Obesity, is it really an illness or a lifestyle choice?
Discussion
PiesAreGreat said:
It is a lifestyle option, rather than choice.
People don't choose to be overweight, but may chose to do nothing to stop it.
The problem is that Pies are Great!
Being healthy, fit and capable is under-rated too. People don't choose to be overweight, but may chose to do nothing to stop it.
The problem is that Pies are Great!
It is possibly a fairly radical concept to the typical adult Brit who is surrounded by people who are not.
MC Bodge said:
PiesAreGreat said:
It is a lifestyle option, rather than choice.
People don't choose to be overweight, but may chose to do nothing to stop it.
The problem is that Pies are Great!
Being healthy, fit and capable is under-rated too. People don't choose to be overweight, but may chose to do nothing to stop it.
The problem is that Pies are Great!
It is possibly a fairly radical concept to the typical adult Brit who is surrounded by people who are not.
lets give them an incentive to keep the weight off, rather than crash dieting, then putting it all back on to maintain a steady stream of vouchers.Edited by PiesAreGreat on Saturday 24th July 16:06
xeny said:
MC Bodge said:
That is a very good point. We are used to seeing overwieght peopla and bulky (and often unrealistic and pharmaceutically assisted) is seen as the ideal. Look at fit men from the 1960s by comparison.
I saw this photo a couple of days ago. https://imgur.com/xiDtPCQ Presuming the caption is correct, that's very fit and by our standards very lean.OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
Mr Whippy said:
You only need to take a look at most people who work for removal companies.
OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
This is true. OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
Guy Martin says that his lorry mechanic job does similar for him.
Mr Whippy said:
OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
Cause or effect. Is the job keeping them lean and fit, are the obese and unfit not able to do the job and so noticeable by their absence, or a combination?There's plenty of instances in poor countries where communities are comparatively far more physically active than most Western lifestyles, yet suffer the double burden of undernutrition and obesity coexisting within the same community. The hypothesis that obesity is as simple as over consumption of calories combined with physical inactivity fails at that point.
Mr Whippy said:
You only need to take a look at most people who work for removal companies.
OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
So some of them were fat and some of them were fit and this proves something?OK a few fatty anomalies aside, the guys who did our last move were really bloody strong, and lean as anything. And super fit.
Forgive me if I hold out for some better data.
This argument goes around in circles.
Given that more people, even from a fairly young age, appear to have become more overweight in recent decades, it does suggest that something has changed.
OK, some people may be more prone to to gaining weight, but that appears unlikely to be sufficient reason to explain the gains especially when you often see women in their 20s and 30s who are much fatter than their mothers.
Given that more people, even from a fairly young age, appear to have become more overweight in recent decades, it does suggest that something has changed.
OK, some people may be more prone to to gaining weight, but that appears unlikely to be sufficient reason to explain the gains especially when you often see women in their 20s and 30s who are much fatter than their mothers.
MC Bodge said:
Given that more people, even from a fairly young age, appear to have become more overweight in recent decades, it does suggest that something has changed.
It certainly has and IMHO diet is the biggest factor. More specifically what we eat more than than how much we eat in total.There's several possibilities, but (and again IMHO) the front runners are sugars, refined carbohydrates, and vegetable seed oils. Each problematic but in combination, even worse. That Western diets have progressively increased the proportions of these as part of our overall food consumption and that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc all follow suit is unlikely to be coincidence.
Activity levels are interesting. It does appear to be the case that the body is excellent at maintaining a fairly narrow window of calorie consumption irrespective of activity levels. Is being active going to help fight obesity? I would say so, but not on the simplistic calories in, calories out level.
There is an element of choice.
-It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Being conditioned to having an active, mobile life from a young age, with a healthy, varied diet is possibly very difficult to replicate in older people who haven't.
Children do tend not to have as much "free play" outside as they did even in my time, 1980s-early 90s.(and we did have computer games, albeit not as good/"social" as nowadays)
-It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Being conditioned to having an active, mobile life from a young age, with a healthy, varied diet is possibly very difficult to replicate in older people who haven't.
Children do tend not to have as much "free play" outside as they did even in my time, 1980s-early 90s.(and we did have computer games, albeit not as good/"social" as nowadays)
jagnet said:
There's plenty of instances in poor countries where communities are comparatively far more physically active than most Western lifestyles, yet suffer the double burden of undernutrition and obesity coexisting within the same community. The hypothesis that obesity is as simple as over consumption of calories combined with physical inactivity fails at that point.
Obesity in people with high levels of physical activity and low consumption of calories?
Education is definitely part of it too. I'm in the obese BMI and I recently started losing weight (I've gone from 18.5 stone to 16 stone so far) by cycling and controlling my intake of calories. I started this as a friend has to do the same because he needs a surgery.
