Poll: Obesity: fat people or true illness?

SenseOfTumour

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Yes, I'll fully agree that the vast majority of people who are fat are there thru lack of willpower or plain greed.

However, does this give everyone the right to abuse the minority who are medically trapped in a larger frame?

Also, was nice to see someone else use my argument and bother to back it with facts, as I generally don't.

The way I see it, I like pies, highly taxed, expensive pies.

That tax money goes into healthcare in Britain, and when I die in my 40s or 50s, I've just saved my country a galactic fuckload of cash by not claiming a pension for maybe 30 years, despite having worked and paid for it, and not ending up in a care home at 85, having a horrible quality of life yet still clinging on miserably and costing the taxpayer stacks of cash.

Now I'm not saying, as the famous mediator Jerry Sadowitz did ' all old people should shot at birth' but, I'm pretty sure we cost less over our life span than a healthy long living person, as even the healthiest people end up needing a lot of care in their 80s and 90s, in most cases, and yes, I'm sure you know a 95 year old who goes jogging every morning.

Also in this time of green concerns and low stores of fossil fuels, perhaps they can cremate me and use my body to power a school for 6 months, hell drain the fat off and you can probably run one of those biodiesel cars on it for a few hundred miles too. You'd be lucky to power a unicycle for ten feet from the corpse of one of those yoga crazy tofu eating freaks.

BTW I don't really hate skinny or healthy people, just the ones who choose to judge me.

As James Corden (the fat bloke from Gavin n Stacey) said recently, how come is I've got celeb mates who are snorting half of columbia up their nose on a friday night in a club, and I say I popped into McD's for a cheeseburger, and I get "how can you put that stuff in your body?"

To all the anti fatties, I hope you don't drink, smoke, do extreme sports (as you endanger yourself and cost the medical system), have unsafe sex, or take any other form of pleasure that someone else disagrees with.

I normally consider Boris Johnson the mayor of London a bumbling idiot, but when asked about his own healthy eating he just snapped 'oh for gods sake, can't a bloke have a pie?' How nice to hear an admission against what is expected, and not just 'oh yes I get up at 5am, hog for 4 hours, come back for a nice big bowl of broccoli then meditate for seven more hours'.

um, *looks up at my post* did I overreact? I don't really care, honest!
 

SenseOfTumour

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Also, hurry up with those pills that absorb fat and sugar, once they're out in easy supply we can all go back to enjoying food and all look like models and every can hop down from their pedestal of 'oo look at me I had a salad'.

For me, the main problem isn't about food, its about exercise, over the past 50 years, we've mostly moved to jobs that involve sitting on your arse all day, so of course it's harder to burn off the calories you take in over the course of a day, and on top of that food has got higher in calories and far easier to get hold of.

No-one needs to cook anything, except maybe spin it in the microwave for 2 minutes on high.
Most prepackaged food is stuffed with fat, sugar and salt, even the 'low fat/sugar' ones.
You'll find if it's low fat its high sugar and vice versa.
 

Death916

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Apr 21, 2008
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well i think it can be either or. Some people get fat because of metabolic or gland problems, and others get fat from Twinkie and couch problems
 

Eclectic Dreck

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The short answer is that the problem is quite simply fat people. The more important answer probably comes from the sheer number of fat people I see from day to day. While i'm certain that 99.9% of the fat people I know are completely capable of both losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight, I also am equally certain that most of them simply will not. That the problem is self inflicted is obvious, but troubling. It seems as though it has become far to easy to be fat these days - and yet it takes so LITTLE effort to maintain a healthy weight. While I don't expect most people to copy my own lifestyle (I fence about 20 hours a week on average) I also know that even when I wasn't terribly active I managed to stay thin by not eating everything that I could catch.

In short, it's an illness but more of a cultural one than anything. I deny victimhood to all fat people as a rule, because I'm nearly certain there is SOME law of physics that states if you eat less and exercise more you lose weight.
 

Ignignoct

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My family is comprised of 1 mother, 4 fathers.

There are 9 kids.

All are tall/skinny, except for the child of the obese father. My mother has always been a bit fluffy, and sometimes outright fat.

The child of the fat father/mother is very large for her age and seemingly can't control her hunger or metabolism unlike the other 8 siblings. She can fit into her mother's clothes at age 10.

