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The Fat Acceptance Movement

W

WALMART

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Not in any substantial way unless I'm missing something.


You're missing something ;)

http://www.sanantonio.gov/parksandrec/greenway_trails.aspx

"...joining a network of more than 1,150 previously designated trails that span more than 13,650 miles through 23 states."

The trail, when more funding is approved, will damn near run through my backyard, making the seventh largest city in the United States (and growing) almost completely and safely accessible to me by bicycle. Even now I only have to bike about 2.5 miles to reach the trail as it stands. Every month I see more and more faces out traversing its lengths. I love the progress my city is making to further reduce its status as the once fattest city in America.

Perhaps it is just me, but I have found health-consciousness to be a very large (hehe) concern of Americans here in recent years. I hope we collectively continue to break the status quos of modern American living.
 

Blackmail!

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Blackmail, what are your thoughts on the very high heritability of overweight/obesity/BMI in general?

It's false, but only because you added "in general".

If it was true "in general", then the average BMI should have remained more or less the same in developed countries during the last decades.

It has not. In fact, during the last three decades, obesity prevalence has doubled, tripled and sometimes quadrupled..

It means that most cases of clinical obesity aren't probably due to heritable factors (even if some are, unfortunately; if you have Maori or Pacific Islander ancestry, then you know what it means), but to our current environment.

And our environment has changed. Both physically, economically and socially.

We eat a lot more than what we used to be. We do less exercise than what we used to do. We are exposed to more chemicals and endocrine disruptors than ever, and the quality of the food we eat has been dramatically altered (too much cheap sugars), but that's just a few guesses. There are probably a lot of explained and unexplained factors at stake.

But what I know FOR SURE, is that if you eat 4000 kcal a day (with a fondness for soft drinks), if you're average sized and if you sit all day long in front of a desk... then you will likely become obese.
 
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Blackmail!

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[MENTION=3712]Quinlan[/MENTION]


and to back-up some of my claims, just look for instance at this fact sheet (from Harvard University, school of public health)

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/files/2012/10/sugary-drinks-and-obesity-fact-sheet-june-2012-the-nutrition-source.pdf

"A 20-year study on 120,000 men and women found that people who increased their sugary drink consumption by one 12-ounce serving per day gained more weight over time—on average, an extra pound every four years—than people who did not change their intake. Other studies have found a significant link between sugary drink consumption and weight gain in children. One study found that for each additional 12-ounce soda children consumed each day, the odds of becoming obese increased by 60% during 1½ years of follow-up."
 

Blackmail!

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It is time to show our cards.

I'm an urbanist currently specialized in health and environmental problems. I'm not a physician, but I work with them on a daily basis.
In Africa, we were focused on sanitation and diseases related to bad water quality. But in Europe and the US, we mainly focus on pollution, avalaibility of health structures, cleaning and recycling various wastes, but also on the obesity epidemy.

Obesity has become the major health issue in developed countries, and is indirectly responsible for millions of deaths. So we work on how to make our built, political, cultural and physical environment less likely to promote obesity. And every physician or major health institute I've worked with, recommended the same thing: 1/ Make people exercise and walk more, and 2/ Educate people more about nutrition, make healthy products avalaible for them.

-----

I'm not here to make fun of obese people. On the contrary, my current job (this year) is to help them to find a cure. But we can do nothing if obese people don't acknowledge it's a disease, if they do not have the will to cooperate. And it's not because obesity has now become commonplace that it makes this disease less deadly. It is a deadly disease, a disease mostly due to our current way of living.

For most cases we've studied, obesity works like an addiction to eating (especially sugar). People simply eat too much on average, and very unhealthy products. And you have to treat most obese people like people addicted to alcohol, tobacco or an heavy drug. They will behave the same way, most of them will be in complete denial of their situation, blaming genetics or inherited factors, or the so-called "slow metabolism" (no medical study has ever proven such a "slow metabolism" clearly existed). In fact most medical studies show that obese people frequently minimise the real amount of food they eat, that they hide it, exactly like an alcoholic person would do.
And they need to exercise more frequently. I do not mean playing sports or suffer like a marathonian, but just walking a few miles each day. It's not a big deal, really, but it can have a tremendous effect on your health, more than if you play sports (even very intensively) only during the week ends..
And that's where the physical environment, the structure of the city is important. Because if you're forced to use your car everyday, whether because you need it to go to work or to buy your daily stuff, you won't walk a lot. So the worst possible environment (from our perspective), is the extensive disconnected suburb with single housing and cul de sac, where a lot of space is wasted (urban sprawl).

Obesity is correlated by multiple factors, but is more prevalent:

1/ If you have a low level of education.
2/ If you use your car everyday instead of walking, biking or taking public transports.
3/ If you do not have access to varied commerces and services in your immediate vicinity -low mixed land use- (you should boycott the malls and especially discount stores).

