The Next Frontier in Social Justice: Fattitude

[Bowfinger]

And again, is the issue that "sticking to their diets" doesn't produce results or that they fail to "stick to their diets"?

So are you suggesting that you can lose weight while eating 10,000 calories a day and not exercising?

You are a distinctly imbecilic, dishonest, and generally useless poster, the sort that contributes nothing positive to Anandtech. Go play.

 

[Bowfinger]

I'm always interested in learning more. Knowledge beats ignorance 99.9% of the time. I've also read a fair bit on the subject already, and I know things like metabolic rate vary tremendously between individuals. I remember one study that fed a controlled diet to a group of people over a one month period. The diet was slightly above the recommended caloric intake, so all the subjects gained weight, but despite similar intake and exercise levels, the weight gain across the group had incredible variance - as little as 3 pounds for some to over 30 pounds for others! Genetics can be a bitch sometimes.

Moreover, I come from a fat family. My paternal grandfather was north of 350 most of his adult life. My father was probably around 250 or so when he died. Both were under 6 feet, and the weight was fat, not muscle mass. My brothers are all overweight to varying degrees. We all know that we have a disposition to gain weight, just like our father, grandfather, uncles, etc. But we also know how they got there - lots of rich southern cooking, with plenty of 2nd and 3rd helpings. Lots of trips to the all-you-can-eat restaurants whenever grandpa was in town. Lots of sitting around watching TV, with little to no exercise. It's no mystery how they got there, or how I was headed there until I decided to do something else.

OK. Here are links addressing the factors I mentioned earlier. They aren't necessarily the same articles I read, but they cover the same topics.

First, here's a good overview I found discussing many of the factors that complicate obesity, including those I mentioned and others (viruses, sleep, stress, artificial lighting, heat + AC, etc.) I'd suggest it as a good read for anyone with a thoughtful mind. Obesity is a serious, even epidemic problem that deserves informed consideration, not ignorant, bigoted stereotyping and hate-mongering.

The Obesity Era

[ ... ]
For the first time in human history, overweight people outnumber the underfed, and obesity is widespread in wealthy and poor nations alike. The diseases that obesity makes more likely — diabetes, heart ailments, strokes, kidney failure — are rising fast across the world, and the World Health Organisation predicts that they will be the leading causes of death in all countries, even the poorest, within a couple of years. What's more, the long-term illnesses of the overweight are far more expensive to treat than the infections and accidents for which modern health systems were designed. Obesity threatens individuals with long twilight years of sickness, and health-care systems with bankruptcy.
[ ... ]
Of course, that’s not the impression you will get from the admonishments of public-health agencies and wellness businesses. They are quick to assure us that ‘science says’ obesity is caused by individual choices about food and exercise. As the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, recently put it, defending his proposed ban on large cups for sugary drinks: ‘If you want to lose weight, don’t eat. This is not medicine, it’s thermodynamics. If you take in more than you use, you store it.’ (Got that? It’s not complicated medicine, it’s simple physics, the most sciencey science of all.)

Yet the scientists who study the biochemistry of fat and the epidemiologists who track weight trends are not nearly as unanimous as Bloomberg makes out. In fact, many researchers believe that personal gluttony and laziness cannot be the entire explanation for humanity’s global weight gain. Which means, of course, that they think at least some of the official focus on personal conduct is a waste of time and money. As Richard L Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and editor of the International Journal of Obesity, put it in 2005: ‘The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible.’
[ ... ]
Yet a number of researchers have come to believe, as Wells himself wrote earlier this year in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, that ‘all calories are not equal’. The problem with diets that are heavy in meat, fat or sugar is not solely that they pack a lot of calories into food; it is that they alter the biochemistry of fat storage and fat expenditure, tilting the body’s system in favour of fat storage. Wells notes, for example, that sugar, trans-fats and alcohol have all been linked to changes in ‘insulin signalling’, which affects how the body processes carbohydrates. This might sound like a merely technical distinction. In fact, it’s a paradigm shift: if the problem isn’t the number of calories but rather biochemical influences on the body’s fat-making and fat-storage processes, then sheer quantity of food or drink are not the all-controlling determinants of weight gain.
[ ... ]
No one has claimed, or should claim, that any of these ‘roads less taken’ is the one true cause of obesity, to drive out the false idol of individual choice. Neither should we imagine that the existence of alternative theories means that governments can stop trying to forestall a major public-health menace. These theories are important for a different reason. Their very existence — the fact that they are plausible, with some supporting evidence and suggestions for further research — gives the lie to the notion that obesity is a closed question, on which science has pronounced its final word. It might be that every one of the ‘roads less travelled’ contributes to global obesity; it might be that some do in some places and not in others. The openness of the issue makes it clear that obesity isn’t a simple school physics experiment. ...

