My opinion only of course... but which bit do you particularly disagree with?
I must say that I tend to the holistic view of health... most people's immune systems can be measurably strenghtened through simple behavioural/lifestyle changes... allowing that in extreme cases there will always be room for pharmaceutical intervention...
There will soon be a 'Thin' pill of course, as there are 'stop smoking' pills... but these things just tinker about with symptons and there are better, long lasting ways to deal with these things... You would be amazed at the scale and effectiveness of the Placebo industry if you did some research.
Look fergal... there is no point in finding ever more elaborate ways of stating the same thing.... yes some people buy into a whole lot of stuff that they then use to justify damaging behaviour... so what? God you have only to look around these forum to find extreme examples of people who live in a self-concieved bubble of their own fictions...
There need be nothing universally true about what drives them to do so.... You want an undisputed truth:
You are what you eat.
The most straightforward way to 'unlearn' damaging behaviours is to replace it with more productive behaviours.... That is what I believe.. it is not easy in that it takes time and commitment... The technique however is simple... its called getting off your fat arse and doing stuff:-
Dump all your prior justifications wholesale, then:
* Force yourself to eat a healthier diet
* Cut down on the toxins that you put through your system
* Increase level of physical activity.
* Repeat until it becomes habitual....
This is guaranteed to work... you may not end up with a bum like a sprout... but you will be healthier in your body and therefore more positive in your mind...
It is not just about being 'thin' but how you get there... by tackling causes rather than symptons.
And this is the worst example of patronising middleclass liberal bullshit I have seen for a long time:
(AND don't even get me started on the whole class issue behind our so called Fat Nation. If you are working a shit job, shit hours, shit money you get your jollies while you can. Why does nobody ever mention the fact that sugary and fatty food gives you a buzz, a bit like drink or drugs or cigarettes? It's all very well to say ban this, ban that, but give people other options in life, look after your citizens, don't just use them as little cogs in a economic system, then they might not need to stuff piles of goop into their mouth for a moment's relief)
Who exactly are these underclass vermin and what shit jobs do they have... such that we should tut..tut in sympathy and understanding when they have their 20 pints and spread vomit on the streets....
Just remember that a brickie or street cleaner or nurse is sorely missed if he/she does not turn up for work.... as opposed to the pen pushers who presumably have the 'good' jobs that you infer....
I think that.. ooh, when children are abused, going to the gym and avoiding chocolate probably wouldnt sort their feeling good about themselves Gerry.
Hows that for starters?
I dont disagree with holistic approach at all. I just think that life is not *quite* as simple as you do.
Life is as complex as you make it...
"...when children are abused, going to the gym and avoiding chocolate probably wouldnt sort their feeling good about themselves.."
Maybe not... but it is hardly likely to make them feel worse, is it? Especially if the alternative was eating 'comfort' food and becoming a lard arse...
Liana how I agree - it is not as simple - there are medical reason for some obesity which has nothing to do with over eating or lack of excerise
I have a family member who for years had a undianosed and rare medical condition which led to her gaining a huge amount of weight - topping 24 stone at one point - she suffers greatly because of weight and would give anything to be a nimble size 10 - but because of this rare condition which means that whenever she does diets she gains weight can do nothing about it
the medication which would have controlled this condition was only started after she suffered nearly twenty years of morbid obesity then it was not monitored - this meant that her body suffered again - now she is on the correct medication far too late in her life for it make any real difference to her weight
I am happy to be 2 stone over weight because I know that unlike her I will never be double my weight and I will try my best not to be because I see what she suffers due to her weight
I don't diet as such but do try to excerise as much as I can - which until recently due to illness I have not been able to do so - now that I am up and about more I am so am slowly looseing what I've gained
Pi, did you read the first post:
"25% of men & 20% of women are GROSSLY fat.
Diets have become so lacking in vitamins and and minerals that life expectancy has shortened.
Unless we do something about it the next generation of Britons will be dying before their parents.
The financial cost to the health service is estimated to be between £3.3 and £3.7 billions per year.
The programme will demonstrate that you can be 'morbidly obese' without looking huge physically."
What has any of the above to do with the example you quoted?
I know...
