all fat people are like that.
Your comment only contributed to this problem, as did Quick’s Ho-Ho comment. If you can’t see how embracing negetive steroetypes reinforces the idea that it’s ok to have them in the first place, I will just drop the issue, but it is still a rude and cruel comment.
You seem angry that we answered the topic of the OP, which I quoted it in my actual reply. Quick asked if seeing think people on tv would make fat people feel better about themselves or not.
Many of us said NOT. There is no way to know this except from personal experiance or a random survey, which I am not going to conduct during this point in finals week. I, and many other posters, agreed that seeing thin people makes us feel bad.
Okay? There’s the flippin answer, I don’t know what else you expect.
In reference to my comment about helping people, I was referring to the poor. It is much easier to say, let the poor help themselves, or let the sick and elderly take care of themselves, than to actually try to help them out.
And I think it is extremely true that people make comments about people being lazy and selfish, be it in regards to weight or poverty, because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Also, I would like to thank you for pointing out my questionable debate skills. I understand that you, with your Harvard education, would find fault in me, since I have only finished one meager year at a state college (albeit, on full scholarship for academic excellence, but hey. Want to see my credentials anyway?). I will continue to refrain from highlighting your questionable grammar skills regardless.
Also, as far as I’m concerned, saying that someone said the same thing as me, only with better wording, still means I said it.
Tell me, is an acceptable debate technique simply pointing out the technical flaws of a rebuttal instead of actually addressing the issue at hand? I plan on going to law school so your answer will help me greatly, I am certain.
The word is FLIPPANT - look it up. It is not a synonym for freaking, friggin’, damn, darn, or stinkin’. It’s a real word with a real meaning, it’s not an interjection. :mad:
Look Nacho, we’ve debated the OP and I will concede the point that Quicksilver’s premise is wrong. We’ve debated whether or not losing weight is easy and we’ve come to a stalemate - I guess the conclusion is that yes it’s easy from a biological standpoint, but no it’s harder when other factors are considered. Fine.
I’m really not interested in debating your own debating skills or whether we should be debating them in the first place. You’re new here and you’ll learn the right way to do things and the right way to make arguments and the right way to conduct yourself at SDMB. I’m simply pointing out those flaws because I want to have a debate, but it’s difficult when the other person doesn’t do it correctly. Personal anecdote doesn’t work as an effective debate tactic nor does feigning personal offense when your position is contradicted by the other side. Whether or not I feel bad about myself - or whether or not you feel insulted by my views - is not the point of the debate. It’s a blurry line indeed, but it’s not that hard to stay on the right side of it.
(God I wish RT or Biggirl would come back so we can debate the actual topic, but now I digress 
)
If you want to make remarks about my intelligence or my “narrowmindedness”, then more power to you, but I’m not going to perpetuate this thread along those lines. If you want to start a flame war in the Pit, then by all means, be my guest, but I’m not going to do it here. If you want to have a grammar or writing contest, then please go over to MPSIMS and I will certainly take you up on whatever challenge you might want to create - your challenging my own writing skills - especially on the basis of a handful of hastily written posts to a damn message board - is a fucking joke. 
Unless someone can say something constructive to the debate at hand (NOT “telling fat people that they’re fat is SO rude” or “I’m fat and I don’t appreciate people telling me so” or “You just have something against fat people or you wouldn’t be so mean to them”) then I’m through answering this thread.
Well, are you going to respond to my post?
That was low. Let’s examine this:
You say:
“If you want to make remarks about my intelligence or my “narrowmindedness”, then more power to you, but I’m not going to perpetuate this thread along those lines. If you want to start a flame war in the Pit, then by all means, be my guest, but I’m not going to do it here.”
After my first post, you said:
“Look Nacho, if you’re going to jump in and revive a debate when it’s almost done and died out, then you have a responsibility to go back and read all of the posts and synthesize all of the arguments before you start spouting off.”
Then you said:
“Finally, these are the Great Debat(e)s after all. If you cannot take criticism of your posts without interpretting it as a personal attack, then I would recommend that you either make better arguments or refrain from posting.”
Followed by:
.“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”
Then you added:
“What is rude about participating in this debate? A debate needs more than one side, but you seem to be arguing that anyone who doesn’t agree with the overweight masses is being rude for voicing that disagreement and is disagreeing with them solely because they are fat”
How about:
“And they have big flabby bellies that strain against the tight cotton shirts that they wear tucked into pants worn about 4 inches too low. These bellies hang out and it’s really disgusting. And these are the men - most of the women are wearing extra tight blue jeans over about 24 inches of rear-end.”
Don’t forget:
“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.”
