Are fat people rampant in Chicago? (fit in, to buy, preschool)

[glass_of_merlot]

Originally Posted by lenniel

Unfortunately, 'full figured' leads to a lot of other health problems. This is a medically proven fact.

I know, I know, there's plenty of overweight people here who will share their blood pressure number, cholesterol, etc just to prove that being overweight doesn't mean unhealthy, but speak to anyone in the medical profession, and they will tell you differently.

And they can't explain why some overweight people have better values than many athletes other than... luck ! That's what our doctor said to my husband. She was amazed.
But it clearly kills some people that this is the case. They don't want to think overweight people can be physically healthy . I would say that the only problem for my husband is jogging for a longer distance. He walks 5 to 10 miles several times a week, no problems. But jogging us harder.

You genes has allot to do with it too.

[chet everett]

The studies of older people (which are increasingly living longer and have a wider range of healthy-to-not-at-all-healthy ...) are showing that, in general, the leanest people are NOT having the best health as they age, but they still live longer and less plagued by chronic disease than the heaviest people. Healthy Living For Seniors - The Musculoskeletal System And The Senior Citizen

Really makes sense -- if you are literally logging "marathon training" kinds of workouts you will be at increased for injury / chronic arthritis compared to folks that ACTIVE but not necessarily "gym rats".

Curiously the incidence of difference kinds of heart disease also seem to effect men and women differently at different stages of their life -- How Does Heart Disease Affect Women? - NHLBI, NIH There are probably things that happen to women who have kids vs those do not -- A Healthy Habit: Nuns Used in Medical Research - ABC News

Chicago's excellent hospitals also play a factor in survivor rates of folks with various diseases / heart attack -- 100 Hospitals With Great Heart Programs | all-pages

[coldwine]

Originally Posted by lenniel

Unfortunately, 'full figured' leads to a lot of other health problems. This is a medically proven fact.

I know, I know, there's plenty of overweight people here who will share their blood pressure number, cholesterol, etc just to prove that being overweight doesn't mean unhealthy, but speak to anyone in the medical profession, and they will tell you differently.

Just to subvert your trope: I have horrible cholesterol. I exercise every day, live a very active lifestyle, and have a spartan diet healthy by even a doctor's standards. And yet, here we are. Super thin, too. Don't drink, smoke, eat fatty foods...

[pete6032]

Originally Posted by coldwine

Just to subvert your trope: I have horrible cholesterol. I exercise every day, live a very active lifestyle, and have a spartan diet healthy by even a doctor's standards. And yet, here we are. Super thin, too. Don't drink, smoke, eat fatty foods...

I'm very healthy as well but have higher than normal cholesterol. I'm young, run 2-3 miles per day and eat very healthy and am called skinny often. For some people it's just genetics.

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[emathias]

Don't confuse public health statistics with individual medical care.

Public health statistics clearly show a correlation between excess weight, particularly when coupled with a sedentary lifestyle, and age-related disease incidence.

That doesn't mean every overweight individual is going to have problems but it does mean that, in the interest of public health, people should be encouraged to be more active and closer to a global average weight. There doesn't need to be any shame involved, any more than there's shame with some people being smokers. Some smokers live to be 90, but the average life expectancy for an obese male smoker is something like 14 years lower than that of a male, at-weight non-smoker. That's significant, and encouraging fewer people to be in that lower-expectancy category is better all around.

[thegrid]

Originally Posted by emathias

I think the reason you're seeing backlash is that judging people based on how they look shows a remarkable lack of understanding and empathy. Would you look at a burn victim and automatically think, "That makes me uncomfortable to look at. Fire safety, people."

The reality is that in climates that are more extreme than that of the West Coast, climates with both hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters, it's considerably harder to find consistent ways to exercise and live an active, healthy lifestyle doing things that are actually interesting to do. Most people find running on a treadmill to be tedious and boring - because it is tedious and boring - and the same can be said of many gym activities.

When you live in the Bay Area, you can bike or jog or do any number of other outdoor things nearly any day of the year, and definitely any week of the year. That's just not true in much of the Midwest, including Chicago. Part of the reason the poor are disproportionately overweight is that even a cheap gym can be hard to include in a monthly budget where it competes with other things. And even when you find a source of fresh produce that is comparable in cost to starches, they become more expensive if they go bad sooner than you expect - a much bigger risk with produce than starches, especially processed starches.

Finally, people who work a lot of hours can literally find it hard to find time to shop for good food and prepare it in a healthy way. If they grew up in a household of factory workers, which many people did on the South Side of Chicago, the meals they grew up on are necessarily high-calorie to fulfill the needs of heavy manual labor. Falling back on foods that are what you grew up on is natural and common, and once you're overweight it gets even harder to fight through the entropy of where you're at.

You have a very different background compared to many of the obese people in the Midwest, and it's just myopic of you to think that your own experience should allow you to be not just be concerned about the health of overweight people but to be disgusted by the sight of them to the point you don't want to be near them. You don't have to befriend fat people, or seek them out, but judging people you know nothing about based solely on how they appear to you at the point in their life that they happen to cross your path is every bit as bigoted as any other prejudice. And I say that as someone who is pretty active and fit:

Wishy-washy milquetoast nonsense.

Fat people are not victims. They regularly make bad decisions. Unless there is a thyroid issue or the similar, I have no sympathy.

One does not need a gym nor outdoors to stay in shape. Here's one example: simplefit.org -- $40 for equipment. I follow that regime and I have never been a gym member. As for food decisions, I think it's more laziness than anything. I am poor ($24K a year) and I eat well. I eat fresh foods and cook my meals. Basic, natural, and simple food does not have to be expensive. People are fat because they're too lazy to do the same or they are ignorant about what a healthy diet means.

I think fat people should be shamed. Especially the parents that allow children to be fat, inactive, and consumers of garbage. I live near an elementary school and everyday when the children leave, there is a man with a cart selling cotton candy and soda on the sidewalk where the children are lining up. My parents and teachers absolutely would not have allowed that crap. But apparently in this day and age where half the population are fat slobs, this is totally acceptable.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by thegrid

One does not need a gym nor outdoors to stay in shape. Here's one example: simplefit.org -- $40 for equipment. I follow that regime and I have never been a gym member. As for food decisions, I think it's more laziness than anything.

Staying in shape will work for people who are already in shape (like most young people), but for people who are already overweight or obese, it's not really that easy to lose weight they've been carrying around for years. The best advice that parents could give kids is to stay on top of this in early adulthood. Once people reach their 30s and 40s it's a lot harder to take the pounds off, and it only takes a gain of one or two pounds a year to add up to a 20 pound gain over time. It's a game of whack-a-mole... You have to pay attention and take that first couple of pounds off before it becomes 10, 15, 20 pounds, or more.

I had a few years in graduate school where I was stressed out, sleeping poorly, pulling a lot of all-nighters, and eating out of vending machines at 3:00 in the morning after skipping dinner. My weight went up--not to obesity level, but enough to be noticeable. Once I returned to a healthier lifestyle, I stopped gaining weight immediately, but the weight that was added has been very difficult to take off.

[Aleking]

you guys take the bait every time

[baileyvpotter]

Originally Posted by thegrid

Wishy-washy milquetoast nonsense.

Fat people are not victims. They regularly make bad decisions. Unless there is a thyroid issue or the similar, I have no sympathy.

I think fat people should be shamed. But apparently in this day and age where half the population are fat slobs, this is totally acceptable.

What color badge or patch do you suggest they wear as a badge of shame? Also, what qualifications
are required to become a Mutaween (fashion police) and exactly what would be the legal body mass
limit?

[glass_of_merlot]

I'm sure he has plenty of issues on his own . Some people just don't get it.

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