Sorry Pi, did not mean to be rude... I accept there are specific cases, however I feel children are not getting much exercise as they used to... lack of sporting facilities but also because they tend to play out a lot less for safety reasons... this does not bode well for their future health..
I do hope you recover soon, you seem to be doing all the right things.
*aplauds Liana *
I was about to make exactly the same comment - Gerry I don't what planet you live on but it obviously isn't the same as our's
mind you *grr* I find it funny that you really expect everyone to live their lives as you do
actually you remind me of those couples you see wearing his and her's matching golfing clothes - or both looking like the just come in from a fishing trip - for the life of me I can't understand why you produce such an image - I could even go so far as to describe you as one of those keep fit fanatic's who you can't miss due to the uniform or should that be dress sense
it's ok to have the right to your point of view - and we have choosen to agree to disagree remember - but can you allow all those who live their lives differently the same right please ?
I don't think the programme is necessarily saying that ALL obese people are the result of having a smaller hole in their arse than in their face. There has always been some people with medical conditions, hereditary or otherwise, that govern their body shape/size. I believe it IS aimed at those of us who are grossly over-weight as a result of circumstances/eating habits that we have personal control over. I know that my excess weight is the result of a sweet-tooth and bingeing, comfort-eating brought about by being dissatisfied with myself/my life. It's the eating equivalent of retail therapy. Gerry's theories are all very well for the balanced person with no personal issues that just happens to be a few pounds out of condition, but take no account of those with deeper, psychological or medical problems.
no don't go Gerry - I can get very hot under the collar about the subject - mainly because I know quite a few people who are obese and not through poor eating and lack of diet
yes I am fully aware of what your saying and agree but nothing is ever quite so simple
I am fully recovered just need to loose some weight ....
Pi,
Obesity is on a sharp rise in the UK... We are well on the way to becoming like our American brethren.
There is no new bacterium or virus at work here... there is no disease epidemic...
It is mainly to do with modern lifestyle trends... we do less physical exercise, sit on our arses at work all day, use our cars more often, we watch more TV, sit at computers for hours, do not encourage children to run about as they used to.. eat fast food, fast.. eat pre-cooked supermarket meals, fast... eat vast quantities of 'luxurious' junk food as its cheap as dirt, consume gallons of alcohol... we trash our bodies...
No wonder.
It is gluttony not rocket science.
Encourage exercise, encourage healthier eating, encourage a sense of control when it comes to all the temptations that are within easy reach of all of us today... that is what is required to tackle this problem.
At the risk of getting murdered I have to say that what 1leg is saying still applies to 99.9% of people who are overweight.
"...it will be a total insult because the very nature of her genetic make up gave her a very rare condition one which no amount of eating the right foods or doing the right amount of excerise will cure "
"VERY RARE".
If MOST PEOPLE are overweight and not happy about it then they can lose weight in the way he describes.
For every person out there who is genetically inclined to obesity or has some psycological illness relating to size etc, there are about a thousand who just eat too much because of greed, carelessness, habit etc etc.
People are making excuses and to call them victims is just plain bollocks I'm afraid. To call 1leg a 'keep fit fanatic' because he's pointing out the obvious and advocating a little walking now and again and a healthy diet is as patronising as it gets.
Look at the stats Missi put forward at the start of this thread. We're either the unluckiest country of genetic and psycological victims on the planet and it's just NOT OUR FAULT, or we're just getting greedier and lazier and need to do something about it and THEN look to those who are addicted or ill in relation to their size or attitude to food.
I don't like skinny people and I'm not one (14st 2lb btw) and I doubt 1leg is saying we should all aspire to be the stick insects we see on the catwalks and in the limelight generally.
Everybody is aware of the thin culture pressure on young people and the image consciousness that has become part of our society so please stop throwing it in the face of anyone who suggests you drop a few pounds especially when it's you who is complaining about being overweight or not liking your body in the first place.
my father would cite "water retention" as the cause for his size between double helpings of fish and chips and thirty pints of bitter.