With the same mother, but different (and slim) father, I weighed 150 lbs at 6'1" through High School. I didn't eat healthy, drank a lot of soda, and after shifts at Red Robin as a bus boy, I'd often get a Large Dairy Queen blizzard (probably like 700-900 calories by itself). I didn't play sports. I escaped reality in Everquest and RPGs. Outside my job, I was not physically active.

It's a very clear case to me for genetics, based on what I plainly see in my life. Of course, eating fat foods eventually makes anyone fat, though, genetic predispositions can be a curse or a cheat-code.

I'm 22 and 165 lbs now, after being deployed on an aircraft carrier several months at a time over the last 3 years with nothing to do but workout. Still slim with a bit more muscle.

Just like prison, but less shower-rape =D.
 

space_oddity

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Oct 24, 2008
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There is no gene that controls obesity. You cannot be predisposed to being overweight, regardless of metabolic rate or any other biochemical factor.

I believe obesity will be what early 21st century will be remembered for throughout history. Our descendants will read about a time when 1 in 2 children born in USA/UK/Australia will spend most of their lives clinically overweight, while globally, 1 in 5 people will live their entire lives in poverty.
 

Smiles

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I take after my mom, a lot, it freaks me out. everybody always tells me we look alike, which she finds flattering but I have always considered an insult because my mom is fat, has been my whole life... never eats healthy, and I take after her....
 

sleeperhit79

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Feb 6, 2009
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well, it is a little bit of everything. First of all we rely on stupid outdated body mass indexes that have been around for like a century, and second we forget that genetics have a lot to do with it and third we have this obscenely dumb thiking that says we have to have six packs in order to be healthy when in reality six pack abs are one of the weirdest things and the reason they're to hard to get is because they're not exactly natural. So yes obesity is a disease, but obesity is not always what we think, I for one am 220+ lbs and 5'9" and about 20% body fat and just based on the numbers people might say "OBESE!!" but if you saw me you wouldn't think that, I am simply built thick like a tree trunk and my bone density is pretty high(yes there is such a thing as big boned. Obesity is a disease, but I think when you have trouble getting up off the couch or walking up stairs or simply walking aroun in the grocery store then you have a problem. You don't just catch that disease, just like they don't catch a broken leg, it's because of a bad lifestyle and it starts as a choice, but at some point it becomes a disease.
 

[Gavo]

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Jun 29, 2008
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Actually, I am considered "Obese" under the BMI scale. However, I'm only slightly chubby, I don't look fat, but no one would mistake me for the "bean sprout" body type. That's probably because I'm really tall. 6'4 and 235 pounds.

I think I have a really slow metabolism. Does anyone know any ways to speed it up?
 

Inverse Skies

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vivaldiscool said:
I...uh, wait, are you agreeing with me? I was talking to the people who say genetics "Is just an excuse."
Oh... maybe I am agreeing with you then. That's what happens when you don't read posts correctly/misinterpret them :)

Aside: Vivaldi is a very good composer, especially the first movement of spring from the four seasons. Too much of an emphasis on concertos though, although it is nice to hear him use some more obscure instruments such as flutes or oboes for those concertos.
 

Bertruam

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Feb 7, 2009
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I used to be fat. Just like twenty pounds over, nothing serious like the extra hundred some people carry. So i started to exercise and started eater less junk food. Problem solved. I know its actually hard for some people but doing simple things like jogging in place while watching TV or using the computer.
 

ParkourMcGhee

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Jan 4, 2008
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I'm around 190 pounds (rough), or 87 kg. 1m 80 (6 ft) - so slightly obese... or so the chart says. However my fat% is low to medium :D. Always being the 'crazy and really strong guy' means I never turned blobby because I always showed off my strength constantly, and exercised (not to mention my mum is in charge of cooking a variety of things).

I'm quite happy with my shape right now, and though I don't have a proper 6-pack: I can still run like a feker (again this isn't determined so much by weight as is by fitness and going to the gym won't solve your problem there unless you spend a long time in there), and I can pick up anybody twice my weight as long as they keep still (girls kicking their legs are much more difficult to kidnap).

So I'm going for fatness being a lifestyle, and not being something you can change instantly, or even quickly. But a lifetime thing and a very slow and painful process - kind of like old people medicine.

I do realize that I use too many brackets yes.
 

Ignignoct

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Feb 14, 2009
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space_oddity said:
There is no gene that controls obesity. You cannot be predisposed to being overweight, regardless of metabolic rate or any other biochemical factor.

I believe obesity will be what early 21st century will be remembered for throughout history. Our descendants will read about a time when 1 in 2 children born in USA/UK/Australia will spend most of their lives clinically overweight, while globally, 1 in 5 people will live their entire lives in poverty.
No to the first paragraph, and yes to the second.

Warning: Wikipedia spam (read bolded for tl;dr)

"Like many other medical conditions, obesity is the result of an interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Polymorphisms in various genes controlling appetite and metabolism predispose to obesity when sufficient calories are present. As of 2006 more than 41 of these sites have been linked to the development of obesity when a favorable environment is present.[92]

Some of these include the FTO gene polymorphism and the NPC1 gene.[93] Adults who were homozygous for a particular FTO allele weighed about 3 kilograms more and had a 1.6-fold greater rate of obesity than those who had not inherited this trait.[94] This association disappeared, though, when those with FTO polymorphisms participated in moderately intensive physical activity equivalent to 3 to 4 hours of brisk walking.[95] Another study found that 80% of the offspring of two obese parents were obese, in contrast to less than 10% of the offspring of two parents who were of normal weight.[96][9]

The percentage of obesity that can be attributed to genetics varies from 6% to 85% depending on the population examined.[97] The thrifty gene hypothesis postulates that certain ethnic groups may be more prone to obesity in an equivalent environment. Their ability to take advantage of rare periods of abundance by storing energy as fat would be advantageous during times of varying food availability, and individuals with greater adipose reserves would be more likely survive famine. This tendency to store fat, however, would be maladaptive in societies with stable food supplies.[98] This is the presumed reason that Pima Indians, who evolved in a desert ecosystem, developed some of the highest rates of obesity when exposed to a Western lifestyle.[60]

Obesity is also a major feature in a number of rare genetic conditions: Prader-Willi syndrome, Bardet-Biedl syndrome, MOMO syndrome, leptin receptor mutations, congenital leptin deficiency, and melanocortin receptor mutations. In people with early-onset severe obesity (defined by an onset before ten years of age and body mass index over three standard deviations above normal), 7% harbor a single locus mutation."
 

SimuLord

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Aug 20, 2008
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My mother has a thyroid condition that causes her metabolism to waver somewhere between "slow" and "gains five pounds if she even looks at an ice cream sundae", yet she's been able to maintain a healthy weight for my entire lifetime. She's 53 years old and doesn't look a day over 40 due almost entirely to the fact that when she found out about the thyroid condition, rather than let herself chunk up and blame it on her thyroid, she instead decided to eat right and exercise and set a good example for her children.

More people need to be like my mom and less people need to be like a certain fattie ex-girlfriend of mine who blamed everyone else for her weight problems but had no problem calling potatoes au gratin a "light midnight snack".
 

Ignignoct

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SimuLord said:
More people need to be like my mom and less people need to be like a certain fattie ex-girlfriend of mine who blamed everyone else for her weight problems but had no problem calling potatoes au gratin a "light midnight snack".

MmMmMm!...

Carbs-salts-fats-carbs-salts-fats-carbs-salts-fats-DELICIOUS!

Her body's gunna LOVE trying to burn that when she's asleep and inactive.
 

Inverse Skies

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[Gavo said:
]Actually, I am considered "Obese" under the BMI scale. However, I'm only slightly chubby, I don't look fat, but no one would mistake me for the "bean sprout" body type. That's probably because I'm really tall. 6'4 and 235 pounds.

I think I have a really slow metabolism. Does anyone know any ways to speed it up?
Actually the preconception about overweight people having a 'slow' or 'worse' metabolism is false. Your metabolism is actually very efficient at converting the energy in food into ATP for use in the body as energy. Therefore more energy produced, more energy excess, more energy stored as fat.

Someone who is lean like myself has a very inefficient metabolism. They produce something known as 'uncoupling proteins' which stop ATP being produced and instead the energy is lost as waste heat, therefore they have less energy available to store as fat and are leaner.

You won't be able to do anything except eat well and exercise I'm sorry, if you want to lose weight.