Exactly....people are mentally soft. They lack commitment. Then they have others enabling them to be that way by coming up with phrases like "Fat shaming" and Thin privilege". You can call obesity a disease if you like but many diseases are preventable with committed lifestyle choices.
You choose to smoke, the diseases you get were voluntary You drink too much...same thing You stuff your face with food and never get off the couch, then the hypertension, blocked arteries and such are a choice.
Yes, this is a bit over the top but our society is so quick to jump on things and make excuses for it. Next time something isn't going right ion your world no matter what it is, you should look long and hard in the mirror first.
These aren't equivalent to what is being discussed though. The question is not whether getting heart disease from being obese is a disease, of course it is. The questions is whether or not the obesity itself (which casues the other problems) is a disease.
Lung cancer is a disease you can get from smoking, is the addicition also a disease? Alcoholism can cause a host of problems, but alcohol addiciton is a disease as well.
I personally haven't read a whole bunch about it, and never considered myself to be obese (overweight and out of shape for sure), but I've never known what the line is.
I fully give myself credit for my initial weight loss, and blame myself for the partial regression i've seen over the past few months. But that doesn't mean I might not also have a genetic predisposition to "glutony" or "laziness". Whether or not that's true or possible I have no idea, and I certainly don't look at it for an excuse, and wouldn't even if it was cut and dry true.
For example, Psycnet says he can eat anything he wants and not gain weight, and smoke socially but not be addicited to it and he can likely do the same with drinking. So is it not possible that is a biological thing? Certainly his metabolism is. I know people that look like Ryan Reynolds and haven't done a sit up in their lives and I know people that work out daily who can't seem to take it off. I don't consider myself someone afflicted with this, but when faced with a choice of cake vs apple as an intelligent person I know that choosing the cake is the wrong choice, but I still make it. We call it will power, but couldn't will power be a genetic trait just like addiction?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wood
If you lose the drive and go back to old habits you're not going to be successful. Just like any addiction, you need to fight the urges and stick to what needs to be done, and if you want to lose it long term you have to live that lifestyle forever. Its extremely difficult especially if you arent committed to being completely healthy, but its possible
Yes and the question here is whether or not those urges and that difficulty (something that seems more difficult for some than others) is something biological or just a lack of will power and/or knowledge.
These aren't equivalent to what is being discussed though. The question is not whether getting heart disease from being obese is a disease, of course it is. The questions is whether or not the obesity itself (which casues the other problems) is a disease.
Lung cancer is a disease you can get from smoking, is the addicition also a disease? Alcoholism can cause a host of problems, but alcohol addiciton is a disease as well.
I personally haven't read a whole bunch about it, and never considered myself to be obese (overweight and out of shape for sure), but I've never known what the line is.
I fully give myself credit for my initial weight loss, and blame myself for the partial regression i've seen over the past few months. But that doesn't mean I might not also have a genetic predisposition to "glutony" or "laziness". Whether or not that's true or possible I have no idea, and I certainly don't look at it for an excuse, and wouldn't even if it was cut and dry true.
For example, Psycnet says he can eat anything he wants and not gain weight, and smoke socially but not be addicited to it and he can likely do the same with drinking. So is it not possible that is a biological thing? Certainly his metabolism is. I know people that look like Ryan Reynolds and haven't done a sit up in their lives and I know people that work out daily who can't seem to take it off. I don't consider myself someone afflicted with this, but when faced with a choice of cake vs apple as an intelligent person I know that choosing the cake is the wrong choice, but I still make it. We call it will power, but couldn't will power be a genetic trait just like addiction?
Fair enough. I did say I was being a bit over the top to make my point.
Or telling a depressed person to stop being depressed by cheering up. Or the most accurate one I've heard is to tell a person with allergies to breathe less.
Because eating isn't just a vice, it's a requirement.
Eating isnt a vice, but over eating is
Asthma or allergies are not compareable to being overweight at all
I know you didn't read the article, but you should have at least read the OP.
OK...that was sarcasm. Should have indicated it. I read the article. I question its findings. Most people know you can distort statics to say pretty much what you want them to depending on how you set the study up. Sometimes I think people make their connections using symbolic logic.
Asthma or allergies are not compareable to being overweight at all
It is from the point of view of people sitting on the sidelines telling someone how to lose weight.
Do you measure how much oxygen you need, how much you are exerting yourself, the volume of your lungs, and calculate how much you need to breathe, and then breathe only that much?
