Launching New Childhood Obesity Prevention Program
This is really just too much. I thought Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) and Strong4Life (S4L) were doing enough damage with their campaign to end childhood obesity in Georgia, and then I come across The Health Institute for Preventive Care, Access, Research and Education (HIPCARE), an Atlanta-based, nonprofit organization committed to improving health outcomes. On Monday, HIPCARE kicked off a new program aimed at reversing the childhood obesity epidemic in Georgia.
The new program, called Prevent and Reverse Obesity and Other-diseases via Families or PROOF, will enlist a coalition of organizations, businesses and citizens to advocate for public policies to reverse the spread of the obesity epidemic and its related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.
Hyperbole, much? For one thing, there is no epidemic. An epidemic, according to the CDC, is “The occurrence of more cases of disease than expected in a given area or among a specific group of people over a particular period of time.” An example would be the sudden, severe outbreak of a disease such as SARS. But obesity is not a disease.
For another, those “related diseases”? Correlation is not causation, and most of those diseases are also diseases of an aging population.
“The state of Georgia has the second highest rate of childhood obesity in the nation, and African-American and Hispanic children are at highest risk of being overweight or obese. Childhood obesity is a major public health problem that requires a public policy remedy, not unlike child safety seat belts laws of years ago that were enacted to protect children,” said Dr. Debbie Wallace, Fellow, Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Director of HIPCARE. “We need everyone to work together to address this threat to our children.”
Dr Wallace, I hate to inform you, but the biggest threat to our children isn’t the fact that some of them are fat. The biggest threat to them is that people like you think being fat is a threat to their health and the only solution is to shame/blame/bully fat kids into becoming thin. That isn’t protecting children like child safety seats and seat belt laws do, it’s causing damage to children that lasts well into adulthood.
HIPCARE will partner with local businesses, farmers, schools, neighborhood associations, nonprofit organizations and the faith-based community to determine existing resources and evidence-based solutions that can be implemented in the local communities, such as increasing the availability of affordable fresh fruits and vegetables and safe places to be physically active. The coalition will lay the foundation for addressing state and local policies that can have long-term, positive effect on the prevention of childhood obesity among the region’s most vulnerable populations.
I can agree wholeheartedly with increasing the availability of affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as creating safe places to be physically active. Those are worthy goals for all kids and adults, and can lead to health improvements for everyone who wants to partake of those opportunities. But tying those improvements to the prevention of childhood obesity dooms your efforts to failure, since it is completely possible to eat healthily in moderation, exercise joyfully daily, and still not be/get thin. Health can be improved upon without losing weight, but when you make losing weight the focus of the program, and kids fail to lose weight, they may become disappointed with the results of their efforts and give up the good habits. Then what have you accomplished?
“Childhood is a critical period for developing a predisposition to lifelong obesity,” said Sharon Dalton, vice president of the Aetna Foundation and director of its regional grant making.
“Data shows that upwards of three-quarters of obese children become obese adults. Obesity’s impact on overall health can be devastating. We are pleased to support HIPCARE’s effort to engage a broad section of Atlanta’s community to address this difficult health issue,” she said.
“Obesity’s impact on overall health can be devastating.” Ms Dalton, I don’t know what world you’re living in, but I’ll tell you what has a devastating impact on fat kids’ and adults’ health: doctors who look at fat kids and adults and refuse to look past our fat for the real cause of our problems; doctors who continually call us liars when we say we exercise and eat healthful meals in moderation; doctors who tell us that if we just ate less and exercised more, we could be thin and that all our problems would be solved; doctors who refuse to treat us as human beings. That’s what makes being fat such a difficult health issue, and it’s not a difficult health issue for the community, it’s a difficult health issue for the fat child or adult!
At the March 18 health expo, attendees can receive complete health and fitness assessments, including blood pressure testing, diabetes and cholesterol screenings, and tests for cardiovascular, strength, endurance and feasibility. At the end, participants will be given a personalized, written assessment and counseling by a physician or health care professional, along with referrals as appropriate. Participants with a high body mass index will be invited to enroll in HIPCARE’s weight-management program and join its ongoing support groups, cooking classes and exercise activities.
So it doesn’t matter if a person has normal numbers in all of those screenings, if their BMI is higher than what HIPCARE thinks it should be, they’ll be invited to enroll in a weight-management program, support groups, cooking classes, and exercise activities. This is just another program that conflates weight and health, and thinks that fat people are too stupid to know how to cook healthy meals or to know that exercise is fun and good for them (and heaven forbid that we should be able to figure this out without a support group of other fat people who are led by doctors/therapists who know more than us stupid fatty fat fat mcfattersons).
