From CNN’s political ticker:
CHOCOLATE, SODA, CIGARS AMONG CANDIDATE BAD HABITS: When The Associated Press asked the presidential candidates about their bad habits, they did not fess up to anything that would sink the republic. John Edwards drinks his bad habit out of a can or bottle – he is a voracious consumer of orange soda. Barack Obama is chewing nicotine gum these days to beat his bad habit and chose something else to mention here. […]
Bill Richardson acknowledged what has been obvious at various campaign functions: He has been eating what’s in front of him, breaking from his regimen of protein shakes.
It’s difficult to imagine that eating at a campaign dinner would be considered a “bad habit” in a non-fat candidate.
(And what does “what’s in front of him” mean? Most people eat from the plates set in front of them. Should Richardson have eaten from the plates of the people sitting to either side, instead?)
Well, “eating what’s in front of you” is actually a saying, and not meant to be taken literally. It means eating whatever’s around, or convenience eating, which usually means junk. And it’s perfectly understandable that someone who’s been on a certain diet (protein shakes, apparently) would consider suddenly eating less healthy a bad habit.
If someone were trying to avoid high-fructose corn syrup*, or even just drinks with few nutrients, then drinking soda would be considered, for that person, a bad habit.
(I didn’t know any of those people were fat, though.)
*Either for dietary reasons, or to not support industrial agra.
Yet again you have pointed out the puritanical desire of others to starve fat people. We must be starved we just must, we deserve it, we need it (=they need it) it seems as if we starve the world will be put to right in all it’s aspects, it is a kind of spiritual need. So let us sacrifice ourselves for them, after you Ampersand!
Yes, changing to a “less healthy” diet isn’t a great idea — but that presumes a lot, starting with the notion that living on protein shakes is healthy. That Richardson’s choice to eat the normal food that everyone around him is eating is being labeled as a bad habit on par with Obama’s cigarette smoking or consumption of the empty calories of soda by Edwards is plainly sizist on its face.
Normal eating — not overeating, not undereating, not disordered eating — is not and should not ever be labeled — a bad habit. Ever.
Normal eating — not overeating, not undereating, not disordered eating — is not and should not ever be labeled — a bad habit. Ever.
Does this really describe how Americans usually eat? I have the impression that most of the eating done in the US is disordered. It’s fed on one side by industrialized megafood corporations and on the other by the weight loss industry.
It really doesn’t matter. Eating a plate of food that’s set in front of you at a campaign fundraiser without obsessing over its protein content/carbs/calories/fat grams/glycemic index/whatever, unless you have a legitimate health reason to micromanage each meal (i.e. an actual disease that can be instantly affected by a meal, like diabetes) is the exact opposite of disordered eating.
Ah well ah well, one can only wish that these “bad habits” were in fact the worst of it. Why do I suspect that all these men have worse “habits” they aren’t being candid about?
Dreama, I really have no idea whether protein shake diets are healthy (I imagine if that’s all you eat, it’s not, but he probably ate more than that). However, you make the same mistake as Ampersand, and assume that “whatever’s in front of me” is a literal statement. It doesn’t mean what’s put on a plate at a dinner (there’s no mention of campaign dinners, in the quote, by the way), and it doesn’t necessarily mean what everyone else is eating. And even if it does, if you have a diet that you consider healthy, and you break from that, it’s a bad habit! It has nothing to do with fat. What’s assuming a lot is the assumption that this has to do with Richardson’s weight, and not him wanting to eat a healthy diet (which may not be a diet that will maintain or reduce his weight).
I understand sensitivity to weight issues, but just because someone’s talking about food doesn’t mean they’re talking about weight. And since no one mentions weight, or even implies anything about weight in any obvious way, I’d suggest cutting your losses and forgetting that you overreacted to this statement.
I just think it’s hilarious that anyone, anywhere still talks about protein shakes as if they belonged in the same universe as “healthy”.
Yeah, too much protein for your kidneys to reasonably deal with and a load of chemicals–that’s much healthier than a bag of chips!
cyrs t writes:
I beg to differ. I knew a man sometime back who had a heart attack in his 30’s due to obesity. He went on a high-protein diet and dramatically improved his health, and lost the weight. I’ve known others over the years as well.
A couple years back I was told by my GYN to cut my red meat consumption, so I did. The result was a 20lb weight gain. When I went back to my former eating habits, which included large amounts of red meat, I lost the 20lbs.
The moral of the story is that a lot of us do know what we need to eat in order to maintain whatever we consider to be our healthy weight.
(As regards the expression “eating what’s put in front of him”, it typically refers to someone who doesn’t stop eating until there’s nothing left in front of them. At events where food is always available, it can result in excess consumption. It’s also well established the people who over consume under estimate what they are eating.)
Furry Cat Herder: as so many tend to do, you are equating “fat” with “unhealthy”.
If the man you described, as well as yourself, got more active and ate higher-quality REAL food, your health would have improved. You may not necessarily have lost weight, but your HEALTH would have improved. Go ahead and eat tons of red meat if you want, but don’t kid yourself into believing that you’re eating any “healthier” than someone who lives on food you consider “junk”. You may be slimmer, but you are NOT healthier.
Protein shakes are bullshit junk food and should be seen as such. And unlike other sorts of junk food, like chips or cookies or crisps, they don’t even make a pleasurable occasional addition to anyone’s diet (“diet” as in “way of eating” not “weight-loss regime”). They’re worse than useless because they masquerade as “healthy” when they’re full of rubbish.
Anyone ever been to a bar diner, a fundraising dinner, an Order of the Poobah Lounge dinner, or…?
It’s not as if he’s saying “oh, eating a normal home cooked meal is unhealthy.”
But jeez, the food at those places… Usually you’ve got a lot of things on your plate. Usually they aren’t all healthy (often, none of them are), or portioned correctly (they’re often too big) or…. And half the time you don’t even get to order.
I mean, he’s not comparing protein shakes to “normal food.” He’s comparing them to what I call “going out food.” And if you go out to those things a lot, and eat everything that gets put before you, you’re not eating healthily in most cases.
To put this in perspective: Do we all really think that we could eat out with great frequency at normal (non-vegan, non-lo-cal) restaurants or conferences, AND eat everything put before us, AND stay healthy? I don’t think I could.
It should be pointed out that Bill Richardson, like all the other Presidential contenders past and present, is eating when he can. Chris is right to point out that “eating what’s in front of him” is just a phrase, but on the campaign trail it’s also a vital necessity. Candidates travel around the country daily, landing in a different town or city, making speeches, raising money, going on talk shows, etc., leaving little time to eat, healthily or not. Alexandra Pelosi’s great documentary on the 2000 Bush campaign showed that the staple fare for the candidate, his staff and the press corps was balogna and cheese sandwiches on white bread.
The real dig at Richardson’s weight is in the phrase “what has been obvious.” You can see the reporter’s eyes lower meaningfully to the Governor’s gut, eyebrow raised and a big smirk, too.
crys t writes:
In the case of Keith, he was demonstrably healthier after switching from what he ate to a higher protein, lower everything else diet.
Oh, I’m plenty active and plenty healthy. That’s the point — what foods we eat can have a big impact on how much of that is stored as fat. For me, if I switch from a majority of meat calories to a majority of carb or fat calories, I gain weight — constant caloric input, constant level of activity (and I’m fairly active).
“In the case of Keith, he was demonstrably healthier after switching from what he ate to a higher protein, lower everything else diet.”
In the case of Keith, we don’t know what he was eating beforehand. Maybe he was living on fast & processed food. There’s no indication that had he switched to eating a diet based on vegetables, grains and pulses and engaged in regular moderate exercise he wouldn’t have been even healthier than he was on the crap-shake diet. You act as if chemical-laden shakes were his only alternative. I posit that a recognition that food is a part of life, and that eating a wide variety of foods is what’s truly healthy would have been a much, much better route to take, and additionally, would be much more likely to result in life-long positive change.
“I’m plenty active and plenty healthy. That’s the point — what foods we eat can have a big impact on how much of that is stored as fat. For me, if I switch from a majority of meat calories to a majority of carb or fat calories, I gain weight”
I’m not even going to get into the fact that all fats and all carbohydrates are in no way equal and that different types are going to have radically different effects on your body. I’m sick of saying it. I will say that once again, you are equating “weight gain” with “unhealthy”. And in doing so, you are wrong.
And if you think that stuffing yourself with a food that is going to clog your circulatory system and hang around rotting in your gut for ages is “healthier” than being a bit heavier, you are also wrong. Do it if you wish, but don’t pretend you are doing something healthy, any more than someone who lives on frozen ready meals is.