No, it’s worked. What I question is how this “obesity biochemistry” you discuss seems to have evolved so quickly in the U.S. in the last quarter century. Was the “obesity biochemistry” simply subdued through some other means (perhaps the grey flannel suit suppressor device) in the 50s?
Zoe: So if a person does not have the willpower and discipline to lose weight, then they have a mental problem and should be put on medication? :rolleyes:
SlyFrog: It is clearly evident from this thread that the last thing a fat person wants to do is admit that it is their fault they’re fat. In the age of Nothing Is My Fault™, this should not come as a surprise.
I haven’t had the time than to read more than the first couple posts in this thread, so sorry if this repeats something that’s already been said before. I just wanted to dispel the myth that the poor can’t afford to eat healthy foods. I used to work in a grocery store in a poorer neighborhood of Chicago, and I can verify that it is not that expensive to buy healthier foods. True, the poor can’t afford the same kind of healthy foods that the rich can – organically grown baby spinach and fresh salmon steaks, for example – but at the same time a package of frozen peas and some chicken is NOT expensive. It takes more time and effort, yes, but it is not financially beyond most people’s means.
I think a lot of the problem is just ignorance, depression, or, in some cases, yes, laziness. Being a grocery store cashier will really open your eyes. We’d have some obviously poorer people buying a reasonable mixture of foods, but we’d also have people with food stamps buying bag after bag of Doritos and candy. Again, a lot of it’s probably ignorance or a fatalistic attitude toward life. But given the fact that obesity is now of EPIDEMIC proportions, we really need to start an education campaign aimed at improving people’s diet. But it IS possible to be poor and eat healthily.
Rodgers01:
I agree – I have also worked in a grocery store, and was appalled at what kinds of food people on food stamps were buying.
I don’t believe the problem is ignorance. Have you ever tried to teach a poor person about healthy foods? If so, you will quickly learn two things:
- They understand what types of food are nutritious & healthy.
- They don’t care.
To address #2… a friend of mine’s wife is a nurse. Part of her job is to go around to inner city schools and community centers to teach people about nutrition and health. She says that, for the most part, people understand what she’s saying (it’s not rocket science), but very very few actually follow through with her recommendations. “In fact,” she says, “Just about no one does. No one seems to care." In her opinion, it’s not a matter of ignorance; she says they just don’t want to do it.
As an example, I have a 40-year-old friend/acquaintance who is chronically poor. He is also lazy… he sits around much of the day playing video games on his computer, and has never held a job for more than 6 months. He’s also obese.
He once expressed an interest in losing weight. I gave him all kinds of advice. “You need to throw away your deep fryer… you need to stop eating fat-laden foods… you need to stop eating ice-cream and cake… you need to get on an exercise program.”
He made some half-ass attempts at changing his diet and exercising, but they never lasted more than a couple days.
I then asked myself, “Why was he not able to lose weight?” The answer was exceedingly obvious, and it had nothing to do with ignorance: He is simply a lazy and undisciplined person. This explains a lot of what goes on in his life, e.g. it explains why he can’t hold a job, it explains why he never finished college, it explains why his house is in deplorable shape, it explains why he chronically poor, and it explains why he is fat.
It’s not a matter of ignorance - many poor and fat people they simply don’t care.
I’m going with the lazy theory also. Not that the person is inhertantly lazy, but circumstances have ‘forced’’ them to be. A well paid person will be motivated to move their ass, forgo meals at times to get the job done. Someone who is not paid at all, or at a very low rate just doesn’t have this level of motivation. I also think a big part of it is th attitude that ‘The Man™’ is keeping them down, so there is no hope, so no point in busting their butt.
Having ‘nothing’ to do could also lead to more time to eat, which would also pack on the pounds.
People are barely 10-15 pounds heavier in the last quarter century. That is about 2 units on a BMI chart and since most people fall in the borderline range they just got pushed over.
Biochemistry did change a bit. People gave up smoking. In the last 40 years smokers went from making up 50% of hte population to 25%. All those people quitting gave rise to more fat people.
Plus age and ethnic demographics have changed alot. People under 30 only have half the obesity rates of those over 30 (however the elderly have low obesity rates too). All the baby boomers hit their 30s starting in 1976.
Ethnic demographics have changed too. Blacks and mexicans are more prone to obesity than whites, and they are making up larger percentages of the population.