And:
“Jeez, just start making better arguments”
In response, I said:
“Also, please stop insulting my intelligence by remarking that I do not read the thread. I read the whole thing htree times. Misquoting once is not a cardinal sin. I will not continue to debate if you continue to stoop so low.”
I would not have addressed my debate skills if you had not brought them up first. It seems to me an easy way to avoid the topic.
Now:
“Personal anecdote doesn’t work as an effective debate tactic nor does feigning personal offense when your position is contradicted by the other side. Whether or not I feel bad about myself - or whether or not you feel insulted by my views - is not the point of the debate. It’s a blurry line indeed, but it’s not that hard to stay on the right side of it.”
I’ll concede that I used personal anecdote, but so did you. I did not quote any medical sites, nor did you. You stated facts but so did I. You just forgot to quote them and tear them apart. I see no reason why my side of the debate should have to be more technical than yours.
Also:
“If you want to make remarks about my intelligence or my “narrowmindedness”, then more power to you, but I’m not going to perpetuate this thread along those lines.”
I said once that I thought you were narrowminded. I did not insult your intelligence until YOU told ME “Jeez, just start making better arguments” You insult me, I do it back> Seems fair to me. And I simply questioned your debate tactic, which is attacking my debate skills. I never said you were stupid.
I also believe you said:
“The word is FLIPPANT - look it up. It is not a synonym for freaking, friggin’, damn, darn, or stinkin’. It’s a real word with a real meaning, it’s not an interjection.”
and:
“You’re new here and you’ll learn the right way to do things and the right way to make arguments and the right way to conduct yourself at SDMB. I’m simply pointing out those flaws because I want to have a debate, but it’s difficult when the other person doesn’t do it correctly.”
If that’s not condescending and arrogant, I don’t know what it. I only made it personal in response to your attacks.
Finally:
"(God I wish RT or Biggirl would come back so we can debate the actual topic, but now I digress) "
I believe I addressed the topic when I said:
“Every overweight person in this thread has given reasons why they are overweight. If I asked you why you don’t look like Tom Cruise, you would have a reason, right? So if you ask someone how come they don’t look like Calista Flockhead, they will have a reason. It is not up to anyone, particularly YOU, to judge that reason. Accept it or walk away.”
And:
"“Hollywood may be performing an unintentional public service by glamourizing the Twiggy look. I may be wrong about that.”
And:
“No, they are not. They are making fat people feel worse about their weight, which leads them to eat more.”
And:
"If you were ugly, and you had to sit in class next to the most beautiful girl in the school, would you feel awful? I know I owuld - I would compare myself and see that I come up short. Or if I was I was in math class with a genuis who knew every anyswer, when I suck at math, I would feel dumb by comparison. I would feel uglier and dumber because I am forced to see the best, and I know I can never live up to that. Can’t change my face, will never understand Calculas.
Forcing fat people to see thin people everyday does the same thing. Contrary to what you guys seem to believe, this does not make them want to go out and exercise. It makes them lose hope.
Furthermore, look at the success of Rosie O’Donnell (whom you so lovinly compared to Cindy Crawford) and Oprah. I am familiar with Rosie’s efforts at losign weight since I watch the show whenever I can. She started the chub club and influenced a lot of people to lsoe weight WITH HER. Many did. When she put on weight, she went to new dieticians and have them on the show sharing their tips. She is losing weight, and I know I for one am inpsired.
Same with Oprah. I am not familiar with her weight loss, but I know that she lost quite a bit, had her dietician write a cookbook with low-fat recipes, and had doctors on her show helping viewers get serious about weight loss. I just checked her aol site, and sure enough, there is an entire network of people working together to lose weight. There are chub buddies and health chats and message boards.
This is what inspires people to lose weight. Not exceedingly thin actresses (Jennifer Anniston weights 105 lbs? please) perpetuating an idealized image with which no one can compare. Real people with healthy weights or women struggling in the same battle against fat many of us fight.
I also someone (I think Quicksilver) made a comment about how a thin girl is not going to look at a size 24 woman and desire thighs like that.
Of course not, so where’s the debate? Fat people on TV is not going to make thin people put on weight. It will just make fat people feel better about themselves."
And:
“One more point: society may ban cigarette adds, but the people who smoked ten years ago still smoke. They quit because of health reasons, or because they find yellow teeth yucky, not because they are suddenly at a loss for advertisements. If fat people were banned from tv shows (I think, with the exception of a few shows, they have been already), people would still gain weight. It’s a lifestyle change, not a question of the number of fat people on TV.”
And:
"
“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?"
And:
"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!"
