posted
I disagree about the quality calories. Veggies are good. I don't care if they're starchy. And get brown rice.
ETA: At least they're getting some protein, and a more balanced meal than the boxed mac&cheese.
Although I'd use the mac&cheese sometimes if I were on a budget. I do now, in fact. I just add canned tomatoes, and have chicken, too.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: For a household of four to be eligible for food stamps their gross monthly income must be under $2,097. They also may not have assets worth more than $2000, including bank accounts. If you own your home it does not count toward that $2000, but the value of your car(s) over $4650 does.
And if that family of four qualifies, they may receive up to $506 minus 30% of the net household income per month. (Net income is gross minus a standard deduction and some child care and medical expenses.)
I wouldn't want to try to support a family of four on those numbers.
My father raised 8 of us kids on a policeman's salary of about $24,000 a year- no food stamps. My mother worked hard in the home to make what he provided enough and we were never hungry.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: For a household of four to be eligible for food stamps their gross monthly income must be under $2,097. They also may not have assets worth more than $2000, including bank accounts. If you own your home it does not count toward that $2000, but the value of your car(s) over $4650 does.
And if that family of four qualifies, they may receive up to $506 minus 30% of the net household income per month. (Net income is gross minus a standard deduction and some child care and medical expenses.)
I wouldn't want to try to support a family of four on those numbers.
Where is the money going instead, and what is capping the family in question's income? I'm assuming this family of four is a mother, father and two children. Why does this family have two children in a situation where their income is so incredibly low that they cannot afford to feed them healthy foods?
The answers to those questions will inevitably vary, but for the most part, I think the answers are almost always going to be pretty telling as to why the family can't afford healthy food. There are always exceptions, obviously, but you cannot generalize from those exceptions.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Yes, it can be done. But it isn't easy. And buying in bulk and freezing isn't possible if you live in an apartment with one of those itty-bitty apartment size refrigerator-freezers.
We host a food pantry in our church. It's right outside my office. I see people every day who are trying to get by, trying to feed their families, and some of them even trying to make healthy food choices. I'm not going to minimize the effort that takes, when I can go to the farmers' market and buy yummy fresh produce and go to artisan bakeries and buy $5 a loaf whole grain breads.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Besides the money savings in dkw's example, there's also the matter of time. I don't have kids, and only work one reasonably low-stress job, and still the idea of spending 30 minutes cooking when I get home sometimes seems exhausting. The mac & cheese would take 5 minutes, and with 4 hungry kids wanting to know when dinner's ready and can I help them with their homework and mommy billy's hitting me those extra 25 minutes make a difference.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: Yes, it can be done. But it isn't easy. And buying in bulk and freezing isn't possible if you live in an apartment with one of those itty-bitty apartment size refrigerator-freezers.
We host a food pantry in our church. It's right outside my office. I see people every day who are trying to get by, trying to feed their families, and some of them even trying to make healthy food choices. I'm not going to minimize the effort that takes, when I can go to the farmers' market and buy yummy fresh produce and go to artisan bakeries and buy $5 a loaf whole grain breads.
Where do you live that the only sources for healthy food are farmers' market produce and artisan bakeries with $5 loaves of bread? Even Hawaii has cheaper alternatives.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: I wouldn't want to try to support a family of four on those numbers.
My father raised 8 of us kids on a policeman's salary of about $24,000 a year- no food stamps. My mother worked hard in the home to make what he provided enough and we were never hungry.
Note, though, that that 24K/year isn't in 2006 dollars. I'm not sure how old you are, but I know that you're an adult, so that was probably long enough ago for the buying power of a dollar to have been significantly greater.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: I didn't say those were the only choices. They are my choices, which I can afford. And they make healthy eating more enjoyable.
People who don't have those choices have to work harder to eat healthy.
You're right, I misread that. Sorry!
And yes, a lot of people have to work harder to eat healthy, but it's almost always doable. When money or time is a factor, it's a matter of what and how much you're willing to sacrifice. It's not like eating healthy is a right (which is enough of an issue to carry its own thread).
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:When money or time is a factor, it's a matter of what and how much you're willing to sacrifice.
