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In my experience, attentive parents take their kids to pediatricians throughout their childhoods, where the children are tracked for their weight, and treated accordingly.
The obese adults on TV, which is all I know about, are subject to abusive childhoods and unbalanced diets. The sins of the father are visited upon the sons.
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"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
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Originally Posted by miu
Overeating is a First World problem. We have plenty of food, and the means to buy it. My dogs would be morbidly obese and diabetic if I left them with unlimited amounts of dog food every day.
So if someone is eating themselves to death, too bad. It's one of Mother Nature's ways of correcting our human overpopulation situation.
Interesting, I "free feed" my dogs. When I see their bowl is nearly empty, I fill it up. I've had underweight, and average weight dogs with this.
Because yeah, dog food really doesn't taste that great to them. If I gave them unlimited access to chicken and cheese and gravy, that might be a different story, which is kind of what humans are facing.
They eat too much because they are depressed, they get bullied because they're fat, and then they eat more because they're bullied about being fat. Maybe if they were never bullied, they wouldn't have gained as much weight.
And some women say that they unconsciously started to gain weight during puberty to avoid unwanted sexual harassment. Maybe if they weren't harassed, they wouldn't have gained weight as a "shield." So in a nutshell, if some people weren't such jerks and a-holes, maybe the obese wouldn't have developed these unhealthy habits to begin with.
This world can be an unfair, cruel place. But blaming others for your plight won't do any good. Always someone else's fault.............
Probably because it's difficult. Addicted to alcohol? Don't drink alcohol and you will be fine. Addicted to drugs? Don't take drugs, no worries. Addicted to food? Well you can't quit eating.
Quite a bit of the obesity problem is also related to poverty. Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive and has a lot of prep time compared to that burrito you just pop in the microwave. Many of the working poor are juggling multiple physically hard jobs and trying to raise kids. They are being pulled all directions all the time. Yes, they are also putting the burrito in the microwave because they have to help the kids with homework and get them ready for school the next day.
Years ago, if you were fat, you were wealthy. Now the rich are thin and the poor are fat!
Remember, we're living in the age of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, where there is NO personal responsibility for ANYTHING in your life. EVERYTHING is someone else's fault.
So an addiction is simply someone else's fault, and so treating the person with the addiction does no good, since s/he didn't cause the problem.
Two thirds of Americans are overweight and of those, about half are obese. Stat are similar in several other first-world countries and other countries are catching up. Are there people who excessively eat their emotions, who gain weight to "protect" themselves after a trauma, who are compulsive overeaters, etc.? Oh, sure. But it's IMO silly to assign a psychological imbalance to something that 2/3 of people struggle with. The simple fact is that even a few hundred years ago, if you could pack on and retain weight on minimal calories, you'd won the genetic lottery. But our food environment has changed too quickly for our bodies to adapt to the new reality of freely available sugar, fat, protein...we're programmed to crave what used to be scarce for us, and now it's abundant, and so we overdo it.
Sure, I think therapy could help people in general maintain a healthy weight, just as it helps people in general pursue other healthy lifestyle choices like positive relationships. But for a systematic cure we really need to find a way to adapt our readily available food supply to what our bodies actually need, or to adapt our bodies to the food supply available.
Y'all talk about overweight like it's always a bad thing. I like a few extra pounds on a woman. We used to call it "pushin' cushion" but that probably isn't allowed anymore.
Insurance rates should be skyrocketed for those that are obese. Just like drivers pay a higher insurance premium that pose a risk on the roads so should the Bigguns bare their fair share of costs.
I don't know if there's a "complacency" towards obesity. I think there's a lot of pressure to lose weight and a social stigma (more like hatred among some) if you're obese.
Though it's not "as bad" as drug addiction, because no one has to ever take drugs, they are not necessary for daily life and are not advertised on TV and available for cheap prices at the corner store. And you can still safely drive while under the influence of fat. So the pressure to quit (how do you quit food?) is less.
There's a lot of emotional baggage that comes with obesity, and it's hard to know when to intervene with someone who is fat and when to leave them alone. Certainly there are emotional causes for obesity, like bullying. A lot of people get bullied after they start to gain weight, so it's a Catch-22. They eat too much because they are depressed, they get bullied because they're fat, and then they eat more because they're bullied about being fat. Maybe if they were never bullied, they wouldn't have gained as much weight.
And some women say that they unconsciously started to gain weight during puberty to avoid unwanted sexual harassment. Maybe if they weren't harassed, they wouldn't have gained weight as a "shield." So in a nutshell, if some people weren't such jerks and a-holes, maybe the obese wouldn't have developed these unhealthy habits to begin with.
And there's a lot of unhealthy attitudes about food, kids being raised with bad habits, junk food, a bad understanding about what is a proper diet, appropriate servings, etc. My own diet is by no means stellar, but I have been shocked at seeing other people slather on multiple tablespoons of butter onto one bagel and they honestly think, "What? What am I doing wrong?" They think it's normal to eat that much butter. They truly have no idea. In their case perhaps some proper education one what is a "serving" would be helpful. Maybe they're not being bullied at all, they just don't know what to eat. But now that they're used to eating that way, it's hard to break the habit.
As far as Michelle Obama's school lunch program, from what I've heard, it's not the concept (which I think is a good idea) but how it is implemented. Not enough food for growing, athletic kids, and very unappetizing food (slop, by the looks of some of the pics I've seen on Twitter) which ends up getting thrown away. It's a fiasco.
Very great post.
I can tell you that part of the problem is the lifestyle we live. We don't have time to go to the gym or if we do, it is a struggle getting to it either because of physical or emotional draining day at work. I've had this problem a LOT this year and I do want to work out, but it is a bit hard to do when you don't want to. The eating right is another component, but let's face it, you won't lose much weight without working out or doing physical labor jobs.
As for the Obama lunch changes, if you went by the facts, that is the reason. We all know that many conservatives were pulling the NPC meme on Obama long before the first 4Chan poster made "Orange-Man Bad!" a meme.
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