Obesity Is Weighing on Education, Productivity and the Economy
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Ban them on online platforms, ostracize them in real life.
It may sound harsh, but it's not, considering all the people you'll save from them.
A lot of people who are attracted to such extremism are not in a rational frame of mind anyway - ostracising them in real life only serves to send them deeper into their rabbit hole.
Are they not already though? I suppose it's always possible to go even further, but I'm not convinced that would work. Perhaps it would be instructive to consider how obese people are treated in countries where obesity rates are low. Are fat people ostracized to a greater or lesser degree in those countries?
Fat-rights people just take that as evidence of a conspiracy of “thin supremacy”, similar to how some people see “white supremacy” everywhere they look.
But I mean things where there is no design being imposed. Like I can stroll down the beach if I want to. An extremely overweight person cannot. Nobody's imposed anything that makes that harder for them except their weight.
They must think to themselves 'it'd be nice to walk down the beach... I wonder why I can't do that without being uncomfortable when these other people can...' and realise that extra weight brings quality-of-life limitations.
I recently lost weight (~30 lbs) taking me from the threshold of obesity (30 BMI) to the threshold between overweight and normal weight (25 BMI).
While I certainly find it easier to be physically active now with less weight, I was still able to do multi-hour hikes, bike rides, and other physical activity before at the higher weight.
And if your lifestyle is such that you drive everywhere and don’t do much physical activity besides short periods of walking I can certainly see not really considering being even heavier to be too much of a drain on your lifestyle.
Yes, but with waaay lower incidence as thousands of studies (0 issues on reproducibility here) show.
> by talking about how we should focus on complete health like mind + body.
Sure, as long as she realizes that the two are interconnected and that at some point you'll have to do something, for real, for the body too.
Also in this case, there is an astronomical amount of research that shows the benefits of being in the "fit zone" irt body composition and of living an active lifestyle.
And for you, my sincere compliments for having turned around your life and changed your lifestyle, you rock.
I have, though, wrote a few things that people should keep in mind when discussing obesity, elsewhere in this thread.
Summarized: Willpower is not a panacea, mind is not above biology; Most people have not conciously chosen to be fat; Ostracizing fat people creates harmful effects and echo-chambers -- constructive criticism is much more effective; Do not forget the part that medical disorders can play in obesity.
Of course, this applies only if you actually want to help fat people. If your (not you exactly but people generally) only point is to bully, then the effort of providing constructive criticism is not worth it, the end result being unappealing (i.e. not getting an explosive reaction out of the person you're bullying).
In any case, if you want to help, do not approve of such lifestyles (i.e. fat-acceptance), but do not bully. People may need psychological support and even medical in case of an illness. If you want to harm people, just don't.
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-wa...
At least as tracked by my Fitbit it can be upwards of 2000 calories difference, and 10-15k steps.
When your body needs 2600 calories per day just to stay at the same weight it is very easy to lose weight by cutting them to 2000 calories. When your body only needs 2000 calories then you need to cut them down to 1400 calories for the same result which may be impossible from a psychological perspective.
You need to eat about 7,700 calories too much to gain a kilogram of weight (https://www.livestrong.com/article/304137-how-many-calories-...). So, eating 25 calories too much each day gains you that kilogram in a year. If you keep doing that between ages 10 and 40, you ‘gain’ 30 kilograms, and chances are you end up obese.
You can counteract that by burning about 25 more calories each day. To do that by walking, you need to walk about half a mile extra each day (https://www.livescience.com/8931-calories-walking-burn-depen...)
Current epidemic is caused because sugar is not only available but practically unavoidable if you consume prepackaged food. It's added to all kinds of food, some of them, like mayo, bread or sausages, totally superfluous. Meanwhile some "experts" keep talking about dietary fat and calories.
Lately I’ve been wondering about exposure to PFAs on all sorts of packaging.
Liu Y, Peterson KE. Maternal Exposure to Synthetic Chemicals and Obesity in the Offspring: Recent Findings. Curr Environ Health Rep. 2015;2(4):339–347. doi:10.1007/s40572-015-0068-6
May it be that it shifted to increased share of heavily processed food. Also, it can be related to changes in the way we grow, feed or fertilise cattle and plants. This can lead, some doctors say, to leaky gut and inflammation; many of us may suffer from those without being aware of it.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109.The_Omnivore_s_Dile...