And this rule applies in every major metropolis in the world, regardless of continent or culture. So this has led to the twin concepts of walkability and active design. Built environments are now rated on how walkable they are, how they induce a pleasant walking activity.
 
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Blackmail!

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If you're interested in the subject, you can watch for instance this conference of professor Howard Frumkin (School of Public Health, Seattle) held in Montréal during the Ecocity 2011 world summit.


This guy is very funny. :)

He really speaks about walkability starting at 5'40", and later how it is linked to obesity.
 

spirilis

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It's irresponsible to attempt to curb an epidemic primarily with shaming tactics.

I think addressing public policy would be more effective: better education, better access to healthcare, better access to public transportation and walking/biking, agricultural subsidies that support public health instead of big ag, etc.

IMO, a lot of people are here today because their ancestors were able to store enough fuel in their bodies to survive periodic famine. This is not a functional trait in an environment without major food scarcity and with sedentary lifestyles.

We can beat up on people all day long and shame them and tell them they are ugly, but until we address the underlying problems, it's not going to get better.

I personally think the problem isn't even solvable by education, it's better food we need. IMO the degradation of nutritional quality in our food supply (breeding fruits to be sweeter, mineral depletion of the soils, etc) is a direct cause of it all.
 

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In "Dodgeball," the ripped gym rats were the bad guys, and the more potato-shaped but still active people were the good guys. :D

Also, I've seen a lot of male characters in movies who are out of shape in relationships with thin, beautiful women. There might even be sort of a double-standard within this Fat Acceptance Movement as manifested in the media.
I've noticed in sitcoms the out-of-shape guys with the thin, beautiful women and have wondered whatever happened to Rosanne. In movies and TV it seems like heavier people are typically in comedic roles which isn't the same thing as acceptance. It seems funny to me to have never heard of this in the slightest, but to have only been overwhelmed by its opposite. Is the premise of this thread real?

Dove has its "real beauty" campaign, but I would say that the women they show are at their healthiest weight.
real-beauty-redone.jpg
 

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I do agree that obesity is a problem in developed countries, but it has to do with our food sources. The processed foods are heavy with corn syrups, sugars, fats, and salts. The cheapest foods at the grocery stores are also of this nature. This doesn't even address the additional fast food problem. These foods are low in nutrients so people so people need more to get their basic nutrition.

When entire demographics and even nations of people are suffering from a problem, it is a waste of time to look at first order effects and shame the individual. It is simply ineffective. You HAVE to look at the underlying causes which in this case is primarily the horrific food sources, constant advertisements to manipulate people into eating more, extended work hours, deep stresses in politics and the media that cause loss of sleep which also triggers food cravings, etc.
 

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It may be that people's bodies are diverse, but even so, too much is too much. I don't judge people based on their weight, as it isn't my body. However, I'd like people to care about their health enough that they'd want to lose weight/change their diet/etc. It's not something they should just accept. We are already eating processed foods and such; I think groups such as these give people the wrong idea.
However, I'm not overweight and I don't know what I'd do in such a situation. I don't mean to offend anybody, also. I'm totally against bullying and people with weight problems should not be mistreated(we are all humans and should be respected as such). It doesn't help anything.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I've noticed in sitcoms the out-of-shape guys with the thin, beautiful women and have wondered whatever happened to Rosanne. In movies and TV it seems like heavier people are typically in comedic roles which isn't the same thing as acceptance. It seems funny to me to have never heard of this in the slightest, but to have only been overwhelmed by its opposite. Is the premise of this thread real?

Dove has its "real beauty" campaign, but I would say that the women they show are at their healthiest weight.
real-beauty-redone.jpg

Those women are not fat. Possibly they might be slightly overweight, at least by BMI standards. They're certainly not obese.

Anyway, it's PR bullshit so that they can look like a "company that cares," I wouldn't place too much stock in it.
 

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As someone who works out quite a bit, it is easy to view most of the population as "out of shape". How many people can do 20 push-ups if asked randomly or run a mile without stopping? I've seem lots of skinny people who have no muscle tone and smoke and take no meds. I don't see these people any differently than the fat people mentioned in the OP. They are just an easier target because of their appearance.

Either way, neither group is healthy or in shape and shouldn't be glorified. Less emphasis on body image and more on lifestyle changes is a better way to reach everyone.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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As someone who works out quite a bit, it is easy to view most of the population as "out of shape". How many people can do 20 push-ups if asked randomly or run a mile without stopping? I've seem lots of skinny people who have no muscle tone and smoke and take no meds. I don't see these people any differently than the fat people mentioned in the OP. They are just an easier target because of their appearance.

Having no muscle tone is not a healthcare epidemic the way obesity is. People aren't getting illnesses in droves because they're too skinny, they're getting illnesses in droves because they're too fat.
 

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Having no muscle tone is not a healthcare epidemic the way obesity is. People aren't getting illnesses in droves because they're too skinny, they're getting illnesses in droves because they're too fat.

