Judge not, lest ye be judged
June 26, 2005 7:29 PM   Subscribe

Obese people are the target of awe and mockery, but they're also real. The Washington Post offers another terrifying, saddening, and inspiring portrait of a morbidly obese man trying to get moving. If you must comment about this, try not to fat-bash. It's just tacky and predictable...
posted by chinese_fashion (130 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Yes, it is predictable. So why even make this post?
posted by Galvatron at 7:34 PM on June 26, 2005


At night, his left cheek nestles upon a soft white pile of shoulder and breast meat.

Thought it was a poignant story (first link) but that sentence did make me chuckle. I'm sure the writer was referring to the guy's arm, but maybe food imagery wasn't the way to go when coming up with that description...
posted by emelenjr at 7:45 PM on June 26, 2005


Disgusting.
posted by keswick at 7:46 PM on June 26, 2005


You know, the article tries to convince us that no matter what this guy eats, even when he's eating healthy, he gains weight.

But all I see in these pictures is candy and snack food.

And his amusing story about making enormous meatballs? Hard to feel like he's trying everything he can.

I understand that biology is involved here and he's obviously got an eating disorder, but at 500 pounds, some kind of mental alarm has to go off for the people who love him and anyone who brings him a pint of Hagen Daz is an enabler to a slow suicide.

Wait, his parents were first cousins?
posted by ColdChef at 7:50 PM on June 26, 2005


Okay. I saw some Diet Cokes and some Sweet and Low in one of the pictures. I take back part of my snark.
posted by ColdChef at 7:56 PM on June 26, 2005


And the fact that the government picks up his rehab. cost at roughly $300/day is upsetting.

I guess the only defense is what ColdChef brought up--the guy had a fucked up childhood. But hey, so did most of us.
posted by bardic at 7:57 PM on June 26, 2005


The Post has a gallery of eighteen photos of Keitz.
posted by waldo at 8:16 PM on June 26, 2005


First cousin marriage is legal in Maryland and over 20 other states. Consanguineous marriages of first cousins, independent of any other history of consanguinity, have a rate of genetic abnormalities slightly greater than the normal population (on the order of 2% vs. 1%).

I think the writer was dropping little hints through the whole article that belie a less than neutral point of view. And the photographer didn't need to have much of an agenda.

Photo 1: fast food sandwich and drink; candy box (wigglers?) now containing a wrapped cake; other bulk food boxes
Photo 2: non-diet 20oz Sprite; M&Ms; toaster pastries
Photo 3: same fast food; diet Pepsi
Photo 4: caffeine-free Pepsi
Photo 5: packing boxes from Wendy's (perhaps a gift, perhaps more evidence of too-close connections to, you know, pushers); Sweet & Low
Photo 6: non-diet Coca-Cola 24-packs; more non-diet 20oz Sprites; some 20oz dark soda
Photo 7: sandwich spread container, front and center
Photo 8: hospital cafeteria styro soda?
Photo 9: three sodas in styro; non-diet Sprite can; bags of munchies
Photo 10: two 20oz non-diet sodas
Photo 11: a banana, a styro soda, a 20oz lime Coke?
Photo 12: three hospital cups
Photo 13: first photo with no food whatsoever
Photos 14-18: no food

My own struggles with weight lead me to believe the smartest thing to do is to get the drug away, and keep it away. That said, I know someone who had gastric laproscopic surgery and lost something like 50 pounds, but is now gaining it back despite eating like a bird (her whole family is on salads, her husband has lost an amazing amout himself just because of the family diet).
posted by dhartung at 8:25 PM on June 26, 2005


Have we gotten so PC in the world now that reality is no longer a suitable topic for comment? He ate his way to 500, and now someone else is paying the bill.

If someoen in your immediate vicinity is too fat to get up and get their own food, you might want to consider not getting it for them... or at least only give them something healthy.
posted by soulhuntre at 8:26 PM on June 26, 2005


We all have our weaknesses.

Data on obesity at the US national level reveals that obesity in the US in highest in the deep South, around Texas, and along the Onio River Valley.

People in the US Northeast and far West are skinniest. In the first case, I would blame higher education, diet, and gyms. In the second..... well, I'd bet that westerners just spend more time outdoors.
posted by troutfishing at 8:34 PM on June 26, 2005


Eat less. Exercise more.
posted by nightchrome at 8:35 PM on June 26, 2005


Make that "Ohio" rather than "Onio". As I said.....

Nobody's perfect. Or even close.
posted by troutfishing at 8:36 PM on June 26, 2005


Ay yi yi.

