We're all big and fat

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-07-27 04:43pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:
Mayabird wrote: Less educated, lower income, and more rural. The thing about cities is that it's a lot easier to handle day-to-day things without a car. If the grocery store is only a block and a half away or so, you can walk there and back to get a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. Out in the boonies, the nearest grocery store might be fifteen miles away or more. You'd have to drive to it (and even then the selection is probably going to suck; the veggies often aren't good at all). All that walking or driving adds up in the long run.
Yeah, but in the cities fast food also tends to be rather close- I have a grocery store about 500 feet from my house, along with a Subway, Carls Jr, etc.

Still, do always drive to get fast food, or is it easier to walk instead of putting up with the trouble? If I wanted to go to a Subway, I'd have to hop in my car and drive five miles, with my total walking time during the trip only being the couple of minutes I'd be in there. Walking a thousand feet is still more exercise than just sitting in a car the entire time. It's like the old thing about telling how fat the owners are by seeing how fat their dog is. If their dog is fat because he never gets walked, the owners probably are fat too because they never walk either.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-07-27 05:00pm

Toker brings something up I didn't consider as much before.

Does anyone feel that bulemia and anorexia are being exaggerated in their prevelance or severity?

We always hear this anecdotal evidence about it constantly. All these "true stories" blah blah blah. But is it even really a significant cultural or national health problem? I mean I feel I hear about it nearly as much as I hear about being fat. Does anyone else agree that undereating is being highly hyped as a big health problem?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-27 05:02pm

Well, I suppose it is indeed a problem that many young girls and women are anorexic or bulemic, and something that shouldn't just be ignored. But I can't imagine it being a problem as big as the obesity epidemic.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-07-27 05:05pm

I feel the amount of coverage it gets is unwarrented if one were to statistically compare it to overweight problems. For one, its almost exclusively effects women, vastly undercutting the relevance to society as a whole.

Keep in mind I'm not saying cut 'em loose and fuck 'em, I'm saying with the amount of coverage on anorexia and bulemia we would already have a fucking Fat Czar in Washington if public policy reflected reality.

1337n1nj4 · Post by **1337n1nj4** » 2004-07-27 05:18pm

Not sure really.

I've known a lot of girls that eat what I'd consider starvation amounts of food-- talking in the 600-800 calories per day range. I don't consider that healthy by any means, but it's not quite the same thing as being anorexic.

I'm not sure to what extent those disorders are being mis-diagnosed, with eating like that in mind.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-07-27 05:45pm

I'm trying to lose weight right now, as I'm about 7 kg overweight, and due to willpower reasons, it ain't easy. Well, just today I went to my parents' place with my gf because they were having their 30th wedding anniversary and took us all for dinner in a restaurant nearby. Dad said to me that I look thinner and have obviously lost weight, which was nice to hear, as I don't see much difference myself. On further reflection, not such a surprise: I tend to eat about 4 slices of a rather good dark bread with cheese for breakfast, and not much else until dinner time. I've found that the simplest way to eliminate unhealthy snacks (one of the reasons I'm overweight) is snacking on dried fruit.

They are shrivelled little things that balloon up by a huge amount after just a few moments in your belly, which makes you feel full like you'd just eaten a big meal. They have little enough energy content, so what happens is that yur body actually burns more energy digesting them than it gets out of them and at the same time the desire to eat anything else is suppressed. There is a side effect though, which happens to be increased bowel activity and consequent farting and need to go to the toilet a bit more frequently than usual (all the sulphur used in preserving them and digestive byproducts), but coupled with even a small amount of exercise, it helps.

The biggest problem for me with this approach has so far been that dired fruit are fucking expensive here, but I just found that they cost next to nothing in one of the big discount store chains here (Lidl, a German outfit), and you bet that at €2 per half a kilo of dried fruit, I'm officially ditching all other snacks as of about a week ago.

As for the contents of this thread so far, just:

Can't really say anything else. There are no words.