The really sad thing in all of this? It’s funded by a grant from The Aetna Foundation, the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. An insurance company giving a grant to HIPCARE to increase the availability of affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, and create safe places to be physically active: that’s great. But why do I think that they had to have strings attached and one of those strings was reversing childhood obesity, and another was those weight-management classes and support groups and cooking classes and exercise activities for anyone with a high BMI no matter what their health was otherwise? No, I’m not cynical, I’m just a realist in a world that hates fat people and wants to get rid of us (for our health, of course [/sarcasm]).
fiercefatties
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vesta44
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atchka
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The Smokin' Deist
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drpattiethomas
not a lot of people hate fat people, I certainly don’t but your denial of facts is just incredible.
In 1997 the WHO formally recognized obesity as a global epidemic.
Obesity is one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.
If you like it or not. Allowing children to become obese, is actually a crime of the parents as they do not take the care the child needs.
Obesity is a public health and policy problem because of its prevalence, costs, and health effects. That might explain why The Aetna Foundation gets involved. In 1998, the medical costs attributable to obesity in the US were $78.5 billion or 9.1% of all medical expenditures.
Again, it does not matter what you THINK. Those are facts.
I have no problem if you keep on denying all this for your own benefit, but when you try to keep children from losing weight, you become a danger to the health and the life of those children. Ever thought about that? Ever thought about the consequences?
I bet you did not. As you already deny the consequences of your weight.
I really hope that you will open your eyes one day and start to UNDERSTAND what obesity really means, what the consequences on your own health, life expectancy etc are.
I hope and i wish it to you….
Somebody
PS: not everyone that is not the same opinion as you is a hater.
Do you deny that there are overweight people that exist who are in good health and their quality of life does not suffer?
There are smokers who do not get lung cancer, too. Your point?
stopping smoking is proven to improve health outcomes… intentional weight loss attempts is harms people as it leads to weight cycling which can cause a lot of problems including weight gain. All we are saying here is that the moral panic around weight leads people to preach harmful stigma is okay. Not all obese people are slothful lazy-buts who are coming to eat your babies. Hateful threats like you will agree with me when you get horribly sick from your fat only illustrate the bias, stigma and hatefulness in the heart of the writer….I bet this person is so horrified at the prospect of gaining weight that they are not going to be able to take in all the facts and evidence that counter their beliefs Hopefully this commenter is willing to engage in civil discussion and refrain from accusations and hateful comments so hopefully they can take a moment to understand the logic and reason that counters what they believe. However, if they read the rules they will also understand they are one asshole away from being banned from the amazing wealth of knowledge that is here for them.
SORRY THE PREVIOUS COMMENT WAS SENT BEFORE I FINISHED IT HERE IS MY COMMMENT THAT REPLACES THE ABOVE… THANKS
stopping smoking is proven to improve health outcomes… repeated intentional weight loss attempts is proven to harm people as it leads to weight cycling which can cause a lot of problems including weight gain. All we are saying here is that the moral panic around weight leads people to preach harmful stigma is okay. It is not okay. Not all obese people are slothful lazy-buts who are coming to eat your babies. Hateful threats such as…. (you will agree with me when you get horribly sick from your fat) only illustrate the bias, stigma and hatefulness in the heart of the writer….I bet this person is so horrified at the prospect of gaining weight that they are not going to be able to take in all the facts and evidence that counter their beliefs. Hopefully this commenter is willing to engage in civil discussion and refrain from accusations and hateful comments so hopefully they can take a moment to understand the logic and reason that counters what they believe. However, if they read the rules they will also understand they are one asshole call away from being banned from the amazing wealth of knowledge that is here for them. We welcome discussion here…. we ban people who bring hatred to the table
That’s weird Elden. Explain why a percentage of the FierceFatties community isn’t fat then? Is the truth hurting that portion of the size acceptance movement?
God forbid you actually read and consider the reasons why the “folks here squawk a lot”. I doubt you’ve even read another article from this website before 10 minutes after you read this comment from me to try to prove me wrong.
LOL, ok dude. I guess we’re all lying: everyone here is clearly obese, and everyone who supports this movement is obese. Look at Ashley’s picture down below this comment, I mean, *what* a lardass.