I feel bad for the guy. But dang, even he was predisposed to weight gain from the article it looks like the only person who put himself there was himself. They describe his attempts at losing weight and he gave up on all of them because he insists that's the way his body is supposed to be--despite there being no medical evidence that comes to that conclusion.

It sounds like a case where he may just gain weight a bit more easily than everyone else, but was too stubborn or proud to acknowledge that it meant he needed to eat and exercise differently than everyone else, and that he had to be much stricter about things other people could be loose about. Maybe someone else can eat that extra hot dog, but he couldn't, and it looks like he just kept having that one extra hot dog, that extra butter in his chicken until it got out of his control. But that's a hypothesis.

His reluctance to gastric bypass surgery is sort of interesting given that if anyone needs it he does. But t's admirable he's resolved to lose the weight the hard way. I think the big deal the media's made of gastric bypass has led some people to seek a dangerous procedure when they really should be sticking to other routes first. Hopefully the new physical therapy center will help him out. And hopefully when people next take pictures of him there won't be bags of M&M and a pound of butter to mention.
posted by Anonymous at 8:44 PM on June 26, 2005


Question: Are there any side effects to the gastric bypass surgery that would dissuade him from the procedure? It seems like for cases like his, it might be life saving.

On preview: I see, according to soulhuntre it may not actually help keep the weight off, but aside from that are there other problems associated with it?
posted by Freen at 8:48 PM on June 26, 2005


Ah, one more thing. I think it's telling, and not particularly surprising, that in articles about extremely obese people we learn that food plays a big part in their lives, both at home and at work. Maybe it's the reporter's bias, but c'mon, it's not like a lifelong marathoner woke up one day and weighed 600 pounds.

It's good indication that genetics isn't everything, and obesity comes not in lumps but over the course of decades.
posted by Anonymous at 8:48 PM on June 26, 2005


A, but it was so much funnier when it was someone who was skin-welded to a couch.

Whether the person has a physical problem needing a medical solution or a mental problem needing a mental solution, the problem is the same. Making fun of them is not a whole lot different than yelling 'JUMP!' at the schizophrenic hanging onto the side of the bridge, really. Telling them to "Eat less. Exercise more." again isn't too different from "Stop hearing voices. But listen to your doctor."
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:48 PM on June 26, 2005


I thought this was interesting:

it is a disease with personal responsibility attached. Advocates for obese people say health care is replete with analogous conditions -- gum disease brought on by poor dental hygiene; skin cancer following too much tanning -- yet obesity is unique in how much blame fat people get.
posted by 4easypayments at 8:49 PM on June 26, 2005


Are there any side effects to the gastric bypass surgery that would dissuade him from the procedure?

There's quite a few, but the most common one is the patient typically goes batshit insane. (My ex had the surgery. Trust me.)
posted by keswick at 8:56 PM on June 26, 2005


Sorry, I pasted the wrong link. Here is the right one.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:56 PM on June 26, 2005


The man is obviously a person who cannot cope. It is hard to guess whether he fears the surgery because it would work and he would need to go get a job like anyone else, or because someone told him his chances of surviving ansthesia are slim because he is not.
posted by Cranberry at 9:00 PM on June 26, 2005


Are there any side effects to the gastric bypass surgery that would dissuade him from the procedure?

Well, there is a small but significant chance he would die durring the proceedure as a result of the Anesthesia.
posted by anastasiav at 9:01 PM on June 26, 2005


Freen, it's a serious procedure with a high rate of complications and death. See the info in Wikipedia. I don't blame him for wanting to keep at physical therapy, though I wonder if the severity of his condition outweighs the aftereffects of the surgery. Ultimately, it is his decision.
posted by Anonymous at 9:02 PM on June 26, 2005


Since Keitz was 18 and 250 pounds, he has gained 375 pounds, or 1,312,500 calories. That's 62,500 calories per year, or 171 per day.

Yikes. There were more calories than that in those two chocolate chip cookies I just ate.
posted by obloquy at 9:04 PM on June 26, 2005


I spent my teen years and most of my twenties obese. I was about 310 with a 46 inch waist. It got to the point that my weight was all I ever thought about. I was unhappy, embarrassed, and though I had a lot of friends, I felt people were not taking me as seriously as they should. I was passed over for positions in bands (image is everything), audio engineering jobs, leadership positions in college. There was a certain way people treated me.

About four years ago I took it all off. I now have a BMI that is usually under 25, my waist is usually 34-36 inches. Life is different 120 pounds lighter. Sure everything is easier. Running 3 1/2 to 4 miles a day is routine. I never need to nap. I have packed more dating, romance, girlfriends, and assorted sleaze in the past 4 years than I had in my prior 12 years.

