The stupid explodes: obesity now a disability
- Thread starter The Atheist
- Start date
I'm actually starting to come around more toward the obesity as a disability side, but with reluctance.
It's predicated on obesity being the result of a mental problem coupled with bad biology - not quite the traditional disease state, but not nothing either. Now, add in the idea of carrying all that extra weight around and it starts to sound pretty tough to be fat.
Using a standard BMI calculator (from here: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm), I find I'm just over 24. To get to 30, I'd have to weigh about an additional 50 pounds. That's how heavy the bags of dog food I buy are.
So I'm imagining carrying around one of those 50 lb bags all day, every day, and suddenly the reluctance of a fat person who doesn't want to walk across the parking lot becomes a bit easier to understand. It can't be easy being fat.
It's predicated on obesity being the result of a mental problem coupled with bad biology - not quite the traditional disease state, but not nothing either. Now, add in the idea of carrying all that extra weight around and it starts to sound pretty tough to be fat.
Using a standard BMI calculator (from here: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm), I find I'm just over 24. To get to 30, I'd have to weigh about an additional 50 pounds. That's how heavy the bags of dog food I buy are.
So I'm imagining carrying around one of those 50 lb bags all day, every day, and suddenly the reluctance of a fat person who doesn't want to walk across the parking lot becomes a bit easier to understand. It can't be easy being fat.
Last edited:
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
Obesity in and of itself isn't a disability - it becomes a disability when it disables an obese individual.
*big sigh*
I paraphrased. Sue me.
If you honestly believe anyone reading the thread would perceive what I wrote as a verbatim quote, when I included your entire post in a quote, then I see no point in entertaining your drama queen stage show an longer.
You falsely attribute entire arguments, and then do that?
Last edited:
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
Maybe you don't understand what quotation marks actually mean?
You falsely attribute entire arguments, and then do that?
How can I be falsely attributing your "arguments" when you've been at pains to point out that you've avoided making arguments, preferring instead to pose questions? I might be guilty of falsely attributing answers to to you JAQs but I have not been falsely attributing your arguments.
Your whole M.O. in this thread reminds me of the non-arguments being addressed in this video:
Last edited:
More "proof" that you aren't reading what I write. Either that, or you are deliberately ignoring my points.
The studies I refer to that show stigmatisation of obesity has a positive affect on people who don't perceive themselves to be obese, also show a negative affect on people who do perceive themselves to be obese.
Sorry if that doesn't suit.
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
Can you please link to the post where you have previously stated the bolded bit that I have supposedly ignored?
The studies you refer to you only know about because I quoted a reference to them in a literature review that concluded that there is very little evidence to support them.
Again, I will restate the point I have been making: you are ignoring the preponderance of evidence from dozens of studies in favour of two papers that appear to confirm you biases.
I've been 45lbs heavier than I am now and I can tell you that even with knackered knees, it's easier to get around as a 47 year old 180 pounder than a 30 year old 225 pounder
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,408
Haha!
I remember a few years back when Carl Hoeft was our tighthead prop. His BMI was 35.
Sorry mate, I need to expand on that. He's not reading anything anyone's written, as has been displayed by the enormous number of strawmen applied to date.
This was another:
No relationship to anything in this thread. Utter nonsense, and so many logical fallacies it could win awards. From straw to poisoning the well to non sequitur and back again.
The "evidence" against stigmatisation is a hodge-podge of "mights" and "maybes" and has not displayed anything close to useful. It's a lot like arguing religion v Marius.
Anyway, I see YouTube videos are now being introduced as part of the argument, which nicely confirms my previous statement of ignoring being the most sensible option.
Christ mate, you're not playing the game at all!
How dare you allow pressures like that to dictate whether you lose weight? You could have just had knee reconstruction surgery and a disabled sticker for your car while you waited.
Last edited:
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
Well if you're not invoking some kind of vested interest conspiracy as to why your feelings aren't represented in the research literature, can you at least explain what you meant by this comment?
Well, if it is then you shouldn't have any trouble finding a vast body of literature that supports the contention
Seems pretty clear cut to me. You seem to be suggesting that there would be evidence to support your feelings were the right "sponsors" to fund it. What other interpretation would you like me to make?
But, no, it's much easier to just have a tanty.
Well, OK, cool
I think it's pretty clear at this point, the notion that shaming and stigmatising people is in any way useful is NOT supported by the evidence. And the fact you two are giving up is the clearest indication that you've got nothing.
In that case, I gracefully accept your concession
Last edited:
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2011
- Messages
- 12,766
Andrew Weil observed that all cultures except the Eskimo (historically) have sought out relationships with mood-altering substances. Blubber, meat and orgies* probably qualified in the Arctic.
So yeah, we have biological drives and we pick our poisons based on whatever makes us feel "fixed." Which is probably in itself a caution against shaming behavior. IMO, people who are self-medicating because they think they're crap don't actually need to feel any crappier.
There's a structural surplus of nutrients in the U.S. that's just as real as any deficit in our coffers. Though shaming exist there is also a fair amount of support for overconsuming. It's still generally more accepted than snorting heroin at your desk.
The same brain places are stimulated by whatever we use to feel fixed, but food leave behind an abundance of stored energy. And that's normal, in the U.S. By the time of "middle-age spread" there is already a chronic drive to overeat and turning it around is not IMO a simple matter of willpower.
No matter which substances I've been consuming, since my early '20s I have also been addicted to physical exercise, especially the cardiovascular kind. It might not undo all my bad habits but at least it's a counterweight (literally).
Now, if only we could harvest all that excess fat ...
*Per Peter Freuchen, "Book of the Eskimos."
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2011
- Messages
- 12,766
Love your avatar, your positions not so much
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
It can't be put any more succinctly than this
My metabolism ain't what it used to be - I'm only just starting to introduce myself to the gym after noticing that a pervasive 'spread' had crept up on me.
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2011
- Messages
- 12,766
Physical exercise offers me a kind of high but I have to earn it. Fortunately, even if I have alcohol every day I'm motivated to exercise at least every 2 days. Maybe just burning off the alcohol.
bit_pattern
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2010
- Messages
- 7,406
I'm trying to limit my alcohol intake after reading about how it converts to acetate, which your body then burns before burning calories - it's kind of tough though, I can go two days dry without a problem but by the third day I'm positively gagging for drink. I've also been trying to find a harm minimisaton strategy around when to take those off days, i.e. should I abstain on the day I work out or on my rest days? (currently I'm doing one day on and one day off, an hour of intensive cardio with maybe 40 minutes on a weights programme). But am yet to find a satisfactory answer. I frequent a drug HR website that is good for those sorts of questions but am currently on a temp ban until January for being mean to racists and climate deniers
I don't find alcohol demotivates me (weed used to do that until I kicked it) but it is certainly counterproductive and means you have to work twice as hard to achieve half as much.
Minoosh
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2011
- Messages
- 12,766
Do you mean that from an exercise point of view or an overall personal achievement point of view?
I have no exercise "discipline." I get a sneezy, snappish head-achey feeling and the only way out is fairly intense cardio. That does not remove other cravings, but it does help mitigate them.
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,408
True on both counts.