Speaking of programs, I just came across this. http://www.nerdyfeminist.com/2012/03/good-job-mrs-obama-lets-keep-it-going.html
Somebody - again, just because WHO decided to redefine “epidemic” doesn’t mean there’s an “epidemic” of obesity (obesity is NOT a disease, therefore there can’t be an epidemic of it). As for how many people obesity “kills”, that’s still open for debate. And until someone comes up with a way to safely lose weight and keep it off forever, having kids try to lose weight simply to improve their health is a lost cause - you’re setting them up for a lifetime of weight cycling, failure, and worse health outcomes, not to mention the loss of self-esteem and eating disorders. But all of that’s okay as long as they’re trying to get thin, because according to you, the only way to be healthy is to be thin, right? Eating healthy foods in moderation and exercising joyfully every day won’t matter at all if you don’t lose weight, right? Doesn’t matter a hill of beans if all your metabolic health markers improve and you’re still fat, right? You aren’t getting the point at all, and I’m sorry, but you are a hater when you refuse to see past the “thin = healthy/fat = unhealthy” paradigm our society has ingrained in almost everyone.
Funny how there was an “epidemic” declared within a year of the (incredibly flawed) mathematical formula used to pigeon-hole people into those who have the so-called disease and those who don’t was changed for no medically relevant reason in such a manner that suddenly with a sweep of a pen people went from “healthy/normal” to “diseased/afflicted” without gaining so much as a single ounce.
Also somewhat humorous how, even with those artificially inflated number of “victims” they still couldn’t prevent the “epidemic” from leveling off again and remaining largely leveled off within a couple years. There hasn’t been much real increase in average BMI since 2000.
so the timeline… 97 declare an epidemic, 98 discover your epidemic doesn’t have enough victims so you lower the number needed to qualify as a victim, 2000 average BMI hits it’s new increased number and then SITS THERE for a decade while we ratchet up the hyperbole, shame, stigma, and diet industry profits. And fail to find even a single studied weight loss method that produces results that last more than a few years at best and usually leave the person weighing more when their instinct to avoid starvation overcomes their desire to stop being sh*t on by people like the asshole above and they go back to eating a normal amount of normal foods.
This electrical engineer seriously wonders what the “law of physics” is? I should file a complaint with my alma mater, as they apparently taught me the wrong thing. If I had to personally pick a law of physics though, I guess I’d go with Gauss’ law, that’s my favorite.
I vote asshole.
This is even worse than when some tool decides to enlighten everyone by telling us that fat people are fat because they eat more than 2000 calories a day, as per the laws of thermodynamics. Fuckwad.
Lying that I’m an engineer? Let’s see numbnuts:
1) I am 21
2) I have a BS in engineering
3) I am in graduate school
Science and I are pretty good buddies, actually. You seem like you couldn’t even make it through high school levels of science, let alone anything else, given how painfully dull your reasoning is. And if you did, my guess is that you cheated.
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/twiki/view/RoboticsWeb
I’m even on this page, but I wonder which one I am?
Someone of your intellect is unlikely to pull out any significant information from a scientific study as it is, so I’m surprised that you’re unable to read the study that Shannon sent you.
Elden - It’s really too bad you haven’t been able to read anything I’ve ever written. If you had, you would know that 14 years ago, I had a VBG (that’s vertical banded gastroplasty, or stomach-stapling) that left me with a stomach that will hold about 1 cup of food now and it takes me about 30 minutes to eat that cup of food if I don’t want to vomit it back up. Since I’ve also had my gallbladder removed, I can’t eat anything that has very much fat/grease in it unless I want to deal with explosive diarrhea (sorry if that’s TMI for you). I’m also lactose intolerant, which further limits what I can eat, and fruits/vegetables/whole grains do the same thing to me as fat/grease. Add all of those food issues to a very small stomach and you could see where it’s not possible for me to eat anything close to 2,000 calories a day, let alone the gargantuan amounts of calories you seem to think I’m ingesting. I’m not a bunsen burner or a machine that obeys any law of thermodynamics (which is what you mean, not the laws of physics, so you aren’t as smart as you think you are).
As for obese people being a rarity before 1970, don’t tell that to the fat relatives of all the currently fat people alive today. My grandparents on both sides of the family were born before 1900 and all 4 of them were fat as were their brothers and sisters, and about half of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Are you going to tell me that men the size of President Taft were a rarity? That women the size of Mae West were a rarity? If you are, I’m calling bullshit on you, and citing the asshole rule. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you don’t want enlightenment, all you want to do is tell fat people how to live their lives to suit you. Guess what? You can go fuck yourself with a cactus.
