Help the obese: snigger

The NHS in east Suffolk has announced that it will no longer perform hip or knee replacements on people classed as “obese”. Never mind that the definition it uses for obesity — a body mass index of 30 or higher — is increasingly discredited, and that a much more reliable way of measuring healthy weight is waist-to-hip ratio. (It should be 0.9 or less in men, and 0.85 or less in women; you can check it on www.healthstatus.com/calculate/whr ).

A greater objection to this denial of treatment to fatties on account of their self-inflicted fatness is: where on earth do you stop?

Should NHS dental treatment be denied to women who eat too much chocolate? Should the hugely expensive course of anti-retroviral drugs for HIV be denied to promiscuous homosexuals, or sex tourists recently returned from Pattaya Beach? For that matter, what about women who have dieted rather than gluttonised all their lives, neglecting their calcium intake and so risking osteoporosis in later life?

Fatties surely have just as much right to be treated on the NHS as smokers, binge drinkers, or any other taxpayers. Instead of threatening plump people’s already threatened health by denying them treatment, how about giving them the new bits they need, while encouraging them to lose weight with a little gentle, old-fashioned mockery?

Fatties should of course be free to squeeze out of the closet, their XXXL T-shirts emblazoned with such legends as “Fat and Happy!” “Out, Stout and Proud!” and so forth. What they cannot demand, I think, is the right to be free from teasing, either in the playground or in later life. There is and always will be something innately funny about fat people. They wobble so much, for one thing.

I was once stranded for 24 hours in Houston, self- proclaimed Fat Capital of the World, and I have never seen so many enormously fat people in my life, nor felt such a juvenile but well-nigh irrepressible urge to laugh out loud. The reason they are all so fat is that they drive everywhere, and stuff themselves from dawn till long after dusk with double choc-chip deep fried spicy pepperoni monster pizzas topped with extra cheddar-style cheese, and gallon bargain-buckets of buffalo wings on the side. This is not a dignified way to behave.

But laughing at fatties is no longer encouraged in the Land of the Fat and Home of the Brave. Take their National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Members recently staged a demonstration in New York, dressed in grass hula skirts, tiaras and flamingo headbands, throwing beach balls around and dancing the “hokey-pokey fat liberation” song. They then solemnly stepped onto scales modified with supportive words like “stunning”, “pretty” and “beautiful” instead of numbers. This is not going to help their condition any more than the mean-spirited health services in east Suffolk.

Obesity is well on the way to becoming the No 1 cause of death in the developed world, which in itself is no joke. In a few decades’ time everywhere will look like Houston, or worse still, the Freedom Paradise resort in Mexico, which boasts reinforced beds, double-width doors, and dining chairs 26in wide but without arms in case they get stuck to diners’ wider-than-26in bottoms when they stand up.

Cindy Sabo, spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, has given Freedom Paradise her seal of approval. Placing herself in the “oversize” category at around 400lb, Sabo recalls “some terrible experiences with some other tourists” on a recent holiday in Hawaii. “Especially some people from Asian countries would walk right up to you on the beach, poke you in the belly and make some rude joke.” What a marvellous image: a crowd of lean little Chinese people gathered around an enormous American woman, poking and prodding her delightedly while she lies there in the Hawaiian sand, huffing and puffing with a self-righteous indignation quite lost on them.

Being overweight is hardly the greatest sin one can commit, pace the doctors and consultants of east Suffolk. But that doesn’t mean obesity is an entirely neutral “lifestyle option” either. It isn’t a cardinal or mortal sin, but a venal one. But obesity does betray self-indulgence, a lack of self-control and a habit of mostly solitary greed.

Despite the protests of fatties that it’s their metabolism that is responsible, or their genes, we all know that those among our friends who incline to porkiness are almost always the ones who chomp their way through an entire packet of Chocolate HobNobs when the rest of us make do with one or two.

A certain mockery, a certain hearty Chaucerian laughter at human weakness and venality, can have a beneficial purpose; although, like shame, it is a social mechanism rather out of fashion. It might not only provoke merriment, but also suggest to its “victims” that perhaps they ought to consider their ways and be wise; or in modern parlance, review their lifestyle choices.