And:
"Quick asked if seeing think people on tv would make fat people feel better about themselves or not.
Many of us said NOT. There is no way to know this except from personal experiance or a random survey, which I am not going to conduct during this point in finals week. I, and many other posters, agreed that seeing thin people makes us feel bad.
Okay? There’s the flippin answer, I don’t know what else you expect."
I answered the question that many times on this page alone. How was I not debating the issue? Really, I am curious. I may not have cited medical sites, but I answered the question to the best of my ability, which is the point.
“your challenging my own writing skills - especially on the basis of a handful of hastily written posts to a damn message board - is a fucking joke.”
But you can do the same to me? I get it.
I believe I said in my fourth post on the subject:
“Again, I don’t think you are attacking me. I am not attacking you either, I am just questioning your comments and ideas”
I don’t see what the problem is. Yes, I think you were rude when you made the Wendi’s comment, but I was not attacking you, simply your choice of imagery. Yes I used personal example, but so did you. Yes, I questioned why you insulted me regularly in every thread, but you insulted me.
“We’ve debated whether or not losing weight is easy and we’ve come to a stalemate - I guess the conclusion is that yes it’s easy from a biological standpoint, but no it’s harder when other factors are considered. Fine.”
Duh.
For those who are just dying to know:
My big dietary problem isn’t Ho-Hos[TM], or Wendy’s, or gallons of ice cream. It’s pizza. Extra large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. I get coupons in the mail for big discounts if you buy 2 large one-topping pizzas from Pizza Hut[TM], so I’ll get one large with extra cheese and one large with pepperoni (so I can alternate). I keep these in my office with me all day, and the next day, heating up one slice at a time in the break room’s microwave oven after the pizzas cool off. I even sometimes will eat a slice when I’m not hungry and I don’t crave it, simply because I don’t want to wait too long and let the rest of the pizza go to waste. (Would YOU trust your co-workers not to eat some of your pizza if you left it in the 'fridge?)
There are other thing I eat that are just as loaded with fat and calories as pizza (e.g. quesadillas, nachos (hi Nacho4Sara!), kung pao beef, fried rice, pizza rolls), but I don’t consume these other foods in quantities even approaching it, or with nearly as great a frequency.
My weakness is french fries. I thought they would be impossible to give up, but once I decided to lose weight, I just stayed away from that side of the dining hall (they are on the very right wing, while healthier stuff is on the left wing.) For a while, I even had to sit on the right side away from my friends because I wasn’t strong enough. Now the thought of all that grease makes me sick and I only have them one or twice a month.
I had to trick myself…and I could have just stared at Calista Flockhead getting hot guys on Ally McBeal. Silly me! 
Well, now I’m curious, Nacho4Sara: Who is “Babs”?
Barbra Streisand. I really hate her, almost as much as I hate Britney Spears!
You guys are making me hungry! Where’s Arnie when I need him?!.. I’m going for a walk…
Minor quibble: That bit about FLIPPANT - if you were referring to Nacho’s use of the term “flippin”, I don’t think she meant flippant at all. Several people I know use it as a replacement for “fuckin’” so that they can use a word that is less offensive. Flippant is something else entirely.
Sorry about that.
PeeQueue
RTFirefly -
You are absolutely correct. This thread would never have gone into 4 pages had people (myself included) not been so ready to let their emotions run away with them.
I conceed (but not entirely) that Hollywood is not a very good role model for anything. But you must admit that I never said that it was doing a brilliant or humanitarian job in the first place. I merely suggested that showing us the current fashionable body type may inspire some people to improve their own physique and health by adopting better eating and exercise habits.
What I got in response from most posters were their personal negative experiences with trying to lose weight or how they personally felt about the parade of “perfect” people glamourized in media. I even got accused of being insensitive for allegedly suggesting that overweight people were somehow lesser human beings than thin people. (I still can’t understand how that follows from my OP or later posts but perhaps in a less emotional debate someone can explain to me that leap of logic… but I digest…;)) Given those types of responses, I erroneously responded in kind by sharing some of my experience with weight loss - if only to demonstrate that their experiences were not the defining experiences for all overweight people and that they ought not dismiss my OP so quickly out of hand.
Anyway, I’m sure you will agree that a handfull of people trying to debate a subject by submitting mere personal annecdotal evidence mixed in with a generous dose of emotional baggage does not make for a very fruitful debate. I did not dismiss your replies. I simply chose (though not very consistantly :)) not to get into a “Yes it is! - No it isn’t!” kind of argument. I cannot intelligently argue with you about your mental/physical state which perhaps prevents you from achieving weight loss any more than you can argue with me about why Arnold was a good motivator for me to get into shape. It’s all very personal and subjective. I’m sure you see that. So when you tell me that images of parading thin people on TV make you angry and want to eat more or simply throw your hands up in resignation because you feel you’ll never achieve that look, I hope you can appreciate the fact that I simply cannot comprehend that kind of reaction. The first question to come to my mind is, why would an individual give up before they’ve even tried to get even 50% of the way there… but that’s not on topic either.