Of course not, your body regulates your breathing automatically, when you need more oxygen you breathe deeper, more often, etc.
If you have severe allergies you could reduce your exposure to allergens by breathing less, but that's not an option because your body tells you how much you need to breathe.
So what if your body is telling you how much to eat, but that amount of food results in being overweight. So you're telling someone to eat less than their body is telling them to. To breathe less because they're allergic to food.
Because the body will go to extreme lengths to prevent weight loss. Imagine the hungriest you've ever felt. Now imagine feeling like that all day long, even after you've had a large meal, because your body is trying to get back to a weight.
It doesn't help that the worst foods out there are designed to make you eat the most possible while satisfying hunger the least possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wood
Thin people eat too, everyone needs food
That's one of the things that makes it more difficult. You can quit smoking and drinking alcohol completely. You can't quit eating completely.
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Then people are ignoring their biology and are living in a fashion that runs counter to it.
Every one of your posts is an attempt at justification.
Are you kidding me? Of course I'm trying to justify it, that's what you do when you take a position in an argument, you try to justify why you're right. It's exactly what everyone else in this thread is doing as well.
And yes, maybe some people are obese from overeating, but the point of that quote was that your body is designed to gain weight, and then not lose it - that's the issue I'm talking about there. Everyone says it's so easy to lose weight long-term, when in reality your body is fighting against you, which is going to make it much more difficult than everyone seems to think.
Sure you do, it conflicts with the mental softness narrative you've built.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rotten42
Most people know you can distort statics to say pretty much what you want them to depending on how you set the study up.
Most people also know that there are ways to detect such distortions and tell if a study is valid or not.
That's why the results from one study aren't all that's required. That's why you have meta-studies, and surveys, and people who dedicate their area of study into studying the studies. The kind of people that wrote the studies that mention the 5%...
You talk about logic, you should be able to see the flaw in the logic "you can distort statistics therefore I question its findings".
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
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Yes and the question here is whether or not those urges and that difficulty (something that seems more difficult for some than others) is something biological or just a lack of will power and/or knowledge.
If it was just a question of will power, then what does that mean, collectively somehow the will power of the world has been steadily decreasing? Earth's magnetic field or something?
If that were true then rates for all other things involving will power would be getting worse at the same rate.
Or if it were true then the 95% people who try but can't maintain weight loss should also have huge problems with all other areas of their lives involving will power (which is obviously not true, I know large people that have lots of will power in other areas of their lives).
I don't think will power even exists, it's just a convenient label to explain a behavioural phenomenon that is far more complex and involves knowledge and genetics and environment and habit and support.
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So who on the pro-obesity side of this discussion are taking the
a) obesity is a disease that is hard to treat side
and who is taking
b) obesity is part of out genetic makeup as humans and is healthy side
It's getting confusing.
I'm not sure what the "sides" are, but me personally I don't know if obesity is a disease or not. But I do think that if the lack of will power against other addictions (booze, sex, etc..) is considered as such, why not addictions to food?
And to b), just because someone could have a genetic pre-disposition to obesity doesn't mean it is healthy. The body urges us to do unhealthy things all the time.
But you would think, evolutionarily, people in general are predisposed to eat anything they can whenever they can as a survival technique. I think that over the last 100 years or so our minds have evolved at a much faster pace than our bodies and so we have the intelligence to know what is required in order to maintain a healthy body, but our physiology may not have gone far beyond trying to eat as much as we can whenever we can, or maybe some people are just lagging in that regard.
I don't think will power even exists, it's just a convenient label to explain a behavioural phenomenon that is far more complex and involves knowledge and genetics and environment and habit and support.
Yeah I totally agree and that was my point. Will power appears to me to be a trait just like anything else (humor, artistic, etc...).
So if that's the case, is a lack of will power a disease that can be treated? Or just an unfortunate physiological/biological trait?
So if that's the case, is a lack of will power a disease that can be treated? Or just an unfortunate physiological/biological trait?
I don't think it's either, I think what we see as will power is actually just a label we give of a person's response to a given set of circumstances.
One person eats normally, is it because they have will power? Or is it just because they're not hungry. It's not will power to not eat if you have no desire to eat.
If one person takes a bite of cake and they think "mm.. cake" and then move on, but another person takes a bite and has an orgasm, is it will power that makes one person desire cake less? Or is it because their perceptions are different?