The biggest difference however, is in how I am treated. It is obvious now that people look at me and see me, not just some fat dude in front of them. Sure, it isn't fair, but I don't think most people can help it. Even now, four years removed from the old me, I occasionally find myself thinking derogatory thoughts when confronted with one of "them." I then remember how people used to perceive me and give myself a sharp mental slap.
posted by sourwookie at 9:04 PM on June 26, 2005 [2 favorites]


Chump change. Check this one out (from today's news.)
posted by kozad at 9:05 PM on June 26, 2005


Like 4easypayments says, and more:

Many scientists, doctors and health insurance executives are coming around to the conviction that obesity is a disease. Even the IRS has ruled that obesity is a disease, allowing some deductions for treatment.

If so, it is a disease with personal responsibility attached. Advocates for obese people say health care is replete with analogous conditions -- gum disease brought on by poor dental hygiene; skin cancer following too much tanning -- yet obesity is unique in how much blame fat people get. "Once you take off this moral interpretation, it is a dysfunction of the body and an abnormal physiological state," says Morgan Downey, executive director of the American Obesity Association in Washington.


it is reminiscent of the debate surrounding alcoholism, which is now recognized as an illness and not a moral failing. Like alcoholism, it can be beat, but may take the kind of tremendous will power not all of us are blessed with, smug comments upthread notwithstanding
posted by Rumple at 9:05 PM on June 26, 2005


There's a recent story about huge weight loss as a result of gastric stapling.
Seems to me that communities would do well to have dietician-psychologists that will visit homes.
posted by peacay at 9:06 PM on June 26, 2005


Does this man bear some responsibility for his weight? Of course. Does that mean he doesn't deserve help in dealing with it? That he doesn't deserve kindness and compassion? No.

And I don't feel a lick upset that the government is paying for his treatment - the government pays for lots of things, like superhighways and bombs, that are far less worthwhile. It also pays for programs to help people that need it. Any of us might be in such a position of need for some reason or another.
posted by mai at 9:20 PM on June 26, 2005




It's no surprise that people are prejudiced against the obese. Any time we see someone who is in poor physical condition, it scares the crap out of us because we are instantly reminded of our own frailty. Really, there is nothing we find scarier than that.
posted by afroblanca at 9:25 PM on June 26, 2005


Mai, well put.
posted by dial-tone at 9:29 PM on June 26, 2005


Any time we see someone who is in poor physical condition, it scares the crap out of us because we are instantly reminded of our own frailty. Really, there is nothing we find scarier than that.
Boo.

(Actually, compliments to everybody on the low level of snark - now, let's talk about Iraq.)
posted by wendell at 9:35 PM on June 26, 2005


And I don't feel a lick upset that the government is paying for his treatment - the government pays for lots of things, like superhighways and bombs, that are far less worthwhile

I guess that's different for each person. Superhighways are much more useful to me.

It's no surprise that people are prejudiced against the obese. Any time we see someone who is in poor physical condition, it scares the crap out of us because we are instantly reminded of our own frailty. Really, there is nothing we find scarier than that.

Not really true. People are not mean to others who have cancer, or how lose a limb, or many other "poor physical conditions". The problem with being over weight is we assume the person is at fault (not saying that's right or wrong).
posted by justgary at 9:41 PM on June 26, 2005


afroblanca writes "It's no surprise that people are prejudiced against the obese. Any time we see someone who is in poor physical condition, it scares the crap out of us because we are instantly reminded of our own frailty. Really, there is nothing we find scarier than that."

Well I'm not going to snark but the only thing I'd generally agree with in that paragraph is that there's no surprise that people are prejudiced. IMHO that usually derives from differences in other people and not because we see our potential selves. I'm not instantly reminded of my own frailty when I see an obese person (or for that matter an amputee or bald chemo-patient) -- perhaps we come to feel sympathetic because we can identify with difficulties that might be associated with whatever problem such people have but for me, I don't find it scary per se. That's not so much to say you're wrong, just that not everyone thinks alike is all.
posted by peacay at 9:43 PM on June 26, 2005


afroblanca: I don't know about you, but in all of my grisly fantasizing about my own terrible mortality nowhere is the awful vision of ballooning up to 500 pounds on junk food without even the scantest of notions of personal accountability.
posted by xmutex at 9:51 PM on June 26, 2005


The article is absurd. This is not merely about eating incorrectly -- I'm sure lots of people eat a little extra and never reach the absurd proportions this guy has reached. He clearly has a serious biological disorder... That doesn't mean that personal responsibility doesn't play a role, but to chirpily conclude that this comes down to merely eating less and exercising more is insane, unless you're talking about drastic changes that normal people could not imagine.
posted by shivohum at 9:59 PM on June 26, 2005


I don't know... Unless this serious biological disorder involves tapping in some unknown energy source and synthesizing new matter from it, it really does come down to eating less and exercising more. Of course, how easy or hard it might be is a whole different story..
posted by c13 at 10:07 PM on June 26, 2005


I weigh about 250 now. I used to weigh 290, and at this point I feel a lot better about myself. In this society (US) it is hard to be respected when you are overweight.

