7 in 10 people are overweight and in denial

[amandamechele]

Hello Flame, it's me, Moth...mind if I fly a little closer in order to continue our conversation? Please don't burn me!
(Hee hee... I've had that image in my head all day, Roundcoconut! I find your posts quite thoughtful and helpful.)

I agree with you Katgirl55, we do have a great group here.

I don't mind the difference of opinions at all for the most part. Like GlennR, I think it's important to try to understand where someone with a different perspective is coming from and challenge our own preconceived notions. I find I don't necessarily disagree with every opinion someone may have. I can always find some shared experience or opinion that will allow me to have a greater understanding of another and thus understand where or why we may not agree on a certain issue.

Chikiwing,

I worry 13 year old impressionable young ladies are going to hear the foolish fat acceptance message and act in a manner that is detrimental to their well-being. I'm sure it's happening.

That's why fat acceptance is doomed to failure. But, the impressionable young people can very easily dig themselves a 150 pound hole with medical problems before they get enough life experience (wisdom) to know this philosophy is absurd.

I agree that a lack of correct diet advice is not helpful, but I think it is the toxic food environment combined with unfortunate genetics that is more detrimental to a 13 year old's well-being than having an older role model, who looks like them, tell them that it's okay to love themselves just the way they are.

I also agree that the movement, as it is currently presented, is doomed to failure. But I do think it is necessary right now, as a stepping stone towards a better strategy for developing healthy self-esteem.

This goes both ways. If I'm 5′ 9″ and 300 pounds are the women going to be eager to grace my bedroom doorway? I don't think so!

Here I agree and disagree. Sure, not presenting the best version of yourself, no matter your gender, is not going to win you as much love from the opposite sex. However, things are a bit different for males than females. While females tend to be judged by one criteria overwhelmingly (looks), men are valued more equally for both looks and access to (or ability to procure) resources.

Who are, "they?" I wouldn't look down on a young person who believes the fat acceptance message. I think they are victims. But the champions of fat acceptance, the people pushing it, Oh yes, I do look down on them and worse. With scorn.

The "they" I am referring to are both the champions of fat acceptance, as you call them, and their victims, again as you call them. They are one and the same. Obese woman and girls, for the most part, trying to bolster their self esteem by finding or creating a supportive environment.

When I say "fat shaming," I don't mean ridiculing the obese woman at the supermarket buying chocolate. I don't mean laughing and mocking the person who can't fit in an airplane seat. That's not me and it's not what I'm talking about.

I'm happy to hear that.

I'm talking about being allowed to give an honest assessment of someones weight and appearance. As far as I can tell that's called "fat shaming," by the champions of fat acceptance.

If that honest assessment is using words that most people would find insulting or demeaning, I would call it fat shaming as well. You have used some pretty insensitive phrases to describe obese women, previously on this website. You are not saying. "Her BMI is too high, or it is unhealthy or I find it unattractive". You use very inflammatory statements to make your point.

Vgpedlr, Kaye, JuicerJohn - I agree that knowledge, sensitivity and compassion are what are needed to continue a discourse about appropriate ways to motivate change for this issue.

[roundcoconut]

It is interesting because I think people get caught up in all kinds of negative spirals, and there can be a lot of shame in that. I could make a whole list of things that people hide about themselves -- people who have developed tremendous debt, people who've developed agoraphobia or debilitating panic/anxiety problems, people who have OCD, people who have emotional trauma related to previous abuse -- I mean, there are just all these situations where humns get caught up in wishing they could hide something about themselves, that they don't feel good about.

People whose dysfunctional patterns revolve around using and abusing food aren't very different from someone who has a non-food-related spiral, like having difficulty with emotional intimacy, or anxieties around social interactions.

I will go ahead and point out the obvious, which is that while many people like to point the finger at any convenient scapegoat, the people POINTING those fingers sometimes have quite glaring addictions to anger and ridicule. Bulying is its own kind of dysfunction and addiction.

And people who like to engage in this kind of behavior toward others are very poorly socially adjusted. This is not the finnessed insult of someone who is suave and smooth in social settings -- this is the crass and childlike behavior of someone who has not yet grasped how to use social graces. This really isn't hard to see -- the people who engage in derrogatory speech are often very much outsiders.

