EU - obesity is a disability

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Discussion

RobinOakapple

2,802 posts

111 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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I've got a degree of sympathy for people who are obese. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to overcome addiction, and that's what these people are, food addicts.

Imagine an alcoholic or a smoker who has realised that he/she has got a severe problem and has the willpower to deal with it. They do this by stopping drinking or smoking. But it's not so simple for food addicts. They have to eat a certain amount every day, but then they have to stop. Tricky stuff. Plus when a drinker or a smoker stops they start to get the benefit right away, whereas a food addict is going to have to resist the urge to eat for months.

Just calling them greedy misses the point by a mile.

dudleybloke

19,718 posts

185 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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You can be a "food addict" and still lose weight if your willing to sweat it out.

RobinOakapple

2,802 posts

111 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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dudleybloke said:
You can be a "food addict" and still lose weight if your willing to sweat it out.
That's very true, just like any other kind of addict. All I'm doing is taking issue with the 'greedy' description.

mitzy

13,857 posts

196 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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Having lost 8.5 stone Obesity isnt a disability, a disabilty is someone who has an illness that stop them from walking, talking.

Being 19 stone Im sure as hell wasnt disabled - I ate far too much of the wrong things and never moved and was proper fat!

The EU need to promote a new law - Eat Less, Move More!

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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Centurion07 said:
The key word there is EXCESS.

Your body will use ALL of whatever calories you feed it, as long is it CAN. If your body only needs say, 500 calories of protein that particular day and you give it 501, it has no use for that 1 calorie so it needs to do something with it. Same goes for a lot of other types of calorie, but your body loves fat calories. If it can't use them as fuel it's quite happy to store them for use later hence you get fat if you eat EXCESSIVE fat calories.

AS mentioned above, it's most definitely not as black and white as we'd like it to be and I'm only speaking in very general terms/numbers.

The long and short of it is as I originally stated though; certain excess calories are not as bad as others due to the way your body is able to deal with them. smile
If I remember correctly the horror of the biochemistry lectures shoehorned into my degree, amino acids from excess protein are deaminated and the remaining carbon chain is either immediately fed to cellular respiration or is (depending on structure and current metabolic need) converted to glucose, glycogen or fatty acids.


Centurion07

10,381 posts

246 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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otolith said:
If I remember correctly the horror of the biochemistry lectures shoehorned into my degree, amino acids from excess protein are deaminated and the remaining carbon chain is either immediately fed to cellular respiration or is (depending on structure and current metabolic need) converted to glucose, glycogen or fatty acids.
Now in english please.... wink

chris watton

22,477 posts

259 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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Walking around a Tesco superstore yesterday, and seeing so many that are overweight, I thought that perhaps successive governments and the EU have intentionally sabotaged our working population.

Quite a depressing sight....

TheExcession

11,669 posts

249 months

Monday 22nd December 2014
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Purity14 said:
Correct, when our bodies process sugar it all goes to fat.

All calories are not equal.
All sugars (carbohydrates) are not equal either and as you say 'goes to fat' the way fructose and glucose are metabolised are quite different. Ever heard of Glycogen poisoning? (No, me neither).

There's a few different types of fat(ty acids) too, the issues with Trans and CIS fatty acids should have made you change your diet already - eat butter not marge.

Not all 'fat' goes to fat either.

The difference between the types of sugars in your food might not be quite so apparent as the differences in the type fatty acids.

Anyway for all those PH Biochemists/Physiologists that really think they're on the ball on this thread with their bit of Supermarket Chemistry or O-Level biology - please shut up.



otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Tuesday 23rd December 2014
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Centurion07 said:
otolith said:
If I remember correctly the horror of the biochemistry lectures shoehorned into my degree, amino acids from excess protein are deaminated and the remaining carbon chain is either immediately fed to cellular respiration or is (depending on structure and current metabolic need) converted to glucose, glycogen or fatty acids.
Now in english please.... wink
Proteins are chains of amino acids and are broken down to them before they are absorbed. If you have more than you need for protein synthesis, they first have the amino group removed. What's left is a carbon chain. That gets used much as any other source of energy is used, but the exact fate depends on the structure of the carbon chain. Some are immediately convertible to glucose, others aren't.

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Tuesday 23rd December 2014
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I must admit, it's over 20 years since my biology degree, and there has been great progress in broscience since then.

Edited by otolith on Tuesday 23 December 00:42

BlackLabel

13,251 posts

122 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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  • bump*

British medics are now calling for a reclassification of obesity too.


Obesity should be recognised as a "disease" rather than a lifestyle choice, leading doctors say. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said action to tackle excess weight was more likely to be successful if the problem was treated as one caused by environmental and social factors, rather than by individual greed. One in four adults are obese, along with one in five children leaving primary school.

Telegraph said:
Prof Andrew Goddard, RCP president, said: "It is important to the health of the nation that we remove the stigma associated with obesity.

"It is not a lifestyle choice caused by individual greed, but a disease caused by health inequalities, genetic influences and social factors.

"It is governments, not individuals, which can have an impact on the food environment through regulation and taxation, and by controlling availability and affordability.