Should we, as a society, feel pity that some people weigh a lot? No, we shouldn't. Being fat isn't a horrible disease that you cannot get over. If someone gets melanoma and they sunbathed every day their entire life, I will call them on it. Also, someones tax dollars is paying for that. I am overweight and I don't feel for this guy, even if the reporting and camera angles purposely portrayed him as a fat slob which fat he is, but slob probably not.

If anything there needs to be as much money going into the war on drugs as there is the war on obesity. Advertise a coroner opening a highly overweight cadaver. Show an elk running from a predator and make the distinction how if it was fat it couldn't run away. America should prepare a psychological campaign againt obesity. Remember obesity is clinical, so I am not talking being 20 pounds over.
posted by Dean Keaton at 10:08 PM on June 26, 2005


If anything there needs to be as much money going into the war on drugs as there is the war on obesity.
Or just make bacon illegal. (I know that's not what you meant, but there are so many problems with comparing the two... I just wish I could get my weight down to what Morgan Spurlock was AFTER his Super-Sized 30 Days...)
posted by wendell at 10:19 PM on June 26, 2005


This whole ball a wax seems to be slightly below our potential, as individuals (fat peoples, yelling insults peoples) or as a society. Here we are 2005 and these are the problems we're gonna solve (hopefully at that)
posted by nervousfritz at 10:21 PM on June 26, 2005


It sounds like a case where he may just gain weight a bit more easily than everyone else, but was too stubborn or proud to acknowledge that it meant he needed to eat and exercise differently than everyone else, and that he had to be much stricter about things other people could be loose about. Maybe someone else can eat that extra hot dog, but he couldn't, and it looks like he just kept having that one extra hot dog, that extra butter in his chicken until it got out of his control.

I can't understand this mindset. Anyone who reads my posting history will recognize that I'm far from PC — in fact, I'm generally an asshole — and yes, the truly morbidly obese are not appealing people to me. But I just can't attach any moral blame, because I — like probably most people here — will never end up like this, no matter how weak I am as a human being. I weight maybe around 160 pounds (at a guess — it's been a long time since I weighed myself). I generally eat pretty much what I want, and I don't exercise any more than is necessitated by my not being able to afford a car. There've been times when I've eaten potato chips by the bagful on a daily basis, or drank too much beer for weeks on end, and I gained a little weight, maybe 10 or 15 pounds. But it seems pretty clear to me that even if I locked myself in my home and ate nothing but deep-fried Mars Bars I would never end up anywhere near 500 pounds, which is why I can't judge this guy; he's no more lacking in willpower than I am, but the consequences he has to suffer for it are immeasurably more severe.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 10:22 PM on June 26, 2005


I don't think anyone would choose to be trapped inside a morbidly obese body. I guess it makes people feel better about themselves when they can make fun of other people's misery.

We do not know everything there is to know about why people become obese and until we do know hold off on judging others.
posted by sultan at 10:32 PM on June 26, 2005


IshmaelGraves: Good post.

On the other side of examples, I'm up around 275 pounds right now, and I've been as high as 290 (my god I felt like crap at that weight). I bike an hour to work twice a week, and last year I tried WeightWatchers to try and get down to what I'd like to be at (200-220). I couldn't eat the amount of food that I was supposed to...it was too damned much. I generally eat less than a lot of people 2/3rds my size, though I do tend to eat less often and have larger meals to feel satisfied. My metabolism is so slow that I only tend to shit every 3 days or so unless I ingest large amounts (sickening amounts) of fiber, which usually comes packed in bars with lots of calories.