We stopped at a shop maybe a few months ago, and I wanted a chocolate bar, and my friend chose a juice drink because he was wanting to lose weight. I had to stop him as he genuinely didn't realise his healthy choice had more calories than my Yorkie. He genuinely thought he was making the healthy choice.
He has also suggested that it will be ok to have 1 cheat day a week where he eats whatever he wants, as long as we do something like cycling to make up for it. I don't think he's realised how little calories you burn through the extent of exercise he's talking about compared to the sort of meals we would eat (e.g. we would eat 2 fast food meals in a sitting, have ice lollies etc). It's proper man maths stuff going on there!
Of course any time I have seen him I have kept him strong and on the right track.
We stopped at a shop maybe a few months ago, and I wanted a chocolate bar, and my friend chose a juice drink because he was wanting to lose weight. I had to stop him as he genuinely didn't realise his healthy choice had more calories than my Yorkie. He genuinely thought he was making the healthy choice.
He has also suggested that it will be ok to have 1 cheat day a week where he eats whatever he wants, as long as we do something like cycling to make up for it. I don't think he's realised how little calories you burn through the extent of exercise he's talking about compared to the sort of meals we would eat (e.g. we would eat 2 fast food meals in a sitting, have ice lollies etc). It's proper man maths stuff going on there!
Of course any time I have seen him I have kept him strong and on the right track.
MC Bodge said:
There is an element of choice.
-It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Although it becomes less of a choice if the recommended low fat, high carb "healthy diet" turns out to be a bit crap too. Which it may well be. Probably. -It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Not that a high carb diet guarantees obesity, but it looks increasingly less like the healthy option that nutritionists over the last half century would have us believe.
jagnet said:
MC Bodge said:
There is an element of choice.
-It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Although it becomes less of a choice if the recommended low fat, high carb "healthy diet" turns out to be a bit crap too. Which it may well be. Probably. -It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Not that a high carb diet guarantees obesity, but it looks increasingly less like the healthy option that nutritionists over the last half century would have us believe.
jagnet said:
MC Bodge said:
There is an element of choice.
-It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Although it becomes less of a choice if the recommended low fat, high carb "healthy diet" turns out to be a bit crap too. Which it may well be. Probably. -It's possible not to eat a crap diet.
Not that a high carb diet guarantees obesity, but it looks increasingly less like the healthy option that nutritionists over the last half century would have us believe.
smn159 said:
Are you suggesting that you don't know what to eat in order to maintain a healthy weight?
I'm suggesting that wherever Western diets take hold, obesity levels and the diseases of civilisation rise inexorably, despite decades of fairly consistent nutritional advice to avoid animal fats, go easy on the meat consumption, base the food pyramid on a foundation of carbs, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, etc. It begs the question, is that advice correct?When "healthy options" are loaded with sugar and carbs to keep them low fat, I think it's a little unfair to blame people for being lazy or filling up on snacks, stodge, etc. Some will do, but I think there's so many people that now struggle with weight gain that it's beyond just making poor choices.
I had the misfortune last year of having to rely on processed food for a while due to no cooking facilities. Despite working a physically demanding job and trying to select only healthier foodstuffs, I've never felt so unhealthy. It was somewhat eye opening.
MC Bodge said:
AW111 said:
An aunt of mine was obese.
She lived on low-fat meals (weight watchers), and there was no sugar, biscuits or sweets in the house unless she was having visitors.
She also worked full time and then some.
So yes, some people do have a genetic disposition.
Not everyone who is fat does, but some do.
I had the reverse - I ate whatever I felt like, did no exersize, and was skinny as a rake until well into my fourties.
So according to some of the idiots posting here, I am virtuous and she was lazy, despite her putting a lot more effort into losing weight than me.
I didn't know your aunt, but we can't, at this sort of level, as far as we know, contravene the laws of thermodynamics.She lived on low-fat meals (weight watchers), and there was no sugar, biscuits or sweets in the house unless she was having visitors.
She also worked full time and then some.
So yes, some people do have a genetic disposition.
Not everyone who is fat does, but some do.
I had the reverse - I ate whatever I felt like, did no exersize, and was skinny as a rake until well into my fourties.
So according to some of the idiots posting here, I am virtuous and she was lazy, despite her putting a lot more effort into losing weight than me.
"Low fat" weight watchers meals aren't necessarily a good thing anyway.
Eating disorders, overeating can be very similar to alcohol abuse.
Both sugars...
MC Bodge said:
This may be stating the obvious, but an apple or even *no snacks* might have been even better.
You're totally right, this was a couple of months ago, before I had decided to lose any weight, and my friend had just been told by the doctor he had to lose a few stone to get an operation. I was knowingly intentionally going in to buy junk food, and my friend was going in and trying to avoid it.Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff