Rant on another forum

NO THEY WOULDN'T. We all know people who make sacrifices, sometimes significant, in order to get what they want.

My mom is way overweight. She knows damn well what she needs to do to lose weight. She starts, but has absolutely no follow through. It's not a desease, it's laziness.

My brother WAS way overweight. He knew damn well what he needed to do to lose weight. He started, and stuck with it. It wasn't a desease, he WAS a lazy ass slob. Now he isn't.

Frankly, his biggest weight loss came in the form of his ex-wife. That's about two hundred pounds no longer holding him down. Once he lost that, the other 90+ lbs were pretty easy.

It's all about attitude.

And Demontheses, I love ripping on fat people. They're the one group that has control over their situation.

 

That stats say otherwise. Sorry, you're just plain wrong. We're hardwired to retain our weight.

 

Reeeeeeally? How do you explain my brother's mieraculous conversion from fat ass to slim jim? Was he hardwired to grow to almost three bills for a while before he trimed down to two? And let me tell you, he was way overweight for several years. This wasn't a one time food bindge after some bitch broke his heart.

In summation, I've gotta call bullsh1t.

Oh and on a side note: Going off of family history, I'm hardwired to be an alcoholic. Yet I'm not. Please explain.

 

A 98% failure rate speaks for itself. Now go and buy some lottery tickets....

 

It means that 98% of people that get obese have no fvcking self control in the first place. Jesus man.

 

You're ignoring the genetic component.

 

Which accounts for how many, genius? Really?

And again, I am genetically predisposed to alcoholism, yet I am NOT one. Explain?

Also, going by my family makeup, I am also predisposed to obesity: mom's fat, dad's overweight, brother was fat, sister getting there. Yet I'm a svelt 165 lbs.

Maybe this has to do with the fact that I don't pound a bag of Lays and drink a four cans of coke everyday. And I don't eat fast food.

I don't give a good goddamn about the failure rate. This isn't a friggin math quiz.

 

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the odds are such that only a complete f-ing idiot will come up with the "personal responsibility" solution.

Maybe you are a drunk in denial? Maybe you need to look up the word predisposed. Maybe you're lucky. Maybe you never took a course in genetics?

See last sentence above.

Good for you. If you can do it, I'm sure everyone can. Except we know that's a complete fiction!

You're advocating a solution that fails 98% of the time. Sorry, I don't like those odds. Society has too look for other solutions.

 

Ben - you're grasp of causation and your scientific understanding of "disease" are completely lacking. I hate to break it to you, but there is no physical condition that requires a person to involuntarily lift his arms up, grab a liquor bottle or a bag of fritos, and pour it down his throat. People may be pre-disposed genetically to obesity, to alcoholism, to violence, etc., but what they are pre-disposed to is not the food, the alcohol or the feel of the gun in their hands, but the "need", or the "desire", or the mere inability to restrain themselves from satisfying those needs or desires.

And that pre-disposition can be countered by behavior modification, and in most respects, it is ONLY personal choices that can change those behaviors (or some drugs).

The fact that 98% do not lose the weight does not mean that 98% have given it serious effort. The fact that people spend a fortune on products "designed" to assist them, does not mean either (a) the products are actually helpful, or (b) the persons actually follow through with them. You're confusing "wanting" to lose weight, with "trying" to lose weight. Does the fact that someone buys a gym membership every January but stops going by February mean that they really tried to slim down, but just couldn't? Does the fact that they spent money on a treadmill that now serves as a nice clothes hanger mean they really tried, but just couldn't? Just because 98% haven't lost the weight does NOT mean that they are physically unable to do so. All it means is that they didn't lose it. It doesn't give the reasons why they didn't, and you're trying to supply that reason for them - give them the psychological palliative that it's not their fault - it's an awful disease. All that does is further erode any possibility that they would find the resolve to address the problem themselves.

You tell us - how does classifying obesity as a disease aide in the fight against obesity? Just what, exactly, do YOU think can help that cause, if not the actions of the obese themselves?

And don't get us wrong. We're not saying that these people shouldn't be helped to fight their own behavioral problems. More often than not, it requires the willpower of someone else to trigger their own willpower (just like a personal trainer, or a spotter in the gym helps you throw out a few more reps before you quit). But in the end, what exactly CAN be done to help someone who will not help themselves?