^ Medical fact.

Heart disease, diabetes, hormone imbalances, joint damage, sexual dysfunction. The list goes on.
However, being underweight will cause multiple organ failure after awhile, too, but seriously (at least in the USA) - there seem to be more overweight than underweight people by the score. It's not a "nice" fact, but medical stats can't be too far off.

I do agree with [MENTION=5223]MDP2525[/MENTION] to some degree, that other people may not be as active as they ought to be, & I view food addiction & say, nicotine addiction quite similarly in terms of health effects. That said, though, I've never seen a thin but "out of shape" [non-smoking] person struggle the same way to get up/down one flight of stairs unless they're asthmatic or something.
 

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You're missing something ;)

http://www.sanantonio.gov/parksandrec/greenway_trails.aspx

"...joining a network of more than 1,150 previously designated trails that span more than 13,650 miles through 23 states."

The trail, when more funding is approved, will damn near run through my backyard, making the seventh largest city in the United States (and growing) almost completely and safely accessible to me by bicycle. Even now I only have to bike about 2.5 miles to reach the trail as it stands. Every month I see more and more faces out traversing its lengths. I love the progress my city is making to further reduce its status as the once fattest city in America.

Perhaps it is just me, but I have found health-consciousness to be a very large (hehe) concern of Americans here in recent years. I hope we collectively continue to break the status quos of modern American living.
I think that stuff is great and probably very helpful to middle class people.
 

cafe

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I personally think the problem isn't even solvable by education, it's better food we need. IMO the degradation of nutritional quality in our food supply (breeding fruits to be sweeter, mineral depletion of the soils, etc) is a direct cause of it all.
Education is one small thing that might help a little. But the ag system is really screwed up, including, but not limited to, subsidies. There is also an access problem: healthy foods are often expensive and often grocery stores are not close to where people with transportation challenges live. We basically live like cattle in a feed log: fed corn and kept sedentary.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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^ Medical fact.

I do agree with [MENTION=5223]MDP2525[/MENTION] to some degree, that other people may not be as active as they ought to be, & I view food addiction & say, nicotine addiction quite similarly in terms of health effects. That said, though, I've never seen a thin but "out of shape" [non-smoking] person struggle the same way to get up/down one flight of stairs unless they're asthmatic or something.

Yeah.... thin people don't wheeze just from doing ordinary walking. I don't mean to offend anyone, it's just an important difference. I probably don't have very good muscle tone, and should probably exercise more, but I don't find that this makes it difficult to walk to most places, which, thankfully, because I live in an older suburb just outside of the city, is easy to do. Of course, I also try to eat something of a balanced diet, at least during the summer months when decent produce is available. I'm also not "officially" underweight.

Part of the people not walking places is because a lot of neighborhoods appear to have been planned with the assumption of an unlimited supply of cheap oil, and without the anticipation of health effects. I've also heard a few things about a conspiracy along the lines of the plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

That said, even when somewhere is easy to get to by walking, a lot of people prefer driving, even when the whether is nice.
 

Lexicon

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Yeah.... thin people don't wheeze just from doing ordinary walking. I don't mean to offend anyone, it's just an important difference. I probably don't have very good muscle tone, and should probably exercise more, but I don't find that it makes me difficult to walk to most places, which, thankfully, because I live in an older suburb just outside of the city, is easy to do. Of course, I also try to eat something of a balanced diet, at least during the summer months when decent produce is available. I'm also not "officially" underweight.

Diet's a big deal. There aren't any obese people in my immediate or extended family, but my active ESTP grandfather's had a couple heart attacks just from thinking all his life he could eat whatever he wanted cuz he's thin. He was a cop; free donuts. Yes.. free donuts. But yeah.. it catches up. In your arteries. He's got a stent in his heart now, all because of his shitty eating habits. You'd never know by the look of him, as it tends to be assumed most people with those issues are obese. Which, isn't necessarily untrue. But it's something thin (even active) people have to look out for, as well.
 

prplchknz

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what if we targeted anorexics? I mean tell them its ok to be fat, since that's what they believe they are when they're a healthy weight. I think it's genius personally
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Diet's a big deal. There aren't any obese people in my immediate or extended family, but my active ESTP grandfather's had a couple heart attacks just from thinking all his life he could eat whatever he wanted cuz he's thin. He was a cop; free donuts. Yes.. free donuts. But yeah.. it catches up. In your arteries. He's got a stent in his heart now, all because of his shitty eating habits. You'd never know by the look of him, as it tends to be assumed most people with those issues are obese. Which, isn't necessarily untrue. But it's something thin (even active) people have to look out for, as well.

True. I need to watch out, because I may end up like that. I prefer grease to sugar, though.
 

Lexicon

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True. I need to watch out, because I may end up like that. I prefer grease to sugar, though.

Hah, yeah.. donuts are a lethal combo of both. Fried cake...
 
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