The stupid explodes: obesity now a disability

[marplots]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif[/qimg]

Now that's what I'm talking about, well done, I have other things to do right at the minute but I'll definitely come back to this clear line of evidence. I'm sure it will make for some interesting reading and lively debate.

I think it's actually weaker than the abstract implies (I didn't read the whole paper). It probably fails for the same reason I criticized the other studies - lack of double blinding and prospective study endpoints.

Frankly, trying to tease out psychological nuances is very difficult and obesity is complex, so I don't have much in the way of expectations of simple answers, even to simple-sounding questions.

 

[cullennz]

Completely different subjects but bit patterns post about atheists in churches is a convo I had with my mum in law years ago. I am an atheiest, but dont deny the beauty of church architecture. . Cathedrala rock

 

[marplots]

If we are going to treat obesity as a type of addiction, I do have some education on that front. One emerging truth is that, even when the addict is motivated and willing to seek change, there's a crap-load of effort and sustained support needed.

Part of the motivation is certainly fear of negative consequences. For the "gold standard" treatment (for medical professionals abusing opiates), it's a combination of losing status, losing a well-paying career, and the physical harm. Even then, the recommendation is a minimum of 90 days inpatient, followed by a year or more of monitoring and counseling to "maintain." And this is in a group that starts out ahead of the curve - well educated with strong social/family supports in place. It's expensive and still only boasts an 80% success rate at a couple years out.

 

[cullennz]

Personally (and I may be wrong) obesity in most cases is habitual rather than addictive. Which is why you need to educate the kids

 

[lionking]

Cullennz, could you please turn on your spell checker, or at least have a good look at your posts before you push the button? Sometimes the spelling and grammatical errors make it difficult to get your point.

 

[Shiner]

Can I ask why?

Because nobody is saying stigmatisation is "good".

Because you assume that anybody in this thread disagrees that education is important.

 

[bit_pattern]

Seriously, what if shunning fat people is the best thing to do?

Well, if it is then you shouldn't have any trouble finding a vast body of literature that supports the contention

Maybe the reason kids in the 1950s, '60s & '70s very rarely were allowed to get fat was because parents had some feelings for their kids and didn't want them to get bullied for being the fat kid - and if you didn't see that when you went to school, then you must be Biafran or homeschooled.

Yeah. That or the fact that I wasn't alive in any of those decades but, you know, what evs.

Again, if that is the case then maybe there's some research that supports the idea that you could show us. Or we could just keep speculating around prejudiced assumptions.

So, after all the bleating about evidence - continued below - you admit you are operating from a purely emotional perspective yourself.

Um. No. Because I never made a claim that I had the answer. I responded to people using stigmatising language by saying that it wasn't useful, that was challenged so I pointed to evidence to show that it wasn't.

Back in the '70s when I was an employee, I had two of my grossly fat bosses croak from heart attacks leaving young kids behind

Six years ago my father dropped dead from arteriosclerosis and he didn't have a shred of body fat on him. So what's your point exactly?

Yet, I note with interest that Adele appears to have lost a whole lot of weight since then.

I have no idea who that person is.

I now believe I was wrong. I think it's time we gave serious fat-shaming a go. There is clearly no evidence it doesn't work

Well, actually, there is - which has kind of been my whole point all along. But, again, whatevs. You're clearly more interested in ranting and raving, if anything it seems to me you're just annoyed that this thread didn't evolve in the usual back-slapping "they so stoopid" manner that many other threads on this forum follow.

I really don't see much point engaging with you any further and had hoped that when you made a similar declaration yesterday that you might just hold it. I'm already refusing to respond to one poster in this thread because of the depths of idiocy they wanted to plumb and, seeing as though you don't have much to offer beyond emotive hyperbole, I'm happy to extend you the same courtesy.

 

[bit_pattern]

*sigh*

Nothing else to say really.

"You're children are ashamed of you" comes up a lot as a motivator on 'The Biggest Loser'.

We're citing reality TV now?

And just another subtle mention of reading comprehension. Take note of question marks. Interpreting a question as an implication is fine, but turning it into a statement to argue against is pointless. Much less effort and invention are required when you simply answer the question. It's how discussions are supposed to work, AFAIK.

Well, that's why JAQing Off is generally considered at best a poor rhetorical device and at worst a logical fallacy... Just sayin'.

 

[Minoosh]

"Let us tell the kids you are going to die at 40 isnt because your dumb as pig poo"

Wot??

It does matter how old organisms die if now days people are having kids in their 50s.

