"But for some reason it's getting to the point where it isn't okay to talk about fat people like it's a negative thing."
Fat people are a negative thing?
No not the people. But being overweight is absolutely a negative thing. Basically, what pylon said.
I'm tired of the culture we seem to have now where it's against social norms to say otherwise. Being overweight shouldn't be okay. You certainly shouldn't say that in a way that's going to hurt someones feelings, but don't dance around the topic just to prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt either.
Mind you I'm talking about overweight, not people that are obese. That's a whole different animal as far as psychology and genetics are concerned.
Last edited by btimbit; 06-21-2015 at 02:04 PM.
Reason: poor wording
One thing I've noticed about a lot of people here in the states, and especially overweight people, is that very few of them have home-cooked meals as their primary diet. Most of the guys I work with eat a doughnut or muffin for breakfast, fast-food for lunch, then alternate between a home-cooked meal or going out for dinner. A lot of it comes down to time I think. It's just more convenient to drive 5 minutes to get a burger than cook a meal.
I really don't think the cost difference between eating healthy is an effective argument. In my bachelor days my roommates and I would buy whole chickens at the grocery store for $5 each and a 10 lb bag of potatoes for $5. We'd grill the chickens, bake the potatoes and have leftovers for lunch the next day. Eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast the next morning. Mix in some pork chops, or the occasional steak to keep things interesting. In whole I think we were spending about $100 a month on groceries per person.
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One thing I've noticed about a lot of people here in the states, and especially overweight people, is that very few of them have home-cooked meals as their primary diet.
The number of meals eaten or bought outside the home in a week has skyrocketed in the last 30 years. And it is more expensive that preparing food yourself. Rice is cheap. Most veggies are cheap. Potatoes are cheap. But you have to take some time to prepare it, and a lot of people today don't have the skill or inclination to do that. That's one of the reasons obesity tends to run in families - you can have a couple generations in a family who have no experience of preparing their own food.
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Sorry, that looks like another 'blame everything on the big bad corporations' piece of propaganda.
And it's premised on a false dichotomy: Willpower vs food industry. It's both. Just because producers dump corn sugar in a lot of products doesn't mean consumers have to eat vast quantities of those products. Nobody puts a gun to someone's head and makes them guzzle 6 cans of coke a day instead of drinking water. And nobody puts a gun to the head of parents to make them drive their kids everywhere and let them spend most of their free time watching TV and playing video games. We do have choices. And a lot of people make bad ones. Pretending everyone is a victim who has no free will doesn't do us any good.
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But at the same time it's clearly a societal issue with overarching factors that go beyond individual freewill. The biggest issue is marketing, childrens minds are incredibly easy to manipulate and the biggest companies have psychologists creating campaigns that purposefully manipulate children for life.
It's been happening for nearly a century now where Pavlovian and Freudian ideas are used to get people to buy things they never usually would. The entire industry has issues and is incredibly invasive with their advertising, putting all the blame on the individual is shortsighted.
But at the same time it's clearly a societal issue with overarching factors that go beyond individual freewill. The biggest issue is marketing, childrens minds are incredibly easy to manipulate and the biggest companies have psychologists creating campaigns that purposefully manipulate children for life.
It's been happening for nearly a century now where Pavlovian and Freudian ideas are used to get people to buy things they never usually would. The entire industry has issues and is incredibly invasive with their advertising, putting all the blame on the individual is shortsighted.
I would have no problem at all with banning advertising aimed at kids. Full stop. Fast food, toys - everything. It just bugs me when people use a simplistic, binary argument: "it's not willpower and individual behaviour, it's this other thing."
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
But at the same time it's clearly a societal issue with overarching factors that go beyond individual freewill. The biggest issue is marketing, childrens minds are incredibly easy to manipulate and the biggest companies have psychologists creating campaigns that purposefully manipulate children for life.
It's been happening for nearly a century now where Pavlovian and Freudian ideas are used to get people to buy things they never usually would. The entire industry has issues and is incredibly invasive with their advertising, putting all the blame on the individual is shortsighted.
I agree that ads should not target kids, but the parents in these situations bear a lot of the responsibility to teach their kids good habits and proper dietary thinking.