Well everything, and everyone, intrinsically obeys the laws of thermodynamics. But that fact doesn’t even remotely translate to: calories in, calories out. That’s the really big assumption that people make, which makes no sense. I can’t believe that anyone with access to Wikipedia could make such a statement.
Although everything we can observe obey many of the laws we’ve found, it’s not as if that means we fully understand all of those systems, some of them we hardly understand in the least. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t found the laws that make sense of everything yet, but concerning a lot of biological processes, systems in living organisms are so utterly complicated and nuanced. As just one example, to calculate values for equations that may yield answers you’re interested in, you need the values for variables, and it’s not as if those are even necessarily measurable. Anyone who pretends human obesity is some simple issue to understand is just a total moron who can’t be bothered to do even a cursory glance at something that does the topic justice better than Dr. Oz.
Kala - I understand that everything/everyone basically follows the laws of thermodynamics, but I didn’t have the time or patience to get into the details of why calories in/out is a flawed assumption on the part of most people. Hell, you can take 2 identical cars and they won’t get exactly the same gas mileage even if the exact same type of gas is always used in them because you can’t always duplicate, exactly, the driving conditions for both cars, let alone all the other myriad factors that affect gas mileage.My 1998 Dodge Grand Caravan was a case in point - sticker said it was supposed to get 18 mgp highway, I always got at least 24 mpg highway, and sometimes 26/27 mpg. How did I do that? I didn’t speed, I used the cruise control, I didn’t do jackrabbit starts and stops, etc, and I always did the routine maintenance to keep it in repair.
So how the hell could anyone say that every person my age, gender, and height could maintain a weight of 140 lbs on 2000 calories a day if they were locked in a room when there are so many genetic differences between every 5′ 8″, 58 year old female? That also ignores everything that has happened to each and every one of us in our lifetimes, every illness we’ve ever had, every accident we’ve ever had, every diet we’ve ever gone on - the list of differences is endless. All of those things affect those laws, and the laws we haven’t discovered yet, so Elden’s arguments are specious and he knows it. He’s falling back on the old “there never used to be this many fat people” argument, when the fat people he’s talking about - the headless fatties the media uses to portray the “obesity epidemic” - are only about 2% of the population, not the 66% that he’s thinking they are. He thinks that 66% of the population that is “overweight/obese” looks like me - and even with a BMI of 57, I’m not bedridden, I don’t need a crane to get me out of bed in the morning, nor do I need a forklift to get me out of my house - which is what people think of when they hear someone weighs almost 400 lbs, or even is over 300 lbs. So Elden, and people who think like him, need to take a big cup of STFU and MYOB until they’ve gotten some education on the facts of living life while fat, because right now, they don’t have a clue.
Vesta,
I was just thinking about the gas mileage analogy myself! There’s a lawsuit in California where a woman is suing because her gas mileage wasn’t as indicated, and she won. There are so many variables that stand between “this much gas gives you this many miles” that it’s impossible to really estimate that accurately. Well, if they can’t make an accurate estimate for a car, then the human body is going to leave them completely stumped. I have a graphic I want to create for a future post that will try and simplify this, but it will have to come later.
Peace,
Shannon
Elden,
You’re an asshole and I really don’t have the patience for your shit today.
Peace,
Shannon
Elden,
I don’t have time to debate you on this, but considering your email address refers to you as “DietCoach” I’m not all that surprised that you think the laws of thermodynamics validates your chosen career.
Here’s the facts about how the laws of thermodynamics actually affect a real human body: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960812-X/abstract
Calories In/Calories Out is a joke and those who espouse it as though it were metabolic fact have not researched the subject enough.
Peace,
Shannon
No, you’re an idiot. Did you read the study I sent? I doubt it. You’re a hack and a shill, and we have no need for your blatherings.
Peace,
Shannon
I’m calling asshole on Elden.
Elden,
Did you read the study I sent or not? I’m not interested in talking to someone who doesn’t at least try to read the research.
Two 200 pound people of the same age and gender can have radically different basal metabolisms. The main difference is that 200-Pound Person 1 has been at that weight their entire adult life, while 200-Pound Person 2 has recently lost 100 pounds. Guess whose basal metabolism is incredibly slow and whose is fast?
It’s all in the research, and real doctors understand and accept this. Can you?
