In an argument on an earlier thread, Don asks:
It’ll take me two posts to answer Don’s question. In this post – which can be skipped by those of you who hate reading big blocks of quotes – I want to point out that some experts writing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature strongly doubt that fat people can choose to be thin.
In Don’s view, as I understand it, body weight is a function of two variables – the intake of calories (eating) and the expenditure of energy (exercise). If fat people only ate less and walked more, they’d cease being fat people; therefore, being fat is a choice.
But it’s not universally true that fat people have bad diets and bad exercise habits. Some fat people are healthy eaters who exercise often; most fat people have diets and lifestyles that are less than ideal, but not significantly different from that of most non-fat Americans.
In fact, although it’s commonly believed that fat people must eat a lot more than thin people, the scientific evidence for that is either non-existant or non-replicable. Multiple studies, based both on observation and on diaries, have found that fat and thin people eat similar amounts. From an article in Clinical Psychology Review (citations omitted):
[In a study of children], Rolland-Cachera and Bellisle found that food intake was about 500 calories greater and obesity about four times more common in the lowest versus the highest socioeconomic groups studied; however, within each socioeconomic group, there were comparable levels of caloric intake among lean, average weight, and obese children. […]
…It may be concluded that nature and nurture both exert influences on body weight and that the eventual expression of obesity is a complicated matter…. Regardless of these factors, the myth of overeating by the obese is sustained for the casual observer by selective attention. Each time that a fat person is observed to have a “healthy appetite” or an affinity for sweets or other high calorie foods, a stereotypic leap into causality is made. The same behaviors in a thin person attract little or no attention….
…The major premise of dietary treatments of obesity, that the obese overeat with respect to population norms, must be regarded as unproven.
Since the premise behind diets is unproven, it should be no surprise that diets themselves have never been proven to work over the long run. From a review of empirical tests of weight-loss plans by Wayne Miller, an exercise science specialist at George Washington University:
William Bennett, editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter, reviewed empirical weight-loss studies going back to the 1930s. He concluded that not one had been shown to produce long-term weight loss for more than a tiny minority of dieters (and most of the few who did lose weight, lost too little weight to turn an obese person into a non-obese person).
An important element of behavior modification is giving the client a model of his or her problem, one that focuses on eating behavior as the target for correction. An essential component of this model is the claim that it will be effective if the client believes it and acts accordingly. The model that appears to form the heart of most such programs, however, is at the very least seriously incomplete; there is good reason to assume it is simply wrong. In any case, the model has not produced results that would support claims of effectiveness. …
The ethical questions that can be raised about research efforts also must be asked about the dietary programs for weight control that are carried on outside a research setting – commercial, hospital, or clinic-based, or self-help. Many such programs proffer treatment as though it were established as effective and safe. Nothing in the results published by research programs authorizes anyone to make such claims.
From an article in The New England Journal of Medicine:
Why is it that people cannot seem to lose weight, despite the social pressures, the urging of their doctors, and the investment of staggering amounts of time, energy, and money? The old view that body weight is a function of only two variables – the intake of calories and the expenditure of energy – has given way to a much more complex formulation involving a fairly stable set point for a person’s weight that is resistant over short periods to either gain or loss, but that may move with age. …Of course, the set point can be overridden and large losses can be induced by severe caloric restriction in conjunction with vigorous, sustained exercise, but when these extreme measures are discontinued, body weight generally returns to its preexisting level.
In my next post, I’ll return to Don’s question.
References
- David Garner and Susan Wooley, “Confronting The failure of Behavioral and Dietary Treatments for Obesity,” Clinical Psychology Review, v11 p729-780, 1991.
- Wayne C. Miller, “How effective are traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss?,” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 31 no8 1129-34 Aug 1999
- Jerome Kassierer and Marcia Angell, “Losing Weight – An Ill-Fated New Year’s Resolution,” New England Journal of Medicine, vol 338(1), p52-54, Jan 1 1998.
- William Bennett, “Dietary Treatments of Obestity,” Annals of the New York Academy of the Sciences, v499, p250-263, 1987.
This is some very thought-provoking stuff. I’m gay, and pretty much compeletly so. I’m also quite thin (male, 6’2″, 165lbs, been that way since high school). I eat whatever I feel like and exercise about 25 minutes a day (rowing and yoga). I have never seriously had to think about my weight. I suspect, though, that I will have a lot to think about after all of this new information. Thank you very much for posting it!
Characteristics that are largely immutable and inherent, like homosexuality or left-handedness, turn up randomly in the population. There is no reason to think that a higher percentage of people raised in San Francisco will be gay than people raised in Amarillo (the ones raised in SF will probably just be much better adjusted).
Characteristics that are difficult to change but are still changable (cultural characteristics) vary from region to region. Thus, people in New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, etc…, tend to be obese. People in San Jose and Seattle do not.
That’s not to say that it’s not extremely difficult to lose weight and keep it off. It may be more difficult than quitting smoking. But there is a difference between “difficult” and “next door to impossible.” It’s difficult for an obese person to become thinner — but it’s next door to impossible for a gay person to become straight. That’s where the comparison breaks down.
It’s unfair to gay people to compare the two. There may be good reasons to deplore discrmination based on weight, but it’s not the same as discrimination based on an inherent characteristic like sexual orientation.
“Characteristics that are largely immutable and inherent, like homosexuality or left-handedness, turn up randomly in the population. There is no reason to think that a higher percentage of people raised in San Francisco will be gay than people raised in Amarillo (the ones raised in SF will probably just be much better adjusted).”
Huh. I have noticed that people in Salt Lake City are more likely to have blue eyes than people in New York City. Does that mean that if I worked really hard at it, I could make my eyes blue?
I wouldn’t argue that weight is entirely immutable, although I do think genes play a part. But your argument doesn’t seem like the right way to prove that. Genetic characteristics aren’t necessarily distributed evenly across different populations.