Hanging art on the walls of egress stairs is typically prohibited by life safety codes. Egress stairs are required to be maintained as egress stairs. The requirement isn't based on theory. It is empirically derived from experience among fire fighting agencies encountering corpses and/or impeded fire-fighting operations when egress stairs are adapted for non-egress uses such as habitability and/or storage.
The blanket prohibitions exist because ordinary people ordinarily don't have experience with emergency events and modifications to life safety systems may effect the well-being of other building occupants, fire-fighters, and the general public.
https://www.oecd.org/els/41650997.pdf
>> We provide comparable evidence on the patterns and trends in obesity across the Atlantic and analyse whether there are economic rationales for public intervention to control obesity. We supply new evidence on such rationales taking into account equity issues as well as efficiency considerations, which are organized around the following categories of market failures: productive inefficiencies, lack of information or rationality and health insurance externalities. We argue that there is support for intervention targeted towards the young on equity grounds. While the evidence that the allocation of resources is (or will be) significantly distorted by the rise in obesity is less clear-cut, there are signs that this is the case due to time inconsistent preferences and because of the resilience of product and labour market imperfections, especially in some European countries.
The majority of people simply have no excuse not to manage their health/weight.
Even more so for parents or anybody else with dependents. It's plain negligent.
In my opinion, it's helpful to look at the human body as a biological machine. The mind itself is at the mercy of it's vessel, the brain. Thoughts are electrical impulses enhanced with chemical neurotransmitters. A change can quite literally cause a person to change their mind (literally, i.e. a hard-vegan and animal rights activist having a stroke and becoming a caricature of a meat eater, in worse cases a complete replacement of someone's personality and memories).
The human body is not below the mind, rather, they work together. An incident can initiate a never-ending cycle that ends in obesity and ultimately death.
Self control is not the panacea people think it is. The concious mind cannot override most if not all built-in impulses. Can you choose not to have sex? No. If you ask "why would I", that is already heavily influenced by the impulses built into the structure of the nervous system. A basic part of human existence. If you get over that part, sooner or later you will experience mental health issues beyond your control and ultimately forget your initial idea of celibacy. I have used this example and not eating, or excretion of waste, as technically sexual activity has no influence on the body's homeostasis and internal proceses.
Some people have a different priority list, including overeating. I do not think that ANY obese person has ever conciously made the decision to overeat and be miserable, sick and die earlier.
In any case, I agree with your part about parenting. It is incredibly negligent. Not introducing a child to the concept of overeating will in a lot of cases prevent obesity. However, some people are biologically predisposed to have less self control. This does not have to imply obesity and overeating.
On my own example, I have never smoked a cigarette, taken any psychoactive substance, or drank alcohol. I know that had I done any of those things, it would become an obsession to me. My father is an alcoholic drug addict who smokes a lot. My mother is just a heavy smoker. Some people cannot control themselves, and the long-term success rates of drug rehabilitation and AA/smoking quitters show that.
School breakfast programs are good - many children would not eat anything in the morning otherwise - but feeding them the kind of garbage that is typical eliminates most of the potential benefits. No human being should eat cereal or pop tarts, really at any time.
Is there any scientific evidence that shows this would actually be a bad thing? I know the amount of evidence that intermittent fasting like e.g. 16-hours a day without food has significant health benefits has been piling up in the last few years. But I haven't seen any research that backs up the 'common knowledge' claim that 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day'. As far as I'm concerned it's just a marketing trick from food companies, just like the stupid idea that you need to 'feed your body' with small snacks throughout the day.
Different people have different metabolisms, lifestyles, phenotypes, etc. I doubt there is a one size fits all solution. Best I’ve been able to come up with is if you see yourself getting fat, eat fewer carbs and saturated fats and excercise (cardiovascular) more.
Not sure about kids though. They are still growing and modern nutrition has helped kids grow taller and healthier than past generations who had intermittent access to food.