Edi

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-07-27 05:47pm

Try hard-boiled eggs if you want bowel problems. They're great for you and you can easily eat 20-30 a week, but it's like unleashing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse on your ass.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-07-27 05:59pm

1337n1nj4 wrote:Not sure really.

I've known a lot of girls that eat what I'd consider starvation amounts of food-- talking in the 600-800 calories per day range. I don't consider that healthy by any means, but it's not quite the same thing as being anorexic.

Well, I think there's some sort of disease affecting the digestive system which somehow manages to make the digestive system raise hell if the victim eats more often than one every seven hours. H.P. Lovecraft suffered from this. (and no, this it NOT the same thing as common eating disorders, which IIRC can be caused by a lot of different things from drug addiction over mental trauma to zinc poisoning)

Joe wrote:Try hard-boiled eggs if you want bowel problems. They're great for you and you can easily eat 20-30 a week, but it's like unleashing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse on your ass.

Do not forget the power of the Almighty Prune.

1337n1nj4 · Post by **1337n1nj4** » 2004-07-27 06:07pm

Peregrin Toker wrote:
1337n1nj4 wrote:Not sure really.

I've known a lot of girls that eat what I'd consider starvation amounts of food-- talking in the 600-800 calories per day range. I don't consider that healthy by any means, but it's not quite the same thing as being anorexic.
Well, I think there's some sort of disease affecting the digestive system which somehow manages to make the digestive system raise hell if the victim eats more often than one every seven hours. H.P. Lovecraft suffered from this. (and no, this it NOT the same thing as common eating disorders, which IIRC can be caused by a lot of different things from drug addiction over mental trauma to zinc poisoning)

I experienced something similar when I was in high school. I rarely ate, period. I would skip breakfast, eat maybe a sandwich for lunch, snack a little at home after school, eat a bite or two for dinner, and that was that. I was at a point where I literally couldn't stomach breakfast, and after eating lunch, my appetite was all but gone the rest of the day.

I think a lot of it is psychological-- once you actually start putting down the food, it gets a lot easier for it to become habit. How I eat now is a polar opposite from how I ate back then, and it's because I put myself in the habit of actually eating.

I've seen the same thing happen to a lot of girls that fell into that trap as well. Once they're told that they not only don't have to starve themselves to "look good," but that it's actually counterproductive to eat below a certain amount, they'll start eating more healthy amounts.

So...it's really hard to say how much is stupid-ass MTV and pop-culture mythology and how much is really eating problem.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-07-27 06:39pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Toker brings something up I didn't consider as much before.

Does anyone feel that bulemia and anorexia are being exaggerated in their prevelance or severity?

We always hear this anecdotal evidence about it constantly. All these "true stories" blah blah blah. But is it even really a significant cultural or national health problem? I mean I feel I hear about it nearly as much as I hear about being fat. Does anyone else agree that undereating is being highly hyped as a big health problem?

I've known several girls who were anorexic to get out of school projects.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-07-27 06:41pm

Howedar wrote:I've known several girls who were anorexic to get out of school projects.

Huh?

Exactly how does that make sense?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-07-27 06:43pm

Er, excuse me. They weren't anorexic. They were "anorexic" wink-wink nudge-nudge. Playing the sympathy card and all of that.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-07-27 08:01pm

Howedar wrote:Er, excuse me. They weren't anorexic. They were "anorexic" wink-wink nudge-nudge. Playing the sympathy card and all of that.

That's despicable. Faking a potentially serious mental disorder just to avoid a school project? Faking a temporary illness is one thing, but these people are taking advantage of someone else's health problems.

Anyway, one of my coworkers has his home page as being "Dell.net" (or something like that). It's the MSN page. Basically EVERY FUCKING DAY one of their top-pages involves fashions of some sort. For the three days, they've ALWAYS included a special on summer fashions, and those INVARIABLY focus on outfits that help people "trim" five or ten pounds. Today I glanced at his computer, and there was a story about celebrities who have "put on weight but still look great." It seriously is an endemic, and one that no one is bothering to acknowledge.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-07-27 08:03pm

How many obese women have you seen who believe that their big asses make them sexy? Sure, men like a woman who has a significant ass, but not when it has the consistency of cottage cheese.