I agree with you Gerry, we should round up all the lazy fat bastards and put 'em in the army. Tie 75lb packs on their backs and make 'em run 10 miles a day. On the other hand we could start a concentration camp on Canvey Island (well it's a shithole already), as I've often pointed out, the only fat bastards that ever walked out of Belsen were the guards. THAT should do the trick! Whaddya say?
so is cancer and a mass of other things - each and all are not dependent upon one specific thing but upon many
yes - there is a problem but to decided that one thing will cure it is not exactly looking at what that problem is - its merely touching the surface and not the whole complex issue
if one medicine cured all - then we'd be taking it but it doesn't sadly
after all your encouragement of one thing could lead to something else thats unwanted - as you pointed out the risk of children playing outside - then its not going have the same benefits as you thought is it
yes we do need to do something because we need to address the affects but why, for what reason and for whom - who will benefit?
if we go on fixing this with a band aid and forget that are many causes such as it being of our own making or they were a natural ocurrance - then because we ran in without really looking we create a further problem that will need fixing at a later date - generalisation cannot cure - don't you agree ?
Well put Ely.
Now that you have laid this down to rest, I can retire to the garden with that big box of choc cookies I just discovered in the cupboard....
*hastens to add that have done quite a lot of cycling recently*
No one is arguing that a significant amount of overweight issues are to do with a sedentary lifestyle. Thats not what we're saying.
You remind me leg, of a childhood doctor i had, who would stare at the wall in a very bored fashion and put everything down to growing pains. As I grew older, it was sex, or smoking that caused every ailment. He was very narrow minded chauvenist and had the MOST unfortunate manner. At 15, when i was spewing every meal out of my mouth, no doubt he wouldve told me to go down the gym as well.
Life is a little more complex - not because we WANT it to be, because it just fucking well is.
Jeez,
I'm amazed at some o that stuff.
I do know what you are saying but where is the compassion, or the understanding that we, us glorious human beings, are not automatons.
Personally I weigh up what I want to do with what it will do to me. Therefore I eat quite a lot, am known to over do it on the odd glass of red wine more often than not and smoke too. I'm a a public health liability, although I do cycle everywhere and swim a lot... I weigh 13 stone, yep, 13 stone, am a size 14, am 5' 9" and feel relatively healthy or at least able to do all the things I like to do. I will not be brow beaten into being something else. All that happens when I've lost weight before is that everyone says, 'Oh my god you look amazing, you've achieved so much, wow, look at you!' and you know what? It makes me feel sick everytime at the whole stupid nonsense over it, the big deal, the fact that the best thing a woman can do still (in certain circles) is drop a shed of weight and look pretty. Feck that for a laugh. Also it sickens me because it makes me feel certain people's interest in me is relative.... What would they do if put on a shed load of weight again? They'd drop me.
And actually, spider, I wasn't being middle class patronising in that statement earlier - I was just saying that food is more than nutrition for loads of people and it fulfills a role of comfort and reliable high (and low) that people often need. I wasn't necessarily just talking about bin men or whatever - I was thinking admin too, office jobs that bore the feck outta me and probably loads of others but we do them anyway. They're the jobs that don't even feel like they're doing anything but perpertrating themselves over and over.
I do know what you're saying. In theory you take an overweight person, get them excercising and eating healthier and ta da, they are not overweight. Of course that is true. But you're still forgetting about guilt and self disgust which is a pretty big thing. Yes I admit that a lot of people would feel better about themselves if they did some exercise - I always do, but you need to do it with positive encouragement (not patronising).
There is no point guilting people into doing stuff, all that does is make them feel that they've done something wrong. The big chains have been pumping ads out for shite food for years, tempting us with it, luring us in, and now we're being told that no, we are bad for eating it.
Let us be.
Do it nicely that's all.
I don't know about England there Mississippi, but I personally would prefer the the US Army wasn't manned with "Fat Bastards"... Not going to be the most effective fighting force, and they make better targets.
Why thank you fish... and can't believe I missed out on the B52's. Ahhh, luckily I was eating a packet of ferraro roche with pints of guiness at the time so probably made up the kcal deficit. hah!
I thought I mentioned many things Pi....
Lifestyle changes are the hardest to make, not the easiest. It is more complex to suggest someone make changes to bad habits learnt over a life time.... because things are not unlearnt in a day. It requires major commitment and determination over a prolonged period to change...