Here's one about a study showing lab animals of various species are heavier now than they were years ago, in spite of controlling for calories and exercise. (It also touches on the viral link.) I'd love to hear the bigots explain how that is caused by Big Gulps:

Obesity on the Rise in Animals

The problem of obesity isn't confined to just humans. A new study finds increased rates of obesity in mammals ranging from feral rats and mice to domestic pets and laboratory primates.
[ ... ]
"We can't explain the changes in [the animals'] body weight by the fact that they eat out at restaurants more often or the fact that they get less physical education in the schools," Allison told LiveScience. "There can be other factors beyond what we obviously reach for."

Allison first stumbled across evidence of overweight animals while looking at data on marmosets from the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. The average weight of the monkeys had gone up over the decades, he noticed, and there seemed to be no plausible explanation. Allison queried primate center researcher Joseph Kemnitz as to what the cause might be: Were the marmosets from a different supplier? Had they been bred to be larger? The answers were "no" and "no."

But the monkeys' diets had been changed over the years, a switch that was well-documented by the lab. So Allison tried running the numbers again, this time controlling for the diet change.

"It only made the results stronger," he said. With the diet change, the animals should have lost weight, if anything.
[ ... ]
"It just highlights how little we understand about what's happening in terms of why we see this rise in body weight in our population,"

Jennifer Kuk, an obesity researcher at York University in Toronto who was not involved in the research, told LiveScience. "Perhaps this problem isn't as simple as just energy intake and energy expenditure, which has been the prevailing message over the last 10 years."

While it's not surprising that pets should be getting fatter along with their owners, or even that rats might be getting bigger by eating calorie-rich human garbage, Kuk said, the increase in body weight in controlled lab animals is unexpected

There are several theories as to why animals and humans might be getting fatter even without the help of fast food and desk-jockey jobs, Allison said. Pathogens could be to blame: A virus called adenovirus 36 has been linked to obesity in both humans and animals. Hormone-disrupting compounds, or endocrine disruptors, have been shown to trigger obesity in mice exposed to the compounds in utero

The change could be something as simple as our increasingly artificial environments, Allison said. Light pollution and sleep disruption have been linked to obesity. It's even possible that air conditioning and central heat are to blame. ...

Here are a couple about gut bacteria. Note one correction to my earlier comment. I said that thin mice gained weight when they were given gut bacteria from fat mice. It was actually gut bacteria from fat humans. Mice were given gut bacteria from either fat or thin people. Even though their calories and exercise remained the same, the mice given the fat gut bacteria gained weight, while those receiving bacteria from thin people did not.

Gut Bacteria May Be Key to Fighting Obesity
Different kinds of bacteria that live inside the gut can help spur obesity or protect against it, according to new research from scientists at Washington University in St. Louis.

They transplanted intestinal germs from fat or lean people into mice and watched the rodents change. ...

Obesity: Wider Understanding
How the bacteria in your gut may be shaping your waistline

A CALORIE is a calorie. Eat too many and spend too few, and you will become obese and sickly. This is the conventional wisdom. But increasingly, it looks too simplistic. All calories do not seem to be created equal, and the way the body processes the same calories may vary dramatically from one person to the next.

This is the intriguing suggestion from the latest research into metabolic syndrome, the nasty clique that includes high blood pressure, high blood sugar, unbalanced cholesterol and, of course, obesity. This uniquely modern scourge has swept across America, where obesity rates are notoriously high. But it is also doing damage from Mexico to South Africa and India, raising levels of disease and pushing up health costs. ...

Here are a couple about a virus linked to obesity. This was new to me. I vaguely remember hearing about it, but don't believe I'd read any specific articles:

Obesity Virus: More, Bigger Fat Cells

Aug. 20, 2007 - Infection with a virus linked to human obesity ups fat-cell production and makes fat cells fatter.

"Infectobesity" is the term coined by Louisiana State University researcher Nikhil Dhurandhar, PhD, and colleagues to describe the phenomenon. Their research strongly links a common human virus -- adenovirus-36 or Ad-36 -- to human obesity.

Previous research showed that nearly 30% of obese people, but only 11% of lean people, have been infected with Ad-36. Monkeys experimentally infected with Ad-36 gain significant weight.