Except it is next door to impossible for a fat person to become a thin person. At least I’m pretty sure that was the last known address of 1% probability. You are infusing this discussion with your personal and unsupported beliefs, and denoucing it accordingly. Amp has addressed the concerns you raise already. Is your only refutation of his point that some areas seem to have more fat people than others? Is the deviation really statistically more significant than differences in the population of gay people in San Francisco and Texas? Or are we to just make whatever assumpsion is negative for fat people? This is another instances of assumpsions trying to trump facts, and it just doesn’t hold.
Ok. You win. I’ll shut up about this.
Sorry, to be clear, my response was to Brian’s comment, not Sally’s.
Thank goodness! I do have tons and tons and tons of hangups about this stuff (I’m a recovering anorexic and bulimic: I don’t pretend to be anything but nutty where weight is concerned), and I was worried that I’d said something really offensive.
So to change the topic, I’ve been kicking around an idea. I read somewhere that African-Americans are much more likely than white people to have heart disease when you correct for all variables other than race. And one explanation for this is that there’s an added burden of stress that comes from living with racism. I’m wondering if there might be something similar for obesity. Maybe some of the health risks associated with obesity come from living with prejudice and constantly being told that you’re lazy, inadequate, and whatnot. I think it would be pretty stressful to spend your whole life fighting a constant battle with your own biology.
It’s obvious to me, just from people I know, that obese people are less likely to go to the doctor than thinner people, because they dread being lectured at and condescended to. And if you avoid the doctor, you’re less likely to find out about your health problems when they’re at an easily treatable stage. But I’m wondering if the purely psychological effects take a toll, as well.
According to the CDC, the “West South Central” region – wherein we find New Orleans, Dallas, and Housten – 22% of people are obese. In contrast, in the Pacific region – location of Seattle and San Jose – 19% are obese. So although the first Brian is probably correct to say that more people are obese in New Orleans, Dallas and Texas, it’s hardly a huge difference. My suspicion is that it mostly reflects ethnic and class differences between regions (New England, the wealthiest region of the USA, is also the region with the lowest rate of obesity at 17%).
In the sense of “hiding gay desires and living like a straight person,” uncounted queer people have in fact become straight. Until the last few decades, in fact, it seems likely that the vast majority of queers have lived their lives as straight people. In contrast, the vast majority of fat people who try to become non-fat people fail.
Actually, I don’t think “inherant” versus “chosen” necessarily makes any difference in how deplorable discrimination is. Converting to Judaism is an entirely chosen act; would you therefore say that firing an employee because they converted to Judaism is more acceptable than firing an employee because they came out of the closet?
* * *
I’d like to move away from a simple “it’s got nothing to do with individual behavior” and “it’s only the individual’s choices, genetics and environment have nothing to do with it” duality. I don’t think anyone can seriously look at the research and say that genetics is NOT a factor in obesity. Furthermore, the class differences make it obvious that environment makes a difference. And studies have shown that, within the same class and region, people of different weights can have similar caloric input.
No one, least of all me, is claiming that individual choices make no difference at all. But it’s also clear that individual choices aren’t everything.
Moreover, however much individual choice matters to becoming fat or not, that doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about how easy it is for a fat person to become non-fat.
I think the evidence shows that for most fat people, becoming permanently non-fat is in fact extraordinarily difficult. Nearly all fat people who try to become non-fat will fail – that’s been the consistant finding of peer-reviewed research on the subject for the last 8 decades. (The phrase “mountains of evidence” comes to mind.) I haven’t seen anyone here on the “weight loss works and is not too difficult” side even attempt to confront the empirical record on weight-loss plans.
Amp: “In Don’s view, as I understand it, body weight is a function of two variables – the intake of calories (eating) and the expenditure of energy (exercise). If fat people only ate less and walked more, they’d cease being fat people; therefore, being fat is a choice.”
So I wonder, how many exceptions to this rule do you think exist? (Wacky random thought: Can a fat person starve to death? )
I’ve known far more thin people who had a “fat lifestyle” than fat people who actually lived the way they were supposed to. Indeed, I’d be hard pressed to identify any singificantly fat individual I’ve known whose food consumpsion and excersise levels were what a chart says they must be for them to have maintained a high weight.
I do regard the notion of “choice” when it pertains to fatness to be far more in line with how much a person “chooses” to be thin. As stated elsewhere in this discussion, some people have chosen to be thin, but by adapting a harsh and restrictive lifestyle which is entirely focused on maintaining thinness. Its a “choice” people from poorer economic backgrounds cannot make.
Furthermore, there is the suggestion that fat perpetuates itself. Not only have diets been shown to fail, but often the dieter ends up weighing more than they did before the diet began. I will try to find the citations for this when I get home and with literature on the subject, but anyone else can feel free to beat me to the punch on that. This fact has led even unsympathetic “obesity researchers” to conclude that dieting is a leading cause of higher weights seen in recent decades. Certainly, there is at least some factual basis for it, rather than the anecdotal “There seem to be more McDonald’s restaurants.”
Fat may also perpetuate a lower income. The topic of this discussion had originally been fat discrimination, after all. Being discriminated against will certainly have an effect on one’s financial well-being. It is reasonable to suggest that the higher percentages of lower-income fat people is not a product of choice or chance, but rather the result of a discrimination cycle. Poor people are fat, because fat people are poor.
My favorite quote on the nature of choice for fat people is “Losing weight is as easy as holding your breath. Keeping the weight off is as easy as continuing to hold your breath.”
No one has mentioned here their view on how much of a role genetics plays in sexual preference. I’m no expert on research in on either sexuality or obesity but my understanding is that genetic predisposition plays a part in both.