J · Post by J » 2004-07-27 08:04pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I feel the amount of coverage it gets is unwarrented if one were to statistically compare it to overweight problems. For one, its almost exclusively effects women, vastly undercutting the relevance to society as a whole.

Keep in mind I'm not saying cut 'em loose and fuck 'em, I'm saying with the amount of coverage on anorexia and bulemia we would already have a fucking Fat Czar in Washington if public policy reflected reality.

It's hard to say really, the media seems to go through phases with these things. A few years ago I couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the latest eating disorder and latest celebrity who happened to be suffering from it, nowadays I hear warnings & reports on obesity and its attendent health problems almost every day. I see reports in the news every day about how half our population's overweight and a good 20% or something are dangerously obese, and how our children are also fattening up at an alarming rate and suffering from record rates of diabetes & other diseases. Strangely enough we never hear about fat celebrities other than Oprah and Roseanne.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-07-27 08:12pm

jmac wrote:It's hard to say really, the media seems to go through phases with these things. A few years ago I couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the latest eating disorder and latest celebrity who happened to be suffering from it, nowadays I hear warnings & reports on obesity and its attendent health problems almost every day. I see reports in the news every day about how half our population's overweight and a good 20% or something are dangerously obese, and how our children are also fattening up at an alarming rate and suffering from record rates of diabetes & other diseases. Strangely enough we never hear about fat celebrities other than Oprah and Roseanne.

Mind you, there have been some recent publicized studies showing precisely this, so it's naturally going to get reported. Anorexia/bulimia and other eating disorders still have significant mind-share despite occurring in only a miniscule fraction of the population. Imagine if 20% of the population were legitimately anorexic!

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-07-27 08:17pm

I don't see how any sane person can think one extreme is the perfect bodyform. Too thin or too fat, they're "too" anything and that's bad. You can have too much weight loss and too much fat; pity some don't seem to grasp that basic premise.

Though who cares? If you want justice today, just sue someone. Seems to work well in the States.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-07-27 08:19pm

I dunno Val, you're a pretty skinny kid.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-07-27 08:27pm

It's metabolic.

Really, I'm quite thin, not badly enough to warrant concern (though that almost happened years ago), but I'm not exactly happy about it either. I'm about 1.83m tall and 65kg, apparently, that's an average still.

If I could put the weight on, I would, but at least I'm no proud of becoming unhealthy unlike some.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-07-28 03:05am

Howedar wrote:Er, excuse me. They weren't anorexic. They were "anorexic" wink-wink nudge-nudge. Playing the sympathy card and all of that.

Hmmm... but wouldn't the success of such a fraud require to never be seen eating in public?

Darth Wong wrote:Mind you, there have been some recent publicized studies showing precisely this, so it's naturally going to get reported. Anorexia/bulimia and other eating disorders still have significant mind-share despite occurring in only a miniscule fraction of the population. Imagine if 20% of the population were legitimately anorexic!

Do you have any statistics on how many people in North America suffer from those particular disorders?

I live in Denmark and I've only known one anorexic person ever.

Jmac wrote:It's hard to say really, the media seems to go through phases with these things. A few years ago I couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the latest eating disorder and latest celebrity who happened to be suffering from it, nowadays I hear warnings & reports on obesity and its attendent health problems almost every day.

You might be on to something. Is it just me, or has the over-exposure on anorexia some years ago perhaps contributed to the growing acceptance of being overweight? It has certainly given me a slight phobia of dieting.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-07-28 03:09am

Peregrin Toker wrote:
Howedar wrote:Er, excuse me. They weren't anorexic. They were "anorexic" wink-wink nudge-nudge. Playing the sympathy card and all of that.
Hmmm... but wouldn't the success of such a fraud require to never be seen eating in public?

How would teachers know?