Now Dhurandhar's team finds evidence that Ad-36 has a direct effect on human fat cells. Infection of adult stem cells from human fat triggers their transition into pre-fat cells. And these virus-infected cells hold much more fat than normal pre-fat cells.

The end result: more, fatter fat cells. ...

Virus is Linked to Obesity

A new study has found a link between obesity and a type of virus, providing additional evidence that factors other than diet and exercise may be responsible for the increasing numbers of overweight people.

A number of researchers have been exploring whether the virus, known as adenovirus 36, might play a role in the development of obesity. Obesity rates among both children and adults have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. Viruses are one avenue of research that scientists are investigating as a possible environmental factor leading to the growth in obesity rates ...

Finally, from the New England Journal of Medicine, an article about obesity maths. It's a bit dense (which is why I mostly linked to popular press above), but seemed like an appropriate way to summarize:

Myths, Presumptions, and Facts About Obesity

Passionate interests, the human tendency to seek explanations for observed phenomena, and everyday experience appear to contribute to strong convictions about obesity, despite the absence of supporting data. When the public, mass media, government agencies, and even academic scientists espouse unsupported beliefs, the result may be ineffective policy, unhelpful or unsafe clinical and public health recommendations, and an unproductive allocation of resources. In this article, we review some common beliefs about obesity that are not supported by scientific evidence and also provide some useful evidence-based concepts. We define myths as beliefs held to be true despite substantial refuting evidence, presumptions as beliefs held to be true for which convincing evidence does not yet confirm or disprove their truth, and facts as propositions backed by sufficient evidence to consider them empirically proved for practical purposes.
[ ... ]
Myth number 1: Small sustained changes in energy intake or expenditure will produce large, long-term weight changes.

Predictions suggesting that large changes in weight will accumulate indefinitely in response to small sustained lifestyle modifications rely on the half-century-old 3500-kcal rule, which equates a weight alteration of 1 lb (0.45 kg) to a 3500-kcal cumulative deficit or increment.5,6 However, applying the 3500-kcal rule to cases in which small modifications are made for long periods violates the assumptions of the original model, which were derived from short-term experiments predominantly performed in men on very-low-energy diets (<800 kcal per day).5,7 Recent studies have shown that individual variability affects changes in body composition in response to changes in energy intake and expenditure,7 with analyses predicting substantially smaller changes in weight (often by an order of magnitude across extended periods) than the 3500-kcal rule does.5,7 For example, whereas the 3500-kcal rule predicts that a person who increases daily energy expenditure by 100 kcal by walking 1 mile (1.6 km) per day will lose more than 50 lb (22.7 kg) over a period of 5 years, the true weight loss is only about 10 lb (4.5 kg),6 assuming no compensatory increase in caloric intake, because changes in mass concomitantly alter the energy requirements of the body. ...

In other words, the "one pound == 3500 calories" talking point is a gross over-generalization, and does not apply over time.

Bump for Mursillis, since he asked for these links.

 

[nehalem256]

You are a distinctly imbecilic, dishonest, and generally useless poster, the sort that contributes nothing positive to Anandtech. Go play.

Why is it so hard for you to answer yet a simple question?

If you have evidence of morbidly obese people sticking to eating a healthy diet it would seem to irrefutably prove your point...

 

[fleshconsumed]

Watched the trailer finally. Mixed feelings about it.

I do admit the trailer does have some good points. Dehumanizing fat people for being fat is not right. Assuming certain things about fat people just because they're fat is also not right. And that should not be happening. However, that is as far as my sympathy goes.

The rest of the trailer is a mix of nonsense, excuses, and outright lies.