Eggs and a glass of whole milk would probably be a lot healthier than pop tarts and skim milk with cereal though.
Humans are not random decision-making machines. The ease of manipulating our consumption decisions is well documented. If you think your decisions aren't affected by external manipulations, it just means you haven't noticed.
editing mistake from changing source from this graph
https://ourworldindata.org/smoking
to this graph
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p4ECPyex_cY/TzSalazW2XI/AAAAAAAAA2...
A negative correlation between obesity prevalence and ‘active transportation’ certainly exists. Check the charts on pages 11/20 and 12/20 (page numbers 805 and 806) of http://www.cycle-helmets.com/walk-bike-obesity-rates.pdf
We exist. Our actions have consequences. Take control and perform the actions that result in the consequences you want.
The only way to cure the obesity epidemic is public education, and inform people. A whole food plant-based diet is the best diet identified by science so far in terms of treating obesity, and even heart disease and diabetes yet the public is still in 2019 going on 2020 largely unaware.
If you want to learn about this in a very relatable and none-formal way, this YouTube channel Krocs in the Kitchen from an american couple is quite fun (they lost 800 pounds combined) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9vIrPTF0znhis-gsFB8l8Q
Citation?
I think the best diet science has identified in treating obesity is cutting out processed foods. Whether it's processed plant or animal food.
Heart disease and diabetes comes from sugar and carbs, all of which are plant based.
The reversal of heart disease with this diet has been proven decades ago - https://nutritionfacts.org/2011/10/14/heart-disease-there-is...
No one knows the exact cause of diabetes, there could several causes. Processed foods are not whole foods. White flour, marguerine, processed sugar, cheetoes, that's a not a whole food it's not comparable to potatoes and bananas.
Here is the opinion of one of the leading experts in Diabetes, Neal Barnard - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S51D07bvlPY
He mentions that diabetes seems to be linked to an excessive consumption of fat, that inhibits the absortion of sugar.
He has studies published showing that a whole-food plant based diets in some cases has made the person stop taking insuline altogether.
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/in-depth/whats-at-the-heart-of-he...
We know the cause of diabetes, it's elevated insulin over time. We know what elevates insulin, it's carbohydrates. We know fat doesn't raise insulin.
That website, nutritionfacts.org is quite wrong in several places. I read some of the articles, it's not that good I'd avoid it.
Obesity should automatically put a person into a different risk/cost pool for health insurance. The price of procedures should be higher to reflect the higher cost and risk of treating people who are obese.
That already happens, though.
> I'm tired of subsidizing people who are so intent on harming themselves
Fair point, however you also subsidize smokers, drug addicts, etc.
I find your comment to be overly negative, instead of trying to solve the problem your propose to punish people financially, which won't work for two reasons, one of which is that poor people on average weigh more, and second is that you will reinforce bad behavior (i.e. overeating) and conspiracy theories that the world is out to get fat people.
My opinion is that a significat number of people who are overweight have a psychiatric condition, that can either directly cause overeating, or indirectly (i.e. medication such as antipsychotics, including "modern" ones like aripiprazole, drastically increase appetite).
As a fat person myself, I find it helpful to criticize obesity, as a complete fat-acceptness state of society would be very harmful. However, please, do not settle on punishment that at most could benefit normal-weight people financially, as we do with the justice system. Instead, try education and constructive criticism. Also, some fat people need healthcare to be able to lose weight -- like me (Coushing's disease).
Had your plan to deny me health insurance (by making it too expensive) been implemented, I would not only be fat forever, it would ruin both my life, lives of people around me (a stupid example: people in a bus being uncomfortably close to a obese person who is simply too large), and in the end achieve nothing.
As a software developer, I can provide more value to the society alive and healthy than sick and possibly dead, even including the additional cost of health insurance, adrenal gland surgery and medications and care.
Think before you ostracize. What you're proposing is not healthy and helpful criticism, it's a totalitarian conspiracy against a group of people, some of whom need your help.
I fully support the choices people make, but these choices come with costs that people need to take responsibility for.
Have a look at this comment that may further illustrate my point about your assumption about "choices people make" being incorrect.