What Michele Obama should do

Why is she still...overly padded (to put it lightly).
It's winter and all but she looks no different from 8 years ago.

 

Wow now I understand why South Park used her in an episode years ago. (I'm not an American, so I don't know every detail about what is going on overseas )

 

I'm an American, and I don't know jack shit about what's going on.

 

RMS has spoken.

CROOKED MICHELLE MUST BE STOPPED!! Wait, what?

P.S. Agreed about Middle Eastern food -- I went to Israel 3 years ago and their food, the Mediterranean diet, etc. was fucking excellent. Humus is great, motherfuckers. Hate me.

 

Obese people are addicts. Simple as that. Same as porn, sex, alcohol, smoking, heroin addicts. Most of the people who ate unhealthy food very well knows it's unhealthy. It's everywhere out there. It's common knowledge that junk food is bad for health just like it's common knowledge that smoking is bad. But they still ate it. Cos it tastes good. Fat, sugars and salt is naturally addicting. Just as PMO. For the same reason - survival. So the awareness of how unhealthy it is not gonna change that. It takes more than just awareness to deal with addiction. It takes more than just a desire, motivation or discipline. I'm sure many fellow NoFappers who have went or are still going though this know what I'm talking about. Some people want to change and some don't care because the pain it does to them are not real enough jet, even if they know it's bad. It's gonna be real enough in 10 or 20 years once they will have to take those heart, blood pressure and cholesterol pills. And some are just completely oblivious to it or in denial.

Sure, more awareness could stop many people from ever developing addiction in first place. And stop many parents from developing that addiction for their kids. But it's not gonna do much, as long as junk food is so cheap and so accessible everywhere. On top of it also being high in sugars, fat and salt - naturally addictive substances. Those things will always negate all the awareness and health promotions we do. Until we even out the battle ground and make healthy meals just as cheap and accessible AND delicious as junk food america and whole world will just keep getting fatter and sicker. Either that or putting serious restrictions on in. Like higher taxes, make it illegal to advertise and boring white box with nothing but company's logo and picture of dead stroke victim with title "junk food kills!", ka know like cigarettes. And that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

 

It's my opinion that most Americans are highly insulin resistant and therefore foods and ways of eating which will promote insulin sensitivity will greatly help in their weight loss. While I don't disagree there is an addiction component for some, for others it's just poor nutritional advice given by their dr's and our own govt.

 

Lol you'd think South Park could have got her skin tone correct.
They made her look like a dark seeker from I Am Legend.

 

Let me tell you a true story. Girl, age 8, has a dad who says she's too fat so he puts her on a diet. It doesn't work, but she's a pleaser. She tries another, and another, and she works out like crazy. Nothing works. So she resorts to anorexia/bulimia. At one point, after she hasn't had solid food in eight weeks due to an oral surgery, her dad tells her she still has room for improvement.
Years after, when she no longer practices self starvation and purging but still retains the mindset, she gets married and goes on hormone replacement birth control. While doing the popular P90X home exercise plan, she gains 60 lbs in 4 months. After speaking with several OBGYNs, she suspects the birth control and stops taking it. Her weight gain stops, but despite frantic effort, none of it comes off, either. She hopes that pregnancy will 'reset' her endocrine system, but it doesn't. She does manage to lose a few pounds between pregnancies, until after her third where her weight remains static. Over the years, she's talked to several doctors and taken a half dozen blood tests. She insists that her diet is healthy, more so than the average American's, and that she gets plenty of exercise. The doctors, however, look at the blood test results and either roll their eyes, or call her a liar to her face.
Then, she finally sees a specialist who listens to her, and takes a comprehensive history. She hears about the unresponsiveness to diet and exercise, the rapid weight gain with birth control, the exploded gall bladder following the second pregnancy, the post natal preeclampsyia following the third, and says she knows what is going on. It's hypothyroidism, but a more subtle kind than is typical. Instead of a handicapped thyroid, resulting in not enough T3 and T4 in the bloodstream, this woman's cells don't accept the hormone that is produced. This is how she can have all the textbook symptoms of hypothyroidism, without having it present the way doctors are trained to screen for it. All this time, she wasn't a liar. She didn't lack self control. She had a medical issue. And now a passel of psychological ones, thanks to other people's narrow mindedness.

According to stateofobesity.org, between 20% to 36% of our population is obese, depending in the state. Do you think it likely that most of these people are willfully fat, despite living in a culture that abhors cellulite? Or could there be more to it than that?

