"Pro-fat"/"Pro-obesity"--anyone else heard of this?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Quote from “pseudonym”:
“Honored though your job may be, I doubt it allows you to intuit on sight what random person on the street X eats and how often they exercise. There’s a correlation between unhealthy eating and inactivity and obesity, sure. That doesn’t mean you’re suddenly omniscient about every fat person’s lifestyle and health. Statistics don’t give you the right to assume someone’s lazy because of their body type.”</p>

<p>Too much food and too little exercise causes obesity. Any other cause is rare, and generally correctable. </p>

<p>Quote from HeliMom in NYC:
“Thanks, collegialmom, for pointing out so “eloquently” why it’s okay to hate fat people, and why discriminating against the obese is acceptable… “The people in society who have the self-discipline to stay trim and fit” are obviously better.”</p>

<p>Not better, healthier.</p>

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<p>Per enablers and obesity, I do wonder, when there are the stories of 400-700 pound people on TV, how do the spouses or other caretakers, in good conscience, still bring them their large meals and snacks? </p>

<p>To me, it’s like the obese children whose parents still give them the fries and chips because they “feel sorry” for them being teased at school because they are fat!</p>

<p>By the way, my post must have wound up on the pro-obesiy blog because the woman must be one of the CC posters! Time for her to get up from her computer and exercise and post/blog less!</p>

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<p>It is certainly possible that there have been several 3-pack-day smokers who lived to be 100, and a couple of alocholics who died with their livers intact. But this does not mean that all smokers and alcoholics should not be chastised for and discouraged from their dangerous lifestyle choices.</p>

<p>Similarly, the fact that there may be obese people who are deemed “healthy” by their doctors on any given day in their lives does not validate obesity as a healthy lifestyle choice.</p>

<p>Sadly, there is a movement afoot to promote obesity as an acceptable lifestyle. See <a href=“http://www.naafa.org%5B/url%5D”>www.naafa.org</a> - The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.</p>

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<p>The times are probably different because of time zone differences.</p>

<p>As for that ridiculous blog… Wow. Have any of those people realized that the reason “fat people” are not looked favorably upon in society is not because they are ineffectual ugly people, but because they basically put themselves in the position of giving themselves higher risks of X diseases? Yeah yeah yeah, doctors can be wrong, society is against us all, have they listened to themselves? Jeesh. A 7 year old can tell you that it is important to eat healthy and exercise. Are you telling me that all obese do this, but to no avail?</p>

<p>As you can tell, I have little patience for ridiculous claims.</p>

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<p>I don’t think it is ok to hate fat people-but while I have known people who aren’t model skinny and are healthy, I have known just as many who are overweight and who tire easily, aren’t able to lift even medium size weights and the more it is difficult for them to move around, the less they do- even kids which is sad because they model what their parents do.</p>

<p>However- we need to stop subsidizing fast food and help people make healthier affordable choices.
Organic fruits and veggies aren’t cheap
We should outlaw all you can eat dinners- and make restaurants show you that you are really ordering two or three portions
<a href=“http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1247588[/url]”>http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1247588&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I hope no one misinterpreted me, though. It isn’t that I hate fat people, I don’t like those people that think it is medically fine.</p>

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<p>When the author of the blog dies of heart attack, I am going to laugh.</p>

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<p>“However- we need to stop subsidizing fast food and help people make healthier affordable choices.
Organic fruits and veggies aren’t cheap
We should outlaw all you can eat dinners- and make restaurants show you that you are really ordering two or three portions”</p>

<p>Good thoughts, but until then, how do we, as a society, get people to just eat less and exercise more self-control over portion sizes? </p>

<p>By the way, higher taxes on cigarettes works wonders, but I don’t think this will work for food, as it is a necessity. </p>

<p>I thought that having controls on what food stamps could buy, like limiting it to more nutritious foods, would be a good start, but at least where I lived, this was illegal, because poor people sued and won the right to limitless junk food. At least a control on percent of food that is junk could have been a good start. Does anyone know if the food stamp program in other states steers people to healthier foods?</p>

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<p>Wow! I’m almost afraid to post here! I guyess most people on this thread haven’t seen the most recent scientific data about obesity.</p>

<p>First, I agree that obesity is a HEALTH problem and even as an obese person I feel it is an esthetic issue as well. </p>