Laughing at fat people might be the first step on the road to them losing weight. And then those sternly Calvinistic medical men of east Suffolk might not have to bother about fitting them with new knees anyway.

"Your asking that question suggests to me that you don't know the real definition of the word "poor".

That would be an error. I've traveled over large areas of the world, and have seen real poverty. You are correct that Americans are not poor in comparison to many in, say, the Philippines, but they are poorer than their more affluent, and more slender, countrymen.

"(in other words,we were far more physically active back then)."

That misses my point. Back then I was more active, ate like a little pig, and was skinny as a broomstraw. When I took a shower, I had to run around to get wet, and tie a 2X4 across my butt to keep from getting sucked down the drain.

Suddenly, almost overnight, something changed, when I was 21. Suddenly I had to watch what I ate very carefully *and* get olympian quantities of exercise to avoid weight gain. I had to be *more* active than I was as a child, and eat like a hummingbird.

There's another factor there somewhere. It's not just overating and underexercising. If that were the only problem, a normal person with normal dietary habits getting a normal amound of exercise would be of normal weight. Instead, many people must exert heroic efforts, and that's not normal.

"Have you looked into the theories that our aspartame laden soft drinks and foods are causing us to crave sweets and carbohydrates? I'm giving up artificial sweeteners."

Haven't looked into the theories, but artificial sweeteners don't seem to agree with me. I have cut way back on grains and sweets, and if I have sweets, I try to get stuff made with dehydrated sugar cane juice. You can get it at health food stores or Trader Joe's. Because it hasn't been refined, it includes the minerals and B vitamins from the sugar cane juice, which your body needs to digest the sugar. It seems to have less of an effect on my blood sugar. (Of course, it's usually in whole grain products, so maybe that's part of the difference as well.)

Two books I think you should look into: The Step Diet, which uses a pedometer to measure how much you're actually moving around on a daily basis, and then challenges you to get more active; and The Metabolic Typing Diet, which deals with your body type/metabolism, recommending either a higher protein, a higher carb, or a mixed type diet (with foods from both the protein and the carb types). I felt a huge difference in my energy levels when I implemented the protein type recommendations.

Oh...I heard about a study years ago that said that in 1905 the average American walked 2 hrs/day versus in 1985, the average American walked 5 minutes/day. At least partially explains the weight gain?

A person who exercises should be able to maintain his weight without sticking to "a strict diet." Some people can; some people can even overeat without getting fat. For others, a strict diet *and* exercise are both necessary.

Clearly, there is another factor at work. The sooner medical science stops patting itself on the back and gets to work finding that other factor, the sooner the "epidemic" of obesity will be brought under control.

*****

While there may be a scientific approach to obesity, the majority of it is caused by eating crap food, pure and simple. There was no dramatic change to the human body in the last couple thousand years, expect that with the industrial revolution, came refined white flour, and sugar.

Did you know, before that, heart attacks were rare?

ALL food these days, unless it's fresh and cooked by yourself, is loaded with sugar, carbs, and highly refined fructose syrup, which acts like a sugar H-bomb to your blood sugar. Start reading food labels, and look at the percentages of sugars and fructose is in your food. Add in a sedentary lifestyle sitting on a couch or computer chair, and you get fat people.

It's really simple, yet everyone is quick to point out other things to blame, and seek the magic pill to cure it. I had a coworker insist she had a bad thyroid, and that's why she was obese (and said it eating a salad loaded with sugary dressing and croutons, drinking a Coke, and had eaten half the bread basket). I asked her if she'd been officially diagnosed with a bum thyroid. No. But it runs in her family! So, I asked, why not go get tested? It's fairly routine, your insurance will cover it, and it's treated fairly easily. Well...

Or you can have risky and very invasive surgery to control your eating, which, i hate to admit it,because it has worked for people, but it's pathetic. It's so very American - don't confront and change the behavior, just pop a pill, or cut someone's stomach in half, instead of dealing with WHY the person eats too much, WHAT they eat, and WHEN. Noooo, that's hard.