It should be illegal to call somebody fat? Really? How is that going to solve anything? Not to mention 1st amendment issues that come along with it. Food food food, cooking shows, restaurant shows on TV? That's just excuses, excuses, excuses. Yes, they have tons of food ads and cooking shows on TV, and yes, those ads and tv shows do work. Hell, just thinking in my head about it I'm craving for a nice fat juicy burger right now. However, nobody is making you watch that. You can just... turn off TV or cancel the cable. I guarantee that cancelling cable will do you good in the long run. No link between weight and overall health? Saying you can't tell if a skinny person is healthier than a obese person just because the skinny person might have cancer? Once again, this is not a sound argument. Obese people have a whole range of health issues that are caused by extra weight alone such as high blood pressure, increased risk of stroke, joint problems later in life, diabetes and everything associated with it - vision problems come to mind. Another argument about cognitive abilities - yes, I can see how you might not be as cognitively efficient while on a calorie deficient diet as brain needs calories to function too, but that is not a permanent problem - assuming you change your lifestyle and achieve your new target weight within one or two years, at that point you will return to calorie equilibrium, as in calorie in = calorie out and therefore the brain function should return to optimal efficiency. Or should we always be in calorific surplus, thus continuously gaining weight our whole lives getting heavier and heavier, all just to make sure that our brains function as well as they can at the expense of the rest of the body? And yes, calories in = calories out, it is as simple as that and it holds true for 99% of the people except for a few fringe medical cases.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The rest is a bunch of slogans thrown around designed to appeal to emotion - yoyo dieting (that obviously doesn't work), thin privilege, a brilliant diabolical system, keeping the women down not allowing them to achieve their full potential, "we're using the language of fat, but make no mistake we're talking about gender, we're talking about race, and we're talking about class" that one is just straight out of tin foil hat.

I've had some sympathy while watching the first 30 seconds of the trailer. We, as a sosciety do make a lot of assumptions about individuals based on their looks and weight in particular. And we should be better than that. However, the rest of the trailer is just excuses mixed with a healthy portion of lies sprinkled with emotional appeal on top. I cannot get behind that. We should not demonize fat people, but we should not accept it to be the new normal. Being fat has huge negative health consequences to the person in question and nation in general. Being fat is not healthy and it is not something we should strive for.

 

[mizzou]

I hope you guys realize that:
1. There is NO evidence that fat people are less healthy than skinny people.

Are you kidding me? Have you even lived with a fat person before? It's exactly like living with a disabled person.

We are talking FAT here, right? Not just a little plus sized?

 

[MixMasterTang]

So are you suggesting that you can lose weight while eating 10,000 calories a day and not exercising?

Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories per day when training. So technically, if he ate only 10,000 calories he could have possibly lost weight. While most people probably could not physical exercise this much in one day to burn that many calories it can be done be a select few.

 

[nehalem256]

So are you suggesting that you can lose weight while eating 10,000 calories a day and not exercising?

Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories per day when training. So technically, if he ate only 10,000 calories he could have possibly lost weight. While most people probably could not physical exercise this much in one day to burn that many calories it can be done be a select few.

And Michael Phelps would be an excellent example of why I was sure to include the bolded.

 

[SMOGZINN]

And again, is the issue that "sticking to their diets" doesn't produce results or that they fail to "stick to their diets"?

The point is that 'sticking to their diets' might not be something that is possible to do for most people, much in the same way that 'just keep holding your breath' is possible for a drowning man.

Science, bitches.

 

[nixium]

^^^ I can accept that but there's nothing wrong with the dieting plan itself, just in its execution.

I can't accept what some in this thread advocate, that eating a proper diet is not useful.

Also the movie isn't targeted toward showing the flaws in current dieting plans and how to fix them. Instead it's focusing on giving up all attempts to reduce weight and forcing society to accept that people are fat and they'll just be fat, and that it's the new normal.

How is that defensible?

 

[marincounty]

Fat Acceptance is a mainstream feminist belief, and feminists control the Democratic Party.

Huh, what? According to the map, more of the obese reside in the South, you know-the areas where people tend to vote Republican.

 

[SMOGZINN]

^^^ I can accept that but there's nothing wrong with the dieting plan itself, just in its execution.

I can't accept what some in this thread advocate, that eating a proper diet is not useful.

Also the movie isn't targeted toward showing the flaws in current dieting plans and how to fix them. Instead it's focusing on giving up all attempts to reduce weight and forcing society to accept that people are fat and they'll just be fat, and that it's the new normal.

How is that defensible?

I have not watched the video, as I am at work. As such, I'm not promoting the video, I'm arguing against the belief that 'just stick to your diet' is an appropriate response to the obesity problem that we face.

 

[shortylickens]

Fat Acceptance is a mainstream feminist belief, and feminists control the Democratic Party.

 

[BoberFett]

I have not watched the video, as I am at work. As such, I'm not promoting the video, I'm arguing against the belief that 'just stick to your diet' is an appropriate response to the obesity problem that we face.

As long as that is coupled with " and get up off your fat ass and move around" I think it's entirely appropriate.

Healthy eating and moderate exercise will do wonders for most people.

 

[nehalem256]

The point is that 'sticking to their diets' might not be something that is possible to do for most people, much in the same way that 'just keep holding your breath' is possible for a drowning man.

Science, bitches.

Then I guess I am just superior to most people. :sneaky:

I have not watched the video, as I am at work. As such, I'm not promoting the video, I'm arguing against the belief that 'just stick to your diet' is an appropriate response to the obesity problem that we face.

So what is the solution. It seems that you agree that obesity is basically a calories in > calories out problem. So there doesn't seem like there is some kind of "magic" solution.

 

[Zaap]

The point is that 'sticking to their diets' might not be something that is possible to do for most people, much in the same way that 'just keep holding your breath' is possible for a drowning man.

Science, bitches.

Seems to me people are using the term 'diet' to mean "starving yourself" in the typical way people misuse that whole concept. (Coincidentally, a lot of such people overweight).

But what about diet as in "stop eating unhealthy and eat better?" People have absolute shit eating habits in this country. Its proven that Americans consume way too much sugar, salt and fat and eat tons of shit that will make you fat and shorten your lifespan. I realize personal responsibility is a dead notion -everything is someone else's fault- but really, people do need to take responsibility for their own shitty eating habbits. (And couch potato lifestyles).

Someone on a 4000 calorie a day binge eating lifestyle suddenly taking it down by half and eating real food vs processed shit isn't actually "going on a diet" they're simply eating the way they should have been all along.

Don't blame people for being fat? Fine... but I say don't construct a healthcare scheme that ropes me and everyone else responsible into eventually footing the bill for your heart attack/stroke/diabetes etc.

 

[OverVolt]

The point is that 'sticking to their diets' might not be something that is possible to do for most people, much in the same way that 'just keep holding your breath' is possible for a drowning man.

Science, bitches.

Nope nope nope nope. Its all environmental. Easy access to potato chips 24/7 = eat lots of potato chips.

You have control over your own environment for the most part. I've seen plenty of fat families. Huge buffet style dinners. Don't even sit at the table. Eat while watching TV, which is known to distract you from the signal that you are full, etc. etc. etc.

While one person in that family may not be able to control the environment very well especially if no one else is on board with healthier eating, that's some pretty good motivation to get the hell out of there so you can live like you want to live.

I always found I don't miss junk food so long as I never buy it. Link me the wonder pill that makes it so you stop buying junk food. Cause I'm pretty sure you are just going to have to suck it up and learn how to cook food. It doesn't even have to be health food.

The ignorance is pretty abound about how much trans fat, sodium, fructose, etc. are in certain foods vs others. IMO it can be as simple as Red Barron Pizza being loaded with trans fat, and pretty horrible for you, and Digiorno being pretty decent. You have to know how to read ingredient labels. Ignorance is not an excuse and neither is being unable to control your own environment. Too many food ads? Stop watching them. And you wonder why fat people are stereotyped as having weak willpower.

 

[Nebor]

And again, is the issue that "sticking to their diets" doesn't produce results or that they fail to "stick to their diets"?

What he's trying to say is that it's not their fault that they can't stick to their diets. Because nothing is ever anyone's fault, ever. Except being mean-hearted bigots, that's our fault.

 

[Nebor]

Huh, what? According to the map, more of the obese reside in the South, you know-the areas where people tend to vote Republican.

Fat men seldom engage in the sort of delusional rationalization that fat women do. A fat women will tell you 1) That she isn't fat 2) That society can't decide what's fat 3) That fat is sexy 4) That you can't handle her sexy fat 5) That it's not her fault that she's fat, and so on and so forth. Most fat men tend to be pretty realistic and grounded about their circumstances, realizing that they are the way they are because of their choices. Most fat men don't feel the societal pressure to change because they can improve in other areas in order to compensate for being physically unattractive. The same can't be said for women, who drive their total value into the ground by being fat and thus unattractive.

To quote that scholarly disciple of truth, Rush Limbaugh:

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of American life.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

To be fair, there are plenty of Southern women that don't get all sensitive and double-thinky about their weight as well, partaking in all forms of barbequing and frying along with their male counterparts. It's the disgusting Californian and Northeastern fatties that are the real problem.

 

[Nebor]

Seems to me people are using the term 'diet' to mean "starving yourself" in the typical way people misuse that whole concept. (Coincidentally, a lot of such people overweight).

But what about diet as in "stop eating unhealthy and eat better?" People have absolute shit eating habits in this country. Its proven that Americans consume way too much sugar, salt and fat and eat tons of shit that will make you fat and shorten your lifespan. I realize personal responsibility is a dead notion -everything is someone else's fault- but really, people do need to take responsibility for their own shitty eating habbits. (And couch potato lifestyles).