Evolutionary pressure would favor the tendency to crave calorie-dense foods. As someone else - Tatyana? - said, fat storage capability is related to female fertility. In-vitro sperm-bank kids created with donor eggs are IMO outliers, and in any event are far too recent to overcome evolutionary pressures to crave: Fat. Salt. Carbs.

And evolution is survival of the fittest. Not who breeds best and dies young.

I'm not an expert, but I think you have this exactly backwards.

This thread reminds me of an article I just came across:

Yeah, it's easy to rack up 2,000 calories. IMO evolution would have favored individuals who consumed every calorie they could. Though that behavior may be obsolete, the obsolescence is a very recent development.

It gets easier and easier to become obese every decade as food becomes cheaper and technology does the jobs we used to rely on our muscles to do.

YES!!! I once read that a secretary who switched from a manual typewriter to an electric would gain 2 pounds a year from that development alone. This was a long time ago and I can't vouch for the accuracy. But it made an impression. Using the stairs, parking farther away from stores and many other tactics help cancel out some of the sheer convenience of, say, clothes dryers vs. pinning up the laundry. To NZ, UK, Aussie readers, my suspicion is that the U.S. is more likely to encourage the lazy option.

At a huge pedestrian shopping area in Liverpool, the lack of obesity was noticeable to this American. Keeping services just slightly inconvenient did, IMO, develop a healthier population.

Personally (and I may be wrong) obesity in most cases is habitual rather than addictive. Which is why you need to educate the kids

A bit of both, I believe. A girlfriend of mine bought dumbbells, then asked for help getting them to the car. I'm not totally convinced I have this right but it's not hard to picture.

I live in an area where indigenous Americans have the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes in the world. Either something in the pre-European era protected them from genetic influences, or something introduced since (regular rations of white flour, lard and salt) increased their vulnerability. Perhaps sedentary lifestyles as well. This didn't play out as virtuous, high-willpower types being rewarded - it was a sudden clash of aboriginal diet vs. modern calorie-dense foods. While an individual who wants to lose weight bears some responsibility, I also see policies that have encouraged consumption of calorie-dense foods while decreasing traditional reliance on native (preventative?) foods; and a decreased reliance on manual labor.

Ergo weight gain, epidemic Type 2 diabetes and well-meaning experiments on traditional crops that may have mitigated the sudden introduction of calories in the form of sugar, starch, lard and alcohol.

 

[bit_pattern]

If we are going to treat obesity as a type of addiction, I do have some education on that front. One emerging truth is that, even when the addict is motivated and willing to seek change, there's a crap-load of effort and sustained support needed.

Part of the motivation is certainly fear of negative consequences. For the "gold standard" treatment (for medical professionals abusing opiates), it's a combination of losing status, losing a well-paying career, and the physical harm. Even then, the recommendation is a minimum of 90 days inpatient, followed by a year or more of monitoring and counseling to "maintain." And this is in a group that starts out ahead of the curve - well educated with strong social/family supports in place. It's expensive and still only boasts an 80% success rate at a couple years out.

As an addict myself I would wholeheartedly agree. The one caveat I would add to that is that stigmatisation is not a motivator - quite the opposite - one has to have the sense of self-worth to make seeking help seem like something worth doing. My feeling is that obesity is a condition that is tied up in no end of extremely complex emotions around self-worth and that eating becomes a compensatory activity. Telling someone they are "fat", lazy and/or "stupid" is only going to exacerbate the isolation and self-loathing felt by an individual. And, as I mentioned earlier, in those situations it is much easier to take whatever solace one can - whether that be by way of another bag of potato chips, a pipe load of meth or a big hit of smack.

 

[bit_pattern]

I would like to answer this question, but I haven't heard a good definition of what you mean by blaming or shaming. For example, is merely recognizing that someone is obese (BMI over 30) a type of shaming? Do I need to say something like, "Hey, you ought to skip desert?"

And blaming seems easier to address, except I'm unclear whether you mean the weight gain is outside of someone's control - as for example an infection might be - or whether you mean that a failure to seek treatment shows some character flaw or other.

In the context of this thread, making statements (which triggered this whole discussion) that obese people "fatties" that are "lazy" and "dumber than pig poo" I think fall into the category of shaming. Also, IIRC, there were a number of comments that, while less inflammatory than that example, could easily be described as shaming language IMO.

 

[bit_pattern]

On obesity being the result of addiction

http://www.bnl.gov/biosciences/staff/Thanos/files/pdf/JAddDisease1.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22016109

http://www.scientificamerican.com/author/paul-j-kenny/

 

[Minoosh]

And, as usual, I see value in the relatively civil back-and-forth prized on this particular forum. People have weaknesses, for whatever reason, and perhaps a genetic tendency for Type 2 diabetes, a real epidemic in some populations. I know marsplots wanted examples of fat-shaming, and I'm fine with that. Just looking at this thread, though, I see the potential for many avenues of shaming. You're weak, you're of lazy character, you are a pig shoveling in food despite public-health research.

