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Can Blaming People for Being Fat Help Curb Obesity?
US News and World Report ^ | May 22, 2008 | Katherine Hobson

Posted on 05/23/2008 7:17:18 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084

Stigma can be a powerful force in changing behavior. Just ask smokers, whose once accepted habit is now so marginalized that the prevalence of smoking has dropped to about 19 percent of U.S. adults from nearly 24 percent just a decade ago. A lot of factors figured into the decline since smoking's mid-20th-century peak, but the sense that smoking is disgusting as well as unhealthful and socially costly has certainly contributed to many people's decision to quit.

Now that smokers have been taken care of, the obese are the new scapegoats for a lot of our ills. Last week, a letter published in the Lancet noted that the obese contribute more than their thinner compatriots to food scarcity and global warming, given that they eat more and require more transportation energy to move themselves around. While the authors' intent was probably not to make the obese feel worse, the media translations of the study in my quick Google search turned up headlines such as "Fat People Cause Global Warming, Higher Food Prices" and "Scientists Blame Fat People for Global Warming."

You might think that the obese could use some blame. As obesity increasingly becomes the norm, maybe society has grown too accepting. Perhaps what is lacking is the same thing that helped smokers lose their butts: a healthy dose of social stigma. If only there were more shame in being fat, maybe more people would be motivated to lose weight. But in fact, researchers say, stigma does very little to motivate overweight or obese people to change.

(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: blamegame; carboncult; carbonfootprint; diet; dieting; nannystate; obesity; pufflist; stigma
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To: gracesdad
Including all too frequently right here on FR.

You mean like this?

21 posted on 05/23/2008 7:42:57 PM PDT by elkfersupper
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To: Eric Blair 2084
While the authors' intent was probably not to make the obese feel worse...

Ummmm, I was born - but not yesterday. Yes, the authors' intent was to make the obese feel worse. This same "author" probably would gush over the rights of pedophiles to live near schools.

22 posted on 05/23/2008 7:43:25 PM PDT by GOPJ
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To: gracesdad
"Including all too frequently right here on FR."

Are we supposed to be celebrating obesity diversity and I didn't get the memo, or what?

23 posted on 05/23/2008 7:43:53 PM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde ("When the government fears the people there is liberty ... " Thomas Jefferson)
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To: Eric Blair 2084
A lot of factors figured into the decline since smoking's mid-20th-century peak, but the sense that smoking is disgusting as well as unhealthful and socially costly has certainly contributed to many people's decision to quit.

The difference between smoking and obesity is that with smoking, the anti-smoking folks were successful in creating the notion that others would die from second-hand smoke, so the smoker was supposedly harming others, not just him or herself.

That argument can't be made with folks who are obese. And the idea that the obese should be shamed because they are going to put too much of a strain on the health care system might just blow up in the faces of those who want to make that argument. There are other lifestyle choices that do the same thing, so if the anti-obesity crowd were to try to attack the obese, the question could be asked why isn't anyone telling homosexual men that they shouldn't be engaging in sexual activity because it could kill them, and anyone with whom they have sexual relations? After all, their care puts a strain on the health care system, too, and whereas obese people can lose weight, people with AIDS don't get cured, they can only extend their lives a few years with medication. But since AIDS is the only disease that seems to have it's own civil rights, and obesity doesn't have that same protection, I don't think that subject will be broached.

24 posted on 05/23/2008 7:44:39 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: Eric Blair 2084
Sir Eric, when I go to Vegas in July (where hubby can once again enjoy a cigar with his adult beverage with other like-minded adults), I, being UNDERWEIGHT, will skip the creme brulee at the end of finishing my buffet, in honor or OBAMA, of course, who said we can't be expected to eat as much as we want, because the rest of the world doesn't like it.
25 posted on 05/23/2008 7:45:04 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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To: Eric Blair 2084

The fat sweat, stink and overflow. Let them do it all out of my presence!