There is a funny thing about people who are willing to be transparent, which is that nearly everyone has had personal experiences of shame, in one way or another. It is nice if someone just has some dyslexia way back in their elementary school years, but most people have quite a few of these things, if they are being honest. They have a schizophrenic mother, or they've had horrible eczema, or they learned social skills ridiculously late in life, or have had a long bout of unemployment, or who KNOWS what.

People who are less transparent, who can't even bear to face all the ways and situations in which they've been an outsider, or desperately hiding some area of shame, really have it much worse if that is just so scary to face.

I guess my big point, is that these people who enjoy verbal tirades and such, are just in that same boat, of people who cannot cope with life, without resorting to their dysfunctional and self-destructive coping mechanism.

Exactly like the food addicts they speak so harshly towards!

[patty]

Transparency, in AA you hear the expression "you can't smell gamblers." It is their behavior that gives them away. Like the doctor in the OP, said extra weight will help when you get cancer. Right away you know they are a gambler as it is money first, health second. I am sure the doctor has a mortgage, or children in college, or whatever bills she has to pay, but she is a living cancer. And at sometime she will have to pay the price. So the conversation is on her. This is where the patient takes her power back and why the daughter is so insistent she gets it:) The medical industry is prophecy of doom and gloom, it is up to the individual to ask for a shift a shift of perception for doom and gloom and bloom:)

In all relationships there is a push pull, like the process of polishing a diamond. In Tai Chi they have a exercise of pushing hands. Two people stand apart, with one of their hands touching the other, and through movement of making a circle, eventually one of the hands from the pressure of the two, drops off. The skill of course is in standing while the energy flows through out your form from the pressure of the other's hand. The pressure/energy seems to lock into the knees, because lack of flexibility. I loved the exercise though I didn't have the flexibility of the knees for the energy to flow through, when matching a partner more skilled than I was.

I love this from Bruce Lipton's "Biology of Belief" as it explains how our immune system evolves, like we do in conversations ..

I taught my students that the biochemical mechanisms employed by cellular organelle systems are essentially the same mechanisms employed by our human organ systems. Even though humans are made up of trillions of cells, I stressed that there is not one "new" function in our bodies that is not already expressed in the single cell. Each eukaryote (nucleus-containing cell) possesses the functional equivalent of our nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, muscle and skeletal systems, circulatory system, integument (skin), reproductive tive system, and even a primitive immune system, which utilizes a family of antibody-like "ubiquitin" proteins.

I also made it clear to my students that each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture. As I knew intuitively when I was a child, these smart cells are imbued with intent and purpose; they actively seek environments that support their survival while simultaneously avoiding toxic or hostile ones. Like humans, single cells analyze thousands of stimuli from the microenvironment they inhabit. Through the analysis of this data, cells select appropriate behavioral responses to ensure their survival.

Single cells are also capable of learning through these environmental mental experiences and are able to create cellular memories, which they pass on to their offspring. For example, when a measles virus infects a child, an immature immune cell is called in to create a protective protein antibody against that virus. In the process, the cell must create a new gene to serve as a blueprint in manufacturing the measles antibody protein.

The first step in generating a specific measles antibody gene occurs in the nuclei of immature immune cells. Among their genes are a very large number of DNA segments that encode uniquely shaped snippets of proteins. By randomly assembling and recombining these DNA segments, immune cells create a vast array of different genes, each one providing for a uniquely shaped antibody protein. When an immature immune cell produces an antibody protein that is a "close" physical complement to the invading measles virus, that cell will be activated.

Activated cells employ an amazing mechanism called affinity maturation that enables the cell to perfectly "adjust" the final shape of its antibody protein, so that it will become a perfect complement to the invading measles virus. (Li, et al, 2003; Adams, et al, 2003) Using a process called somatic hypermutation, activated immune cells make hundreds of copies of their original antibody gene. However, ever, each new version of the gene is slightly mutated so that it will encode a slightly different shaped antibody protein. The cell selects the variant gene that makes the best fitting antibody. This selected version of the gene also goes through repeated rounds of somatic hypermutation to further sculpt the shape of the antibody to become a "perfect" physical complement of the measles virus. (Wu, et al, 2003; Blanden and Steele 1998; Diaz and Casali 2002; Gearhart 2002)

When the sculptured antibody locks on to the virus, it inactivates the invader and marks it for destruction, thus protecting the child from the ravages of measles. The cells retain the genetic "memory" of this antibody, so that in the future if the individual is again exposed to measles, the cells can immediately launch a protective immune response. The new antibody gene can also be passed on to all the cell's progeny when it divides. In this process, not only did the cell "learn" about the measles virus, it also created a "memory" that will be inherited and propagated by its daughter cells. This amazing feat of genetic engineering is profoundly important tant because it represents an inherent "intelligence" mechanism by which cells evolve. (Steele, et al, 1998)

Bruce H. Lipton Ph.D.. The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles (Kindle Locations 364-366). Kindle Edition.