However yeah, lifestyle has gotten more obesity prone (I don’t want to say worse because white collar jobs and a diet that is 33% fat instead of 42% fat isn’t worse in my book) in the last 20-50 years.
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The point is that pills change willpower. “The will” is not some all powerful force, it is dependent on biology. Pills can increase or decrease willpower. Since willpower is dependent on biochemistry and appetite/weight are dependent on biochemistry it is as faulty to assume that ‘the will’ can 100% overcome biochemistry as it is to assume biochemistry can 100% overcome ‘the will’
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Again, obesity is no more the individuals fault than cancer, STDs, poverty, depression or their victimization of crime. If every woman in america learned self defense, knew what the warning signs of a rapist were, learned how to diffuse a rape (loosening the bowels can diffuse a rape almost instantly) and learned how to make it clear that they would report a rape insrapes would go down by 60%. Shall we run to the rape crisis recovery centers and start spewing bile at the rape victims? I used to suffer from depression. However I read as many books as I could on the pharmacology of mood and the psychology of happiness and after applying several of these things I am not a depressed person anymore. Does that mean anyone else who didn’t exert the control I did is some sort of weak pathetic loser? PS, it was much easier to overcome depression than it is to lose more than 50 pounds.
All obese people want is to not be treated unequally. Abuse cancer victims just as harshly as you are abusing obese people or don’t abuse either group. If you took the level of libertarian philosophy and self control we expect from obese people and applied it to any other area of life people would either laugh or get enraged.
Similarly, it’s possible to be well educated, have plenty of $ and eat poorly.
One of my cousins is a perfect example. She is educated, a registered nurse, and she and her husband make plenty of money. But what do they bring home for themselves and the kids? Lunchables, pre-sweetened breakfast cereals, Gogurt, Easy Mac n’ cheese, frozen quiches, processed stuff, and plenty of fast food. The kids aren’t too fat yet, but they sure do get sick a lot. (Their dad calls this “bad luck.” I call it “bad diet.”)
Check this out, though: When I went to stay with the kids for a couple of nights, I brought some fresh blueberries with me. They ate the whole darn box full of berries once they got a taste. The sad thing is, it’s probably the only really nutritious thing they’d had that week.
I got to be a little blimp when my mother was terminally ill with cancer. My father spent most of his free time at the hospital and us kids were watched by baby sitters who kept us quiet by overfeeding us.
Ever since, food has been a consolation for the blues. I was up and down throughout teenage and early adulthood.
When my first marriage started falling apart, I got hugely fat --300 lbs. Lost 90 lbs all after the divorce.
One of the children of my first marriage was taken from my ex because her worthless boyfriend treated him like a punching bag. The friction between this scarred kid and his stepmom and stepsiblings made for a tension that was relieved by food.
I dieted off 85 lbs., stayed disciplined for many years, even through loss of a good job, and then, 3 years ago, my wife got cancer.
I packed on 54 lbs. High blood pressure led me to diet once again. I’ve lost 24 lbs in 4 months.
Perhaps many of these “lazy, fat, welfare bums” learned at an early age to find refuge from pain in food.
Would you smug “naturally-thin” types who either have led relatively stressless lives or were taught different ways of coping please lighten up on the rest of us?
I have to agree with the “comfort in food” theory - for 6 years during my childhood I lived with my mothers sister, her husband and their son. They were physically and emotionally abusive (unknown to my mother - when she found out I was immediately taken out of there) but that bitch could cook! Fried pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy - and not cleaning my plate was a reason to get my ass beat yet again. So I learned to find comfort in food. It is much easier to shake that intellectually than it is emotionally - I still have trouble with heading for the fridge when I’m upset. I’m much better than I used to be, but I still have setbacks. If I’m depressed, weight gain is almost automatic - which turns into a vicious cycle.
Ounce for ounce, there is more sugar in the blueberries than in the pre-sweetened cereal. One cup of blueberries has 14 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of dietary fiber. One serving of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats (2.1 oz., about 24 biscuits) has 12 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of dietary fiber.
The serving of Mini-Wheats also has 6 grams of protein, 90% of the RDA of iron, 25% of the RDA of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folic acid, and vitamin b12, 15% of the RDA of phosphorus and magnesium, and 10% of the RDA of zinc and copper.