What I’m saying is that some people are fat because their genetics make them fat and some people are fat because they have worse diet and exercise habits than an average person. Similarly my understanding is that some people (most from what I know) are gay because they are genetically predisposed to be gay while others may choose this lifestyle (consciously or otherwise) based on any number of factors of their upbringing, environment, etc.
If this line of thinking is correct (and please tell me if it’s not) then for both gay and obese people, the ability to alter their sexuality or weight may vary based on how they arrived at that point to begin with.
But most importantly I do agree with the point that was made that even if you can say that sexuality and weight are choices that doesn’t automatically give others the right to bigotry. It sounds cheesy but I firmly believe that no one has the right to judge another’s choices until they’ve “walked a mile” in that person’s shoes.
Even if being fat is theoretically, in a sterile environment, a choice, “mountains of evidence” : ) would seem to indicate that functionally, it isn’t for most fat people.
Almost no fat people ever become thin, WHATEVER the reason might be. There isn’t, therefore, much of a real choice for most fat people about being fat – so you can’t justify weight discrimination by saying they could be thin if they wanted to be (which is the question this debate started with).
Also, like I mentioned before, the practice of staying thin is not dissimilar to staying behaviorally non-gay. You have to work very hard not to get fat again Everyone I know who has lost a substantial amount of weight has regained at least 30 lbs of it, which argues for the fact that thin isn’t “natural” for the fat person, whether because of biological, psychological or sociological hardwiring. I don’t know of a former fat person who gains a naturally thin person’s uncomplicated relationship with food as a result of losing weight.
MG
I’m speaking as a 40-year-old, 180-pound 5’2″ bisexual woman. My experience certainly supports the “next door to impossible” theory of weight loss. I started dieting at age 9, due to parental pressure, and continued dieting until I was 25. It was the standard lose 4 pounds, gain 7, lose 10, gain 15, over and over until I swore at 25 (and 180 pounds) I would never diet again. In fact, I decided I would eat absolutely everything I wanted, just to see what that would be like. Much to my surprise, I found that I didn’t even much like the things I had deprived myself of for so long. And that the feeling of eating too much is distinctly unpleasant. Who knew? I remained fairly active until a weight-lifting injury in my late twenties, followed by years of serious joint pain. I put on some weight, bit by bit, in my thirties, and about three years ago, I weighed about 225. I was hideously uncomfortable, had no energy, truly no desire to move at all, and no desire whatsoever to eat. I finally consulted a dietitian, and was shocked to discover that I was not consuming a sufficient number of calories (well under 1000 a day, most of the time, and many days virtually zero). She recommended a diet and (very moderate) exercise plan, and I started to feel better eventually, although I did gain a little weight (it was very difficult not to be discouraged by this). It wasn’t all that long before I started to have energy again, and I got a dog who liked a leisurely jog every morning. Within a year or so I had lost 50 pounds, and was back to around 175-180 and feeling healthy and energetic, if not wildly attractive. I still find it difficult to eat as much as I’m supposed to, but I’m enjoying my body more than maybe ever before. I’ve certainly been thinner and younger and more beautiful, but I’ve never felt so good as I do now. And how is this like being queer? Well, it is and it isn’t. But after years of pretending (and I was pretending, yes) to be straight and then insisting I was a lesbian (evidence to the contrary be damned) for another decade or so, I’m happy to report that I just don’t care any more. I fall in love from time to time, almost always with funny, smart people who (with only a few exceptions) have green or hazel eyes and laugh at most of my jokes. My point? Yes, I could choose to live as a gay person or a straight person, but I will never be either one. I could choose to be fatter than I am, and much less healthy, but I don’t think I could choose to be very much thinner.
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I’m a gay male who is a fitness freak vegetarian type, so take this how you like. The only issue I have here is that our culture’s obsession with food (cheap, plentiful, and well advertised from cradle to grave) tells me that our society advocates a “fat lifestyle”.
Our culture DOES support obesity because it does two things. One, it increases coloric intake with a very calorie dense, meat and suger based diet, and second, inhibits caloric expendature through a car-centered culture.
However, there is no example of mainstream exceptance of homosexuality. Remember, fat republicans hate gays too.
I know this will get lost, but your prejudicial take on mainstreak “support” for a bigoted idea of a “fat lifestyle” hardly equates to any meaningful acceptance. Indeed, it is quite the opposite, as it is only a strawman arguement trotted out by fat bigots. Yet now we see their imagining of our lives turned around against us.
Clearly, there are plenty of gays who hate fat people. So really, what’s your point?
It is not bigoted stating a fact that mainstream American culture supports a diet of high calorie dense foods with few options for caloric expenditure.
I think it’s kinda funny that you think I’m a bigot since I tend to prefer larger men. In fact, I find few thin men attractive (nothing wrong with being thin, it’s just my preference).
About making my point, I think I made it quite clear. Don’t hate Bstu. Sorry, it was gays in the Nazi concentration camps, not fat people. I love larger people, but to equate their size with my lack of social esteem as a gay person is a stretch.
American culture promotes a sexually promiscuous lifestyle more today than ever before. Dance clubs and bars are meeting grounds for sexual encounters. The internet provides resources never before seen in connecting individuals for the purpose of sexual intercourse. Social taboos on such sexual activity has virtually disappeared in large sections of our nation.
Thus, I conclude that our society is incredibly welcoming and supportive of the choice of an immoral gay lifestyle.
Oh, wait. That presumes that the bigoted view on gays as being sexually obsessive is true. Further, it assumes that even if it is true, that such a culture would actually be supportive of gays. Neither proposition is true and both assumpsions would be deeply rooted in homphobia and a dimissive attitude towards gay bigotry. It is, I suspect, a line of thought encouraged by many anti-gay bigots. And it is a line of thought utterly indistinguishable from the line of thought you used to express your distaste for fat people. So, is it okay then for gay bashers to paint gay men and women as wanton sexual predators? Or to conclude that a sexually free culture necessarily means an end to gay prejudice? Or, is it only your bigotry that’s okay?
