The stupid explodes: obesity now a disability

dirtywick said:
I would just like to point out that I think many of you are missing a key difference between obesity and obesity so extreme that one would be physically incapable of basic movement and considered disabled. It takes an extreme amount of obesity to not be able to perform basic work tasks.
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Yes, but then you get to go on reality TV.

The new TLC reality series [My 600-lb Life] chronicles the tale of one person an episode and takes viewers through a year in the life of someone struggling on a daily basis, at a size that keeps some of them off their feet. Penny, 46 is one of those who has been unable to walk for four years...

Penny could not even stand up without enormous help and only for a brief period, despite gastric bypass surgery, a more balanced diet and months of physical therapy.

Her feet and legs had yet to become accustomed to bearing her weight to enable her to stand without two people holding her steady as she held on to something in front of her. Walking was out of the question.

http://tvruckus.com/2014/01/22/backlash-after-pennnys-story-on-my-600-lb-life/
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The Atheist said:
That is the deliciously sad irony in all of it. Why would I care?
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Why then are you writing at length about it, doesn't that mean you do care......... or something, according to your own rules of posting?

One more post will qualify you as emotional.
 
Yes, but then you get to go on reality TV.

Quote:
The new TLC reality series [My 600-lb Life] chronicles the tale of one person an episode and takes viewers through a year in the life of someone struggling on a daily basis, at a size that keeps some of them off their feet. Penny, 46 is one of those who has been unable to walk for four years...

Penny could not even stand up without enormous help and only for a brief period, despite gastric bypass surgery, a more balanced diet and months of physical therapy.

Her feet and legs had yet to become accustomed to bearing her weight to enable her to stand without two people holding her steady as she held on to something in front of her. Walking was out of the question.

http://tvruckus.com/2014/01/22/backl...y-600-lb-life/

But somebody should go to jail for feeding then so much after being bed ridden that they continue to gain hundreds of pounds. "Abuse of the ill"? Drug dealers feeding an addiction?

Has anybody here looked for <Twins Study/Obesity>? That is the usual gold standard for deciding nature vs nurture.
 
Information Analyst said:
That has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read on this forum. One size does not fit all (no pun intended).
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Did you not see the word "possible" in the sentence?

At no stage did I imply it is a one simple answer, just that it can be done.

Suitable avatar you have.
 
bluesjnr said:
Why then are you writing at length about it, doesn't that mean you do care......... or something, according to your own rules of posting?

One more post will qualify you as emotional.
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Regarding the kids, I'm perfectly comfortable with an emotional stance. I think I'd rather see a kid being beaten than fed.

At least if I see a child being physically abused, I can call the police or child protection, or even physically impose myself in the situation to stop it there and then. No such joy when kids are just being fed to death; I can only stand and watch.

I could weep when I see kids too fat to run a lap of the field in the time other kids can do three, or when I see the fat kid other kids shun because they don't want him or her on their team. I churn with disgust when I see parents taking already-obese children to fast-food joints to carbo- and sugar-load them even more.

Yeah, you could certainly say I have emotional involvement in that part. Unfortunately, I have never quite lost the ability to detach myself from overt cruelty.
 
Information Analyst said:
That has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read on this forum. One size does not fit all (no pun intended).
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Sometimes it does. As far as I know, anyone who takes in fewer calories than they expend will lose weight. Maybe in this case, one biological principle does fit all.
 
isissxn said:
deleted. what do I care
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I hear you. Don't want to misrepresent your posts so I own the following:

I'm really surprised by the borderline (and explicit) hatred I've seen on this thread. I am fairly normal weight. I've seen people so obese I wonder how they perform simple bathroom hygiene. Yes, I feel some sense of revulsion. But the math is simple: Once you are morbidly obese, you don't have to be a glutton to stay fat. Metabolic issues exist, compulsions exist and it's quite possible the personal-responsibility warriors are patting themselves on the back for "willpower" that is entirely based upon biological factors for which they mistakenly take credit. It is easy for them to stay trim; therefore fat people are weak.
 
You are correct Minoosh. :) I also found the claim that improving diet alone will just magically make obese people slim down to a regular weight ridiculous. And incorrect. Exercise is an absolute must as well, and if someone is large enough to be considered disabled, they're going to have a hard time exercising. It's kind of a vicious cycle.

Add on top of that the claim that it takes more effort to gain weight than to lose it - well, I started to wonder if this was all some kind of joke. Surely no one could actually think that, regardless of his or her other views on obesity and/or its condition as a disability. Surely?

And just because the preemptive ad-hom was mentioned earlier, for the record, I am 5'2 and currently weigh 105 pounds. The heaviest I ever was in my life was 127. It took me almost nine months just to lose that amount of weight and get back to 105 (solidly, where it wasn't fluctuating every time I ate some carbs haha). Exercise was key. I don't understand how anyone can dismiss that.

