4 ms·

> "obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods." It suggests no such thing. The obesity epidemic is all about eating t

> "obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods." It suggests no such thing. The obesity epidemic is all about eating the wrong things.

ekianjo 15y ago
Obesity is not only a problem of quality of food, it also IS linked to quantity. You will never get obese if you only get a small amount of crap food everyday, but eating lots of it will surely put you on the right way. There are some genetic exceptions (some people get fat even when eating reasonably) but this is a tiny minority. Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related (no or not enough exercise / too much food ). There's no way you can get away from personal responsibility there. It is nothing like homeless unable to find jobs. You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it.
- crystalis 15y ago
  I'm a hypothetical poor person, so I must feed myself on cheap subsidized carbohydrates, which leave me feeling hungry, or eat an amount that sates me after working one to two normal jobs and taking care of zero to more children, which conveniently is an amount that will contribute to my obesity. Helpfully, my busy schedule lets me eat one big meal a day instead of several smaller meals. The problem is that personal responsibility is disproportionately more expensive for poor people - they don't have the time or the money to do it right, and when they do manage an attempt, equal results will cost more time and much more % income.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  > "You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it." Well, yes, technically. Of course, you're conveniently forgetting about the effects of pricing, geographic proximity (seen many organic produce stands on skid row lately?), culture, education, and most importantly: time. > "Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related" And yes, you're right, but only in the most technical and of ways. Of course the obesity epidemic is lifestyle-related, but that's not what we're on about. We're on about a system that punishes healthy lifestyles and makes them unreasonably difficult for the poor to attain - harder than any of us pansy-ass rich folk have to contend with. Let's re-enumerate very quickly: 1 - Eating too much is not the issue. Eating too much of the wrong things is the issue. 2 - Unhealthy foods are cheaper than fresh fruits, veggies, and meat by an almost comically large margin. This is due to a number of causes, most saliently massive government subsidization of unhealthy food industries. 3 - Time is the scarcest resource, and the poor have the least of it, and the least to spare towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle (which, despite what you might insist, is a time-intensive activity). 3a - The poor are disadvantaged in choice of living space. My commute is an order of magnitude shorter than what it'd be from the nearest poor suburb. I pay for the privilege, and it earns me easily an extra 1.5h each day. 3b - The poor are disadvantaged in transportation. While most people simply hop on a car between A and B, the American poor spend an enormous amount of time navigating the clusterfuck that is North American public transit. Here in SF, even with its good-by-American-standards transit system, transit anywhere takes about twice as long as it does in car. 3c - The poor are disadvantaged in just sheer lifestyle. You might live next to a nice park where you can jog after work - what do the poor have except crime-ridden streets? This is the thing I can't stand about this line of argument, not only does your position fail to account for the many, many ways the cards have already been stacked against the poor, but it also fails to appreciate just how many natural advantages you and I enjoy in every day life. It's a combination that really irks me: the failure to appreciate one's own good fortune, and conversely the willingness to blame others for not having such good fortune. Side note: time really is the deciding factor in just about anything poverty-related. Part of the reason for the persistence of homelessness (disregarding even bigger fish like mental health and substance abuse) is that the homeless spend the majority of their day queuing for resources. They spend hours lining up for a meal. They spend even more hours lining up for a bed. 98% of their waking hours is spent ensuring the status quo (i.e., homeless, but unlikely to die tonight), with nothing left to make actual, lasting improvements. This same problem applies to the poor and dietary habits.
  - ekianjo 15y ago
    Good comment. I do not agree with everything you said, so let me elaborate a little. 1 - Eating too much is not the issue. Eating too much of the wrong things is the issue. No, I assure that even if you eat too much healthy food, you will grow fat and obese the same. Unhealthy food may make it worse for a number of reasons, but excess is anyway going to be a problem, no matter what you eat. 2 - Unhealthy foods are cheaper than fresh fruits, veggies, and meat by an almost comically large margin. This is due to a number of causes, most saliently massive government subsidization of unhealthy food industries. First, I would not classify "meat" as healthy food. That probably depends on your education and your view of meat, but you get a lot of fat percentage for the amount of calories. 50 years ago people were eating meat probably like 10 times less that we are and were (probably, I dont have numbers with me now) less sick. For your second point, "unhealthy" food is, I think, rather the result of people not considering food as important. Therefore food becomes a commodity. People prefer spending their money on vacation, video games, buying the latest smartphone and so on. Even those who HAVE the money. It's clearly a cultural problem: food has lost "value" per se. I do not know where you live so I cannot comment on that, but in most developped countries governments are also massively subsidizing small-sized farms (true in Europe and some parts of Asia at least). 3a. I agree with the time element, but I disagree in the responsibility. Of course, if one feels like you have to watch 4 hours of dumb TV shows every night to be satisfied with their lives, then there will no time for cooking. But anyone who can spare 30-45 mins a day in the evening can cook something healthy. Of course, it will not be something complex, but it is feasible. Please do not tell you need longer than that, of I will have to film myself cooking to prove my point. 3b. Now if you cannot even afford a car I admit this is a problem, especially in North America. Then it makes access to quality food more difficult. I can't argue on that one. 3c. Allright, of course there are poors who live in the worst conditions ever, and putting good food on the table is far from their priorities. But come on, when we talk about the obesity epidemic, we are talking about something like 33% of the whole US population having this obesity problem. You cannot seriously tell me that 33% of the US is composed of poor people living in crime-ridden suburbs. (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.HTML http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.HTML) A number of these 33% HAVE the money, HAVE the time, HAVE the means to eat good food, but decide not to. For a lot of these people, this IS a lifestyle choice. There is noway around that, and there would be no epidemic if this was confined to the "poor/rich" rhetoric.