If one person should be working but surfs the internet instead, while another person employs knows their enjoyment of random internet cats is higher than most people's so employs some strategies to ensure they stay on task, do they have more will power? Or do they have more knowledge about themselves and psychology?
Will power might be a thing, but if it is then I think it's a trait that like most have a biological component, plus a psychological component that's influenced by environment. It might be able to improved with practice, it's probably weakened by overuse, by stress, by physical health.. it can probably be re-enforced by social support, family and friends.
EDIT: But if it is a thing, I think its role in things is small, given the difficulty in things like obesity and quitting smoking and stopping looking at the Internet.
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If it was just a question of will power, then what does that mean, collectively somehow the will power of the world has been steadily decreasing? Earth's magnetic field or something?
If that were true then rates for all other things involving will power would be getting worse at the same rate.
Or if it were true then the 95% people who try but can't maintain weight loss should also have huge problems with all other areas of their lives involving will power (which is obviously not true, I know large people that have lots of will power in other areas of their lives).
I don't think will power even exists, it's just a convenient label to explain a behavioural phenomenon that is far more complex and involves knowledge and genetics and environment and habit and support.
Well, I would assume it's all in how you look at it and want to define it. I would agree 'willpower' is a bit of a catch all term revolving around self control. Which could also mean it involves a persons susceptibility to addiction (or different addictions). But some of it is obviously genetically and chemically based, and some of it is learned behavior.
Hmmm, I guess that's pretty much exactly what your saying. Thanks Daradon...
I'd agree 'willpower' isn't a measurable metric and is an idea based on a lot of other things.
Is it a sheer biological issue that body itself will gravitate back to original/higher weight? Or is it the psychological issue that sustaining a change in diet and doing regular exercise in order to lose weight is just too difficult for a lot of people to maintain forever?
what i got out of the article is that it is the latter... and if that is so, then there is still hope, but it is just extremely difficult to bring make the type of changes foundational to the way we operate. The "hope" is that humans are capable of accomplishing a lot thru willpower/motivation. This article in itself (if my assumption is that the scientific reason why only 5% keep the weight off is due to the difficulty in maintaining the lifestyle changes) should be a motivator that 95% of all of us end up giving up on the tall task, but there is still a % that is able to push thru....
Curious what % of addicts (drugs/alcohol) who go into treatment and get clean, are able to maintain that for a decade? Is there such a statistic?
Is it a sheer biological issue that body itself will gravitate back to original/higher weight? Or is it the psychological issue that sustaining a change in diet and doing regular exercise in order to lose weight is just too difficult for a lot of people to maintain forever?
what i got out of the article is that it is the latter... and if that is so, then there is still hope, but it is just extremely difficult to bring make the type of changes foundational to the way we operate. The "hope" is that humans are capable of accomplishing a lot thru willpower/motivation. This article in itself (if my assumption is that the scientific reason why only 5% keep the weight off is due to the difficulty in maintaining the lifestyle changes) should be a motivator that 95% of all of us end up giving up on the tall task, but there is still a % that is able to push thru....
Curious what % of addicts (drugs/alcohol) who go into treatment and get clean, are able to maintain that for a decade? Is there such a statistic?
I would think there's hope either way. People regulate their biological impulses all the time. Otherwise us guys would be screwing (or trying to) everything that moved whether attached to another person or not. Most people can reasonably regulate this, but some can't so you end up with sexual deviants.
If it is a biological process that your body wants to maintain/add to whatever weight you have put on, it again takes a concious effort to regulate yourself, and some people may have a very difficult time doing it and end up obese, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
I don't necessarily disagree with them because obviously a lot of people who have had success losing weight do relapse and put it back on. I have only been alive for 25 years so I can't really attest to long term weight loss; however, if you do change your lifestyle, eat healthy, exercise and maintain that for the duration of your life then wouldn't you technically achieve your goal of keeping that weight off?
Losing weight was super easy when I was under 30. If I felt like I needed to do it, it pretty much just happened, didn't even have to consciously think about it.
I'm only 36 now, but losing weight for longer times is super hard now, and I've started to notice the same happening to all my friends. Almost everyone is gaining weight. I'm not sure if I know anyone who has succesfully dieted him/herself to a significant longterm difference, or anyone who has approached it as a lifestyle change and succeeded.
The only thing I've seen work is people starting new physical hobbies. For example by wife went nuts over lindy hop (a dance) maybe 5 years ago and has been way fitter ever since. Others have taken up everything from historical fencing to scuba diving. I believe this actually serves a purpose beyond exercising; when you're really into what ever you're doing, it's pretty easy to just eat the minimum that you need to keep going.