Aloha, patty

[Chikiwing]

Hello Flame, it's me, Moth...mind if I fly a little closer in order to continue our conversation? Please don't burn me!

Muak!

A friendly kiss to begin.

I agree that a lack of correct diet advice is not helpful, but I think it is the toxic food environment
combined with unfortunate genetics that is more detrimental to a 13 year old's well-being than having an older role model, who looks like them, tell them that it's okay to love themselves just the way they are.

Bad is bad.

Toxic food is bad and so are poor role models. Why excuse one bad as less detrimental than another? Just throw them both out. Who needs bad?

I also agree that the movement, as it is currently presented, is doomed to failure. But I do think it is
necessary right now, as a stepping stone towards a better strategy for developing healthy self-esteem.

I'm of the opinion that developing a healthy self-esteem is best achieved through maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active. Eat like Dr Mcdougall says and walk 5 miles a day and good thing will happen to your self-esteem.

I can't see any meaningful change to someone's self-esteem in reading a story about a 300 pound woman who is now a supposed, "super-model."

Sure, not presenting the best version of yourself, no matter your gender, is not going to win you as
much love from the opposite sex. However, things are a bit different for males than females. While females tend to be judged by one criteria overwhelmingly (looks), men are valued more equally for both looks and access to (or ability to procure) resources.

Hmm.

In the days when the caveman pulled his woman around by the hair that was true, but is it still true today? I'm not too sure.

Surely a physically average looking female doctor, lawyer, or police woman, is getting more affection than an above average woman who pushes all her belongings around in a cart.

The "they" I am referring to are both the champions of fat acceptance, as you call them, and their
victims, again as you call them. They are one and the same.

Not to me.

Obese woman and girls, for the most part, trying to bolster their self esteem by finding or creating a
supportive environment.

So do drug addicts. The solution is the same. Take away the toxic substance and supportive environment.

You have used some pretty insensitive phrases to describe obese women, previously on this website.

I believe that has been reserved for the champions of the fat acceptance movement. Dr Mcdougall has done similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95fpzu38r44

Now we dance. *Trigger warning* Traditional gender roles and the patriarchy included in this dance song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lWATuNmKsE

[ETeSelle]

100% agree, I don't really understand why anyone wants to "shame" anyone else about anything. We've all got our problems and we all come to our own point of doing something about it for whatever reason. I hoped never to regain the weight I lost (50 pounds) but I'm only human and to my distress I did regain 10 pounds which I still haven't shifted. I know I did so what the heck would it achieve if some other smug git told me?

I am not advocating actively "shaming" anyone. What I am saying is that these days, any mention of people being fat (generally) is viewed as "shaming." We're not supposed to point out that an enormous % of the population is fat, that being fat is unhealthy, etc. We're supposed to "accept" everyone "for how they are." That is SO not OK in my book. It is simply NOT OK to be overweight. It is unhealthy for the fat person and it represents a very real drain on the health system, which we will all, however healthy, eventually need. The fact that I practically never need a doctor doesn't mean that I never WILL, but I fear there may will be no health system left by the time I do, thanks to all the fat, sick Americans.

What needs to stop is the "fat acceptance" movement. Because anyone who doesn't think that has already started happening is delusional! Many of us at a healthy weight have been called "too thin." My new plant-based doctor told me that people ask if he has cancer. He is slim and vital. The less people push back against this, the more acceptance there will be and the higher will go the BMI for what is viewed as "normal." The number of fat people who have said to me, "I don't want to be skinny--I like how I look" amazes me. They are going to be unhealthy in future as a result, if they are not already, but I'm apparently just supposed to accept the fact that the "new normal" has made them OK with their extra 40 or 60 or even 100 pounds, when it affects me greatly vis-a-vis the medical system.

