4 ms·

What a crock of shit. There's always some new study that lazy people want to use to excuse being fat and lazy. I was fat for most of my adult life but when I w

by ebbv 15y ago

What a crock of shit. There's always some new study that lazy people want to use to excuse being fat and lazy. I was fat for most of my adult life but when I was 30 I finally got sick of it and spent the next 18 months losing over 100 lbs to get healthy. Am I miraculously cured and could never get fat again? No. I could get fat again easily and during the holidays I put on like a few pounds due to bad habits. But I'm taking it back off. It's a constant battle, not "with my body" -- which implies that it's out of your control, like cancer -- but with the bad habits I developed during childhood and perfected during my 20's. I have to fight against them and I have to NOT be lazy, I have to exercise, in order to avoid getting fat again. There's no "magic" going on, we've understood for many decades that weight loss and gain are ALL about calories in vs. calories out, and that's true for everybody except a tiny, tiny percent who have various medical conditions. When someone loses the weight during some "trick diet" like special shakes, and then they go off the shakes and gain the weight back, that's no more surprising than if someone who is skinny suddenly starts eating 5 large pizzas a day and gains weight. Lasting weight loss requires that you change your habits and learn to eat for fuel and fight against your tendency to eat to relieve boredom, for comfort, for pleasure, etc. Articles like this which encourage people to put their hands in the air and say "It's not my fault! I can't help it!" make me sick because I think of people like my aunt who suffered for years from diabetes, going blind and eventually dying, which was NEEDLESS. If she had only been able to get help and actually lose weight and get healthy, she could have been happy, healthy and might still be with us today.

rubashov 15y ago
I do find it interesting that over the same period the obesity epidemic developed standards of public dress, and arguably behavior, deteriorated badly. People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence? Everybody wants to write about the biological science of the obesity epidemic, but it's pretty hard to argue that people nowadays are just less disciplined in various respects.
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  > People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence? Yes, as before the 1950's it was common to see the working class wearing 'waist overalls' (AKA baggy jeans) and wife beaters in public. It was after the 1950's that they became a staple in teen culture and spread to the middle class as those teens matured. I don't see how there's a difference between cheesy t-shirts and wearing a wife beater (technically underwear) in public. I actually think t-shirts are more acceptable, despite wife beaters being a staple, like jeans, in the working class back before the 1900's. They became acceptable footwear in the post-war period when soldiers returned from Japan with them. Note that Japan has had sandals as a cultural staple for centuries, to the point that they invented the tabi(?) AKA toe socks to be worn with them (because, you know inventing real shoes that keep your feet warm was just an absurd notion). So despite being commonly regarded as thin compared to westerners, I suppose they've become grossly obese by their own standards since they invented the sandal. It's quite frankly absurd logic. I might as well say that Americans are fatter than Brits because it's acceptable to wear a lounge suit to formal events, whilst in the UK its less acceptable and generally only a full tux is regarded as fitting formal wear. Sorry, the reason Americans have the fattest arses in the world is because its government gives massive subsidies to corn growers. Corn incidentally is a great source of calories and low source of nutrients. This means poor people have to consume larger amounts of food to get the same nutrition. This means they tend to get obese, because despite eating copious amounts of calories, they're still malnourished. People get fat because of the abundance of cheap, low quality calories. The most likely reason why South East Asians are healthier than westerners is because their government subsidizes higher nutritional quality foods. Rice for instance is a better start than corn. Similarly subsidizing salmon and tuna as opposed to cattle farm beef is again better. I'm not saying beef is bad for you, but the shit in a McDonalds patty is, especially when you can get 1lb for like $2. The stuff you're paying $15 a lb for is likely not as bad as the vegans would want you to believe.
  - ams6110 15y ago
    A McDonald's patty contains nothing but beef and a little salt. It's probably corn-fed beef, but there are no fillers. What's bad for you at McDonald's is the bun, the fries, and the 44oz soda.
mrj 15y ago
Read the article. The point remains that somebody who has lost a lot of weight must still eat fewer calories than somebody who naturally maintains the same weight. There is something else going on that's not fully understood yet, it's not just being lazy.
Florin_Andrei 15y ago
You're probably getting downvoted for the first phrase - there does seem to be some genetic component, albeit it's not clear how important it really is. I agree with everything else you said.
- rubashov 15y ago
  The genetic component has to do with susceptibility to overeating, though. It's not some magic "metabolism" setting as is most commonly claimed.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    There are probably several dimensions to this. Appetite regulation would be one, but that wouldn't explain studies in which food intake is strictly controlled. Metabolism regulation, insulin/glucagon regulation, intestinal flora, digestive efficiency, and other factors would certainly affect overall body mass. And issues such as thyroid function do directly affect metabolism.
scarmig 15y ago
Silly. Obviously we all have free will and can theoretically do anything. But simply the existence of an extremely specific set of actions that aren't physically impossible that someone must take to achieve something is not enough to say that, if they don't have that thing, they don't deserve it. I was fairly overweight at one point (BMI of 27, not muscle) and managed to get down to a more healthful range. The thing is, I was in a very real sense hungry all the time. I remember eating the same thing together with a roommate, and at the end he'd be quite full while I felt like I had barely eaten an appetizer. On top of that, I'd spend probably 5 hours a week exercising, not counting commuting to work on a bike every day, eating no junk or fast food (avoiding eating out altogether, actually), while he barely even left the house and seemed to subsist on tortilla chips and salsa. And yet despite that effort, I eventually trended to a higher weight while his didn't change. So far as I can tell, the issue wasn't any moral failing on my part. And we've had people moralizing about how fat people are lazy and lazy people are fat for decades, with no perceptible counteracting influence on the health of the people in the USA. So what's the value in that, when what we could be focusing on is how to hack the human body to get around those pain points?