Furthermore, it took almost no effort to put the weight on - I got a more sedentary job and just a few months later, some of my pants no longer fit! Then nine months of strenuous exercise, dieting, calorie counting, and everything else. Just to get back to what had always been my normal weight!

I don't have a dog in the disability fight, but I just can't leave it unsaid. It's ******** to say that it takes more effort to gain weight than to lose it. No matter what one thinks otherwise about obesity/obese people/yada yada yada.
 
The Atheist said:
If we apply logic to the ruling, the only possible result is a backlash against the obese, who will be correctly seen by normal-bodied employees as gaining an unfair advantage over not-fat employees.
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Where is the advantage? It's like saying that the person with cancer who gets treatments paid through company medical plans has an unfair advantage over people who don't get cancer.

What the ruling proposes is that fat is fine and someone else should be made to pay for it.
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This is the same reasoning that the ultra rich use when discussing making welfare cuts. Poor people have an unfair advantage over them.

Which brings up another point: Why aren't you a mega-billionaire. I mean anyone can do it, it just takes a little hard work and common sense and it's easier to be rich than it is to be poor. Society should be throwing you poor folk into jail.

And don't give me lame excuses like fat people do about losing weight. If you're not rich, you are a loser who doesn't deserve to live in society.
 
bit_pattern said:
Is there? Can you please cite the research establishing such a correlation upon which your opinion is founded? Or are you just imagineering scenarios to try and make this a salvo in your country's ideological culture wars?
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It doesnt take Einstein to find research on addictive behaviour
 
isissxn said:
You are correct Minoosh. :) I also found the claim that improving diet alone will just magically make obese people slim down to a regular weight ridiculous.
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It's not magic. It's a cold, hard fact.

And incorrect. Exercise is an absolute must as well, and if someone is large enough to be considered disabled, they're going to have a hard time exercising. It's kind of a vicious cycle.
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False. One can lose weight just by changing their diet.
 
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sir drinks-a-lot said:
It's not magic. It's a cold, hard fact.



False.



If one does absolutely nothing at all, they will lose weight. QED.
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Where are you getting your information? People still have to eat something.

Eating a healthy diet does not ensure that you will lose weight. Your weight is a balance between the calories you take in and the calories you burn. You will lose weight if you eat a low-calorie diet in which you burn off more calories than you take in, and you will gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn off. Adding physical activity allows you to burn more calories than dieting alone.

A person has to stay healthy too. You're advocating plain old starvation. Ask some doctors how well that works.
 
You must understand that my pointing out that's it's not as easy to lose weight as it is to gain it is not ALSO saying that obesity isn't ever the person's fault. There's often plenty of bad diet choices, laziness, addictive behavior, unwillingness to change, etc. involved.

But losing weight is more challenging than putting it on, and self-starvation is not the cake-walk some of you seem to think it is. I'm not overweight, none of this disability stuff concerns me. But people who hate fat people don't want to be confused by the facts. It is possible to acknowledge that a fat person's poor choices have largely led to their condition without also claiming that their losing the weight is a simple undertaking. It often takes a great deal of work, and it's not easy. That's all I'm saying.
 
isissxn said:
Where are you getting your information? People still have to eat something.

Eating a healthy diet does not ensure that you will lose weight. Your weight is a balance between the calories you take in and the calories you burn. You will lose weight if you eat a low-calorie diet in which you burn off more calories than you take in, and you will gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn off. Adding physical activity allows you to burn more calories than dieting alone.

A person has to stay healthy too. You're advocating plain old starvation. Ask some doctors how well that works.
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Nope, not advocating starvation.
Take two obese people of the same weight.
Decrease their kilojoule intake by the same amount.
They will both lose weight, since they are now burning off more kilojoules than they consume, with or without added exercise.
If one also exercises, that person will lose more weight as they are using even more kilojoules but inputting the same amount.
Where does the starvation come into it?
 
isissxn said:
It is possible to acknowledge that a fat person's poor choices have largely led to their condition without also claiming that their losing the weight is a simple undertaking. It often takes a great deal of work, and it's not easy. That's all I'm saying.
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'Simple' and 'easy' are not synonyms.
Something can be very, very simple, but not at all easy.
It is very, very simple to roll a rock uphill, but not at all easy.
Losing weight is a very simple undertaking: consume fewer kilojoules than you expend.
It may not be easy, but it is that simple.
 
If you're exercising, you can eat enough (of healthier foods) to feel full? If you never move, you won't burn many calories.

I don't understand what's so wrong with saying that diet and exercise are both important components of weight loss. Especially if a person is obese and therefore accustomed to eating much more.

Or with saying that weight loss takes work. More work than weight gain. Those 2 statements are controversial? GMAB.
 
I find it easier to eat a pint of Ben n' Jerry's than to walk 12 miles at a brisk pace. I may not be the only one, either.
 
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