Why is it that no one sees a fat man and thinks, "Oh, look at that wonderful person, who's willing to sacrifice his own health to spend more quality time with his wife and child?"
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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It's not easy. But isn't that partially what being an adult and a parent is about? Making tough choices and sacrifices?
If your kid's health is so unimportant to you that you're not willing to put in an extra 45 minutes a day that's really sad. There's also a short term & long term cost/benefit analysis here. Feeding them mac & cheese and other cheap overprocessed foods every day saves money now, but how much are you and they going to spend in health related costs in the coming years?
Also dkw, I'll see your $2 mac and cheese and raise you 4 cups of brown rice cooked w/ 4 eggs stirfried with 2 cups of frozen veggie mix, & 2 tbs olive oil to make some excellent fried rice for $1.45 total. About the same prep time as mac and cheese. I wasn't trying to make the cheapest meal possible, but merely trying to show you could make a restaraunt quality meal for less than half the cost of McDonald's fare. People have choices.
Edit: It was only 8 years ago, so it wasn't too much of a difference. I'm sure the difference in buying power is more than made up by have 4 extra mouths to feed.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Around here, Farmer's Market produce is actually cheaper than the low-cost grocery stores. But the Farmer's Market is located down-town, and only open on the weekends. If you don't have a car, you're much more likely to go to the nearest grocery store that's on the bus line and buy the crappy iceburg lettuce and cardboard tomatoes that've been shipped in from across the country and don't have half the nutritional value. And spending an hour and a half wandering between stalls to find the produce I want also is a luxury compared to walking into a 30' x 20' space where they provide a cart, take credit cards and food stamps, and you can be in and out in 20 minutes.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Why is it that no one sees a fat man and thinks, "Oh, look at that wonderful person, who's willing to sacrifice his own health to spend more quality time with his wife and child?"
Maybe because it's possible to do both? Some of the best times my husband has with his children (not his wife right now because chemo has made her very weak) is playing touch football in the yard?
And some of the best times and best conversations I have with all my kids but my teenager in particular is when we go to the park? The kids play in the creek and swing and Natalie and I walk around the track and talk about her friends and her life.
You don't have to sacrifice time with your wife and child to exercise. It's more fun and better for all if you make exercise and healthy living a family affair and do it together.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Katarain: The rule was one that requires students to have a job of 20/hrs a week to be eligible. I was a graduate student, trying desperately to get a job--a FULL-TIME one. Since I didn't have a job, I was denied. No way to appeal. I had a mini-breakdown in the lady's office and walked out. It is not a happy memory. I couldn't even manage to drive home.
That sucks, although it's also odd: I'm not sure how much the policies differentiate by state, but you should have been able to re-apply. In Seattle, some people re-applied as soon as 30 days after having their application denied. Sounds to me like whoever was working that day didn't like the idea of someone getting a graduate education receiving food stamps on their tax dollars.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:When money or time is a factor, it's a matter of what and how much you're willing to sacrifice.
Why is it that no one sees a fat man and thinks, "Oh, look at that wonderful person, who's willing to sacrifice his own health to spend more quality time with his wife and child?"
Thankfully, I don't look at skinny people and think, "Oh, look at that hot person, who's willing to sacrifice his free time to sta in shape," either.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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It was set forth to me like a hard and fast rule which could never be broken. I didn't even make it all the way through the first application process. Although they DID wait until I came by twice and waited in the waiting room for about an hour until they told me--even though the facts were known to them before that. *shrugs*
quote:You don't have to sacrifice time with your wife and child to exercise.
I think you underestimate how much exercise I would need to do to lose weight. I have two and a half hours a day in which to eat dinner, see my family, and/or tend to other affairs. In order to lose weight, I've discovered that I need to seriously -- not just casually -- work out for at least half an hour a day, or an hour every two days. While running around with Sophie would make me less sedentary, it's not the kind of exercise I'd need to keep weight off.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:You don't have to sacrifice time with your wife and child to exercise.
I think you underestimate how much exercise I would need to do to lose weight. I have two and a half hours a day in which to eat dinner, see my family, and/or tend to other affairs. In order to lose weight, I've discovered that I need to seriously -- not just casually -- work out for at least half an hour a day, or an hour every two days. While running around with Sophie would make me less sedentary, it's not the kind of exercise I'd need to keep weight off.