I absolutely feel the lack of respect that is given to overweight people in general. As such I try to be nice to them whenever I can. when I do see someone who is morbidly obese and doesn't give a rat's ass about changing that, I base my predjudice against them on their stupid behaviour. When I see someone who is overweight and is actually doing something about it, I cheer them on when I can. Many people don't though; when I'm biking to work, I get the super-fit bikers racing past me saying, loud enough for me to hear, "Get off the road, fat ass". So I assume that they'd prefer to feel superior for their genetics and metabolism...since I guarantee you that anyone who does that shit hasn't been there, slogging away on a bike carrying an extra 75 pounds of weight.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:34 PM on June 26, 2005 [1 favorite]


He does not take into account the fact that, in addition to gaining weight, energy must be consumed to keep what's already in a body warm and functioning.

On preview: If you're allergic to peanuts, you (normally) make a choice to stay away from the peanut butter, not matter how much you like the rich creamy goodness and the crunchy chunks. Again, obviously, in this guy's case, the choice is a hell of a lot harder to make, but it is a choice never the less.
posted by c13 at 10:36 PM on June 26, 2005


I somehow think that overeating lies on a continuum of behaviour from the anorexic nibblers at one end to the compulsive ingesters at the other.
Somewhere towards the margins along this line the idea of normal behaviour clouds over into genuine psychiatric problems. It may technically be true in the mathematical sense that output (exercise) has to be greater than input to lose weight but I think for a minority of morbidly obese people, such a rationale has little chance of success without some serious adjunctive psychological therapy. No doubt these people have some serious selfloathing issues and most likely depression and on an ongoing basis, eating is probably medicating those untoward feelings.
Telling them they are fat bastards and to pull themselves together or similar is probably just multiplying their negative feelings --> part of the vicious cycle.
posted by peacay at 10:37 PM on June 26, 2005


Looking forward to the John Waters movie. Dirty shame what happened to that boy.

What's a Washington Post reporter doing in Dundalk, dont they have obesse people in DC?
posted by stbalbach at 10:39 PM on June 26, 2005


This conversion makes his calorie intake seem minimal

It does seem minimal until you consider that in order to maintain a 500lb weight, he has to consume 7500 calories a day to not lose anything (based on a very rough calculation using a guide from a book). So he's eating roughly 7500 calories + 171 calories, or the equiv. of 15 Big Macs a day.

this is very clearly about food intake. That's where weight comes from - nowhere else.

Calories do matter, there are some foods that have very low calorie amounts, which you could eat tons of and not gain much if any weight (Celery would be one of the huge examples).

From the American Heart Association: "What’s the only effective way to lose weight and keep it off? It’s simple: Calories in must be less than calories out."
posted by dial-tone at 10:40 PM on June 26, 2005


A friend of mine reminded me about how we grew up in an era of guilting us to overeat by saying:

"people are starving in Africa for crissakes, you better eat every last bit of what's on your plate!"

So that is possibly drilled in our heads and maybe that's why some folks overeat?

Also, in the religious south, Baptist churches have "pot luck dinners" in which KFC, Heavy creamed dishes and lotsa sugary foods are served (all in god's name, of course). That may pose as a possible answer as to why some people are fatter in the south than the north.

Let's face it, God wants us fat. (Ezekiel 25:17 -- from the KJV)
posted by Hands of Manos at 10:41 PM on June 26, 2005


As I alluded to above, calorie calculations need to be scaled according to intestinal efficiency somehow. Human feces is not 100% calorie-free (err...that just sounds disgusting, like a question posted to a copraphagia website or something).
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:49 PM on June 26, 2005


Why is it that obesity is such a taboo thing to call someone out on? Most people have no problem with criticizing smokers or drug addicts, telling them to take responsibility for their lives and just quit. This is no different, in essence.

There is at least as much help out there for those who are obese as there is for any other medical problem, but our society tells us to eat healthy with one hand and then pushes crap on us with the other. No wonder people find it hard to give up bad eating habits.

1 in 5 is obese? That is really really fucking awful - I look around me and see all these plump kids not doing any exercise and feel like smacking them on the back of the head and sending them out to ride a bike or play football or just walk to the fucking shop, but their parents drive them everywhere and they have no desire or need to exercise, so they never learn the joy of it.

It is really hard to judge kids, because they are the victims of their parents, but a 40 year-old? Sorry, at that age you have used up all your valid reasons for being unhealthy in any way - time to take responsibility for your life, stop saying "but it's hard!" and just do it.
posted by dg at 10:50 PM on June 26, 2005


dg: say that again after you've been there and fought your way out of it, and maybe we'll pay even the slightest bit of attention to you.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:55 PM on June 26, 2005


dg: I was heading down that path, fought my way out (by educating myself). Perhaps kickstart will pay a slight bit of attention to me because I think the same way you do.
posted by Hands of Manos at 11:00 PM on June 26, 2005


Does WHO list obesity or severe overeating as a disease? I know someone mentioned it uplist. Has it been classified in that way?
posted by peacay at 11:09 PM on June 26, 2005


I knew a really fat man not long ago: I worked for him. It's amazing how similar his story is. He was my boss's boss. He weighed 350 if he weighed a pound. He was on a constant, but slow, upward trend, in weight.