And spare me the “some of my best friends” posturing. Would it matter that I had close friends who were gay if I was so quick to paint them with stereotypical identifications? Would it matter that I had a friend who was gay if I just assumed he was immoral and a lesser person that I? Of course not.
You assume fat people are your moral inferiors. I don’t care if you like to have sex with us. I’ve encountered plenty of men who are attracted to fat women and men who are still consumed by social prejudices. In your case, so consumed as to refuse to acknowledge that such prejudices exist and to make the bizarrely unsupported by reality claim that ours is a fat friendly culture. Whether our culture is supportive of eating or not is a different issue from fat bigotry. Your intent on conflating the issues is an act of prejudice. It is a demonstation of your claimed moral superiority over fat people. And it isn’t fair or true.
BTSU. I never said in this discussion that fat people are my moral inferiors. If you want a friendly discussion, you need to be truthful. I made a biological fact. That’s all. Do you want a discussion, are do you want to just name call? In just stating a biological fact about the intake of calories to the lack of expenditure, you have called my “prejudice” and say that I “distaste fat people”. Huh? How did you get from one thing to another?
Do I think that fat people suffer discrimination? Yes, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the Western diet right now promotes obesity. Have I seen fat people discriminate against thin people? Yes, just like I have seen gay people get nasty around straight people.
I do not feel that fat people are fat because of a lack of will power. I believe that obesity is a complex problem brought on by cultural factors and a mechanized agricultural system that produces too many calories.
On a personal note. My best friend of twenty years finally had too have gastric bypass surgery after he could not even get out of bed. The surgery cured his diabetes and high blood pressure. It saved his life. So, I’m glad you are fat and proud, but for some it’s torture. Watching him suffer has made me more cognizant of the plight of larger people. Yes, and larger people have criticized him for having the surgery, but it was his life at stake.
Traviaso wrote:
1. You’re conflating two different things; cultural practices which (you claim) make it more likely people will become fat,and “mainstream acceptance.” But even if I accept your first premise, that in no way disproves the fact that fat people experience an extreme lack of acceptance everywhere in our culture.
2. You keep on claiming that this calorie/expenditure thing is a “biological fact.” Actually, as you’re using it here, that’s not a fact, it’s just your opinion. I have to wonder, did you even read the post you’re responding to? In particular, did you read the quote from the New England Journal of Medicine:
The reality isn’t as simple as you claim.
Besides, Americans are now far more calorie-and-exercise conscious than ever before. Low-calorie food is an enormous seller, available in every supermarket; one of the biggest fast-food places in the country, Subway, is big partly because it has a big low-calorie menu. There are gyms everywhere, j0ggers everywhere, bikers everywhere (okay, maybe that last bit is because I live in Portland). And yet we are constantly told that Americans are fatter than ever.
You seem to be assuming that Americans are now eating more calories and exercising less than ever before. I find that doubtful, and I wonder if you have any legitimate evidence to support that claim. Did people really eat fewer calories in 1990, and exercise more? What’s the evidence?
And if I had written “what fat people and gay people have in common is that both of them were put into concentration camps by the Nazis,” what you said above would be a legitimate rebuttal. But obviously I didn’t write that.
I did write about two specific things I think gay people and fat people have in common. If you’d like to have a discussion about those two specific things, then great. But responses like “fat people weren’t in the death camps” are strawman responses, not a genuine response to anything I wrote.
Finally, regarding your friend who was immobile, I’m glad his health is getting better. But because he found gastric surgery helpful doesn’t prove that he will always find it helpful (a lot of people who get weight loss surgery gain the weight back five years later). I really hope that doesn’t happen to him.
Nonetheless, on the whole, I still think a “healthy at every size” (HAES) approach – meaning healthier eating combined with consistent moderate exercise – is a better choice for the large majority of fat and obese people who have health concerns. Even if the gastric bypass was the right choice for your friend, I’m sure you’ll agree that anecdotal evidence can’t prove that gastric bypass is right and HAES is wrong for most fat people.
But your criticism isn’t truthful, because BTSU never said you had said fat people are your moral inferiors. What his post, taken as a whole, said was that you’re using a line of argument which implicitly accepts as true a number of bigoted beliefs about fat people. From this he drew the conclusion that, at some level, you think you’re better than fat people.
I’ve run into many anti-gay bigots who assured me that they love gay people like themselves, and in no way saw themselves as better than queers. But they still accepted a lot of Jerry-Fawell-like myths about queers which are rooted in our culture’s widespread bigotries about queers. Merely because they don’t say, explicitly, that they think they’re better than gays doesn’t mean that they don’t.
Am I saying that you’re an anti-fat bigot? No, I’m not (Bstu and I don’t take quite the same approach here). But I think anti-fat bigotry, like a lot of other bigotries, is commonplace throughout our society. And I think that if you want to have an open-minded discussion about this, then you have to accept the possibility that you have anti-fat bigotry inside that you haven’t confronted or eliminated. If you just dismiss the possibility out of hand – or make dubious claims like “one of my best friends is obese, therefore I can’t have any internalized fat-prejudice to work on” – then that doesn’t make it seem like you’re approaching this discussion with an open mind.
I would clarify that I don’t think Traviaso is a bigot. At least not in the classic sense, although I see I inarticulately implied that he was one. I was too expansive in my condemnation of the “fat lifestyle” arguement, in that it is not only promoted by fat bigots although it is also an expression of fat bigotry.
