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Comment by valianteffort | Hacker News Reader

Criticizing the actions of overweight or unhealthy people is as socially tabboo as that of trans, israel or jews. It doesn't matter how sound your argument is, these socially "protected" classes are infallible apparently.

I think after several generations that experience mortality at younger ages because of obesity, there might be an honest discussion of how bad being sedentary and overweight is for your health. Until then you have liberal rhetoric equating any acknowledgement of this reality to an accusation that someone is a bad person for being fat.

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Whoa you're bundling a lot of things together there that are super different.

I think there's a huge difference between Israel the country and government and Jews for example.

Criticising Jews is generalisation because they're not one entity and not all the same. One Jewish person is not responsible for the actions of the others. So yeah criticism is automatically discrimination and in this case antisemitism. You can criticise individuals for their actions but not generalise that over a whole people.

The state of Israel, well that is a singular entity with a clear power structure and certainly can be criticized for its actions. I don't think that amounts to antisemitism. Because Israel isn't made up of only Jews.

And trans people, why do people feel the need to criticize them? Let them be who they are, they're not harming anyone. Maybe your holy book says it's wrong, well you can apply it to yourself but not others who don't follow your beliefs.

And yeah obesity is bad. I'm obese as well and I know that. It's just very hard to do something about it, the same way you can't tell a depressed person to just be happy. Some people have a huge tendency to gain weight and overeat. People without this problem underestimate the difficulty.

> And trans people, why do people feel the need to criticize them? Let them be who they are, they're not harming anyone.

The criticism is this: a woman's right to a single-sex spaces cannot co-exist with the desire of a male to enter these spaces based on his claims of 'gender identity'. When the desires of the latter are prioritised above the needs of the former, this causes actual harm.

Do you really think people have a whole transition just to be able to sneak into the women's bathroom?

And really, they're not coming into the stall with anyone else. There's still private space there. So the purported problem just appears at the sink. Many places have unisex bathrooms now too. And/or not gender-matching cleaning staff.

Also it's kinda rude misgendering trans females. They aren't males.

> Do you really think people have a whole transition just to be able to sneak into the women's bathroom?

Maybe there is a gender which is biologically male, mentally female with lesbian tendencies, and they want to feel intimate that way. So why not?

I really think you have no idea what it involves to transition.

It's not some pill you just pop. It's a difficult path of psychological evaluations and hormonal and surgical procedures. Expensive and very invasive and it's not granted on a whim. You really have to be female in your identity.

I really don't see any CIS man taking hormones and surgery that make them more feminine just to get a peek in the girls' bathroom. They don't desecrate themselves that way. If they want to peek there's easier ways, like putting up cameras (sadly it happens) or putting on a maintenance overall or whatever.

And for feeling intimate there's clubs and bars for that :) In my experience trans people usually tend to date other trans people or at least those in "LGBTQI+ and allies" circles. Because they know about the difficulties and feel more of a connection.

I don't think you are responding to my message.

This doesn't really address the criticism, for several reasons:

1. Males who identify as women are a heterogenous group that mostly consist of those who have not undergone the 'whole transition' (by which I assume you mean the cosmetic surgery on their genitals, alongside long-term hormonal intervention), with a significant proportion having no intention of doing so. Notably this group includes many males who do not pass as women at all, and who do not seem to put much effort into achieving that aim. Yet still insist that they should have access to women's single-sex spaces based on their 'gender identity'.

2. Women's bathrooms aren't the only single-sex space that males who identify as women desire to enter. Others include: prisons, locker rooms, refuges from domestic abuse and sexual violence, nude spas, sports competitions, support groups for issues that only apply to the female body like pregnancy, menstruation and menopause. Essentially any single-sex space may be coveted by these males.

3. It isn't sufficient to consider this issue only from the perspective of these males and the fulfillment of their desires. The women who these single-sex spaces are actually intended for, and who need these spaces for various reasons including safety, dignity and privacy, must be recognised too, and really should be the group centred in any discussion of this.

Also regarding the objection to 'misgendering': this is another example of how women's spaces are imposed upon by these males. In this case, attempting to occupy the same linguistic space, and by doing so, removing language that may be used to distinguish them in discussions such as this.

>Do you really think people have a whole transition just to be able to sneak into the women's bathroom?

Yes, there are plenty of men who do this.

Misgendering? This isn't reddit the people on HN are not likely to kowtow to your lunatic revisionism, no matter how much anyone gets downvoted.

Sorry, unsolicited advice here. I was obese 4-5 years ago.

What helped me was a coworker who told me about his yearly fast, how he prepared and the difficulties (the first two days are the hardest). After the 5-day fast, I found it way easier to ignore my hunger and start IF (now I mostly eat less tbh).

If you want to try, here are my adices:

- If you have big health troubles (if you're diabetic), ask your doctor. It might be a bad idea.

- Do your fast during spring, late spring specifically. Sun helps a lot with mood and motivation Prepare how you enter the fast.

- The previous 3 days, I was on a mostly ketogenic diet (greens, eggs, poultry, meat, butter, avocado, falafels)

- No medecine. See point 1. Medicine will break your fast. Prior to the fast I took nutrients (vitamin D, magnesium) (I did a blood test before obviously).

- Prepare to drink a lot of water. I added lemon juice in small quantities (for electrolytes, and taste). Tea might be OK too.

- The worst day was the second (the first was easy either). I wasn't able to do anything. Prepare for it, stock interesting books, play video games, find ways to forgot about your hunger. It will physically hurt. Each time it does, drink water. Also, prepare a book rather than screen time on the evening, falling asleep sooner will help.

- Once I passed the second day I was mostly okay. I was pretty tired and weak the 3rd, but I was able to exercise and go out the 4th and 5th (my libido also increased a lot, beware). I stopped the 5th day because it was my object (and I was visiting friends the rest of the week), but I could have lasted longer, and probably worked without issue from the 4th day onward.

Sorry again if it's unsolicited. Hopefully you find something that works for you (and I'll be happy if my dices helped anyone who was in my situation).

Hmm it sounds ok. I've "fasted" for more than a day before, though not really on purpose but because I was so depressed I didn't want to even eat. I view my depression as the root cause of being overweight.

But it wasn't as bad as I expected, the Hunger feelings just went away. But when I did eat it was very hard to not over-indulge because cravings returned.

>Criticizing the actions of overweight or unhealthy people is as socially tabboo as that of trans, israel or jews.

I think news people tried to throw that at the wall for a little while, but it didn't stick.

It absolutely stuck but Health at Every Size (HAES) and the body positivity movement doesn't have the same resources to attack and vilify as the other groups.

Israel isn't just taboo. They actively destroy opposition by getting people fired, prevent them from getting funding (important in politics), and have entire call centers staffed tasked with forum sliding and demoralization. See the JIDF (it never stopped contrary to the lies on Wikipedia).

HAES has a decent point at its core. Screaming at fat and sedentary people to put the burgers down and go for a run is not an effective way to get them to live more healthily. Better to get them walking around the block a few times a week as an ongoing habit than do three sessions of max heart rate cardio and quit.

There's a move to destigmatise obesity, but the academics who support that still want to lower obesity, which is not the same thing as other protected groups.

Everybody knows that being sedentary and overweight is bad for your health. You think this is some secret that people are trying to hide?

The problem is that we have no strategy for long term weight loss that actually works. This is probably related to the fact that we have no idea what is causing the obesity epidemic to begin with. There are tons of theories, though.

>Everybody knows that being sedentary and overweight is bad for your health.

No there is a growing segment of the population that has no idea being sedentary leads to weight gain, as well as a segment that thinks being overweight is ok or healthy. Perhaps you're not as in-touch with the rhetoric of the younger generation.

American is the most overweight and obese nation in the world. It shouldn't be "socially acceptable" to pander to unhealthy lifestyles and telling people to exercises shouldn't be seen as "shaming" them. If you don't tell them to get off their butt and do some form of exercises, you're basically encouraging and loving them to an early death.

So many problems related to physical health, mental health, social and community health, as well as environmental and economic health are exasperated by one thing: cars.

Meanwhile Fewer kids are walking or biking to school than ever before, setting them up for a lifetime of sedentarism and it's consequences. The obesity rate will continue it's steady march upwards and to the right.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “you can’t outrun a bad diet”. Nutrition is much more important than exercise/physical activity overall but of course a good balance of both is ideal.

You're bound by popular myths entertained by people who struggle, and they struggle because they're bound by popular myths. I can outrun a bad diet just fine. Possibly you were trying to outdrive a bad diet.

Our diets haven't gotten meaningfully worse in the past quarter century. per capita sugar consumption peaked in the mid 90s, but obesity rates have continued to rise, steadily.

> If you don't tell them to get off their butt and do some form of exercises, you're basically encouraging and loving them to an early death.

Ah, yes, the approach that ignores any of the psychological root causes of diseases that are clearly partially psychological.

It also happens that telling people things in an empathy less way can backfire. The solution to obesity is not as simple as your experience makes you think - or it would already be a solved problem.

yay... i really don't care about your feelings. you're obese... lose weight or suffer the consequences. No one cares about your circumstances and issues, everyone has their own that they have to overcome and if they can do it, you can do it.

The way to fix it is better public policy about food, pricing, roads, active travel (make biking and walking more useful for work and shopping), etc. Making a shitty environment so more big box stores and casual dining chains can open and then berating fat people is as cruel as it looks.

Nah, I could post that fat people are lazy and not get banned on any platform. You can't touch the other three things you mentioned.

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