He really went downhill, like this guy did, with a physical injury. He broke his leg walking his dog. Once the ability to exercise is stopped, a guy that already had a problem and life long habit with consuming too much is just plain fucked. Fixing things at that point is going to be really, really hard, if not impossible.

Now, my first reaction was to just blame the guy, like those up-thread did. But my boss was attention starved, as he was something of a parriah in the office where he worked (because of his weight). Me, being the new copy boy, I was unable to just ignore him, so he'd always corner me when I had to interact with him and ask me to sit down. He'd regale me with stories. He smelled something awful.

But, even though I didn't really like the guy, because of his personality, it became quite apparent to me that he was really just another sad human being. He used to be a paratrooper. He once worked as a ski instructor. He loved golf. I could tolerate him, and I could certainly feel his pain. Even though I'd rather not get stuck with him, (mainly because he smelled bad), he was never anything but good to me. His kind recommendations got me a promotion. When the guy was forced to retire due health reasons and office politics,a few years after I started, I wished him nothing but the best.

At the end of the day, guys like this one are human being like anyone else. Like an alcoholic, their lives have become unmanageable. That doesn't make them inhuman or unworthy of help or sympathy. It could just as easily be me or you. As that Jesus guy said, let you who is without sin cast the first stone.

Me, I'm going to get and go running tomorrow just the same. My BMI is just a teensy wit above 25, and here's some incentive to fix that.
posted by teece at 11:11 PM on June 26, 2005


In the second link, Deke speaks of the "tasty taste". I sadly know EXACTLY what he's talking about. Its fat. Fat makes me crazy with hunger. Butter is the crowning glory of fat, followed by beef fat. Yes, most people enjoy this taste. But there's a difference between enjoying something and its having a power over your will that is not unlike the power of sexual lust. I don't know why I'm this way. I've been like this since early childhood, when there was no lack in food.

I'm not obese. I can't help but wonder if this might be because in my early 20's, I lost my taste for soda, and was never that fond of candy (neither have fat!). Pastry though, oh boy! But that's easier to control by not buying it. When I've had to loose weight, I've done so by cutting fat.

There are other emotional factors to over-eating problems. For some, eating is a response to poor self image and/or depression. When you're fat, that's a nasty feedback! And there is always some advert telling you how much you NEED to eat that tasty looking glob of fat, usually with either salt or sugar. Yum!
posted by Goofyy at 11:13 PM on June 26, 2005


Hands of Manos: I can respect someone who was heading that way and fought back...as you apparently have. I get sick of people who have been nothing but skinny talking out their ass on the matter however.

But, if you read my posts above, I don't -entirely- disagree with you and DG and have stated so. Obviously, weight doesn't come from nowhere, but it's a lot more complicated than "eat 2000 calories a day and you'll lose weight" because metabolism, levels of exercise, and other factors do play a large role in it. The issues of metabolism are roundly ignored when these statements are made.

...

An aside on this matter specifically, aboriginal peoples around the world are suffering greatly from obesity and related disorders (diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.) due to changes in their diet that don't have the same impact on most people of European ancestry. Why is that genetics and metabolism so easily ignored in these discussions?
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:17 PM on June 26, 2005


It's no surprise that people are prejudiced against the obese... we are instantly reminded of our own frailty.

It can't be reduced to just that.

Thinner people don't like fat people because fat people, like drunks and drug addicts, did it to themselves, and are still doing it to themselves, through uncontrolled consumption of pleasurable substances. Maybe they've got a mental/biological disposition to having no control, maybe not, but no one else stuffed the food down their throats.

If, on top of self-infliction through overindulgence, a guy makes himself (with giant meatballs, etc.) so fat that he can't work and has to live in bed on expensive government subsidies (your money), people will react against him.

And if the government has to support him, then the government should find out what sort of metabolism he has and should limit him (through healthy delivered meals) to less than what he burns every day. Show him exactly what and how much he should be eating.
posted by pracowity at 11:26 PM on June 26, 2005


The issues of metabolism are roundly ignored when these statements are made.

More importantly, when such statements are made, the psychological reasons are completely ignored. The psych reasons are probably just as powerful, if not even more powerful, than any genetic reasons. Further, while changeable, it is far from trivial. Many (most?) people will go an entire lifetime without ever changing their general psych make-up to any degree. Quite often, the people that are demanding responsibility would be just as powerless to change themselves as some obese person, they just are (hopefully) lucky enough to have not suffered the horrible side effects of their pathology.