Bottom line, in my opinion - This thread turned into a battle cry for all the disgruntled overweight people who joined in to shout discrimination and brand me and JohnnyHarvard as some kind of bigots… or “prejudiced fucks” as Biggirl (I believe) so eloquently put.
I kept reminding people about my OP because people kept drifting to other discussions like, whether overweight people are discriminated against, whether overweight people had more than their share of job stress and personal problems, whether overweight people really ate more than the avereage person, and on and on. None of these things had anything to do with the OP.
I would have been very interested to hear about why people thought that the current Hollywood ideal is unrealistic. They seem awfully real to me. Instead I got, “They are unrealistic and bad because they are not like me and I can never be like them!” What the hell does that mean?
Would it not have been much better for someone to say, “You know, looking at them simply does not inspire me to do anything about my weight.”, or, “I simply do not look at them for inspirations”, or even, “You know I’d like to lose some weight but I don’t think I’d want to be that thin.” Period. Fine. I can appreciate that. I can certainly understand that kind of reasoning. But to go off and accuse me and others of being hatefull towards overweight people because we consider the Hollywood body type attractive and perhaps a healthier role model as an alternative to obesity is completely outlandish.
Nacho - for the sake of honestly wanting to end this thing, PLEASE show me where I said ANYTHING that was a personal attack against you. Accusing you of debating incorrectly, or disagreeing with you because I think you are wrong, does not count as a personal attack. I said that in my very first post after you entered the debate.
From your own postings, it’s very very clear that you indeed did not read the entire threads because you missed many of my references and kept repeating things that were already said. That is not a personal attack and it’s not an insult to your intelligence - it’s simply a request that you follow the rules of honest debate.
I never once called you fat. I never once called you narrowminded. I never once called you stupid. I never once tried to bring your self-esteem into the debate. I never once said anything to you - or about you - that was beyond the question at hand. Why must you do so to me and then accuse me of not being fair when I say that I don’t want to debate you anymore?
Aside from my lame (and lazy) statement about “my own personal belief in setting one’s mind to a task” I never cited personal anecdote as evidence for my position. (The Wendy’s comment was a personal aside that was not being used as foundation for ANYTHING I was trying to argue in the debate) If you like, I will go and pull citations for the biology of weight loss and the effectiveness of bans on cigarette and alcohol advertisements. Give it a rest.
Please please please please please please please please please please come to the Pit and I will show you condescending and arrogant. :mad: You are in over your head and it’s clear you just don’t know when to shut up. Just because you were once overweight - and just because fat people might get their feelings hurt by this debate - does not mean that your emotional attachment to the issue gives you leeway to argue and debate in a juvenile and lazy manner. The whole problem here is that because you are SO damn emotionally attached to this issue, you can’t make fair arguments without your feelings and emotions getting in the way. That is abundantly clear through the emotional strain and excitement that seem to bubble up through each of your posts - you can’t make a valid argument because you’re too busy getting hurt by my “insensitive” comments about fat people.
I’m waiting in the Pit. If you really think I’m that bad, then come prove it. If you really think that I’m not intelligent or have low self esteem or that I’m condescending and arrogant, then come prove it. If you really want to challenge me in whatever sort of knowledge/writing/grammar contest you can create, then come prove it. :mad:
And with regards to the “flippant” comment - Yes, she might have been using it as a legitimate adjectival interjection, but she didn’t use it until immediately after I described one of my comments as being “flippant”. I am going to assume that she’s not smart enough to recognize a legitimate adjective in it’s proper use, and instead tried to assimilate my use of it to try and reinforce her argument in (presumably) my own terms. It’s weak and it’s indicative of her lazy and underdeveloped thought processes.
(And just in case you can’t tell, Nacho, that comment, right there, the one I just made, WAS a personal attack - now can you tell the difference? 
)
[soup nazi voice]
NO MORE FLAME FOR YOU! YOU GO TO END OF LINE! YOU WANT FLAME YOU GO TO PIT! NO MORE FLAME IN FAT THREAD! ONLY IN PIT! :mad:
[/soup nazi voice]
johnnyharvard said:
[Moderator Hat ON]
And personal attacks belong in the Pit, not Great Debates, right?
[Moderator Hat OFF]