26 posted on 05/23/2008 7:46:31 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (I'll pray for celebrities as soon as they start praying for me!)
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To: gracesdad
Including all too frequently right here on FR.

There are more than a handful of crypto-liberals on FR.

They front as conservative until something comes along they disapprove of, then they would give the scumbags at DU a run for their money.
27 posted on 05/23/2008 7:46:33 PM PDT by Dr.Zoidberg ("Shut the hell up, New York Times, you sanctimonious whining jerks!" - Craig Ferguson)
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To: gidget7
Substitute __________ (fill in the blank, whatever you want), into the anti-tobacco playbook, it will work.

Photobucket

Why should my tax dollars go to pay for the lard ass who can't stay away from BK Whoppers and the KFC drive thru window. As a taxpayer, I am paying for his/her diabetic testing equipment and high blood pressure meds.

I won't stand for it. Then these stinky people have the nerve to stick their fleshy elbows in my ribs for 3 hours on an airline flight. I want action. Second hand obesity is not only annoying, it's a killer to my wallet.

28 posted on 05/23/2008 7:47:00 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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To: Dr.Zoidberg

That’s the truth — no true principles. Dishonesty.


29 posted on 05/23/2008 7:47:40 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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To: SuziQ

I think they are trying to make the obese feel as though they are harming their fellow world citizens with their carbon footprint, excessively large to to their excessive size.

Of course smokers weigh less. Perhaps smokers will start getting some rights back, while the obese get to be targets for a while.

Personally I think we should ostracize homosexuals (bad for your health, spreading disease), jet setters (carbons polluting my air etc.) and organic farms (decreasing the overall food supply.) But that’s just me.


30 posted on 05/23/2008 7:48:52 PM PDT by Marie2 (“I don’t want to give up eating all I want because of a failed hypothesis,” said Robinson)
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To: GOPJ

And the rights of butt humpers to have unprotected anal sex in bath houses.


31 posted on 05/23/2008 7:48:59 PM PDT by The Ghost of Rudy McRomney (Using Hillary to nip Obama's heels is like beating a dead horse with an armed nuclear bomb.)
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult

Its way down.
Back when I was a kid in the late 60s & 70s everywhere you looked you saw people smoke.
Smoking was cool. I smoked.

Now, its nowhere near that common.


32 posted on 05/23/2008 7:50:21 PM PDT by bill1952 (I will vote for McCain if he resigns his Senate seat before this election.)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

All it will do is guive the food facists and other apparatchiks the power to make people miserable. it will only raise the rate ouicide..


33 posted on 05/23/2008 7:54:35 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

How about some good ol’-fashioned shunning of gun-grabbers?


34 posted on 05/23/2008 7:54:55 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (To the liberal, there's no sacrifice too big for somebody else to make. --FReeper popdonnelly)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

That too Eric! And you play the part so well! It’s a psoition we have all been in and I can see some taking it that far.


35 posted on 05/23/2008 7:55:30 PM PDT by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: Eric Blair 2084

Even Rosie O’donnell balked at that, exclaimning; “Did you ever see the size of my a*s?”


36 posted on 05/23/2008 7:56:01 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: Dr.Zoidberg
There are more than a handful of crypto-liberals on FR. They front as conservative until something comes along they disapprove of,

Only if they demand government action to "solve" the "problem." But obviously the mere expression of disapproval or disgust for something isn't a liberal attribute. Every last one of us does that all the time.

37 posted on 05/23/2008 7:58:03 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Eric Blair 2084

Man, reading all that whining made me hungry. I think I’ll get me a burger.


38 posted on 05/23/2008 7:58:21 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: GOP_Lady; Eric Blair 2084

I, for one, would eat a double helping of creme brulee to honor OBAMA’s pronouncement.


39 posted on 05/23/2008 7:59:22 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (To the liberal, there's no sacrifice too big for somebody else to make. --FReeper popdonnelly)
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To: TheWasteLand
Tisk. Tisk. OBAMA has told you that you can't. You had better mind him.
40 posted on 05/23/2008 8:00:06 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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