I think obesity creeps up on people, who aren't necessarily lazy but perhaps poorly educated. Anytime I travel I'm struck by the relative lack of obesity in countries other than the U.S. This might be, though, because the U.S. is good at making food, worships convenience and is good at marketing tasty breakfast biscuits we may be hard-wired to crave due to: Salt. Grease. Carbs.

ETA: And while I agree overeating shares common ground with drug addiction, I don't quite equate the two. People have a desire for "fixes" like pot, speed, booze, nicotine, but these don't necessarily equate with evolutionary pressures. Overeating, on the other hand, seems a bit more ingrained, due to actual evolutionary pressure favoring fat storage.

Interesting topic.

 

[cullennz]

Lionking.

No.

If you cant work out what I am saying pinpoint it, otherwise live it

 

[bit_pattern]

ETA: And while I agree overeating shares common ground with drug addiction, I don't quite equate the two. People have a desire for "fixes" like pot, speed, booze, nicotine, but these don't necessarily equate with evolutionary pressures. Overeating, on the other hand, seems a bit more ingrained, due to actual evolutionary pressure favoring fat storage.
.

Addictive behaviour has to have some evolutionary pressures too. For instance, what if the reward centres of the brain that evolved to respond to the pleasure of eating are simply being triggered by the types of drugs you mentioned? In that case, the act of eating and other drugs would be inextricably entwined. I know that with my own addictive behaviour I used to describe it as an urge to consume - whether it be food and alcohol or even putting a needle full of meth in my arm, it seemed to be borne of the same drive in my drug addled brain at the time.

 

[cullennz]

"with"

 

[Pulvinar]

I live in an area where indigenous Americans have the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes in the world. Either something in the pre-European era protected them from genetic influences, or something introduced since (regular rations of white flour, lard and salt) increased their vulnerability. Perhaps sedentary lifestyles as well. This didn't play out as virtuous, high-willpower types being rewarded - it was a sudden clash of aboriginal diet vs. modern calorie-dense foods. While an individual who wants to lose weight bears some responsibility, I also see policies that have encouraged consumption of calorie-dense foods while decreasing traditional reliance on native (preventative?) foods; and a decreased reliance on manual labor.

Ergo weight gain, epidemic Type 2 diabetes and well-meaning experiments on traditional crops that may have mitigated the sudden introduction of calories in the form of sugar, starch, lard and alcohol.

I'm guessing you're referring to the Tohono O'odham:

“There are many things we O’odham can blame on others, but obesity is not one of them,” he said. Jose is a heavy set man who joked that he knows a thing or two about the subject. “We created this problem for ourselves and that’s why it’s important that we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and solve it right here.” I am betting that given the proactive attitude and emphasis on prevention, the Tohono O’odham will do just that.

 

[Shiner]

We're citing reality TV now?

You call it a cite if that suits the argument you want to have. I'd call it an anecdote in reply to another posters mention of a possible motivator.

Well, that's why JAQing Off is generally considered at best a poor rhetorical device and at worst a logical fallacy... Just sayin'.

Irony.

The only attempt youve made to address my direct and implied question "why is stigmatising the obese the wrong thing for a healthy society to do?", is to cite some opinion. You haven't shown any evidence that this opinion is any better practice than any other opinion. It's relevant to you because it supports your opinion.

The " reams of evidence" haven't materialised.

 

[bit_pattern]

The only attempt youve made to address my direct and implied question "why is stigmatising the obese the wrong thing for a healthy society to do?"

Rubbish. From the literature I've cited that it leads to lower self-esteem, which can result in mental and physical health problems, it generates health disparities, it discourages people from seeking treatment, and interferes with intervention efforts - that's not a matter of "opinion", it's a summary of existing literature on the subject. I have cited the evidence I have found, if you have better evidence, or if you actually want an answer to your question, as opposed using it as a rhetorical advice to avoid actually making a point, then why don't you do some research and find some evidence to the contrary. I suspect it is because such evidence, if it exists at all, is probably very thin on the ground.

 

[The Atheist]

If we are going to treat obesity as a type of addiction, I do have some education on that front. One emerging truth is that, even when the addict is motivated and willing to seek change, there's a crap-load of effort and sustained support needed.

No question on that, but the first impetus must come from the tubby. If they don't buy in, forget it.