"Governments can also promote physical activity by ensuring that facilities are available to local communities, and through legislation and public health initiatives."

Mothersruin

8,573 posts

98 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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Pathetic.

Plenty of cases where a chubnut has got a grip and sorted themselves out.

It's simple, just not easy.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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Have to say, apart from some very specific health issues, underactive thyroid foe example, most obese people I’m aware of get that way due to stuffing their faces with crap.

Mistryride

67 posts

64 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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garyhun said:
Have to say, apart from some very specific health issues, underactive thyroid foe example, most obese people I’m aware of get that way due to stuffing their faces with crap.
I know a girl in her twentys, 25 stone or thereabouts, and can you guess what causes this?

Well 6 Big Mac in 1 sitting, was also told she has 6 sandwiches for lunch, so I thought so do I (3 slices of bread so six little sandwiches) but no it was 6 of packets of sandwiches so 12 slices of bread.

Not a disease a lifestyle choice!

grumbledoak

31,500 posts

232 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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Telegraph said:
Prof Andrew Goddard, RCP president, said: "It is important to the health of the nation that we remove the stigma associated with obesity.

"It is not a lifestyle choice caused by individual greed, but a disease caused by health inequalities, genetic influences and social factors.

"It is governments, not individuals, which can have an impact on the food environment through regulation and taxation, and by controlling availability and affordability.

"Governments can also promote physical activity by ensuring that facilities are available to local communities, and through legislation and public health initiatives."
Super. The government can indeed "impact our food environment through regulation and taxation". It already has. Google beach pics from the 1970s. These people didn't know what a gym was, they weren't doing triathlon at the weekends, and they weren't all working down the mines, but they were almost all thin. Then came government health guidelines, imported form the US. It's been a spectacular disaster, so they are going to do what they always do when they are at fault - blame the public for not following the guidelines, and double down on them.

Mothersruin

8,573 posts

98 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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grumbledoak said:
Telegraph said:
Prof Andrew Goddard, RCP president, said: "It is important to the health of the nation that we remove the stigma associated with obesity.

"It is not a lifestyle choice caused by individual greed, but a disease caused by health inequalities, genetic influences and social factors.

"It is governments, not individuals, which can have an impact on the food environment through regulation and taxation, and by controlling availability and affordability.

"Governments can also promote physical activity by ensuring that facilities are available to local communities, and through legislation and public health initiatives."
Super. The government can indeed "impact our food environment through regulation and taxation". It already has. Google beach pics from the 1970s. These people didn't know what a gym was, they weren't doing triathlon at the weekends, and they weren't all working down the mines, but they were almost all thin. Then came government health guidelines, imported form the US. It's been a spectacular disaster, so they are going to do what they always do when they are at fault - blame the public for not following the guidelines, and double down on them.
Yup.


98elise

26,376 posts

160 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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Mothersruin said:
Pathetic.

Plenty of cases where a chubnut has got a grip and sorted themselves out.

It's simple, just not easy.
Yup. My boss has lost half his bodyweight, and I'm not kidding! We all thought he was bullstting, but someone recently came to work for us who worked with him a few years ago. He showed us some photos of a team night out and he was fecking huge!

His motivation was health issues coming from his weight.

Being fat is not a disability, it's a choice.

eldar

21,614 posts

195 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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98elise said:
Yup. My boss has lost half his bodyweight, and I'm not kidding! We all thought he was bullstting, but someone recently came to work for us who worked with him a few years ago. He showed us some photos of a team night out and he was fecking huge!

His motivation was health issues coming from his weight.

Being fat is not a disability, it's a choice.
Obesity can be a symptom of mental illness. Usually poorly controlled illness.

Normally excessive gannetry.

turbobloke

103,742 posts

259 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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Mothersruin said:
grumbledoak said:
Telegraph said:
Prof Andrew Goddard, RCP president, said: "It is important to the health of the nation that we remove the stigma associated with obesity.

"It is not a lifestyle choice caused by individual greed, but a disease caused by health inequalities, genetic influences and social factors.

"It is governments, not individuals, which can have an impact on the food environment through regulation and taxation, and by controlling availability and affordability.

"Governments can also promote physical activity by ensuring that facilities are available to local communities, and through legislation and public health initiatives."
Super. The government can indeed "impact our food environment through regulation and taxation". It already has. Google beach pics from the 1970s. These people didn't know what a gym was, they weren't doing triathlon at the weekends, and they weren't all working down the mines, but they were almost all thin. Then came government health guidelines, imported form the US. It's been a spectacular disaster, so they are going to do what they always do when they are at fault - blame the public for not following the guidelines, and double down on them.
Yup.
RCP is being taken close to a Royal College of Politicianwannabes.

That politicospeak from the prof is as impressive as it is political

Unfortunately "rely on government" is as daft now as it ever was in terms of advice.

Fastpedeller

3,848 posts

145 months

Thursday 3rd January 2019
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I know I shouldn't say this on PH, but the cause of obesity is cars!
As the obese get fatter, walking or cycling will use more energy (due to moving the greater mass), so it overcomes the problem more and more.
Job done, the solution is to use the legs God gave us, and avoid the use of vehicles which don't use human energy to propel them.
Happy New Year!