Peace,
Shannon
LOL Newton you say? So I guess we’ve finally figured out what laws of physics you are talking about, and it’s the laws of Classical Mechanics. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really dig kinematics and multi body dynamics can prove to be quite a challenge, but I’m pretty sure classical mechanics has no bearing on what you’re trying to talk about.
Please, just stop using physics arguments when it doesn’t appear you’ve been able to get through even a cursory glance at introductory physics. You’re a total fucking moron.
Can I call the Asshole Rule (I think that’s what it’s called) on Somebody?
Seconded!
THANK YOU for saying I’m in denial. (Okay, you said it about Vesta, but I agree with her here.) I am in denial of half-baked facts, i.e., facts taken out of context which may be counted half-truths.
Let’s examine some of your statements. WHO says obesity is a global epidemic. If that means there is less hunger in the world, I for one am thrilled. During the same time that obesity has somehow become epidemic, lifespans worldwide have risen. Are these facts related? I couldn’t say. But if obesity is killing people left and right, it is sure doing a fucking lousy job of it.
In what way is obesity killing people? Is it through diabetes, as many say? Medical articles say that diabetes is associated with obesity, and this is true. Insulin resistance will cause many to gain weight. But cancer often causes people to lose weight, and we don’t say thinness causes cancer. “Associated with” doesn’t mean “causes”, but you’d be amazed how many ignorant people read it that way. At best, “associated with” means “let’s study this and see if we can determine where cause and effect lie”.
It is a FACT that no one said anything about keeping children from losing weight. We’re in favor of healthy habits here. We just don’t confuse them with being thin, because the association is very weak. If someone takes up bike-riding and loses 10 pounds, you won’t find fat acceptors yelling “Gain it back!”.
Why do so many people confuse smoking (a habit) with obesity (a phenotype)?
Stigma against obesity is a great threat to people’s health. You can’t lose weight for someone else, but you can help stop stigma. Join us.
“Why do so many people confuse smoking (a habit) with obesity (a phenotype)?”
Thank you for nutshelling this! ^
Even though I had to go and wiki ‘phenotype,’ I knew there was something that always bothered me when people try and compare smoking and obesity. It’s apples and oranges and it’s bull pucky.
The problem is people love to say obesity is a choice and simply the result of personal character flaws like laziness and gluttony. We’re all supposed to find enough willpower to “quit” being fat just like all the poor people addicted to nicotine are supposed to quit smoking. The killer is, I am pretty sure that statistically, more people can quit smoking and not smoke the rest of their lives, but very few people can lose weight and keep it off indefinitely.
I wish we had heard about the health expo sooner - I wonder what the HIPCARE people would have done if a bunch of fathletes had showed up with their perfect health test numbers and BMI-breaking bodies. What would the explanation be? Mass instrument failure?
It really pisses me off that even though insulin resistance has been linked to weight gain, we have never heard that diabetes causes obesity, only the other way around. That means either the medical community are complete idiots, or they are biased in their interpretation of the scientific facts. Either way, fatties are screwed.
How can obesity be an epidemic when being underweight isn’t? We don’t get reports of the ‘epidemic’ of dangerously underweight people in 3rd world countries who suffer from the ‘disease’ of not having enough to eat.
If obesity were a real disease everyone would be obese by now. You can’t ‘catch’ obesity. There is no Fat Typhoid Mary. No teacher has ever sent a warning note home to other parents when little Johnny came to school overweight. There is not monkey in the jungle with obesity in it’s saliva. No one has ever gotten fat from having unprotected sex. No one has ever had their cells mutate into adipose and required radiation to kill the aggressive fat spreading through their body.
The wiki entry on Disease(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease) is fascinating and I think worthy of it’s own blog article, but one part really jumped out at me: “When the cause of a disease is poorly understood, societies tend to mythologize the disease or use it as a metaphor or symbol of whatever that culture considers to be evil. For example, until the bacterial cause of tuberculosis was discovered in 1882, experts variously ascribed the disease to heredity, a sedentary lifestyle, depressed mood, and overindulgence in sex, rich food, or alcohol—all the social ills of the time.” Hmmm so if there is no good medical explanation for a condition (like obesity), society has this awesome habit of scapegoating the people with the condition and accusing them of bringing the condition on themselves by being “evil” (like being supposed weak-willed sloths and gluttons).