What else is your day filled with that you couldn't sacrifice ANY of it?
There's always something - even if it means getting a different job.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: Edit: It was only 8 years ago, so it wasn't too much of a difference. I'm sure the difference in buying power is more than made up by have 4 extra mouths to feed.
Man, I'm really off my game today; I completely missed the fact that you were talking about feeding that many people. Sorry about that.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: Around here, Farmer's Market produce is actually cheaper than the low-cost grocery stores. But the Farmer's Market is located down-town, and only open on the weekends. If you don't have a car, you're much more likely to go to the nearest grocery store that's on the bus line and buy the crappy iceburg lettuce and cardboard tomatoes that've been shipped in from across the country and don't have half the nutritional value.
That's one thing that I really appreciate about Dayton--there are small farmer's markets all over the city, several of them within easy walking distance of very low income housing districts, and several more on bus routes.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Tom, you're a smart guy. I'm not going to ask how many extra pounds you're carrying, but however much it is, do you honestly think that you're not putting your health at risk by keeping it? Is there honestly nothing you could change about your lifestyle to ensure that you'll be able to spend as many years as possible with your wife and child? I don't mean to be harsh, but you sound very cavalier about this, and I just don't understand.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:It was only 8 years ago, so it wasn't too much of a difference. I'm sure the difference in buying power is more than made up by have 4 extra mouths to feed.
I'm assuming they owned their car and their house free and clear, and received a fair amount of money from the government or other charities? Because $24,000 with nine dependents is well below poverty-level, and wouldn't even be possible in most states in this country.
quote:What else is your day filled with that you couldn't sacrifice ANY of it? There's always something - even if it means getting a different job.
That's like saying that you could be a world-class pianist and a badminton champion if you found the time.
quote:Is there honestly nothing you could change about your lifestyle to ensure that you'll be able to spend as many years as possible with your wife and child?
I'm sure there is, although the health benefits aren't actually as obvious as all that. But the question here, as I see it, is whether choosing to value other things more highly than an intensive program of weight-reduction means that I'm deserving of professional and personal discrimination. When people say "you could lose a little weight if you made the following sacrifices," what they're really saying -- although so many of them refuse to admit it -- is "I think less of you because you will not do whatever it takes to be as thin as I think you should be."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I'm not underestimating how difficult it is, Tom - remember that I'm overweight too and I know exactly how hard it is. And it gets harder. I'm having a harder time losing weight than I did five years ago, though some of that can be attributed to my lack of endurance due to chemo, not all of it can. As you get older, losing weight gets harder.
I just know that at some point you have to make the decision that it's important enough for you and do it. After dinner you and Christy could put Sophie in a jogging stroller and walk. You could take half your lunch hour and spend it lifting weights in the gym (you do work at a university right? Most universitys have gyms and reduced membership rates for employees.)
I'm not trying to criticize you or to belittle how difficult it is. One thing I've decided to do is leave home and get to school at 7:30 in the morning even though my first class is at nine so I can work out at the university gym for 45 minutes each day. It's not easy to find the time, it usually means sacrificing some sleep or re-working family time, but I do not believe that it's completely impossible for anyone. It all has to do with where you set your priorities. My kids are one of the main reasons I'm doing this. This cancer scared me, badly. I don't want to leave them - so I think it's important that I take care of myself and that I'm more healthy so I can be around longer and have a more active life. I'd love to be able to play and keep up with my grandkids when I have them someday. To do that, I've got to start taking care of myself now.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Its also not just the price of healthy food, but spending the time and money to learn what constitutes "healthy." How many calories that individual needs, what bread is best, what meat is best, etc? It can be very difficult to sort out in a world where South Beach rules and even the food pyramid isn't what we remember growing up. I'm just now learning to cook, which I'm struggling with, and its a challenge to always question whether I should this chicken or that pork, or this pasta or that pasta, or is milk bad or good?