I don’t believe one needs to be a bigot in order to accept, endorse, and even promote bigotry. Much bigotry in our culture is a learned behavior that individuals rarely think much about yet they still blindly accept to be true. I would regard a bigot as someone who is active, not passive, in the acceptance and promotion of bigotry. But, this distinction should never bind one from calling bigotry out. Indeed, it is most essential to confront bigotry when promoted by those who have passively accepted it. This is an issue of unique importance to fat people as nearly all anti-fat bigotry is promoted by people who would never think themselves a bigot or spend the time to actively hate fat people. But it is not a unique circumstance. Much anti-gay bigotry is just as unthinking, ideas accepted because they “just are” rather than with any kind of malicious forethought. Indeed, the first step in confronting any form of prejudice and bigotry must be confronting this directly. Bigotry thrives when people who ought to know better aren’t challenged on their prejudices.
With fat bigotry, it is often the same tired arguements again and again. Frequently, the same discussion will see multiple people raise the same bigoted point that had already been responded to repeatedly. Yet every new person feels entitled to make it again. Which is precisely what we see here with Traviaso. His strawman arguement had been made repeatedly. Yet, he does not respond to the rebutals of it. He just states it yet again. Indeed, he just states the same position that this whole post was a response to. It is a tiresome lack of respect that just continues to demonstrate the moral self-righteousness that fat bigotry breeds.
Wow! If you think that Subway is healthy eating, than, my friend, we don’t just have a cultural gap, but a reality gap. There are no healthy fast-food fair, even if they advertise themselves that way. Subway sells high calorie, highly toxic meat items full of estrogene-laiden meats and cheeses that (like estrogen does) makes you gain weight. It also sells breads full of High Fructose Corn syrup that your body considers foreign and creates a state of shock to your metabolic system. Since the body was never meant to digest so many simple carbs in one setting, it actually causes the body to release mega-dosis of insulin, leading to diabetes.
As a vegetarian, it is very hard to find food to eat besides the grocery store. Austin is much like Portland with many healthy restaurants, bikers, and runners. Yet, I had to go to Houston this weekend and I thought I was going to starve to death!!!
Remember, that I stated “calorie dense foods”. As a vegetarian, I probably eat more food in weight then you do. My friend who I mentioned earlier who had the gastric bypass surgery was surprised as how much I nibbled throughout the day. But, vegetable and plant matter is very low calorie dense, with most of it’s mass being water and fiber.
The myth that fat people gorge all day at the buffet isn’t necensarily so, though it could be true in some cases. My friend would skip meals and eat a large dinner. By skipping breakfast (which he hated) he never was able to speed his metabolism. Like I said, calorie expenditure needs to equal caloric intake to maintain the same weight, but it’s breakfast that starts the fire.
Also, something that bothers me is that you say that there are many people who are attracted to fat people who still have some bigotry towards fat people. What? So even if they befriend you and love and find you sexually appealing, they still hate you for being fat? The whole world is not against you. I don’t think that straight people hate me. In fact, the vast majority don’t really give a damn. Only those who have a political and religious agenda (and those people are very loud right now).
You say that there are gay people who hate fat people. This is true, but the gay community has a place for larger gay men and their admirers called the “Bear movement”. There will always be people who hate you for something, but gay culture has made accomodations. Gays have no accomodations in mainstream society. Gays and many racial minorities are relagated to the fringe of society. No one has murdered a fat person for being fat. There is no fat “matthew shepard”. As a male, I would never say that understand totally what a woman goes through in American society.
My friend would skip meals and eat a large dinner. By skipping breakfast (which he hated) he never was able to speed his metabolism. Like I said, calorie expenditure needs to equal caloric intake to maintain the same weight, but it’s breakfast that starts the fire.
Hmmm. I have hardly ever eaten breakfast over the last 27 years. I rarely have lunch. I eat a big dinner. You would have trouble finding anyone who would describe me as anything other than thin. OTOH, it’s refreshing to know that there are so many folks who think me morally superior due solely to my genetics & the metabolism it has endowed me with.
IMHO, you are nuts.
Actually, if you read my post carefully I was rebuffing the myth that all fat people overeat and are lazy. Please read carefully. Studies over and over again have shown the importance of breakfast and eating early to health and weightloss.
Like I stated, I probably gorged more than he did, but metabolic rate is a mixture of genetics, diet, and cultural practices (early or late eating, or observances of feasts and famine). Again, this goes to my original post of why American culture is in many ways sponsoring an epidemic of obesity. In the book “Diet for a new America”, Robbins shows that Americans over the last half century do not consume many more calories than fifty years ago. It’s culture dictating how and from where we are getting these calories (and the lack of expenditure of these calories). As people are forced to work more hours, as fast food has become more prevelant, calories are coming from less nutritious sources with less fiber and more saturated fats. Breakfast and lunch (which are the primary meals in my mother’s native-american/ latin ancestry) are sacrificed, leaving the bulk of calories being consumed in the evening, at one time, right before we go to bed (where we don’t expend the calories). So, I totally agree with fat people when they say that they do not necessarily overeat. It’s cultural to a large degree.
Actually, if you read what you wrote & I quoted, you will see that you place the blame for not “speeding his metabolism” on skipping breakfast. I pointed out that is not a constant in people. I pointed out that I, for one, have not had breakfast in 27 years & have remained thin. I pointed out that you were blaming your fat friend for his fatness. Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that you say that fat people are lazy or overeat. What I did suggest is that you blame this person in particular for keeping his metabolism slow by skipping breakfast and, by extension, blame this particular fat person for being fat. Which is what you did.
Besidesallwhich, Amp correctly noted that our culture sponsoring a lifestyle is not the same as endorsing or accepting said lifestyle.
Actually, I didn’t blame him. This is what he himself told me about himself and his life journey dealing with obesity. You didn’t know this person so you cannot say that he is right of wrong. After the psycholoigical counseling needed before the surgery, he realized how this factor was one out of others that led to his obesity (like I said, this is a complex issue).
Okay, now I know what I’m about to tell you will really piss some people off, but this is my life and this is how it happened. About 10 years ago, I was hit by a drunk driver on my bike. Before that, I was really active and just starting to explore healthy eating (not yet a vegetarian). Well, I couldn’t walk without a cane for about a year, so I gained a lot of weight since I was less active. I went from a 32 waist to a 36 (going for the 38). So, yes I was fat.
It was interesting how different people treated me. Firstly, they took me more seriously and gave me more respect. When I went into a store or restaurant, I got noticed and waiters would see me first and wait on me first. Now, I walk into a store or restaurant and I don’t get treated with as much respect. It as if being a thinner 40 year old, people see me as younger and less mature.
I thought this was in my head until my friend and I went to a restaurant. The hostess set us down and the waiter came, not even talking to me but just spoke to my obese friend. Actually, it kinda pissed me off. After I explained about me experiences when I was fat, he agreed with me. He said that this has happened before that people wait on him before others.
Has anyone else seen this? I assumed that fat people are very discriminated against in out culture, but is it a lot behind closed doors? Is it less obvious?
Look, you can’t have this both ways. You can’t say that fat people are fat because they eat too much and are lazy, and then turn around and indignantly claim that you aren’t saying that. What did you think the point you were making with all that nonsense about a “fat” lifestyle? You were saying that people are fat because they eat too much and are sedentary. You kept insisting you weren’t blaming fat people but rather, “society”, but the implication is the same. Fat people are lazy gluttons coddled into “obesity” by an endorsing culture.
You might want to avoid that implication, but that is precisely the point you make when you huff about how our culture is subjecting us to fatness. You are still treating fat as a moral failing. Doesn’t matter where you place the blame. You are still stimgatizing fatness as immoral and fat people will suffer no matter what nuances are added to such a system.
BStu, you’re setting up a false dilemma. It’s very possible to recognize the cultural factors that (allegedly) have led to an increase in weight without in any way blaming individuals for being fat.
“You can’t say that fat people are fat because they eat too much and are lazy, and then turn around and indignantly claim that you aren’t saying that.”
But he’s not saying they eat too much, is he? He’s saying they eat calorie dense foods at times of the day that lead to an increase in metabolism, and not because of their choices, but because calorie dense foods make up the vast majority of available foods nowadays. He’s not saying they’re lazy, is he? He’s saying they’re not as active, because of changes in living patterns created by American-style suburbs and freeways and such.
“but the implication is the same. Fat people are lazy gluttons coddled into “obesity” by an endorsing culture.”
You’re saying that from the premise that the structure of society has led to an overall increase in weight, the inescapable implication is that fat people are lazy gluttons? How is this not a strawman?
I object to Travieso’s “epidemic” language, which is inflammatory and begs the question.
Travieso:
“Actually, if you read my post carefully I was rebuffing the myth that all fat people overeat and are lazy. Please read carefully.”
It’s generally counterproductive to assume that someone’s misunderstanding was the result of a lack of careful reading, and even less productive, not to mention impolite and uncharitable, to exhort them to read more carefully. Better to quote yourself and ask how your words could have led to their understanding.
Liberal fat bigotry may insist on there being a distinction between blaming society and blaming the individual, but in practice it is no different. Both stigmatize the nature of being fat. Both conclude that fat individuals engage in behavior deemed morally inferior. Both result in oppression against fat people. I don’t believe liberal fat bigotry should be exaulted in anyway simply because it pretends to draw focus away from fat individuals. The problem is that it is still our bodies and our lives they presume to judge. I take little comfort in knowing they don’t blame me specifically for my body when they still feel the need to assign blame for my body. They still flaunt their disgust and moral indignation over my body, even if they want to avoid thinking about the fat people living their lives. Its a distinction for their benefit, not for mine. It does absolutely nothing to benefit me.
Sorry, that accidentally posted before I finished. I do think that the suggestion that society encourages people to eat more and excercise less does lead to the inescapable conclusion that this suggests that fat people eat more and exercise less. If this circumstance is a “benefit” for fat people as suggested, that implication seems quite direct to me. If fat people are not lazy and gluttonous, then what is the point of discussing how fat people are supported by a culture that promotes laziness and gluttony? Making sweeping generalizations may seem like a nice way to avoid dealing with their personal implications, but I don’t buy it. I don’t think its a stawman arguement at all to address the real-world implications of a person’s positions. If fat people are fat because our culture supports gluttony and laziness, then this has to mean that a critical mass of individual fat people are gluttonous and lazy. Whoever you blame for this is a seperate issue, but the “fat lifestyle” position quite clearly posits that most fat people engage in such activities.
BStu, your response clarified a lot. Thanks.
“Liberal fat bigotry may insist on there being a distinction between blaming society and blaming the individual”
As I read him, Travieso was blaming society, to some degree. And if you start out blaming society, a lot of what you say does follow, because when it’s said or implied that there’s blame to be assigned, it’s implied that something is blameworthy.
But I think it’s possible to just observe what society has done, without necessarily desiring to change it. One could even think it a positive development. Now, I expect you’ll say that most of the time when people just “observe” it, they’re really blaming backhandedly. And that may be true. But not everyone that makes those observations has any interest in blaming anyone.
Furthermore, it’s possible to blame society for causing, e.g., tooth decay for not flouridating its water, without blaming any individual with tooth decay or thinking them morally inferior. Now, in the case of anti-fat bigotry, I’m not saying that the two aren’t regularly conflated, or even that many people actually take the blame-society-not-the-victims view, but they’re not logically connected.
“If fat people are not lazy and gluttonous, then what is the point of discussing how fat people are supported by a culture that promotes laziness and gluttony?”