I still don’t know if obesity really can be technically called a disease. If it IS, why is it okay for fat people to be treated like crap? People don’t get yelled at and teased for getting cancer. People who develop genetic disorders don’t get made to feel like failures. Even if it was scientifically proven that obesity is a disease, where are our telethons? Our ribbons? Where are our arm bands? Show me the store with the Obesity Jar to put your change in. People with the “disease” of addiction get more sympathy than people with the “disease” of obesity.
Even the people who say obesity is a disease don’t really believe that because you don’t treat diseased people like obese people are treated. People like HIPCARE and CHOA say they are doing what they do FOR the children, while ignoring what they are doing TO the children. I haven’t seen good intentions this f’d up since we used to drain people with leeches to save their lives.
Very thought-provoking post, LBG, especially the part about disease as metaphor. If you look into the history of these things, you’ll find that the leech business was only one in a never-ending history of good intentions. You’ll find such gems as people taking a Sunday excursion to the local mental asylum so they could tease the patients. (Considering shows like Biggest Loser, maybe things haven’t changed that much.)
Tuberculosis in the early 19th century was considered a classy disease, the thinness and fever being considered a result of too much of a passionate nature.
From an article on infectious diseases from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738548/ :
‘French author Alexandre Dumas fils wrote, “It was the fashion to suffer from the lungs; everybody was consumptive, poets especially; it was good form to spit blood after any emotion that was at all sensational, and to die before reaching the age of thirty.” Dumas’ colleague, the poet Théophile Gautier, wrote, “…I could not have accepted as a lyrical poet anyone weighing more than ninety-nine pounds.” A subsequent alleged decline in the arts was even blamed on decline in tuberculosis incidence.’
Some people would disagree with you about people not getting teased or yelled at for suffering from the effects of genetic or congenital illnesses. People are very frightened of disease, death, any reminders of our ultimate lack of control. They reject reasonable physical explanations for fatness, such as heredity, precisely because it indicates lack of control.
Elden, your delusions of grandiosity are hurting people. You are not omniscient and you refuse to learn, calling people “liars” when they don’t fit your world view. You should get some help for that attitude, or at least learn that there is more diversity in the world than you may have imagined.
The asshole rule is invoked for people who refuse to treat the rest of us with respect, and is not necessarily used on someone who is just disagreeing. It’s a clever way of adjusting the moderation level according to the tastes of the regular posters to keep it from being too restrictive or too permissive.
I’ve never known fat acceptance to hurt people, but the mindset has made more than a few take better care of themselves, i.e., eat better and exercise more, without worrying about whether they lost weight as a result.
Either you know nothing about about science, or you don’t know the actual definition of the world “immutable”.
“Unchanging over time or unable to be changed”
Science is always changing, and it gets more nuanced from the minute. If you think for a hot second, that obesity research isn’t still an open field, with decades of work left to be done, you are yet again a fucking moron.
First we’re talking about laws of physics. Then we’re talking about Newton’s laws. Now science apparently never changes. Give up Elden, give up.
Trolls should not get 2,000 calories, much less 2,000 words.
Elden, you choose not to answer me, but demand Shannon answer you? I just have to tell you man, I’m really enjoying these science talks we’ve been having, so I get a little sad when you won’t keep discussing it with me.
No, Elden, my job has my time. By the way, screen time is correlated with poor health. Why don’t you go outside and kick some kittens or something.
Peace,
Shannon
This has gone on long enough. You’re not contributing to any discussion, you’re just spewing hatred. Someone please block this fucking asshole so I can actually get back toward having a safe space.
Elden, why don’t you go use this marvellous tool called Google and look up the studies that are referenced in every other post on this entire site. You exist to make people feel bad about themselves. If I were you I wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror. You are a waste of space.
You keep saying “laws of physics”, but refuse to elaborate on the statement. I get that sometimes people pretend to know about things, to make themselves seem more grand and knowledgeable. But generally, when someone who is faking knowledge on a topic (like you on science), is confronted by someone with real knowledge on the topic (myself), they slink away silently. So Elden, answer this engineering graduate student this: what laws of physics are you talking about, that indisputably prove that all obesity is because fat people eat too much and don’t move their bodies. Also, since we’re all so knowledgeable about physics, please don’t forget to provide your empirical evidence, some calculations, or perhaps a mathematical proof or two.
Or are you avoiding me because my questions are too hard for you?
