Too Fat to Graduate | Hacker News Reader

Too Fat to Graduate

thedailybeast.com

13 pointsUsNThem15 comments

Seems like a slippery slope to me. Ok, so the university doesn't let these ~2 dozen students graduate because they refused to enroll in a 'fitness' class that was only required for the obese (if I'm reading the article right).

What other areas of 'student unhealth' will the university decide to make a conditionally-mandatory class for next? Tobacco? Alcohol?

If nothing else, the class should be required for all students. Even if they're not tipping the scales yet, if they are developing the habit of eating lots of junk they will need to change or face consequences later in life.

They could add content on Tobacco, Alcohol, etc. to the same class and students could then make their own choices based on that information.

Since they were obese as freshmen, the finger would seem to point at their parents. But any parent(s) raising kids under stressful conditions could be forgiven more easily for raising an obese college graduate than a trim and fit dropout, I think.

Working single parenthood is maybe the most major non-genetic risk factor for obesity, am I wrong? Instilling nutritional discipline has got to be a tremendous challenge for a working single parent, just looking at things logistically.

When you look at it as a triage situation, I commend a single parent choosing to go right home after work to make sure their kids do their homework, rather than going to get fresh produce first.

One point: the author claims that cost of food is a big issue for them to eat healthy. And yet she (the author) doesn't consider how much food do you have to eat to get that big.

They eat it because generally they were brought up to eat that way or they lack the discipline to consider their well-being over what they like the taste of best.

Discipline. Often in matters like these for change to occur someone needs to drop a bomb on them and get them to make an ultimatum.

You do have a point. Chinese and Indians are much thinner than Americans and people of many other rich countries, despite being much poorer on the whole.

Rice is cheap. Not going for that third soda in a single sitting is also a money saver.

In the end, money is a very poor excuse. If people living off of less than 100USD/month can live full lives without getting fat, then the American "poor" don't have any poverty excuse whatsoever. Pervasive marketing and ubiquity of unhealthy foods are much more likely culprits.

"Indians are much thinner than Americans"

<-- Its got more to do with diet, culture and lifestyle, than with money. In India, an overwhelming majority of people cook their own food on a daily basis. Burgers, Fries and Carbonated drinks are not part of the food culture. There is no car culture like in the US, and people walk a lot more on a daily basis. And to say people live full lives on 100 USD/month is misleading. The cost of living in India is also proportionally minute when converted to USD.

You have to eat more calories of crap to feel satiated than eating decent food. Crap is much cheaper than decent food, so people struggling financially are much more tempted by crap.

I don't think you can easily eliminate the economic impact on obesity rates.

I don't buy that whole, "I chug on cheeseburgers because I'm poor", I feel it has more to do with laziness, lack of discipline and simply not caring. Compare an apple to a bag of doritos, or an oreos smoothie with a cup of tea. Price and marketing manipulation sound to me like a lame excuse.

No--statistically, the correlation is between poverty and obesity. You're implying that laziness, lack of discipline, and simply not caring are somehow linked to poverty. While that may be true, there are also tons of rich people who are lazy, undisciplined, and apathetic who maintain slimmer figures by using money.

This is like having apathy toward a group of people who suffer from an illness.

"You're fat? You're lazy!" Problem solved. That's like telling someone who suffers from bad acne: "Why don't you just wash your face you unclean slob."

I'm saying you have the choice of what to eat, choosing to supersize fast food crap is a decision made by someone to doesn't care about their health, or has no discipline. And yes, laziness too could be accountable since you can prepare a healthier meal. Going out running/walking a couple times a week won't kill you either.

In the poorer places of the country, it is far easier to get fast food than food from a grocery store. A lot of these families don't have a car, and lugging a week's worth of groceries on the bus absolutely sucks -- I've done it before. Even worse if you have a family.

Obesity is a very complicated issue in poor neighborhoods. It would involve fixing a few other things. And I don't like the "bah, lazy people" attitude. I have no idea how I'd handle the situation if I was raised in that sort of environment. I do know that it takes a much larger amount of effort to eat healthy in bad places.

The issue is further complicated since we try to push the same nutritional guide on everyone. It is a little known fact that Native Americas have a hard time with bread. Rice isn't as healthy for people as you think, unless their bodies are adapted for it.

In all, the University's heart is in the right place.

In the poorer places of the country, it is far easier to get fast food than food from a grocery store

I was speaking to an American friend of mine recently and he brought up a very similar point. I simply could not understand how fast food could have come to be associated with the poor in the United States - he simply pointed out that I live in England, where a decent take-out often costs the equivalent of $8-$10 US, for a much smaller portion, and that almost any American would see that as bordering on extortion.

If nothing else, I feel that this highlights how ill-conceived our ideas can be when we try to reason about a world that many of us simply don't live in.

The author meanders quite a bit, and makes it sound as though if you can't afford locavore cuisine from Whole Foods, you can't be healthy.

That's silly. You don't need organic, locally grown produce to eat well, you just need to eat more unprocessed foods, and stop eating crap. You can buy healthy food at Costco easily, and you can eat well without breaking the bank.

You can buy healthy food at Costco easily, and you can eat well without breaking the bank.

Absolutely. But you need nutritional education, be it formal or informal, in order to know how to pick foods that are nutritious and cheap.

How many impoverished people in the US could explain to you what carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are? How many of them know how each fits into a healthy diet?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com