She wasn't all that fat. Just pleasingly plump. And I'll bet a lot of BS posters would have done her. Poor Schmidt.
The media is overly dramatic. Everything is a crisis. Terrorism Violent Crime Pedophiles in the Neighborhood Cancer Iraq The Housing Bubble Corporate Fraud Obesity The amazing thing is, that with this 24/7 news cycle if immenent doom, more people aren't just shooting themselves. It's like "as long as I can buy stuff I want but can't afford using my credit card, my life is great." Seriously. This is how Americans cope. It's called "consumer therapy" or some crap. Nobody has the guts to look in the mirror anymore and notice that they're up to their eyeballs in debt, have no savings, are overweight, unattractive, has no interests, undereducated, bored, and uninformed, scared of terrorists, black people, and immigrants, don't understand how their company works or why their boss is so stupid but makes more money than they do, can't figure out why paying a variable-rate interest-only loan on their condo is going to be really bad in a few years, and wonders why the government isn't doing more about the homosexuals, roads, and breasts on TV. Face it. We're obese. Morbidly so. So are the children, and the in-laws, and everyone. It's one of many problems that we can solve with some unconditional love, and inability to tell ourselves and our loved ones that we should do something with our lives other than consume food and entertainment, and just a symptom of a wider problem: no self-discipline.
I dunno about all this but compared to many years ago I notice there a whole lot more fat people these days then there used to be. Just go to a walmart... I'm serious.
My Doctor: You're an ectomorph? Me: What the ******** did you say to me? Then he took the time to explain it. So yeah, I'm an ectomorph.
i guess your "overly dramatic" is sometimes my "showing concern and foresight" - should they not be dramatic about certain things just because they can't yet technically be considered a "crisis"? isn't that better than being dramatic after the crisis begins? sheesh
i think we all know that there are different body types, but that's always been true. why is it that now, in the last 15 years or so, is it considered the norm to be fat instead of the exception? unless we've all evolved into endomorphs in the past decade (or ID or whatever else you're into). the most painful thing is going to a buffet-style restaurant. I don't even like to go to Golden Corral anymore because it's just so sad and disturbing.
I know, and that is a good point. I was just trying to point out that sometimes, fat people are making the effort to lose it, and that they get judged unfairly at first glance, often due to genetic predisposition.
As an old codger,I remember mandatory gym class,which I hated and was embarrasing at times,but kept me reasonably shaped until i discovered keggers and delivery pizza in college. Also,health education lasted for a year instead of six weeks. Public schools need to reeemphasize physical fitness. I find it disturbing that you ever liked golden corral.That was one nasty place when I used to go w/ my ex and her family.
I never thought about how fat we had become until I went to England. There are almost NO fat chicks when you go clubbing. Not in the small towns, not in the cities. As I was getting on the plane back home some little, American kid even remarked to his dad, "Dad, you know what I noticed? There's no fat people over here." Then I come back and get a job working fast food. I've worked in restaurants and fast food for 6 years now. The fat people are always the ones who will skip the salad and order a chicken fried steak covered in gravy, fried okra and a baked potato with sour cream + cheese. Then they'll have a chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Really, people, just have some self discipline. After you stop eating fast food if you try to go back it tastes like ******** anyway. Same thing with soft drinks (for me, at least).
it depends on which one you go to, and they're better in the south. the ones up here are .. not so great.
Well, I gotta hand it to that kid. He's playing sports, instead of sitting around playing video games. He'll get the weight off. I don't buy into the genetics excuse. Going back to the example of that family. Are their genes making them chug down liters of Pepsi?
A few weeks ago I watched a documentary about a facility for morbidly obese people. It followed the plight of a 39 year old man. He looked like a beached whale with a human head. He had been bedridden for 7 years and couldn't even turn over from his left side. Eventually he got an infection and died of kidney failure. What a sad tragedy. I can't imagine what it feels like to be encased in a mountain of fat, unable to move, but still a cognizant human being.
When saying something is not a crisis, you shouldn't necessarily add a definition that disproves your point.
To me, the issue has been one simply of time and of feeling when one is hungry. When I started working, and that was when I started gaining weight, I noticed that I would literally go weeks without feeling really hungry because I was automatically eating breakfast, lunch and dinner and then trying to cram all the work and social life in. I literally ate when I wasn't hungry because I think I thought I wouldn't have time later to get a meal. When I stopped and said, ********it, I am not going to eat until I am hungry, and I am going to get decent food, even if it takes me more time to get it I was able to stop gaining. Somebody was telling me that you can go a week without suffering adverse effects on your health without food. What that means is that you have time to eat later. So stay hungry for a while, see what it feels like, and use that to get a better appreciation of you bod.
Advances in phamacueticals...take this one for that. Then when it gives you this heinous side effect, you take this one, and so on. Depressionis more diagnosed now because it's more prevalent--in large measure due to dietary causes, and because its making people rich..
Mike Segroves nailed it in his post. Now of course, bad habits coupled with genetics and you have a recipe for disaster, but some people actually go to the gym on a regular basis, and watch what they eat, and still end up having bellys the size of that football picture. There are simply more variables at work than diet.
again, why is it just in the last 15 years though? genetics accounts for about 10% of people being morbidly obese. not 60%. i think a lot of it has to do with the rise of computers to do everything. most people now sit for their jobs for 8 hours a day. in the past, even if you worked at an office, you still had to get up an walk around to do most things. now people think that walking from the parking lot into the office is exercise. and because of this, you really have to learn how to get your exercise outside of the workday. you also have to start bringing your lunch instead of going to mickey d's everyday. but i digress.... you can blame genetics for a small portion of the population, but you can't give everyone the blanket excuse of genetics. it's just not true that over 60% of the population all of the sudden is prone to morbid obesity.
Those are the kind of people that end up becoming NFL offensive linemen. Seriously, though, the last time I went in for my check-up the doc ragged my ass about being at 285, but he did say I was actually very healthy. Normal cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure, EKG was fine. He did say he wouldn't bet the ranch in me remaining the healthiest man in America, but he said most of it was genetic. I've been carrying around a minimum of 255 pounds since I was 17, so that's 20 years of carrying that kind of weight. I'll be looking at a hip replacement by the time I hit my 50's, but that's an old injury (although I might be able to postpone it for 5 years or so if I dropped a large chunk of mass) and not a result of weight.