“there is not an obesity epidemic and that when we look around and see people in power chairs that their eyes are deceiving them and that even if they are fat all the so called co-morbid conditions are NOT related to obesity”
I’d have to do a three page write-up, just to even touch how incorrect you are. There are absolutely some fat people who are very unhealthy, because of an inherently unhealthy lifestyle, that probably also got them fat. But to pretend that it’s the case for all obese people, or for even most, is fairly ludicrous. You’ve failed to note the genetic component of obesity, you’ve failed to take note of the scientifically recognized environmental factors that play into obesity, like stress. You’ve failed to acknowledge the difference between correlation and causation. You don’t seem to be aware of the empirical evidence that shows the utter failure of weight loss diets, making them questionable prescriptions for health issues. You fail to recognize that all people see health gains with a healthy diet and exercise, even though many of them will not lose weight, or will not lose enough weight to move into another BMI category. The fails are numerous.
You are a simpleton. There’s a significant number of studies that back up what I’ve said here, and they can be found referenced to on this website and on others. I’m not going to sit here and compile them again for you, because to be honest I doubt you have either the skill, prior knowledge, or raw intelligence, to understand any of them.
Atchka, isn’t there an asshole rule on this blog? If so, I’d like to invoke it.
wow so you hate women too…i call asshole . this has gone from debate to name calling. We offer sciencetific data and studies, and you offers name calling and “DON’T BELIEVE YOU FATTY”
you are doing what many trolls do…go on and on about something because some fat girl ate your sandwich when you were 12. you don’t care about fat peoples health, you just hate the plus sized for your agenda. So what, do you sell diet food? or are you desperately keeping the fat off tooth and nail and have to hate people who dare love ourselves?
i call the asshole rule…..one wanna second it?
Elden,
When you say “OK girl this may be simple enough even for you to understand” that is obviously condescending and patronizing her because she’s a woman. Kala is a grown woman and you may not agree with her, but we’re not going to let you disrespect her.
I’m the fourth to call you asshole. One more and your comment gets removed. If you keep it up three times, you’ll get a permaban.
We welcome critiques, not assholes.
Peace,
Shannon
I call asshole.
I think we may have enough to block this dude.
I called asshole on Elden 5 days ago. I’ve seen too many of his kind before, and you could talk until you’re blue in the face and show him study after study after study after study PROVING he’s wrong and he would still say we’re the ones who are deluded and wrong. Ban the motherfucker and end this bullshit like it should have been ended 10 posts ago.
http://twitpic.com/2uhtym
Here I am! Cihan, engineer, and turkey suit enthusiast. And you can kiss my tail feathers. I know, I know, it probably blows your mind that the mental image you have of me in your head is not consistent with what I actually look. I’m sure that your denial is in fact so strong, that you’ll yet again insist I’m a liar. But that’s your problem, not mine. Also I’m clearly a wee little girl, definitely not a woman or an adult.
Elden, why would I waste my time to attempt a university level presentation on physics to you, when you’ve shown that you don’t even have the most elementary understanding on the subject. If you’re so interested, try Wikipedia.
Mass can neither be created nor destroyed (in an isolated system). I’d everyone here to know, that apparently this means that you’re fat universally because you eat like wild boars and move less than a barnacle. Also the second law of physics. I’m not sure what the second law might me (still hoping for Gauss’ law), but maybe he means the second law of Thermodynamics. Also, remember everyone, you’re fat because clearly being an isolated system, over time you’ll reach thermodynamic equilibrium. Wasn’t that helpful! Any simpleton that thinks that you can approximate non-isolated, complex biological systems, with single or few-variable evaluations of the fundamental laws in physics is a fucking idiot. Even a best attempt at this kind of approximation would yield beyond numerous numbers of variables to run fundamental equations on.
A great example of an analogous situation, of another biological system that people try hard to evaluate, is that of protein folding. The physical factors that govern how a chain of amino acids, made of molecules, that make up a protein, fold in order to create the structural and thus functional form of a protein is beyond complex. With the world’s best algorithms and supercomputers, we’ve only been able to simulate the folding of only the shortest and simplest proteins. Why is this, you might ask? Because although the fundamental laws of physics might be reasonable to grasp on a high level, something as simple of a building block as a protein, is in fact in actuality so complex, that understanding all of the physical phenomena that governs its behavior is not yet possible. There are primary, secondary, tertiary, and the list goes on, of factors that affect this folding.
Calories in, calories out, is at best based on empirical information. It is a macroscopic view of the issue that may hold in general, but is far from a precise or in-depth understanding of the subject.