It's also worth remembering that exercising is not equally easy for everyone.
For example, I have a combination of relatively minor physical issues which cause me to dehydrate more easily than average, and more importantly it takes ages for me to rehydrate. Basically it's easy for me to lose fluids way faster than I can take in. Which means that physical exercise for me is a time to constantly watch out for signs of getting dehydrated. And if I do get dehydrated, I get supersick. Like vomiting for 6-12 hours and not being able to do anything other than moan in agony.
Now, I don't usually get dehydrated that much, especially since I've learned to pace myself and watch my fluid balance. But having to watch out for that just sucks a lot of fun out of physical exercise. And none of this stuff is something that you would know unless I specifically told you. Looking at me you'll just see someone who "never really throws himself into it". The stuff I've mentioned is complete non-issue otherwise. (As you can guess I'm also not much for extended outdoor trips in hot weather, but that's hardly rare either.)
I'm also envious of people who feel great after a physical exercise. I'm pretty much either ok or feeling sick, always have been like that. Even in my fitter days (and I used to be pretty fit at around 24) I've never gotten any kind of a "rush" or energy boost that a lot people say they get from sports.
I also read some really interesting study that suggested that a major contributor to weight gain these days is simply the fact that we can increasingly keep our bodies in comfortable temperature levels.
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I don't think it's either, I think what we see as will power is actually just a label we give of a person's response to a given set of circumstances.
One person eats normally, is it because they have will power? Or is it just because they're not hungry. It's not will power to not eat if you have no desire to eat.
If one person takes a bite of cake and they think "mm.. cake" and then move on, but another person takes a bite and has an orgasm, is it will power that makes one person desire cake less? Or is it because their perceptions are different?
If one person should be working but surfs the internet instead, while another person employs knows their enjoyment of random internet cats is higher than most people's so employs some strategies to ensure they stay on task, do they have more will power? Or do they have more knowledge about themselves and psychology?
Will power might be a thing, but if it is then I think it's a trait that like most have a biological component, plus a psychological component that's influenced by environment. It might be able to improved with practice, it's probably weakened by overuse, by stress, by physical health.. it can probably be re-enforced by social support, family and friends.
EDIT: But if it is a thing, I think its role in things is small, given the difficulty in things like obesity and quitting smoking and stopping looking at the Internet.
i actually don't feel this is a "will power" issue. i think we all create a lifestyle/routine that suits us and brings us contentment. some of the elements of this routine are foundational/core, where as others are more superficial. I think what is required to lose weight falls in the category of foundational/core areas of the routine that brings us contentment.
What we eat is extremely critical not only to the type of schedule we maintain time wise, but also is a big factor on our daily satisfaction (ie. when things at work are crazy and im hitting a high level of stress i find myself willing to eat things like fastfood/chips/etc, and it absolutely makes me feel better, or things like having a drink at the end of the day with the wife or a few pints with the boys while watching the game). To abruptly change what you eat is actually a substantial change in your routine. It will dictate the amount of time in a day/week you invest in making fresh foods (that may take longer and more planning ahead) but it also affects the way we socialize and enjoy the few free hours of time we have for leisure activities in a week (ie. goign out for dinner with the wife/family, meeting at a pub with friends for beer/wings, dinner parties, etc) ... Changing your diet, and being consistent about it, may require folks to change the way these other areas of their life.
Doing more physical activity is also a change in the way you live (much lesser degree than changing your diet in my opinion) as, again, we all have very few hours of free time, and likely use that to spend time with family/kids, or wiht friends, watching your favourite shows, watching the flames play, etc). I would argue that the average adult has just a few hours of free time in a day outside of work, commuting, preparing food, meal time, spending time with the wife/kids). To slice up this already small chunk of time to make time for the gym/jog/etc, is a substancial change in your routine.
It isn't a "poor willpower" issue, well it might be at a very micro level to the problem. The real issue is that i think it is very difficult to change. We are willing to accommodate some level of change to our lifestyle in the short term, but it is extremely difficult to change our framework and what keeps us content. In the developed world, with the stresses we all carry on (that seem to be growing despite the injectio of more and more technology that is supposed to make things easier) what you have for lunch or what you do for the 1 hour of free time you have on the weeknights, are easy wins as far as relaxation goes.
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