Its interesting because I was just talking about this last night with my boyfriend because his mother had had a dream about us and in it said some very negative things about me, including my weight, made all the more interesting because she does really like me. When I growing up, I was stick skinny. But when I hit puberty, my metabolism dropped off the face of the earth and I gained alot of weight very quickly. My body was no longer happy eating whatever it pleased and reading inside instead of playing sports. It took me all of high school, through diet and alot of dance classes, to get the weight off. I gained the Freshmen 15 when I started college and that weight didn't come off until my sophomore year when I was broke and mental depression killed my appepite and I starved the 15lbs off. I lost another 10lbs through exercise as part of my program to manage my anxiety. I was just hovering on the border between healthy and overweight for my height. For a year, I did almost 2 hours of cardio for 5 days a week without any change. I was completely stuck. Membership through our school gym is free but getting a personal trainer to help me break through my physical wall, was not. My parents, who are well enough off because I could not afford it myself, got me a trainer for the summer to teach me proper strength training (since without that instruction is quite easy to waste your time or even hurt yourself.) Course, at the same time I started a new medication which added some pounds so its back to the uphill fight.
My poor boyfriend, who eats like a horse, now understands why I never finish a plate he serves me (he's a very talented cook). Its a constant battle of willpower for me to drag myself to the gym everyday and always turn down my favorite foods, and this is just to maintain a weight that I'm still not happy with.
And it doesn't help when I KNOW I'm healthy, but by social standards I'm still "chubby."
Sometimes it easy for me to be disgusted by someone who is overweight. But its just a matter of reminding myself that I don't know them and I don't know if maybe yesterday they started a new lifestyle to change their weight and health.
Its not just a matter of "diet and exercise" but of having the financial means to a) know how to diet and exercise well and b) actually do it. Parking in the back at the mall is a great way to get in some extra cardio (not safe, but healthy), but that alone is not enough for everyone's body. I'd love to skip summer gym membership fees and jog outside, but in my neighborhood its just not responsible or safe and so I shell out the money for the treadmill access.
Something about society has to change. We have to educate better and we should provide the incentives and aid for change. My dad's company actually provides discounted personal trainers because they know healthy employees are less strain on company health insurance. Healthy employees also are more likely to participate in charity runs and bike marathons which promote good image for the business.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:That's like saying that you could be a world-class pianist and a badminton champion if you found the time.
Except that we aren't born with badminton racquets in our hands or the Suzuki Method in our brains. We are born with stomachs, though, and the need to eat about 3 times a day. And that means we get three chances a day to decide how we want to live. Some days are harder than others, but if your health and longevity is a priority for you, you can choose to educate yourself about food and make the right choices.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:And it doesn't help when I KNOW I'm healthy, but by social standards I'm still "chubby."
Oddly, a lot of people I know have the exact opposite problem, especially girls. Example: a friend of mine who's a size 6, 34B boobs, is 5'5" and weighs between 120 and 130 lbs is technically obese because she has 31% bodyfat.
<shrug> The technical and social rules for what qualifies as overweight will always baffle me.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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They did own the house free and clear by the time I was 8 due to massive saving & investing when they had few kids. They owned 1 vehicle, also theirs. They received no charity or government help- except for the school lunch program.
Edit: And it was in Idaho, so cost of living was fairly low.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:But its just a matter of reminding myself that I don't know them and I don't know if maybe yesterday they started a new lifestyle to change their weight and health.
I submit that you shouldn't be disgusted by them regardless of whether or not you know this information.
quote:Except that we aren't born with badminton racquets in our hands or the Suzuki Method in our brains. We are born with stomachs, though, and the need to eat about 3 times a day.
As this need to eat is actually the enemy of sensible eating, a better analogy would be if we had someone living in our house who, every time he saw us practicing badminton, hit us over our heads with sticks.
quote:They received no charity or government help...
If this was eight years ago, they would have qualified for thousands of dollars a year from the EIC. I'm assuming they filed taxes?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I remember gaining weight when I hit puberty.
I very deliberately did not worry about it because I was not willing to hand over my time and feelings of self worth to the general public. I wasn't going to work hard to get random guys' approval. I was NOT going to spend all my time in an attempt to get anyone's approval. I would do it if I darn well wanted to, and for no other reason. I tried a few sports, discovered I like reading better, and there you go.
I'm proud of teenage Katie.