Once, again, you’re calling laziness what others are calling physical environments that make it harder to get exercise, and you’re calling gluttony what others are calling a coporate food industry that pushes low-quality foods onto the people. You may think those are just long-winded euphemisms, but I think they’re really different things. I don’t know whether they actually are the cause of increased weight, but I’m open to the idea. (Of course, coming here and asserting it without any evidence is pretty rude.) I’m not, however, open to the idea that people have gotten lazier and more gluttonous. That strikes me as farcical. And while it’s possible to use dirty rhetoric to get from one to the other, and while many people could fail to see the difference, and while even talking about it may be unproductive outside limited contexts, the connection isn’t logically implied.
So I think a better way to address Travieso’s post would be to, first, point out that assuming that society is to “blame”, and using language like “epidemic”, is begging the question of whether fat = bad. Second, point out that bringing up societal causes is a red herring in most discussions. Third, point out how it’s rhetorically close to more naked anti-fat bigotry, and should thus be avoided except when it’s truly relevant, and then treated with a lot of care.
So when would it be relevant? In discussions of government policy affecting food, it seems like talking about actual health, at any size, would be more relevant than effects on the population’s weight. (Though, sadly, appeals to anti-fat bigotry might make talking about fatness more effective rhetorically than talking about health.) I can’t think of anything else, really. So maybe it’s always a red herring.
It’s not about “blame”. It’s about how we can better create a society that is healthier and more just. The corporate food culture effects everyone different. While it promotes obesity for some, it creates food allergies in others. My beef here is with a mechanized corporate food “system’ that is killing us slowly, not fat people.
I have been nothing but civil on this board, yet I have been called a “bigot” and “prejudiced”. Wow! I never said that fat people were lazy or gluttonous. In fact the opposite! How would you like me to judge you right off the bat just because you are straight and white?
If you want people to be sympathetic to your cause, STOP ATTACKING THEM PERSONALLY!!! Just because i made some points found in the current research about nutrition and the epidemiology of obesity, I have been called a “bigot”.
Believe me, as a gay person of mixed ancestry, I played the “blame everyone” game when I was younger. Well guys, it doesn’t work. It just makes people less understanding of your plight. More importantly, you yourself began to dehumanize others. We have seen some of this on this post with the name calling.
Another thing I don’t like is this sort of “self censorship” as if just exploring the fact that Americans tend to overweight is considered some kind of bigotry. There is nothing wrong, and it is good, to explore issues. It seems like some people on this post as so upset just because I have taken some surrent research-research that it apart from, and isn’t out th get you. Cultural practices effect these things.
What is good in one culture may become dis-advantagous over time. While High caloric food made sense during times of major caloric expenditure, it not so today. Apart from the obesity issue alone, highly caloric meat centered diets use up too many earth resources to the point that it destroys precious top soil (creating deserts), creates a system of nutritional inequality with resources going to feed livestock and not the World’s poor, and depletes precious drinking water. It’s not all about you, honey. Though we are all apart of the chain. I have just opted out.
Travieso said:
“I believe that obesity is a complex problem brought on by cultural factors and a mechanized agricultural system that produces too many calories.”
and:
“The only issue I have here is that our culture’s obsession with food (cheap, plentiful, and well advertised from cradle to grave) tells me that our society advocates a “fat lifestyle”.”
These two statements contradict what you’re claiming your point was originally. Saying that it’s a “problem” and an “obsession” indicates that you *are* blaming. It’s not bad if your viewpoint has changed, but don’t try to pull a bait-and-switch.
“I have been nothing but civil on this board, yet I have been called a “bigot” and “prejudiced”. Wow!”
Yeah, that’s BStu for you. On the other hand, it’s good not to take allegations of bigotry and prejudice personally. You never know if you might be harboring them, and an objective discussion can sometimes lead to insights into your own attitudes.
Before his gastric bypass, my friends blood sugar was 700 and all diabetic therapy was becoming ineffective. Two months after the surgery his blood pressure went to normal and he was able to get off his meds. For him and many others, obesity was a problem!!! The excessive calories of the American does support a FAT LIFESTYLE. I have been to Europe, Africa, South America, and Canada, and Americans are easily identifable because we are, on average, large.
It would be “fat biogtry’ if I said that fat people are all lazy and gluttons. Well, that is not what I’m saying. As I have repeated earlier, this problem has social and cultural roots to a large degree.
And your argument about “harboring” bigotry can go both ways, honey. Maybe you are so hyper-critical of my argument becuase you suffer deep internalized racism and homophobia. See! It goes both ways. That’s just another attempt at veiled name calling. It gets you know where.
That’s just another attempt at veiled name calling.
No, it really isn’t. Not from pdf23ds, anyway. Is it too much to ask you to consider the possibility? To really examine it deeply and see if there is any kernel of truth to it? Rather than immediately deny & discard it, I mean.
Your persecution complex on display is getting tired here. With the possible exception of BStu, nobody here has been anything but courteous & civil to you – even while pointing out that your comments seem to (a) be focused on placing blame and (b) have assumptions of facts that are not really facts.
Uh! This is a big case of “projection” here on your part my friend. No, many of you have not been civil on this board. In fact, many of you have been downright rude and judgemental.
I usually don’t like to pull the homophobia card, but sense you think that you have license to lecture me on discrimination….well, here it goes from a “true” minority!!! Firstly, I never said blame. That is you projecting your own insecurities and self-loathing into my comments. I have been scientific in this discussion. It was YOU who has been judgemental!!! Maybe, you think that you are better then a “little gay boy”. Maybe, if I was straight and anglo, you wouldn’t be so judgemental and self-righteous. See, if you want to play the “victim”, honey, I’ll win on that.
If your idea was too make others more sympathetic to your condition, you have failed. In fact, I have made my decision, and considering the almost hysterical comments I have received by just stating the scientific fact that “caloric expenditure must be equal to the caloric intake to maintian the same weight”, I realize more then ever how deluded we are as a country in regards to the damage we are doing to our bodies and our Earth. For god’s sake, “Subway” is not healthy eating!
This is sad. You have caused me to be more critical of the fat acceptance movement, and I will tell others about this experience. What do you want? To just be “poor me” or do you really want to educate others on your plight? From this discussion, I got the idea that you just wanted to complain. I have been scientific. What? You like science when you need medical care, but you hate when it doesn’t fit into your view of nutrition and health? I see. You want it both ways.
That’s okay. This is my last post. See ya. I’ve made my decision, and I am not supportive of fat acceptance if it means the same old support for a diet that is killing us and the planet.
I’m not sure these positions are irreconcilable.
Let’s try this. It may, of course, be flawed:
a) Americans have a higher intake of processed foods than people from some other countries.
b) Americans have less opportunity for physically based lifestyles.
c) These two things have led to a small, but noticeable weight gain — what is it, 9 pounds per average American? (and I’d suspect that this stat is misleading, because of course the statistical average American is a mythical beast — perhaps many americans have stayed the same weight while some percentage have gained more than the 9 pounds, leading to a higher visibility of obese people. Of course, that higher visibility would be compounde by other factors, such as hypersensitivity to weight and an increasingly narrow medical definition of “normal” weight.)
d) Generally, the health of Americans — based on these measures and these measures alone — is below what it might be otherwise. (While, of course, American health is probably going up by other measures due to medical advances which are available to some percentage of society.)
e) While this decline in health affects *all* Americans, whose behavior is statistically equal (all of us are eating the same amount & kinds of calories & exercising the same basic amount), it is visible only in that portion of people in whom the poor food choices and lack of exercise – which affect all Americans — manifests as fat.
f) The portion of the society which visibly represents problems affecting the whole society more or less equally gets the flak.
g) To incorporate class into this matrix, replace “society” with “economic group” — because as I understand it, while available food and exercising behaviors are static within class regardless of body size, they are not static across classes.
h) Some adjustment would probably also have to be made for race, since I believe that Anglo people are more genetically inclined toward thinness than some other groups (which would make the veneration of slenderness in a white dominated multiracial society about equivalent to emphasizing the caucasian nose).
i) probably some accounting would have to be made for the fact that the thinness observed in some non-developed cultures is due to unhealthiness and calorie deficit, thus meaning that the “well, where I went to work in Calcutta, no one was fat” argument is a tad questionable.
—
So, that’s my preliminary attempt to account for changes in lifestyle, comparison of Americans to other cultures, and at the same time, the idea that fat americans are *no less healthy, active, or overeating* than the rest of Americans.
I’m sure y’all will punch holes in it — which I’d greatly appreciate!
it is visible only in that portion of people in whom the poor food choices
Replace “poor food choices” with the ease, ubiquity & cheapness of less healthy, processed foods over their healthier organic counterparts — to take blame off the eaters and place it on the producers.
and lack of exercise
Change this too — reduction of exercise in comparison to physically demanding lifestyles held by some other cultures
(‘cuz, yeah, 90 minutes on the bike is great and all, but is it really hoeing all day?)
Given that there is no indication that fat people eat differently than thin people (even within classes) and that fat people who excercise have been shown to be quite healthy in their own right, I think the notion of a “fat lifestyle” just doesn’t hold weight, if you’ll pardon the pun. For all the hand-wringing over the supposed increase in fat people, the increase isn’t all that large and there is a MUCH liklier cause staring us in the face. Dieting.
Dieting is a 40 Billion Dollar industry and a practice engaged in by virtually all fat people on a regular basis, as well as many “average” and thin people. Anecodotally, we are seeing the culture of dieting spreading, both by body size and age. Younger and younger children are being pressured to diet as our society freaks out about the continued existance of fat children and frequently targets “at risk” children who are verifiably not fat for dieting as a “preventative” measure.
However, weight loss diets have a shockingly high rate of failure for something so universally endorsed. Hovering around 95-99% depending on how often one has dieted. Further, diet failures have been shown to result in more weight being regained than was lost 90% of the time. So, if an ever increasing number of people are engaging in an activity that will result in weight gain nearly all of the time, why is it that we need to bend of backwards inventing reasons for fat people to exist? The cure is the disease. Not being fat.
“the increase isn’t all that large and there is a MUCH liklier cause staring us in the face. Dieting.”
So you’re suggesting that America’s increase in weight might be due largely to dieting? That sounds plausible to me. But the factor I would suspect the most is commercially prepared/processed food.
Has regular exercise been shown to lead to any weight loss? I know that diet programs don’t, and that exercise won’t *always* lead to weight loss, and that if it doesn’t it’s still worthwhile, but what’s the average effect? Googling leads to this. Many studies showed regular aerobic exercise to lead to considerable weight loss in the short term. So a society whose members’ lifestyle includes regular aerobic exercise could well be thinner than one whose doesn’t. And decrease amounts of average exercise could well lead to increases in average weight.
I don’t see any reason why all three factors couldn’t be causal here.
I’m with you, pdf, in assuming that the issue is complicated and multi-causal.
Anyway, I need to stop ignoring my own advice. How are these hypothetical causes of increased weight relevant? Has the shift in weight caused an overall increase in morbidity? How does that shift compare to more direct factors involving the affect of lack of exercise or quality of nutrition on morbidity? Is weight just a red herring? These things need to be established.
>
While I am generally in agreement with the fat acceptance movement’s revisions of commonly held assumptions about fat, and attach on fat phobia, this is the one point that I think often gets overlooked.
Maybe I missed some great posts here or elsewhere, but do you AMP have evidence that we are not as a whole “getting fatter?” And if we are, I believe that does bear some investigation, though I reject any explanation that primarily relies on lack of self-restraint and decaying morals.
But I think there might be a role for corn subsidies and palm oil and the decline of food prices relative to other necessities in explaining population girth.
Here’s one part of a presentation I did recently –> the Thin Privilege Checklist : https://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/lauren-drake-rice/thin-privilege-list/10150705704433099
Thanks for a lovely blod!