(Me says with absolutely nothing other than my own hunches to back that up).
posted by teece at 11:27 PM on June 26, 2005


IshmaelGraves, I think I explained myself badly, and I'm sorry if I came off as holier-than-thou. I don't mean that this guy is especially weak, or that "Oh, it's sooooo easy to stay at a perfect weight and exercise regularly and he's just a failure for not being able to do it", because I know it's not and I don't myself.

Maybe I'll explain myself better if I use the alcoholic example? Most people can drink regularly. They can have a beer or two a night, and maybe they'll get quite drunk once a great while, but this is an anomaly and in general they don't have a problem controlling their alcohol intake or the effect it as on them. Some people cannot--maybe they keep going, or maybe the alcohol affects them particularly strongly psychologically and physiologically, and for whatever reason once they start drinking they don't stop, and it can lead them to drink more and more because the negative effects of their initial binge lead to a nasty downslope. (Er, I recognize this is an extreme simplification of alcoholism and its causes and effects and whatnot)

If you have this problem it's not going to fix itself. You can't let it be. You have to resolve to not drink. At all. You can't have one or two beers, because your body and your mind won't allow it and there's a good chance your alcohol intake will get out of hand.

Now, this isn't fair. It's not fair that you have to order a water at a bar (or not go into a bar at all) while your friends get to relax with a few drinks. It's not fair that you have to hold yourself to a higher standard of self-control than your friends. But unfortunately life isn't fair, and you know the alternative is worse, so you have to keep at it. You aren't psychologically weaker than other people and it is completely understandable if you slip up and lose control. But you are still responsible, because you knew you needed to be extra-vigilant about your drinking and for whatever reason you weren't.

I think this is where the parallel to obesity comes in. Some people get fatter quicker and easier than other people. And once they recognize this is the case, they have to hold themselves to a higher standard of healthy eating and calorie control and regular exercise than most of the population. Once again, this isn't fair. But it's a fact of life they gotta deal with. And this guy knew he was always tended to be bigger than other people, but from what he and others said about eating habits, it looks like he never fully accepted "I get fatter easier, so that means even if Joe can eat ten ribs and not gain weight, I can't". And he ate ten ribs one too many times, gave himself an excuse one too many times and things built up to where they are now.

I don't think he's a lazy evil slob for it. It's hard to keep up that kind of regimen, and it's even harder when nobody else around you is doing it or has to do it. But it's still your responsibility to do so, and it's still your responsibility if you don't do anything and become obese.
posted by Anonymous at 11:30 PM on June 26, 2005


... but it's a lot more complicated than "eat 2000 calories a day and you'll lose weight" because metabolism, levels of exercise, and other factors do play a large role in it. The issues of metabolism are roundly ignored when these statements are made.
It certainly is - just as giving up smoking is not as easy as "just quitting" and giving up alcohol is not as easy as just going to AA. There are base factors at play that cause the bahaviours that lead to the destructive behaviour of choice. Fixing those, however, has to start somewhere - the decision to do it. Nobody can do that for you and anyone who tries to without really wanting to in their heart will never succeed. Given the amount of information that is available, there is no excuse for making an informed choice either way - you can choose to do your best or you can choose to give up, but we all have choices and choosing not to decide is simply choosing to give up.

Genetics and metabolism of course, should not be ignored - the sad fact is that some people are more likely to become obese than others simply because of the way their bodies are wired. This is not a valid reason for becoming obese, though (in my opinion only, of course). Some people have to try harder than others to do just about anything, but if we all said "I can't help it, it is just my metabolism, there is nothing I can do", we would be in even deeper shit than the world is today. It might seem unfair that some people can never eat cream buns and have to exercise twice as much as others to maintain a healthy weight, but that is just the way life goes. On preview - schroedinger said this much better.

Kickstart70, I may listen to you a bit more closely when you stop assuming that I haven't been through this.
posted by dg at 11:34 PM on June 26, 2005


Alright, DG. Have you been through this, tell us so that we can assume you know all wisdom.
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:44 PM on June 26, 2005


I agree that this is a complicated issue, and self-control certainly plays a large role. But I was also very interested in the class issues that came up in the second article. Sometimes it's very hard for a person on a fixed budget and with little time (often because they work two jobs, etc.) to eat well - I know that I can spend $20 at a chain grocery store on food laden with preservatives and sugar, or buy an equal amount of healthy, organic food at a health food store - but often for $50 or more. I can see why places like McDonalds and Taco Bell are appealing when so many healthy options are really priced out of the range of many Americans.
posted by piers at 12:17 AM on June 27, 2005


Just had a look at the BMI calculator on the CDC website and apparently I am overweight! At 6'4" and 210lbs I am officially overweight. I am not quite sure exactly where this apparent fat is but I shall endeavour to hunt it down.