What I am railing against is the pill generation... who think they can carry on as they are.. and solve the problems by popping ever more sophisticated pills to deal with the symptons... just tinkering I say. Ultimately a waste of time.
Do some yoga. Get on yer bike. Take yer dog out for a walk.
You will be healthier AND feel better.
Whilst life may be complex for you Liana... for me it is simple... and if I fuck up (as I frequently do)... I am the first to accept my share of responsibility and I try my damndest to to learn from it.... which usually means looking outside the box of my head.
The last thing I want from anyone else is 'compassionate' reinforcement of the beliefs that led me to my fuckup.....
To say that I am narrow-minded because I disagree with you.... when it is clearly you that has been struggling with this problem... well says more about your attitude than mine..
There are always alternative realities out there..... you seem to think that the one you have is the only one that can be.
It seems to me that going to the gymn/taking up a sport is great advice to a 15 year old with body-image problems.... especially if the alternative is drugs and psychobabble....
The sooner one gets to learn that there are no 'easy' solutions in life but a continual 'process' one has to live through, the better.
Fergal... the point that I am trying to get across is a fairly straightforward one......
Say there are two ways you can go to achieving weight loss (forget for a moment the myriad of reasons of why you may want to do so)
1. Is to starve yourself over a short period of time
2. Work out a programme of little things to do over a prolonged period of time (as per my suggestions above)
In scenario 1, you get thin... perhaps quickly. This will be done in a way that is surely detrimental to your overall health... and is there anything sustaining about this??? No... your mind and body's (physical) systems have not adjusted to cope with this new state of affairs... there has been no body learning process to have gone through.... all you have is a result and emptiness (akin to someone who has cheated in a race)... 'thin' on the outside, but on the inside you still think fat... and in reality it takes but a little trigger to send your weight the other way.
In scenario 2, After a few months you will start feeling the benefits... your energy levels will up, you will get fitter and you will even lose some weight. Between 6 months to a year it starts to become a natural part of your life style and you don't have to conciously force yourself to do these things.... Your body and mind will adjust gradually to the new circumstance, you will not have 'cheated' and can thus internally at least take pride in your appearance... I actually think you may come to care less about appearance as you gradually escape the trap of how others see you and come to absorb the benefits of being 'fitter' in their own right...
Now, answer honestly if you will.... which of the two scenarios above would you advocate to anyone who is unhealthily fat?
Being fit is good... being thin for its own sake is not necessarily so.... why do mainly women... but also men deliberately confuse the two... is it just because it is convenient to do so?. All my posts above set out the arguments for scenario 2.... I would never advocate Scenario 1.... what is the problem here? Why all the protestations?
Fat or thin, it should not make a difference to how your loved ones feel about you.... if they are concerned about your health however and remonstrate you.... I would think that is a good thing. In the finality you should only do it for yourself... and if you feel good about yourself... it will benefit your loved ones too.
I do understand what you're saying about it, I really do.
It's just if it comes across as judgemental the people you are trying to 'help' may well just take it as an insult or as criticism and this alienates even further.
Obviously I knew you were advocating sensible weight loss and nothing else, I was just saying that there are various ways of promoting this and telling people to get off their lard arses and move isn't necessariy the most productive and feels a bit too sanctimonious to be genuine concern for others.
If you look at one of my earlier posts you will see the following:
<>
That surely sums up everyone's point on this no?
*wants to punch gerry's nose - of course my punches are not very strong on account that I have damaged nerves on both arms*
you are still missing the point - there are many causes - you can't alter one thing without knowing the causes, the reasons - its called 'cause and effect'
and besides I can think of hundreds of questions like
how do you give a person determination?
how do you make a person commited to change?
You sound like a advertiser for a health spa btw
what are your rates and do you do ....
another point is that all those people we see on TV and in mags and movies we think of as fit they mostly have eating disorders and completely fucked up ways of maintaining those supposedly uberfit bodies.
Honestly, if people realised the amount of bodily abuse that goes into the creation of a cover star they would feel a lot more happy with their lot. But we are always hearing how 'I just eat when I'm hungry, do some excercise once a day and drink lots of water' or even worse, 'It's just my genes - I can eat whatever I like and I never put on an ounce of weight'.