I see a lot of people giving up autonomy over their time and their feelings of self-worth in order to appear pleasing. I think that's lame. I think when you're an adult, it's okay because hopefully identity is formed by then, but for teenagers, pressuring them to exercise so judgmental strangers or family members are happy looking at them is practically abuse.
I love going to the gym now, and it's because of some really delightful endorphins and it makes my life better in general. If someone likes me less when I'm less skinny than when I am more, then it's their loss and they aren't worth my time. Their companionship is not worth the cost of my self-respect.
posted
They did file taxes. If I remember right Tom, the EIC at the time was pretty minimal until about 5 years ago. I was talking to my mother recently and she mentioned that the amount they could have gotten back jumped up about the time us 4 older boys had jobs of our own (I'm the oldest). Of course, as we get jobs, we lose dependent status, so it's kind of a catch-22.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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If you're eating healthy foods, you can eat a lot MORE (not calorie-wise necessarily, but just in terms of the actual amount of food) and still be healthy. I mean, a McDonald's Big n Tasty is 540 calories ALONE. I could have an entire meal, side dishes and all, that was around 540 calories. So it's possible that you don't really have to eat that much LESS.
And I don't even take time to prepare my food, really. I live on sandwiches and pitas and pretty much anything that can be thrown on wheat bread and toasted in the oven. But I eat a LOT of toasted sandwich-like things.
In terms of time, it's quicker for me to toast a pita or make a pita pizza than to make Mac'n'Cheese, unless I'm making the microwave version.
quote: Except that we aren't born with badminton racquets in our hands or the Suzuki Method in our brains. We are born with stomachs, though, and the need to eat about 3 times a day.
As this need to eat is actually the enemy of sensible eating, a better analogy would be if we had someone living in our house who, every time he saw us practicing badminton, hit us over our heads with sticks.
No, Tom. It's more like we've got a badminton coach living in our house, reminding us to practice 3 times a day. What we choose to do with that reminder is up to us.
This analogy is getting lamer and lamer, but I stand by my point: while starting an exercise regime is a major and daunting lifestyle change, what you eat is a decision you're already making at least 3 times a day. Changing what you eat requires some research and a little willpower at first, but it's something you can do within the next few hours to make an enormous difference in your life.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I'm better than just about everyone. I work full-time-and-then-some to support my family, shop wisely for healthy foods, always have the time to cook nutritious meals from scratch, exercise regularly, sing in the choir, and do volunteer work for those less fortunate. And there's no excuse for any one of you to be less perfect and full of yourselves than I am. I have nothing but disdain for anyone who is not as perfect as I am (or my sainted mother, who fed 39 of us on $1.27 a week).
Oh bull____! Get over yourselves and get off your high horses and just try to accept that no one is perfect. How about you just respect other people without judging the heck out of them.
quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: I'm better than just about everyone. I work full-time-and-then-some to support my family, shop wisely for healthy foods, always have the time to cook nutritious meals from scratch, exercise regularly, sing in the choir, and do volunteer work for those less fortunate. And there's no excuse for any one of you to be less perfect and full of yourselves than I am. I have nothing but disdain for anyone who is not as perfect as I am (or my sainted mother, who fed 39 of us on $1.27 a week).
Oh bull____! Get over yourselves and get off your high horses and just try to accept that no one is perfect. How about you just respect other people without judging the heck out of them.
Gosh!
Pardon me for praising my mother. You can be sure it won't happen on this forum again.
/Getting off my high horse now, and thanking Tante for helping my mother off hers.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Bao, you do come off as pretty high-and-mighty, y'know.
And I'm sorry if my last post offended anyone, I was just saying that I'm a lazy college student who won't eat anything homemade if it takes more than 10-15min to prepare, and it's still possible to eat well and not starve yourself. I mean, no way in hell am I going to make some elaborate crazy dish with sides and some garnish in the shape of a rose or something. But I don't feed anyone else, either.
quote:I certainly don't persecute or discriminate against fat people. I will not, however, at any point, be teaching my children that it's "okay" to be fat.
If you teach your kids it's not okay to be fat, you discriminate against fat people.
You believe, however, that it is right to do so.
Is it discrimination if I teach my kids it's not healthy to contract venereal diseases or to use drugs?