Some people have efficient metabolisms and blood chemistry, and eat within the safe zone where weight gain doesnt happen, or it's small increments. Someone who is obese generally has a blood chemistry completely out of whack (go study insulin resistance) and a shredded metabolism - they've tipped so far into the far, far end of the scale, even eating a normal, balanced meal will make them gain weight. I'd bet most of them don't know what "full" means anymore, and eat past it regularly.

I look at it as having already thrown the party, you now have to clean up, and it'll cost you the rest of your life. It's unfair that our bodies are created that way, but years of eating crap food, and large quantities of it, is what causes most obesity, and the only way to change that is to make drastic changes in your lifestyle, once you've gotten obese. Sure, once you lose the weight, you can have goodies once in a while, but the days of dessert with lunch anddinner, snacks all day, and pig outs on the weekends are over for good if you want to lose the weight and keep it off. Most people I know who try dietingget a little success - and go rightback to the eating that got them fat in the firstplace, then complain and snivel about how "diets don't work", or "My metabolism is bad" (not realizing metabolisms can be changed), or "I guess I'm MEANT to be fat..."

Bah.

Yes, there are people with eating disorders, with medical conditions, and some who are on drugs like Paxil that screw with your blood chemistry. But they are a distinct minority, the majority got fat because of what happened between the mouth and the hand, and a sedentary lifestyle.

I was one of them. I saw the light, and I changed it. I was in denial just like every fat person out there. It doesnt have to be that way. There's no magic pills, there's no easy way out, but doing it is worth so much, taking control of your life and your body is the best thing you can do, ever. It's worth it. The denial is hard to break. I have some sympathy for overweight folk, I was one of them, but I don't have much - you have to open your eyes and realize you're doing it to yourself, and I have NO sympathy for that.

I traded cake and cookies and candy and potatoes for goo dhealth and a longer life. That's the kind of commitment it takes, be it lo-carb, lo-fat, whatever. You have to DO IT, KEEP DOING IT, and NEVER STOP. You had your fun, now it's time to pay. It's hard, harder than anything you will ever do, andit will take time. But it's so worth it. You not only lose the weight, feel better, and decrease your chances of diseases like diabetes and highblood pressure, but you become a better person for it. But it's hard work, and let's be honest - it's easy to get fat. Path of least resistance wins out every time.

Or you can join those ridiculous Fat Acceptance people and die young, fat, and miserable. Blunt, cruel, but it's reailty. I'm in the school of tough love when it comes to obesity. Call me a meanyhead, a bastard, whatever. I had to kick myself in the ass to see the light, and lots of other people in this counrty need it, too - coddling them will only make them feel more comfortable haing no control, and will make them bigger victims of some unnamed disease, and demanding the government and drug companies solve their problems.

Actually, it's the opposite. Two obese people that I have known ate 1000 calories a day and 1400 calories a day respectively, just to keep from putting on more weight.

****

I find that hard to believe, from my personal experience and everything I've studied. Maybe dhort term, but not long.

The common censensus is that you need to multiply your weight by 12 (or 15) to get the daily number of calories to maintain your weight. That's a LOT of food for anyone in the 200+ range.

I'd say, your friends are hiding what they eat, and binge when not around others. It's very common.

If they're obese, and eating that little, I'd bet they're gaining, because the body goes into starvation mode when in a deficit of calories, and saves every bit of energy it can. That's why I doubt they eat that little - and if they are, they're doing serious damage to their muscles, as their bodies are scavanging energy by eating muscle tissue.

That's the hardest part of lo-carbing newbies face - eating enough. It's true with other diets as well. With lo-carb, it takes a LOT of veggies and protein to add up the calories, so it's hard to eat past the maintenance levels, and easy to eat below that, so you burn energy via food and stored fat, but don't hit starvation levels. (You also stay sated, which is important).

Any study that says fat people eat less than skinny folk is flat out flawed, as most fat people lie about their diets - it's part of the overall problem. Any study that claims that obese people eat less than skinny folk was either flawed, or the respondents lied.

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