The blueberries have 23% of the RDA of vitamin C, but very small amounts of any other vitamins or minerals.
Likewise, the Lunchables may be costly, with excess packaging, but the cheese and sausage that they contain are nutritious. (And once again, dietary fat is not a major factor in body fat. Excess carbohydrates play a much more important role.)
Who is smug and “naturally-thin?” I was fat for my first 24-25 years. I lost about 125 pounds by change in diet alone, and have kept it off for over 6 years. I have no reason to lighten up, I know first hand (at least for me) that laziness and lack of discipline was the cause of being fat. I can not climb into anyone else’s mind to make sure, but my money is on the cause being similar for most other fat people.
I weighed 300 lbs while working in a tank farm, climbing up and down storage tanks, loading and unloading tank cars in all kinds of weather, wearing insulated coveralls and steel-toed shoes that added to my weight and bulk. I didn’t sit around in front of the tube much when I got home, either.
I got fat and stayed fat eating too much of the “good stuff”–meat, potatoes, bread. I didn’t drink much alcohol or pop.
A lot of people associate food with comfort and few things in life are more uncomfortable than poverty. I suppose that if I had a child whose chronic health problems made him/her uninsurable by anyone but Medicaid and I worried all the time about whether or not an hour or two of overtime or a well-meaning handout from a better-off relative, church , etc. would be found out about by the caseworker and my kid would be cut off; I’d be big as a house even if I had to walk 1/2 mile round-trip to the bus to shop or get to work.
When the doctor costs $100 and a handful of anti-anxiety meds prescribed by the doctor costs twice that, it’s hard to beat the calming effect of another porkchop and another pile of mashed potatoes for cost-effectiveness.
Actually, you’ll find that some of the most vocal “losing weight isn’t complicated” posters tend to be “used to be fat but worked very hard to lose weight and keep it off” types rather then “naturally-thin” types.
True, but that is because most of them need to indoctrinate themselves with intolerance for fat to keep their motivation high to avoid going back to this fate. It reminds me of that guy(cristophe I think) in the book ‘black like me’ who passed for white and really, really, really hated black people.
Oh sure. The only way those successful weight losers out there manage to keep it off is by heaping masses of scorn for others onto their plates instead of curly fries.
These ‘good things’, comfort food, fatty meat, potato, gravy and starch have been around a whole lot longer than our obesity epidemic. The only thing that seems to have changed in the last half century is the ease with which we can prepare the gloppy feast.
Food can be nutritious, cheap, and convenient, but it’s rarely all three. Nutritious and cheap takes time, while nutritious and convenient costs money. So while there is certainly a connection between poverty and obesity, I’m not willing to let people totally abdicate their responsibility to health by blaming our society for the alarming rates of obesity.
Given that obesity and a lack of physical activity lead to so many negative consequences (affecting both physical, social, and mental health) it’s not so much “indoctrination” as it is “making rational lifestyle decisions.”
Only being fat instead of skinng is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE being black instead of white, and I’m not “passing” for healthy, I am healthy. Other then those two fundamental differences, it’s just like that. :rolleyes:
The sugar in fresh fruit is not the same as processed sugar, though. That’s the point I was trying to make: the kids might enjoy some fresh, natural foods, at least occasionally, if someone would (re)introduce them into the household instead of grabbing whatever’s quick and easy (but loaded with synthetic ingredients that don’t need to be there and don’t do anyone any good).
The same thing goes on most of the time in my brother’s household: constant trips out to get fast food and packaged stuff, and a never-ending round of illnesses as well.
A package of Lunchables also has over 1000 mg of sodium, almost half of the daily recommended amount. This goes ditto with lots of canned, frozen, and other processed food (though Mini-Wheats is one of the few good cereals in this regard). Not so with fresh blueberries.
I didn’t mean it the way you are taking it. I just meant that coming from a group that is scorned upon I would assume alot of people just have to build up alot of intolerance and sometimes hatred just to avoid going back to that same fate since it is very hard to maintain a weight loss. I have even heard other people who have lost weight and keep it off explain that this is their motivation, to build up a wall of intolerance to keep their motivation high. Luckily I don’t have to worry about that, I have no trouble maintaining a 50 pound weight loss. Thank you genetics.
Healthy comes in many forms, being thin is not the only route to health.