<p>However, cutting edge research suggests that whatever obesity is about it is not about food. Genetics, set points metabolism rates all play a much larger part.</p>

<p>PBS has been showing a special on obesity with most up-to-date research that basically states this.</p>

<p>I wonder how many self-righteous posters have had tio lkive on a diet of 500 calories a day and still not lost weight, despite exercise?</p>

<p>FYI I eat less than anyone else in my family and am overwhelmingly heaviest. My very thin children (yes it does happen) eat what they want and spend hours stretched out in front of the TV set. (I never encouraged them to eat candy.)</p>

<p>I do try to exercise. I have very severe asthma but have a treadmill set up in my room. I use it far more frequently than my thin husband.</p>

<p>However, it has made me feel just great knowing that if the rest of you should see me, you are making assumptions about my personal self-discipline, you are laughing at me if I where certain T-shirts, you are enraged at the tax dollars I am costing you.</p>

<p>Your sensitivity about a MEDICAL CONDITION I have been struggling with my entire life is certainly heartwarming. And I guess you are all superior to me as human beings even though I spend my life teaching literature in a community college.</p>

<p>BTW, most people tell me I am quite beautiful. I still attract more men than thinner girlfriends. However, as you might be able to imagine, after being subjected to the attitudes on this post, I have difficulty believing them.</p>

<p>So I have come out of the closet. When my posts are read in the future I’m sure they will be touched by the stigma of “a fat person’s posts.” C’est la vie!</p>

<p>Genetics, set points,</p>

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<p>“However, cutting edge research suggests that whatever obesity is about it is not about food. Genetics, set points metabolism rates all play a much larger part.”</p>

<p>DNA of a population could not have evolved significantly in 30-50 years, from when there was FAR less obesity.</p>

<p>What happened is a more sedentary life style and fattier foods. </p>

<p>By the way, there was a good article yesterday in the NYTimes that links the OVERUSE of simple sugars to macular degeneration, in nondiabetic adults. Researcher suggests more fruits and veggies and less sweetened food, but not eliminating carbs altogether.</p>

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<p>mythmom- re asthma- I don’t know what you and your dr have tried- I have exercise asthma/allergies- but have been taking singular which helps quite a bit-
Also weight around the chest really pushes on lungs- which you can use for more motivation
Id always heard that swimming was supposed to be very good for asthma- but frankly- the pools around here have so many chemicals, it seems to make it more difficult- worth checking around.</p>

<p>I can’t comment on the treadmill use- but I did notice that once I had been exercising hard regularly, my breathing got much deeper and easier.( I also don’t have motivation to do it at home- going to the gym- I stayed longer and worked harder)
I would also strongly suggest a deep tissue massage- regularly if you can afford it. There are pockets of fascia and scar tissue around the chest, which can impede breathing. Massage can loosen these- it sounds like bubble wrap popping , pretty funny!</p>

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<p>“My very thin children (yes it does happen) eat what they want and spend hours stretched out in front of the TV set. (I never encouraged them to eat candy.)”</p>

<p>I would suggest with their family history that they not develop a sedentary life-style with high caloric foods.</p>

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<p>Mythmom,</p>

<p>What I gather from all your posts is that you are a very sensitive, intelligent, insightful woman, who like all of us, has everyday struggles. One of yours happens to be your weight. We all have something difficult to deal with, be it something physical or emotional…We do the best we can!</p>

<p>It sounds like you have a lovely and supportive family and group of friends. Congrats on all of your achievements!</p>

<p>EmeraldKitty,</p>

<p>You said, “… but I did notice that once I had been exercising hard regularly, my breathing got much deeper and easier.”</p>

<p>That’s good to know…Whenever I start a new exercise routine, I feel like my breathing is so shallow (I can’t seem to get enough air). Sometimes I feel like I have low lung capacity, but maybe I just have to keep on working at it! And I like the idea of regular massages! :)</p>

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<p>Mythmom–thank you for your honesty. You are absolutely right about the latest scientific information on weight issues. I have struggled with weight issues my whole life. By constant monitoring what I eat (strict calorie/carb control), signficant exercise (walk 4/5 miles a day; bike/kayak/hike frequently–several times a week; weights twice a week) I can usually keep from gaining, but not in losing the extra 30 or so pounds I carry. My H (a doctor) will be the first to tell you that I eat a fraction of what he does, but he easily doesn’t gain. My heart rate, blood pressure, cholesteral, blood sugar, etc, are all well within healthy ranges, according to my physician.</p>