It's the parents who are choosing to take their kids for McDonalds instead of having a tuna sandwich at home. It's the parents who load the grocery carts with soft drinks, chips and doughnuts instead of milk and fresh fruits. Parking their kids in front of a PS$ and the TV is easier than taking them to the park or for a walk.
There is nothing wrong with junk food as a treat, but it needs to be in moderation. Unless it's treated as such and kids aren't taught healthy eating habits, it just sets them up for failure when they start making their own dietary choices.
The film is suggesting that sugar is highly addictive and therefore should not be added to 80% of the food available to purchase. Willpower is absolutely important, I agree with you on that, the problem is that an effective anti-willpower technique used my food manufacturers is sugar addition to sell more food.
I don't know if obesity is a disease much the same way that I don't know if addiction is a disease. Whether they are or not is irrelevant to me simply because they are both very real with very negative consequences.
I agree that ads should not target kids, but the parents in these situations bear a lot of the responsibility to teach their kids good habits and proper dietary thinking.
It's the parents who are choosing to take their kids for McDonalds instead of having a tuna sandwich at home. It's the parents who load the grocery carts with soft drinks, chips and doughnuts instead of milk and fresh fruits. Parking their kids in front of a PS$ and the TV is easier than taking them to the park or for a walk.
There is nothing wrong with junk food as a treat, but it needs to be in moderation. Unless it's treated as such and kids aren't taught healthy eating habits, it just sets them up for failure when they start making their own dietary choices.
Agree for the most part. This being purely anecdotal; when I was young I would hardly eat anything and my parents would jump at the chance if I would eat anything. Them taking me to Mcdonalds was a result of being desperate to get a kid to eat and not die of starvation.
Obviously this is not the standard, but the situation you outlined is one of many. There is no one problem, it's societal and requires an overall change in mindset towards nutrition and less of a pure monetization of commodities.
Also, it sucks that healthier foods are typically more expensive, unfortunately. That needs to fundamentally change, since most people's purchasing habits are driven by their wallet. I buy healthier foods because I value them more, but I've had to adjust for other things in my budget to accommodate.
Shop for deals my friend. At the organic store by my place they have deals all the time. $5 ($15 normal) bottles of olive oil and $12 protein powders ($22 normal) today. Strawberries, bananas, kale and chard are all fairly cheap as well. If you are buying organic salmon and lamb yeah it'll be expensive but you just need to find a place that has great deals and stock up. $.99 bottles of kombucha the other day and I bought 12 of them.
Shop for deals my friend. At the organic store by my place they have deals all the time. $5 ($15 normal) bottles of olive oil and $12 protein powders ($22 normal) today. Strawberries, bananas, kale and chard are all fairly cheap as well. If you are buying organic salmon and lamb yeah it'll be expensive but you just need to find a place that has great deals and stock up. $.99 bottles of kombucha the other day and I bought 12 of them.
Yeah, I need to find more deals like the ones you've mentioned. Which store?
Has their ever been a study that links the increasing use of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication to a heavier population? I know some of those meds can cause weight gain.
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Shop for deals my friend. At the organic store by my place they have deals all the time. $5 ($15 normal) bottles of olive oil and $12 protein powders ($22 normal) today. Strawberries, bananas, kale and chard are all fairly cheap as well. If you are buying organic salmon and lamb yeah it'll be expensive but you just need to find a place that has great deals and stock up. $.99 bottles of kombucha the other day and I bought 12 of them.
I'm not anti-organic or anything, but I find it odd that today it's quite normal to equate healthy to organic. In 1960, there was no such thing. Or at least it wasn't differentiated. Eating habits are certainly a cause of the weight gain, but one doesn't have to buy organic to correct this. Just buy food you have to cook yourself and you'll likely be fine (microwaving hot dogs 5 days a week is not what I'm talking about )
I'm not anti-organic or anything, but I find it odd that today it's quite normal to equate healthy to organic. In 1960, there was no such thing. Or at least it wasn't differentiated. Eating habits are certainly a cause of the weight gain, but one doesn't have to buy organic to correct this. Just buy food you have to cook yourself and you'll likely be fine (microwaving hot dogs 5 days a week is not what I'm talking about )
Eating healthy isn't necessarily eating organic. In fact, I believe that word is over-promoted now.
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