Obesity's a significant danger to health, career prospects, and romantic chances. If my kid can't perform or won't be considered for high-paying jobs, can't sexually attract women, or is likely to die young -- all for a condition many people can, with exercise and good diet, keep under control -- of course I'll discourage it.
I'm not sure this is analogous to any other kind of prejudice -- racial and sexual and sexual-orientation-based discrimination all rely on baseless claims that blacks/Latinos, women, or homosexuals are somehow lesser than whites, men, or heterosexuals. But it's not a disputable fact that it's, indeed, healthier to be slim than fat; and moreover, weight is often a controllable condition, with little excuse for existence. Despite complaints, I'm not sure it's unreasonable to suspect sloth upon observation of the extremely overweight.
That said, I don't endorse ridicule of the overweight. Some can't exercise, for various reasons; others have a disposition toward gaining weight, such as mothers and the elderly. But even mothers can exercise after giving birth, and even the elderly can swim without undue stress on their joints. If Michelle and I marry and she has (someone else's) children, I expect her to gain weight, and I'll love her for it. When we're old, we'll both gain weight, and love each other for it. But if she becomes obese, I'm going to have her exercise with me -- I want a happy life together, adventurous, sexually fulfilling, and long. I don't think it's wrong or unfair to want both of us to be healthy. Can you seriously assert that it is?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:It's more like we've got a badminton coach living in our house, reminding us to practice 3 times a day.
No. Because a badminton coach is giving you the right advice. And for those people who overeat, the coach is telling you to go play checkers instead, or working hard to ingrain bad form and terrible strategy.
Your point -- that you could at any time suddenly start practicing badminton correctly (and three times a day isn't even necessarily accurate, since many people find that eating more often helps them keep weight down better) -- is certainly valid. But for people who have the kind of corrupted, corrupting coach we're talking about, they first have to overcome that coach's advice -- and then must resist both listening to his ever-present whispers and their memory of his previous teachings every time they choose to practice.
I definitely have a poor coach. It takes a lot -- and I mean a lot -- to make me full; even more importantly, it takes a long time for me to feel full. And most of the things that are good for me taste, to my poor tongue, profoundly bad. I cannot describe to you how wonderful and how right, say, a cheesecake tastes. Now, I know I'm not supposed to eat cheesecake -- and, for that matter, I don't eat cheesecake -- but that doesn't prevent every single cell of my body, in response to cheesecake, from saying "Hey! This is right! This is good! It is a wonderful thing, this having of cheesecake!"
The idea that some people might have some internal instinct that tells them to eat well is charming; I look at that possibility the same way I regard the possibility that some people have spoken to God.
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quote: Is it discrimination if I teach my kids it's not healthy to contract venereal diseases or to use drugs?
Yes. I think some people on this thread don't really understand what discrimination is. It's not a bad thing.
Many of the posts on this thread have attempted to justify discrimination against fat people. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. As people have observed, being obese is bad for you, just like being a drug user or smoker or engineer. There's no real reason not to discriminate against the fat, and it probably serves a function for those people who are not already fat. That the ones who are fat suffer for it is, in comparison, probably a fair trade overall.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Thanks for the second opinion pH, but in the spirit of being high and mighty, when I care about it, I'll ask for it.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Bao, I meant no insult to your mother. My mother is also praiseworthy. She is so exemplary that it would be unfair to expect regular people to meet her high achievements.
That I find my own mother to be praiseworthy and exemplary does not mean that I judge lesser mortals harshly, though.
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I'm not sure if this is what you guys are saying or not, Tom and Tante, but it really bugs me when I tell people that I'm eating well and losing weight because of it, and they respond by assuming it's easy for me and I don't have to work at it as hard as they do.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: Is it discrimination if I teach my kids it's not healthy to contract venereal diseases or to use drugs?
Yes. I think some people on this thread don't really understand what discrimination is. It's not a bad thing.
Many of the posts on this thread have attempted to justify discrimination against fat people. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. As people have observed, being obese is bad for you, just like being a drug user or smoker or engineer. There's no real reason not to discriminate against the fat, and it probably serves a function for those people who are not already fat. That the ones who are fat suffer for it is, in comparison, probably a fair trade overall.