Anyone who believes that needs to have a big think. Does it sound plausible to you? It's more to do with plastic surgery, eating disorders, and high level drug usage. Not that I'm directly accusing anybody of anything.
Oh no.
I also think our idea of what qualifies as 'fit' is not necessarily so. My doctor tells me I am fit and healthy, yet if I was on TV I would the fat one who was sad and desperate for a bloke to like me. In actuality I really am not fat or in denial about what I'd like to be, I am actually a nice size, the sort of size my grandmother said people were without a second thought when she was a girl, and I'd like to think I'm quite fanciable, relatively speaking. I think that's the stuff you're leaving out in your posts. You're not realising the layer after layer of stuff on this out there.
Everyone accepts that there is a lot of body-image rubbish in the media out there...
The fact that you and me and others bring this fact it up time and time again in discussions like this suggest that there must also be counteractive sources of information that challenge this impression...
I just don't agree that that the real causes of obesity amongst the majority of people are to do with the influence of those factors at all.... In my view they are more localised ones of modern living..... more affordable stuff being available in abundance, the rush of modern life which promotes fast food and eating, the growth in sit-on-your arse diversions such as television and computers and of course jobs that involve little physical activity....
I am not saying that these are wrong per-se, but that we should actively compensate for these things by doing more programmed exercise and by going out of our way to promote healthy eating and control over the choices we make...
What are these causes you keep reffering to Pi... can I have some examples?
here are some of mine:
Doughnuts, Chocolate Biccies, Lard 'n Chips, Cream Cakes.
What I want to know is why all the people panicking about child abuse don't spend more time complaining about the promotion of Waif[tm] (either sex) as an ideal image for women?
..and considering that most child abuse is “close to home”, will an increasingly private culture with kids kept indoors sedated by TV and burgers mean fewer cases are exposed?
..and how was that cost to the NHS calculated?
..and how does a stop smoking pill tinker with the symptoms when most are alternative sources of (the addict's) nicotine?
..and why do these straightforward points (from all sides of the debate) need so many words? ;b
depression - various medical conditions - various essential medications (some drugs can also create similar conditions)
then there's basic educational practices that have taken cooking and so on out of the class room
then lets a look a commericalism, mass production and the promotion of such products
if you want to control the over indulgence then why not put tax on such foods to recover the cost to pay for the medical requirements
what about government health warning on such products ?
then there are idiots like you who have decided that people are not allow choice
what you after ... blood? - thank Gerry enjoyed it - night
when i was a teenager and up to my mid 20s, it may amaze you to know (those that have met me that is) i was a 9stone weakling. (9 stone is 126 1bs, or i dunno 60kg?) i was painfully thin and not very happy, when i came to london in my mid 20s, i started piling on the poundage and at my peak was about 14 stone (roughly 2001bs) that has since shrunk to my current 12 1/2 stone (can't be arsed converting anymore) and i'm happier being what a doctor sescriobed me as "chunky" but not as chunky as the 14 stone i did reach a few years ago...
Spider, yes, you do. Your attitude in these posts is sanctimonious and judgemental. If I didnt know you personally, I would be led to think that you are both of these things from what you have written.
Why hasn't it occured to anybody that the increased obesity of the more wealthy and industrialized societies populations, may be the result of natural species evolution.
The average size of people in general, as well as avg life expentency, has steadily increased with the advent of modern technology, agricultural and medical methods. Human's as a species will adapt to the changing environment over time. As a part of this never ending adaptive cycle, the people living in the more "abundant" environments will naturally grow bigger and "fatter" at an increased rate over those still living in more restricted environments. The end effect could possibly be that we all get bigger and fatter, on the whole, until we reach a point of breakdown as a species. In effect, I predict that no amount of government involvment or social program will have a lasting effect on the situation, and is quite likely to have an unnoticable effect, until such time in the next 2-3 hundred years, when we actually start a downhill slide in the cycle. More people will die due to over compensation to their environments, it will oscillate and eventually steady out on another cycle, reletive to some other influence. Assuming of course, we don't kill one another between now and then, or some new disease wipes out half the planets population, or a giant meteor strikes the earth and we all go extinct or , something else.
Haven't any of you read Darwin? We're boilogical/chemical machines that will do what our environments allow/command us to do.
Pages