> "obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods." It suggests no such thing. The obesity epidemic is all about eating the wrong things.

ekianjo 15y ago

Obesity is not only a problem of quality of food, it also IS linked to quantity. You will never get obese if you only get a small amount of crap food everyday, but eating lots of it will surely put you on the right way. There are some genetic exceptions (some people get fat even when eating reasonably) but this is a tiny minority. Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related (no or not enough exercise / too much food ). There's no way you can get away from personal responsibility there. It is nothing like homeless unable to find jobs. You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it.

crystalis 15y ago
I'm a hypothetical poor person, so I must feed myself on cheap subsidized carbohydrates, which leave me feeling hungry, or eat an amount that sates me after working one to two normal jobs and taking care of zero to more children, which conveniently is an amount that will contribute to my obesity. Helpfully, my busy schedule lets me eat one big meal a day instead of several smaller meals. The problem is that personal responsibility is disproportionately more expensive for poor people - they don't have the time or the money to do it right, and when they do manage an attempt, equal results will cost more time and much more % income.
potatolicious 15y ago
> "You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it." Well, yes, technically. Of course, you're conveniently forgetting about the effects of pricing, geographic proximity (seen many organic produce stands on skid row lately?), culture, education, and most importantly: time. > "Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related" And yes, you're right, but only in the most technical and of ways. Of course the obesity epidemic is lifestyle-related, but that's not what we're on about. We're on about a system that punishes healthy lifestyles and makes them unreasonably difficult for the poor to attain - harder than any of us pansy-ass rich folk have to contend with. Let's re-enumerate very quickly: 1 - Eating too much is not the issue. Eating too much of the wrong things is the issue. 2 - Unhealthy foods are cheaper than fresh fruits, veggies, and meat by an almost comically large margin. This is due to a number of causes, most saliently massive government subsidization of unhealthy food industries. 3 - Time is the scarcest resource, and the poor have the least of it, and the least to spare towards maintaining a healthy lifestyle (which, despite what you might insist, is a time-intensive activity). 3a - The poor are disadvantaged in choice of living space. My commute is an order of magnitude shorter than what it'd be from the nearest poor suburb. I pay for the privilege, and it earns me easily an extra 1.5h each day. 3b - The poor are disadvantaged in transportation. While most people simply hop on a car between A and B, the American poor spend an enormous amount of time navigating the clusterfuck that is North American public transit. Here in SF, even with its good-by-American-standards transit system, transit anywhere takes about twice as long as it does in car. 3c - The poor are disadvantaged in just sheer lifestyle. You might live next to a nice park where you can jog after work - what do the poor have except crime-ridden streets? This is the thing I can't stand about this line of argument, not only does your position fail to account for the many, many ways the cards have already been stacked against the poor, but it also fails to appreciate just how many natural advantages you and I enjoy in every day life. It's a combination that really irks me: the failure to appreciate one's own good fortune, and conversely the willingness to blame others for not having such good fortune. Side note: time really is the deciding factor in just about anything poverty-related. Part of the reason for the persistence of homelessness (disregarding even bigger fish like mental health and substance abuse) is that the homeless spend the majority of their day queuing for resources. They spend hours lining up for a meal. They spend even more hours lining up for a bed. 98% of their waking hours is spent ensuring the status quo (i.e., homeless, but unlikely to die tonight), with nothing left to make actual, lasting improvements. This same problem applies to the poor and dietary habits.
- ekianjo 15y ago
  Good comment. I do not agree with everything you said, so let me elaborate a little. 1 - Eating too much is not the issue. Eating too much of the wrong things is the issue. No, I assure that even if you eat too much healthy food, you will grow fat and obese the same. Unhealthy food may make it worse for a number of reasons, but excess is anyway going to be a problem, no matter what you eat. 2 - Unhealthy foods are cheaper than fresh fruits, veggies, and meat by an almost comically large margin. This is due to a number of causes, most saliently massive government subsidization of unhealthy food industries. First, I would not classify "meat" as healthy food. That probably depends on your education and your view of meat, but you get a lot of fat percentage for the amount of calories. 50 years ago people were eating meat probably like 10 times less that we are and were (probably, I dont have numbers with me now) less sick. For your second point, "unhealthy" food is, I think, rather the result of people not considering food as important. Therefore food becomes a commodity. People prefer spending their money on vacation, video games, buying the latest smartphone and so on. Even those who HAVE the money. It's clearly a cultural problem: food has lost "value" per se. I do not know where you live so I cannot comment on that, but in most developped countries governments are also massively subsidizing small-sized farms (true in Europe and some parts of Asia at least). 3a. I agree with the time element, but I disagree in the responsibility. Of course, if one feels like you have to watch 4 hours of dumb TV shows every night to be satisfied with their lives, then there will no time for cooking. But anyone who can spare 30-45 mins a day in the evening can cook something healthy. Of course, it will not be something complex, but it is feasible. Please do not tell you need longer than that, of I will have to film myself cooking to prove my point. 3b. Now if you cannot even afford a car I admit this is a problem, especially in North America. Then it makes access to quality food more difficult. I can't argue on that one. 3c. Allright, of course there are poors who live in the worst conditions ever, and putting good food on the table is far from their priorities. But come on, when we talk about the obesity epidemic, we are talking about something like 33% of the whole US population having this obesity problem. You cannot seriously tell me that 33% of the US is composed of poor people living in crime-ridden suburbs. (http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.HTML http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.HTML) A number of these 33% HAVE the money, HAVE the time, HAVE the means to eat good food, but decide not to. For a lot of these people, this IS a lifestyle choice. There is noway around that, and there would be no epidemic if this was confined to the "poor/rich" rhetoric.