6 ms·

I wonder if it has something to do with body-positivism? Why would anyone get himself in shape, if he/she is beautiful no matter what they say?

ksaj 7y ago
I think it has to do with how food quality keeps hitting new lows. We really don't need sheep hair and 5 types of artificial sugars in our foods. We don't need everything bulked up with hydrolyzed soy bean. We really don't need purple plastic gel "berries" in our breakfast. Etc. Surely we can find a way to get foods from the farms to our tables fast enough that they don't have to be picked before they develop full nutritional profiles. Most of all, that is to say we really don't need 80% of our diets to be empty calories and sugars. Of course, there is the problem of sedentary living. I can't believe how lazy kids are these days - they don't even go for aimless bike rides anymore, because chatting online and playing 5-hour video game marathons is way more fun than real life apparently. But I'll leave that for someone else to cover. Let's just say our culture is feeding it, and it takes willful blindness to be at all surprised.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > "sheep hair" That's a new one to me, which foods have wool in them?
  - ksaj 7y ago
    Look for the word lanolin in your ingredient lists. It's basically boiled down sheep hair. It's a source of vitamin D, but mainly it's used to make things really crispy (when fried) or shiny and slippery (when straight up). You get vitamin D from a whole lot of other things you eat (it's not rare), and it takes some laboratory wizardry to derive the vitamin D3 from it (versus simply eating normal food to get it...) so nobody is adding lanolin to your food for it's wholesome goodness. It's literally only there for the texture. That's why its in your shampoo, chewing gum, leather polish and french fries, amongst a whole lot of other foods you eat.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Seems a tad misleading to call that hair; lanolin isn't keratin.
      - Nasrudith 7y ago
        Yeah and lanolin would have been of use for cooking for millennia even if it wasn't appetizing just from sheer calories and survival. That fits the pattern of PETA style vegan fanatic "too important for the truth" propaganda. Like claims that sheep are skinned for their wool.
        namibj 7y ago
        Can you link a source for "Like claims that sheep are skinned for their wool."?
    - mizzack 7y ago
      > nobody is adding lanolin to your food for it's wholesome goodness. Most people are D deficient and D3 is fat soluble. That is literally why it's added to milk.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  I think the sedentary part is far more important. I grew up in the 1970s in the US, and if anything, we ate worse than we do now with our current concern with calories and nutrition -- we had fast food a couple of times a week, drank soda daily, and ate those awful sugary cereals like Lucky Charms. And yet we didn't (on average) get fat the way kids do today. We burned off those excess calories running around outside and riding bikes.
pizza 7y ago
But what if it had to do with the food they ate instead
- 0-_-0 7y ago
  Please read about proximate and ultimate causation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati...
- pcdoodle 7y ago
  lol, username. I loved you at one point and had to give you up.
elindbe2 7y ago
How many people actually believe body positivism deep down? For example, how many people would see zero difference between, all things being equal, dating a thin person and a morbidly obese person? I'm sure they are out there but I would guess it's very rare compared to the number of people that are body positive in words but not in actions. I suspect that body positivism wouldn't have that big an effect because most people don't actually believe in it.
TheOperator 7y ago
My biases say yes but my brain says no. I think it's simply a function of a worsening economic situation incentivizing the consumption of poor quality food that saves people time, money, or both. Also sedentary lifestyles make a lot of heavy foods appetizing that makes you want to puke while exercising. I ate very unhealthy and was teased quite a bit for it yet never kicked the habit. Once I started receiving more disposible income than I knew what to do with, it became a lot easier to exercise, I could buy whatever food I wanted, and it sort of spun people's heads how quickly my diet changed. People keep making fun of me for having an unhealthy diet just because of inertia even though I'm eating healthier than them. I really see body positivism as being more caused by the obesity epidemic than the inverse. As well as the rise of social media sort of spiking body-shaming and anti-body-shaming sentiments. Not just in regards to weight but also things like height.

ksaj 7y ago

I think it has to do with how food quality keeps hitting new lows. We really don't need sheep hair and 5 types of artificial sugars in our foods. We don't need everything bulked up with hydrolyzed soy bean. We really don't need purple plastic gel "berries" in our breakfast. Etc. Surely we can find a way to get foods from the farms to our tables fast enough that they don't have to be picked before they develop full nutritional profiles. Most of all, that is to say we really don't need 80% of our diets to be empty calories and sugars. Of course, there is the problem of sedentary living. I can't believe how lazy kids are these days - they don't even go for aimless bike rides anymore, because chatting online and playing 5-hour video game marathons is way more fun than real life apparently. But I'll leave that for someone else to cover. Let's just say our culture is feeding it, and it takes willful blindness to be at all surprised.

catalogia 7y ago
> "sheep hair" That's a new one to me, which foods have wool in them?
- ksaj 7y ago
  Look for the word lanolin in your ingredient lists. It's basically boiled down sheep hair. It's a source of vitamin D, but mainly it's used to make things really crispy (when fried) or shiny and slippery (when straight up). You get vitamin D from a whole lot of other things you eat (it's not rare), and it takes some laboratory wizardry to derive the vitamin D3 from it (versus simply eating normal food to get it...) so nobody is adding lanolin to your food for it's wholesome goodness. It's literally only there for the texture. That's why its in your shampoo, chewing gum, leather polish and french fries, amongst a whole lot of other foods you eat.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Seems a tad misleading to call that hair; lanolin isn't keratin.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      Yeah and lanolin would have been of use for cooking for millennia even if it wasn't appetizing just from sheer calories and survival. That fits the pattern of PETA style vegan fanatic "too important for the truth" propaganda. Like claims that sheep are skinned for their wool.
      - namibj 7y ago
        Can you link a source for "Like claims that sheep are skinned for their wool."?
  - mizzack 7y ago
    > nobody is adding lanolin to your food for it's wholesome goodness. Most people are D deficient and D3 is fat soluble. That is literally why it's added to milk.
jhbadger 7y ago
I think the sedentary part is far more important. I grew up in the 1970s in the US, and if anything, we ate worse than we do now with our current concern with calories and nutrition -- we had fast food a couple of times a week, drank soda daily, and ate those awful sugary cereals like Lucky Charms. And yet we didn't (on average) get fat the way kids do today. We burned off those excess calories running around outside and riding bikes.

pizza 7y ago

But what if it had to do with the food they ate instead

0-_-0 7y ago
Please read about proximate and ultimate causation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati...
pcdoodle 7y ago
lol, username. I loved you at one point and had to give you up.

elindbe2 7y ago

How many people actually believe body positivism deep down? For example, how many people would see zero difference between, all things being equal, dating a thin person and a morbidly obese person? I'm sure they are out there but I would guess it's very rare compared to the number of people that are body positive in words but not in actions. I suspect that body positivism wouldn't have that big an effect because most people don't actually believe in it.

TheOperator 7y ago

My biases say yes but my brain says no. I think it's simply a function of a worsening economic situation incentivizing the consumption of poor quality food that saves people time, money, or both. Also sedentary lifestyles make a lot of heavy foods appetizing that makes you want to puke while exercising. I ate very unhealthy and was teased quite a bit for it yet never kicked the habit. Once I started receiving more disposible income than I knew what to do with, it became a lot easier to exercise, I could buy whatever food I wanted, and it sort of spun people's heads how quickly my diet changed. People keep making fun of me for having an unhealthy diet just because of inertia even though I'm eating healthier than them. I really see body positivism as being more caused by the obesity epidemic than the inverse. As well as the rise of social media sort of spiking body-shaming and anti-body-shaming sentiments. Not just in regards to weight but also things like height.