We are a very adaptable species. That is why we are so successful. We must fight not to adapt to being a species whose average BMI is in the upper 20s.

[Chumly]

"The solution is the same. Take away the toxic substance and supportive environment."

I would add to that to adopt a supportive environment that helps you achieve your positive goal (in this case healthy eating). Without a supportive environment, I think you're doomed to fail or at least your chances of success are likely to be much lower.

Michael

[patty]

"The solution is the same. Take away the toxic substance and supportive environment."

I would add to that to adopt a supportive environment that helps you achieve your positive goal (in this case healthy eating). Without a supportive environment, I think you're doomed to fail or at least your chances of success are likely to be much lower.

Michael

And that is it:) That is what Dr McDougall has done by creating a virtual reality where your real time environment can change in the immediacy with data/information from a smart phone any place, anytime by checking your phantom reality. And that of course it is/can be within a unsupportive environment. That is why they say "Don't step on a caterpillar." The finger always points to Not Two.

Aloha, Patty

[nicoles]

Seems to me this subject brings up such different opinions because it is so complicated. There are two very valid sides.

In my own life, my mother has an eating disorder that causes her to eat too little. I tend to lean towards fat acceptance as a good thing, having witnessed firsthand a dangerous and sad situation created by fear of being fat, and witnessing how very much she hates herself if she has any extra fat.

My husband's mother has an eating disorder too, but it is a binge eating food addiction. He tends to lean towards tough love on the subject, and hates the fat acceptance movement's enabling aspects.

I don't think either of us are wrong to have the feelings or opinions that we have. I'm sure there are people who disagree with me on this, of course.

For myself, acting with kindness and sensitivity on any subject is ideal. But it's true that some people respond well to tough talk, while others respond well to a gentle approach.

However, I will say this. There is already a lot of fat shaming and fat prejudice in our culture, and it some ways the fat acceptance movement appears more be a reaction to that than a movement towards pursuing ill health. And most people Ive encountered involved in the fat acceptance movement hear other people's 'worries about their health' as coded shaming, so, not likely to respond much to it. I think there is some denial on their part and on the part of the medical community (in the definition of good health) at work here, but as a non doctor anything I say is basically like trying to convince someone who believes the world is flat that it is actually round.

When it comes down to it, for me, like so many other things, everyone's weight is basically nobody's business but their own.

[Chikiwing]

What needs to stop is the "fat acceptance" movement.

It needs crushed.

[patty]

Big Food, Big Medical, Big Pharma need to be crushed.

How you do that is with education:

From "The Starch Solution":

THE QUEST FOR ANSWERS AND A SINGLE SOLUTION Governments, businesses, local groups, and individuals are seeking answers to our environmental problems through reducing the use of fossil fuels— coal, oil, and natural gas— and by trying to get industrial waste under control. At the same time, we are waging a war on chronic diseases with strategies to reduce smoking, the use of alcohol and drugs, toxic environmental chemicals, and infectious diseases. But where is the effort to fix the food?

It would not take much for us to solve these individual and global problems in one fell swoop. All it takes is one big U-turn back to where we came from. Back to our roots. Back to what we once knew was healthy and natural: a diet based on starches and other plants, including fruits and vegetables. At the root of both human and environmental health is what we eat. Food is plentiful. We just need to choose the Starch Solution.

As you seek to achieve your personal goals of dropping a few (or even a hundred or more) pounds, bringing your blood pressure and blood sugar under control, weaning yourself from medications for high blood pressure or diabetes, battling cancer or staving off a recurrence of it, relieving your joints that ache from arthritis, easing your depression, increasing your energy, or simply slipping gracefully into your swimsuit this summer, consider your immense contribution to the world around you. As you switch to a starch-based diet, think about the positive impact of what you are doing will have on your children and grandchildren, and on generations yet to come. If you get stuck along your path and find yourself heading back to old eating habits, reflect on how far you have come and what a difference you have already made. You are now helping billions of people beyond yourself. You are helping all of planet Earth.

Vote for a Better
World at Your
Dinner Table

Protest world hunger: Stop eating meat.
Protest environmental pollution: Stop eating dairy.
Protest destruction of the oceans: Stop eating Fish

Aloha, patty