by ebbv 15y ago

rubashov 15y ago

I do find it interesting that over the same period the obesity epidemic developed standards of public dress, and arguably behavior, deteriorated badly. People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence? Everybody wants to write about the biological science of the obesity epidemic, but it's pretty hard to argue that people nowadays are just less disciplined in various respects.

electromagnetic 15y ago
> People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence? Yes, as before the 1950's it was common to see the working class wearing 'waist overalls' (AKA baggy jeans) and wife beaters in public. It was after the 1950's that they became a staple in teen culture and spread to the middle class as those teens matured. I don't see how there's a difference between cheesy t-shirts and wearing a wife beater (technically underwear) in public. I actually think t-shirts are more acceptable, despite wife beaters being a staple, like jeans, in the working class back before the 1900's. They became acceptable footwear in the post-war period when soldiers returned from Japan with them. Note that Japan has had sandals as a cultural staple for centuries, to the point that they invented the tabi(?) AKA toe socks to be worn with them (because, you know inventing real shoes that keep your feet warm was just an absurd notion). So despite being commonly regarded as thin compared to westerners, I suppose they've become grossly obese by their own standards since they invented the sandal. It's quite frankly absurd logic. I might as well say that Americans are fatter than Brits because it's acceptable to wear a lounge suit to formal events, whilst in the UK its less acceptable and generally only a full tux is regarded as fitting formal wear. Sorry, the reason Americans have the fattest arses in the world is because its government gives massive subsidies to corn growers. Corn incidentally is a great source of calories and low source of nutrients. This means poor people have to consume larger amounts of food to get the same nutrition. This means they tend to get obese, because despite eating copious amounts of calories, they're still malnourished. People get fat because of the abundance of cheap, low quality calories. The most likely reason why South East Asians are healthier than westerners is because their government subsidizes higher nutritional quality foods. Rice for instance is a better start than corn. Similarly subsidizing salmon and tuna as opposed to cattle farm beef is again better. I'm not saying beef is bad for you, but the shit in a McDonalds patty is, especially when you can get 1lb for like $2. The stuff you're paying $15 a lb for is likely not as bad as the vegans would want you to believe.
- ams6110 15y ago
  A McDonald's patty contains nothing but beef and a little salt. It's probably corn-fed beef, but there are no fillers. What's bad for you at McDonald's is the bun, the fries, and the 44oz soda.

mrj 15y ago

Read the article. The point remains that somebody who has lost a lot of weight must still eat fewer calories than somebody who naturally maintains the same weight. There is something else going on that's not fully understood yet, it's not just being lazy.

Florin_Andrei 15y ago

You're probably getting downvoted for the first phrase - there does seem to be some genetic component, albeit it's not clear how important it really is. I agree with everything else you said.

rubashov 15y ago
The genetic component has to do with susceptibility to overeating, though. It's not some magic "metabolism" setting as is most commonly claimed.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  There are probably several dimensions to this. Appetite regulation would be one, but that wouldn't explain studies in which food intake is strictly controlled. Metabolism regulation, insulin/glucagon regulation, intestinal flora, digestive efficiency, and other factors would certainly affect overall body mass. And issues such as thyroid function do directly affect metabolism.

scarmig 15y ago

Silly. Obviously we all have free will and can theoretically do anything. But simply the existence of an extremely specific set of actions that aren't physically impossible that someone must take to achieve something is not enough to say that, if they don't have that thing, they don't deserve it. I was fairly overweight at one point (BMI of 27, not muscle) and managed to get down to a more healthful range. The thing is, I was in a very real sense hungry all the time. I remember eating the same thing together with a roommate, and at the end he'd be quite full while I felt like I had barely eaten an appetizer. On top of that, I'd spend probably 5 hours a week exercising, not counting commuting to work on a bike every day, eating no junk or fast food (avoiding eating out altogether, actually), while he barely even left the house and seemed to subsist on tortilla chips and salsa. And yet despite that effort, I eventually trended to a higher weight while his didn't change. So far as I can tell, the issue wasn't any moral failing on my part. And we've had people moralizing about how fat people are lazy and lazy people are fat for decades, with no perceptible counteracting influence on the health of the people in the USA. So what's the value in that, when what we could be focusing on is how to hack the human body to get around those pain points?