<p>As to why there has been an overall change in obesity rates in the past generation, it makes no more sense to think that people changed that much than to think that DNA did. What demonstrably changed is our national food system–based on ingredients like high fructose corn syrup which did not exist 50 years ago. We are living a giant experiment in how our bodies process previously unknown concoctions.</p>

<p>Mythmom–I have no doubt you’re as beautiful as your friends tell you.</p>

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<p>No, researchers ARE insisting that obesity is NOT a fuction of merely food and exercise! One theory is that the stress of modern life is a significant factor, including prejudice. Even people with gastic by-pass who eat only a tablespoon of food per meal and follow exercise regimes reach “normal” weght in only 25% of cases. Researchers are likening it to the upsurge in asthma, suggesting that people with these conditions are like the canaries in mines and are metabolically more sensitive to new conditions.</p>

<p>Collegialmom: I guarantee that you don’t know as much about this as you think you do. There are entire Native American tribeas (Hopi in particular) in which 80% of tribe is obese, despite not consuming more calories or leading a sedentary lifestyle. And as for my children, of course they don’t spend all their time in front of the TV, but for some reason (two thin grandmothers perhaps) each is significantly thinner than their peers despite eating whatever and whenever they want. BTW I never stressed unhealthy food, only healthy. I allowed them to eat what they wanted ONLY AFTER they’d eaten healthy, nourishing food. That, plus my own macrobioic diet during pregnancies and breast feeding seems to have worked.</p>

<p>Emeraldkity: Thanks for your helpful suggetions. I do swim. Put in pool for that purpose.</p>

<p>Curiousmother: Thanks for your supportive comments.</p>

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<p>garland: Thank-you too. Wow! Even with that regiment you can’t lose that thirty pounds? Still, congraulations on what you have accomplised. You are to be admired.</p>

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<p>“Collegialmom: I guarantee that you don’t know as much about this as you think you do. There are entire Native American tribeas (Hopi in particular) in which 80% of tribe is obese, despite not consuming more calories or leading a sedentary lifestyle.”</p>

<p>How many centuries does this go back with this tribe? Is it a recent phenomenon? There is a very high rate of alcohol consumption currently in Native American tribes. How do these calories figure into the works? Alcohol is VERY high caloric.</p>

<p>The vast majority of overweight people in this country eat too much high fat food and exercise too little. If you are a medical anomaly, so be it. There is certainly not a nation of newly evolved people who can’t lose weight. They need to go to McDonald’s less. Take away the fries, double bacon cheeseburgers, beers and Cokes and they would be healthier. I see it every day, all day. Not a mystery. It’s from eating fat, fat, and sugar, drinking beer and then eating more fat. Ice cream, fries, soda, chips and all-you-can-eat buffets. Cheesecake Factory portions of “healthy” foods. Then cheesecake. A double bacon cheeseburger has about enough fat for a week. And people eat 1-2 a day, plus eggs and bacon and biscuits for breakfast and fried chicken and biscuits and potatoes for dinner. then drink 12 beers. And sit all day and night. It’s really NOT a mystery!</p>

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<p>While it may be true that a person’s metabolism may be so messed up that she cannot lose the weight, it is overeating that caused the weight gain in the first place.</p>

<p>I don’t buy the change in DNA argument. My brother is obese (the other 4 members of my family are thin), but only since he was about age 35. When I am with him, he eats, eats, eats and never exercises. My H was once clinically obese, and I can tell you it was because he ate and ate and ate. He eventually did lose the weight by increasing exercise and changing his eating habits for good.</p>

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<p>In my case, Bay, that is not true. have eaten normally, by anyone’s standards my whole life. That is my metabolism.</p>

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<p>Two years ago, my H had a BMI of 30 (obese) and a 38-inch waist. Intensive exercise (including weight-lifting) helped a little but breaking his food addictions and counting calories is what got him down to 24 BMI (normal) and a 33-inch waist. He lost 45 pounds, and it was painful, uncomfortable, stressful but ultimately empowering. I don’t judge people’s characters or worth based on their looks or weight, but I’m not buying the idea that people are helpless and that obesity should be accepted as a viable lifestyle “choice.” It’s unhealthy to be obese. And yes, what and how much we eat is the root cause of it.</p>