 

Ok, my bad. Of course I'm generalizing here. I never said that all of them are. I'm very well aware that there exists such conditions as hypothyroidism. But I guess I should be more specific and say that maybe about 95% (or some other number there close to 100) of them are.

Yes. They either don't care enough, don't know any better (witch is still tiny minority cos this stuff in ya face everywhere, especially if you search for it and you would if you care) or care but can not do anything about it cos of addiction.

 

No, you said,

Not "Some obese people" or "Most obese people." As a logical proof, your statement was "If P, then Q" where P = obese, and Q = addict. No exceptions. Therefore, an obese person reading that would be completely justified in thinking that you believe them to be an addict, no exceptions.

That's a high percentage. Like, a really, really high percentage. Particularly in light of the following...

This stuff is, as you say, "in ya face" more than you know.

I don't know how to properly communicate this to you with my own words, but fat people don't like being fat. U.S. culture, which we export and share all over the world, does a fabulous job of letting people know how we feel about fat. We don't like it. We think fat is ugly and it represents laziness and lack of self care. We don't treat fat people as equals. We do not let them enjoy the advantages of "normally sized" people. It is in nobody's best interests to be fat.
So let's go with the conservative number, from Colorado, and say 20% of the population is obese, or fat. 20%! Whether they are addicts, or lazy people who lack the impulse for self care (indicating mental imbalance), that's an epidemic. I'm not saying that's impossible, per se. I think porn addiction is an epidemic too, but part of that is because the vast majority of our culture does not recognize that porn is harmful. In contrast, we know that obesity is harmful, both in terms of health and in cultural circumstances.
We might like to think that people are fat because they are physically or mentally weak, which makes us feel a little better because we are not fat, so we are not weak. This wasn't the case with me and my wife, though. We eat the same things, and she exercises more, but I am absurdly thin while she can't lose. I know it's not a self discipline thing; she's extremely disciplined and accomplished in her field. In our case it's genetics, plain and simple. Could it be the same for others as well?

I'm leaving this link to this 20 minute podcast about the issue. It was surprising to me, the difference with which this woman was treated once she got thin, but more than that was the lengths she had to go to to get thin, and the lengths she goes to in order to stay thin. In my opinion, this isn't normal, and it isn't healthy.

 

Agreed, BUT! "It’s a hidden calorie trap, each container packs up to 700 calories." Not a good option for weight loss.

 

That is a very offensive word to use @Waldo101! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fatso

"A word usually used as insult to overweight people. Usually used by children. A fat person (cruel, also a rude term of address). An abbreviation for fat soul. This commonly used insult is more than a mere comment on a person’s physical appearance. It refers to the inner motivations behind this person’s gluttony, hinting that the unstoppable craving for food is a integral part of his or hers personality, or soul. Thus a fatso need not be a obese son of a bitch that has to pay for two seats on an airplane, but might as well be skinny like that most hospitable of Hilton hotels."

 

@Meshuga I applaud your two posts in this thread, especially from a guy that discloses that he is "absurdly thin". Shucks!

You are well informed about the subject - as it truly is - rather than groundless generalisations based on discrimination!

 

I did not realize this. I thought it's just one of those things where statement is too general for it to be judged as meaning either or. Or maybe it's open for interpretation? Kinda like: "cats are black". Which is true, but not for all of them. So if somebody interprets it that way does not mean it's said that way, they are just filling in the blanks. That's how I see it anyway. And frankly I am not sure whether I even understand how you are saying it works. But you might be right. Your profile says you are from US and I assume native English speaker, which I'm not, so I will not gonna argue with ya.

I agree.

I do not believe that if we would recognize porn as officially harmful and create just as wide education and resources on it as we have about obesity that it would stop epidemic of porn. It might decrease it somewhat, but no by that much. Just like it has not with obesity. It could be way worse tho if we would not know what we know about bad foods and overeating.

I call it utter bullshit. If somebody's too fat they have to ate less/different foods and/or exercise more to burn off those cals. If somebody has desire and discipline to do it and it is still not working problem is they don't know how to do it properly for their body. And if it is still not working then, they have some kind of physical condition. Such as thyroid problems. In which case it is a valid excuse. And even then not always cos most of the time those things can be managed with proper treatments.

If it still is unhealthy but still better off than being too fat then that's what it takes. And if for somebody "what it takes" is more unhealthy than being overweight well then there is no point of doing it. I think that was the original intention of this thread - to talk about obesity regarding health. Not social and cultural pressure. Sometimes things can't be perfect. We have to choose the best option between to bad options.