And this is a demonstration-based lesson on why people like Elden are morons, and also assholes. So I call asshole rule, but I wanted to show him up first, in case any other lingering trolls care to argue on the same dumbass path.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, I love cleaning house. I’ve mopped up the toxic sludge. The faster we tag him, the faster we bag him.
Peace,
Shannon
Elden,
I love to enlighten people on this subject, but I don’t like to argue for arguments’ sake. I love to debate this subject as well, but you aren’t interested in that either. In fact, it seems like what you want is to convert me into one of your acolytes, which I find supremely creepy, and I find your posts supremely creepy. I have no interest in discussing, or joining, your cult, so you may as well take your charade elsewhere.
Peace,
Shannon
Elden,
Shut the fuck up. Pardon me for not having the time to play your stupid, fucking game, but I’m swamped at work and dealing with something more important on this site than whether Elden has his fucking ego stroked. Perhaps if you weren’t such a douchebag about it, I would work my response to you into my day, but I don’t fuck with intentional assholes whose only interest is arguing.
But as I already said that if you take two 200-pound people, one who has been that weight their entire adult life and one who has recently lose 100 pounds, then the person who has recently lost weight will require FEWER calories than the one who is weight stable. Dr. Sharma covers this in detail, so if you want more answers, ask him. Otherwise either wait your fucking turn or get the fuck out: http://www.drsharma.ca/obesitywhy-is-it-so-hard-to-maintain-a-reduced-body-weight.html
Peace,
Shannon
Thank you Shannon for putting E out of *our* misery, I was going to add my “asshole” vote but I see you have blasted him away so I will settle for calling him an asshole after the fact. The follow-up notifications in my email were starting to feel like spam; I cringed whenever I saw it was from this thread because I knew it would either be him or someone else arguing pointlessly with him. I haven’t seen a troll turn things that toxic in…well, ever actually. I guess that’s a problem with being “Fierce” - sometimes you end up bravely engaging people who aren’t even worth your time. There’s ignorant, there’s willfully ignorant, and then there’s gleefully willfully ignorant - don’t ever waste your breath on the last type. :-\
Elden don’t you have an elsewhere to be? You don’t know what the hell you are talking about and you sure as hell have no business coaching anyone about weight. Don’t sit there and pretend you know anything about Vesta because you do not. I can make all sorts of gross generalizations about you based on your posting here, but is that the truth? Let me give it a shot though.
You’re a control freak and you really hate yourself. You pretend you don’t, but deep down you think you’re a piece of crap that’s why you think other people are garbage.
More than likely you’re a huge liar which is why you’re so quick to call other people liars. Liars usually think everyone else lies too that’s how they justify lying and not feeling bad about it.
Have a nice day
Shanon you are a coward.
I may be a coward, but I’m certainly not afraid of you, asshole.
Peace,
Shannon
Shannon, you are a pathetic coward. Hurry up and eat yourself to death. Lives depend on it.
In the meantime Shannon I will continue to work to add years to the lives and lives to the years of the obese by helping them get to a healthy weight.
Keep preaching to the choir loser.
Frivolous asshole.
Peace,
Shannon
I would recommend reading “Fat” by James Keene. It’s a comically harsh look at obesity that hits on this uphill battle. There is a lot of sensitivity around obesity, and that has spawned a lot of non-scientific justifications for being obese. People need to face up to the real reason for this epidemic: their own skewed gluttony.
Nothing like some medical fiction to provide scientific evidence for something. I guess I’ll skip out on my next set of courses and just read some Michael Crichton.
Oh, wow! It says here I can read this book for FREE with my Amazon Prime account! I’m dropping all the medical research that I have on my plate to read this piece of… fiction.
The author claims to be a doctor writing under a pseudonym and further claims that this isn’t his only book (although there’s no way to verify this, since his author page only shows “Fat”). But Dr. Keene assures us, “if you have read a story with a faint waft of medicine, it may have been mine.”
I gotta tell ya Jake, I’m getting a strong waft of something, and it ain’t medicine.
Peace,
Shannon
By the way, what the hell is “skewed gluttony”? Is that someone with a serious case of pica?
Peace,
Shannon
‘Sensitivity’? Is that what you call someone turning up to tell Shannon to hurry up and die? (And trust me, Elden’s charming sentiments aren’t at all untypical of some of the comments one finds aimed at fat people, online and in public.) If that’s ‘sensitivity’, I’d really hate to meet someone who was insensitive.