Someone on a 4000 calorie a day binge eating lifestyle suddenly taking it down by half and eating real food vs processed shit isn't actually "going on a diet" they're simply eating the way they should have been all along.

Don't blame people for being fat? Fine... but I say don't construct a healthcare scheme that ropes me and everyone else responsible into eventually footing the bill for your heart attack/stroke/diabetes etc.

People think of "diets" as these crash course massive changes in their eating habits that achieve a short term goal. I know tons of skinny-fat people who do all sorts of stupid fad diets. The truth is that none of that stuff works. You have to change your lifestyle. It's not "a diet," it's "your diet," and it's part of your life as surely as sleeping and going to the bathroom and working out. So many people approach weight loss & diets as a temporary fix to a temporary problem, instead of a life-long change for life-long impacts.

The idea of "a diet" is what leads people to say, "I lost 4 lbs! Now I can have that piece of cake I've been wanting!"

I've helped a ton of people lose weight, and by far the biggest issue for most people is an entirely unrealistic idea of what a portion is, or how much they're actually eating. This is mostly true for women. They'll say they "snack" throughout the day on "a few nuts" (a bag of trail mix,) some m&ms (huge sack,) and some cake at an office party (two slices, plus ice cream.) If you get them to keep a food journal of everything they eat, every time they eat, you can usually open their eyes to how dishonest their being with themselves. That's usually my first step for someone on the Army Overweight Program: food journal and supervised exercise. I can fix anyone that wants to change.

 

[Nebor]

To be fair, there are plenty of Southern women that don't get all sensitive and double-thinky about their weight as well, partaking in all forms of barbequing and frying along with their male counterparts. It's the disgusting Californian and Northeastern fatties that are the real problem.

Those same Southern women then go on to say they're big boned, they're just like their mama, that only dogs want bones and real men want meat, etc. etc. Their poor self-control leads them to torpedo their most valuable asset at it's peak value (beauty during youth.)

Frankly, when I see a girl under 25 years old that is obese, I'm stunned. It takes a lot of work to gain that much weight that fast, working against your roaring metabolism.

I'm somewhat famous in my circle of friends for my epic fatty burns at bars... But that's the other thing about some fat women trying to rationalize away their problems: They act like they're just as attractive as a thin woman and aggressively pursue dudes at bars. Then throw a fit when dudes shoot them down. I have some of my better encounters written down somewhere...

 

[HamburgerBoy]

It doesn't really bother me what they say about themselves to make themselves feel better, as long as they don't use it as an excuse for special privileges or attention, or to make normal thin people feel worse. The anecdote I'm thinking of is a family friend who is like an aunt, from a male-dominated family of very heavy dudes that like to go shooting and hunting and frying various meat products. She's a landlord and has had to deal with some really unbecoming folk, and can use her size and brawn to intimidate others. At least from what my mom's told me, she's never dated and has never shown much interest, so maybe that's why she doesn't (at least visibly) complain. fwiw due many early deaths in the family she's made a directed effort to changing her diet, and has lost something like ~100lbs. I know that she's a minority among the depressed peanut-butter-and-ice-cream-addicted masses, but I still have to rep her.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Maybe if you live in some backwoods area. Gays where I have lived in both Europe and the US were treated just fine.

Being fat is far more similar to people who smoke. It shows that you are unhealthy and you are treated as someone who doesn't care about their health, and if you have kids, those around you.

I live in America, in the South. Being fat is worse than being gay or a minority, even down here...heh

It's very different here when compared to Stockholm, though.

 

[AViking]

I live in America, in the South. Being fat is worse than being gay or a minority, even down here...heh

It's very different here when compared to Stockholm, though.

I'm tempted to call shenanigans. Where in the South is that true?

 

[Mursilis]

Bump for Mursillis, since he asked for these links.

Saw them, and they are appreciated. Still, my mind has not much changed. I've understood for a long time that all calories are not equal, and humans process calories differently. My mother is a registered dietician and I've been reading about nutrition, etc., since high school. Evolutionary biologists have argued that because humans existed and evolved for centuries in conditions in which calories were scarce, the ability to store more energy in the body would become a dominant trait, a trait which is now biting us in the rear in an era of calorie abundance and sedentary work (for most of us). I do empathize with those who struggle with weight, but it's still not an impossible obstacle to overcome.