Edit: PS - if, as you seem to believe, a 98% failure rate means that obesity is something that can't be fought by the individual - it's hardwirded, as you put it - then how do you explain the fact that obesity is rising as a percentage of population? Do you think it's all the result of some genetic mutation that's invaded the current human genome? Some environmental factor? Or are you willing to admit that it's culturally-induced behavioral patterns that have changed?

 

I think Alcoholism and Obesity are not diseases but disorders like Bulima or Anorexia. It is true, the people who suffer from these disorders brought the problem on themselves. However, the severity of the problem in each individual results from a genetic or psychological defect.

Has anyone made the mistake of ordering a large soda from McDonald's lately? It's 48 FREAKIN OUNCES. How the hell am I supposed to consume 48 ounces of Diet Coke in one sitting. While this is a problem, you can't blame McDonald's for satisfying the needs of its ignorant customers.

So what do you think we should do about Alcoholism and Obesity? Are our taxes being used to treat these people? If so, should our government pass laws that will limit the size of Big Gulp? We already have countless laws overseeing the sale of alcohol.

 

Mindless introductory gratuitous insult out of the way. (Big soccerites, myself included, should delete their first sentence prior to hitting "submit reply")

If 98% of people are behaving in a certain way no matter how much they want to be thin, it's the functional equivalent.

Taxing unhealty foods. Increased educational expenditures. A greater effort by the medical profession to treat obesity. I'm sure there are many other ideas.

There's no questioned we're hardwired to retain weight. For millions of years we've had to fight for every calorie.

The 98%+ figure is for people already obese.

Of course there are various factors causing more people to gain weight. These need to be addressed. Saying "stop eating" just doesn't work. That's my problem with all of this, whether it be for fat people, drug addicts, the poor, etc.

Again, I remind you that there is no incentive for being fat. Nobody wants to be fat. Nobody wants to be a drug addict. Nobody wants to be poor.

 

Why have portions increased so much? I've never met anyone who asked for larger portions. They just got bigger and bigger. A medium fries in the 1970s is now the kids happy meal size. How did that happen? I honestly don't know. I've noticed that low (producer) cost items have increased in size the most, like sodas and fries.

 

And yet, when McDonald's introduced the "Supersize" it option, letting the customer voluntarily increase the size of his order, it was eagerly accepted by the customers.

It's like the latest KFC ads, which try to tout their fried chicken as healthy. "Compared to a Whopper, there's actually less fat in our chicken!" But when you order a Whopper, you get one Whopper. When you order the chicken from KFC, you get a BUCKET of it!

Ben, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the seriousness of the problem needs to be addressed culturally throughout society, not just on the individual level. But in the end, there will still be people who will not stop putting food in their mouth - because it satisfies a need they feel, not because they want to be fat. All the cultural change in the world can only help that person psychologically to deny that need - but it's still up to them in the end.

 

Obesity is a disease - a disease which people give themselves, but a disease nevertheless. You wouldn't refuse to call lung cancer a disease in those cases where the sufferer had refused to quit smoking and thus brought it on himself. Regardless of the cause, the result is a serious health problem which requires treatment.

If you consider fat people lazy, and think they have no-one to blame but themselves, does that apply to overweight children too? Who do they have to blame? Are they worth helping?

 

In general I have noticed fat children are such because their parents don't properly regulate their diet and exercise.

I was the chunkiest kid in my school, becuase my mom allowed me to survive on 'Little Debbie'. As an adult I run marathons, 'try' to control my food intake and have not been called fat boy in 10 years. My adolescent obesity was a result of environment, not genetics.

 

Disorder, not disease. A disease may come about as a direct result of behavior (lung cancer from smoking, or pneumoconiosis [black lung] from working in a coal mine), but cessation of the behavior doesn't remedy a disease (you can prevent further agrivation of the condition, but you cannot reverse it by a change in behavior). Obesity, on the other hand, is a behavioral disorder. The condition of being obese CAN be reversed through a change in the behavior. Obesity can be a contributing factor in real diseases, such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, etc., and just like stopping smoking won't reverse lung cancer, reducing the weight won't reverse diabetes - the real disease. But it is possible to reverse the obesity itself.