I think you might be confusing discrimination with prejudice -- racial and sexual discrimination imply some sort of persecution, perhaps even necessitate it. Discrimination for fat people might involve a sexual or instinctual preference for the slim, but in no way implies persecution of the fat.
That said, many people do persecute the fat -- from schoolyard bullies to employers to the media -- but I think you're merging two distinct attitudes into one. I don't want my kids to be overweight because I want them to be healthy and happy and have a good chance of netting good women. If they were overweight, though, I wouldn't be disgusted with them or try to hurt them. I think it's an important difference.
As an aside, you mentioned that it takes a lot for you to feel full. If you're interested, I might be able to suggest a few things that help me keep my own weight down. You have my e-mail address, I think.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
If you don't want people knocking your loved ones off high horses, be sure not to put them up there in the first place.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:This thread has renewed my faith that people are pretty much jerks.
Porter, this was probably the rudest thing posted in this entire thread, in my opinion. At the very least, I think it was the most pointless (well, until this post that is) .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Here's something I find extremely interesting.
My endocrinologist, who has spent decades studying and treating obesity (as well as diabetes) says that trans fats may be the reason for the obesity epidemic in developed countries these days, particularly the U.S. The thing is, they don't exist in nature. We pretty much invented them with our food processing methods, since the early part of the last century. He explained that insulin resistance (which is likely to be the cause of about 90% of the obesity out there) is caused by a difficulty in getting glucose into the cells from the bloodstream. Because your cells have no internal energy, your metabolism is extremely low. Because your insulin output is high (a way your body compensates for cellular insulin resistance) it sends a signal to your liver to shut down the conversion of fats into glucose, leaving them for the body to store away instead. And finally, because your insulin level is high, combined with your cellular glucose level being so low, you are getting a double shot of tremendous enormous cravings for food, particularly carbs, and especially in the evenings. These three things, combined with the low energy levels that result from no glucose in your cells, encouraging you to rest more, tend to make you pack on pounds very quickly, and lose them only with tremendous effort (and further starvation of your essential cellular functions).
The interesting thing is that, for people with certain genetic predispositions, it may well be that trans-fats initiate this chain of events by blocking the entrance of glucose into the cells.
Proteins and Carbs are broken down and rebuilt in the process of digestion and metabolism, but fat molecules go straight into the cell walls from the gut. Trans fats have a different molecular structure than natural fats. There is research that gives my doctor reason to believe they may be the cause of the obesity/diabetes epidemic in the world today.
It wouldn't be the first time people got sick in large numbers from a food processing change. In the early part of the last century, pellagra was a widespread sickness caused by the lack of some particular vitamin (I think it was one of the B vitamins) among the poor, caused by a new way of processing corn that eliminated the germ. For a decade or so, the hospitals were full of pellagra patients, then they realized what was causing the problem and fixed it, and pellagra largely went away.
Wouldn't it be funny if all the scorn and blame heaped on fat people was totally misplaced? If their problem was a disease, which was not caused by their lack of virtue at all, compared to skinny people, but simply by a molecular process which threw their metabolism and hunger feedback mechanisms out of kilter and set them up to gain weight?
The young often feel that youth is a virtue, and old people simply don't have the mental fortitude they have, or so I've seen. The well often think that health is a virtue, and the sick are simply poor specimens who coddle themselves. The intelligent often feel that intelligence is a virtue, and that their less mentally endowed compatriots simply choose to be ignorant and slow. The beautiful feel more virtuous than the ugly. I think this is a fact of nature, and not one that seems particularly wrong or unjust, but just is. The only cure for it is living a long time, and observing human nature, and even then there are dozens of unconscious ways in which I'm sure I still feel virtuous for things that were simply gifts, that I haven't earned at all. In the same way, thin people will always feel virtuous compared to the overweight. That's just how life is.
But it will be cool if we figure out the cause of the epidemic and cure it, nevertheless.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Tatiana, that was a wonderful post. Thanks. Does your endocrinologist have a list of sources that he's read in his research? I'd love to have it.
ETA: I am especially interested, because I have insulin resistance, and am on the IR Diet because of it, which involves limiting carbs and balancing them with protein.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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In the same way, thin people will always feel virtuous compared to the overweight. That's just how life is.