 

It might be a language thing. I think we should be cautious about general statements, though. Saying something like "Men are jerks" is technically true. There are people who fall into the cross section of 'male' and 'jerk,' but it does not follow that all males are jerks. The same for "Cops are corrupt" or "Brits are humorless sods" or "porn addicts are pervs who deserve to be castrated." Some are. Some aren't. Some obese people are addicts, but it is careless to state or even imply that all of them are.
I would like to note that, even those who are deserve compassion. You are a porn addict, which is a shameful thing, but if shame is all we had to offer porn addicts nobody would ever get better. I know, because I was ashamed and I couldn't get better, despite my efforts, until I knew how to get better through NoFap. The same can be applied to fat people. Perhaps they don't look at porn and masturbate to self soothe, they eat instead. That doesn't make them worse than us.

Neither do I. We know about smoking and alcohol and gambling, and we still have addicts in all of these. Smoking, though, ranges from 10% to 30% depending on the state, according to the Center for Disease Control. Alcoholism is at 6.8% of adults. Less than 5% have a gambling addiction. Obesity is similar to smoking as far as numbers go, but I would venture to claim there is more stigma against obesity than cigarette smoking. Besides, nicotine is physically addicting. It's brutal. Food is more of a psychological crutch, and shouldn't be as powerful an addiction as cigarettes.

The woman with ninja hypothyroidism in my previous story is my wife. It is being managed now, but it didn't for a very long time because doctors have the same mindset as you display here; bodies work a certain way, and if the data doesn't reflect what I expect it to, I am not the one at fault. She spent years being told that her weight problems were her fault, and she was responsible for fixing it.
I used to know a guy who stayed alive on a steady diet of Doritos, Dr. Pepper, and Cigarettes. His hobbies were manga and anime, and World of Warcraft. He did as little physical activity as possible. On PT test day, though, he'd run the 2 mile in 12 minutes. In contrast, I am taller, rarely drank soda, regularly ate the healthy Army meals, and never smoked, but I ran the same distance in about 14:20. I think we need to accept that some bodies are different, including the way they process calories and retain fat. This is particularly true for women who have given birth. They can regain the kind of body they had before pregnancy, but they have a hell of a time doing it and keeping it.

Just listen to the podcast. She's not staying thin because of health. Just... listen. And please don't be defensive about it. Hear her out.

This thread started as a call to arms to get Americans to lose weight for health's sake. It was posited in the OP that we somehow cut fat people a lot of slack because nobody wants to hear it. I disagree. I think we put a lot of pressure on fat people, and I think we are too harsh with health standards. For some people, being fat isn't the same as being 'obese' or 'overweight.' Sometimes that's just their weight.

 

IGY...I LOVE hidden calorie traps!!

I honestly didn't know that they were so calorie filled, though. Damn.

But I guess a hummus gut is better than a beer gut, right?

 

I agree. Like I said, my bad. Did not meant to and did not thought I did.

I agree. But at the same time i'm not gonna feed that fat acceptance nonsense either. If somebody asks me what I think I will tell them it bluntly.

It's not just a psychological thing. Fat, sugars and salt is also physically addicting. Because those things signals valuable nutrition and those things are scarce in wild. To crave them is in our genes. And all those fast food companies know this and abuse this. It's unnatural superstimulus.

I think this is the most rational way how to approach this. That's not to say that it's good to have some skepticism that there might be some health condition in place tho. Thyroid problem is rather obvious thing to look at in situation like this. But at the same time if tests are done (and obviously they should, otherwise I would argue that doctor is not doing his job properly) and nothing is found it's only rational to assume that patient is providing false data. That's what doctors do, they go by data, numbers, objective information. Not by belief. And then make judgements from that. That's what they are supposed to do.

In this thread I used those words as synonyms. Not about being chubby or whatever. Did we talked about the same thing here?

Sure there are people who naturally carry more or less body fat. I'm sure there must be a few extremes at both ends of spectrum. But there is level when that becomes too much and unhealthy. The average number of it is where we draw a line that we define as obesity.

 

I beg to differ!
Hummus has calories but they are good calories. Mostly fat from olive oil, an unsaturated plant based fat - you need good fats.
Hummus has lots of nutritious ingredients in it and they don't include sugar.

And besides, it's not like I'm going to sit down and eat a whole tub of hummus.

Make America healthy again

.... By destroying McDonald's and the corn syrup factories.