How are people supposed to take the BMI seriously when it's so blatantly wrong?
posted by longbaugh at 12:40 AM on June 27, 2005


Yeah, it's calories in vs calories out. But some people do have bodies that are vastly more efficient at shunting the excess into fat - the so-called "thrifty" gene. And then there's the possibility of viral
infection
as well.

schroedinger, I agree that it's a person's own responsibility. But if, as you say, it's harder for some people, I'm equally inclined to cut them some slack.

Purely from a public health perspective, I'd rather see the very fat pitied and helped than shunned and left to hoover up more of my taxes. It's called enlightened self-interest.

(on preview, also what piers said. it's not just america either, you guys are just further advanced down the cheap shit food road.)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:44 AM on June 27, 2005


Body fat percentage is better, but if you're a typical relatively sedentary American BMI can be a good indicator of obesity. BMI calculations get fucked up when people work out a lot and have lots of excess muscle--since muscle weighs more than fat they'll come out seeming less healthy than they actually are. People can also run into trouble if they forget 18-25 is a range, and the difference between 25 and 25.1 isn't "slim and time" and "whale monster".
posted by Anonymous at 12:50 AM on June 27, 2005


So could someone explain how variation in genetics and metabolism could cause one person to gain weight eating 2000 calories a day (for example) while another person with an identical height/weight/sex and activity level does not gain weight?

I'm not being snarky - I'm really interested. I know a couple of quite obese people who insist they eat like birds (though the observed evidence doesn't tend to support them on that) and while I accept that there may be some way for that to be true, it does seem to fly in the face of basic mathematics.

I gain weight quite easily - I put that down to my lifestyle of spending weeks at a time writing code and doing little else though. These days when I find myself doing that I cut my food intake way back - I just don't need the energy if all I do is sit here. Other times I spend hours a day walking/running/cycling, and that's about the only time I really lose weight.
posted by dickasso at 12:51 AM on June 27, 2005


I heard about one study on mortality which suggests that the BMI index is a little off - that people are healthier from about 22-28 than at the low range of "healthy". This is all on memory, so please forgive me if I am off on numbers. But it's an interesting thought - BMI is something we are still beginning to understand. Also, the CDC notes that it is only one measure among many, and that it has different meanings for different body types.
posted by jb at 12:53 AM on June 27, 2005


Arg, double post again. joe's_spleen, I completely agree with you. The psychological issues that often lead to obesity and overeating require encouragement and understanding to treat, not ridicule and shaming. But I also believe tough love is sometimes needed--finding the balance is tricky.
posted by Anonymous at 12:53 AM on June 27, 2005


It may not be commonly known, but many overweight people already have reduced metabolisms, due to their weight, and especially due to yo-yo dieting. The body adjusts to having less food during the diet, and then when you begin to eat normally again, you put on weight. So there are many overweight people who really do eat less than most people, and still gain weight.

Dieting is not good. Eating healthily is good, but unless you are truly housebound, you should not diet. Excercise is needed to increase your metabolism. If you diet, you will loose some weight, but if you ever stop you will gain it back.
posted by jb at 12:58 AM on June 27, 2005


We have the salad ladies at work, every one of them hugely overweight (and all wearing thong panties. Why god? Why?). Every day they sit around at work pushing rabbit food around in the little plastic tubs and calculating their calories with little computerised doohickies. They endlessly drone on about how many "points" a particular item of food is worth and the benefits of their diet-de-jour and at the end of it all they go buy a big fucking ice cream and tuck in.

I don't get it. I can put weight on easy - I was up to 230lbs at one point but being poor soon cured me of that and I lost 42lbs in a month on the starving to death diet. Since then I have tried to keep to a reasonable food intake, my only bad point is how much bread I eat. I see myself gaining weight and the first thing I do is change what I eat, how much I eat and how much exercise I do. I want to look good, not just for me but for my wifey. Do people who get overweight notice it whilst it's happening or is it really that gradual?
posted by longbaugh at 1:08 AM on June 27, 2005


The relationship between genes and diet and behaviour, and of these to obesity, are obviously complex. Thats such a truism that focusing on just one aspect of this -- behaviour, or diet -- is self-evidently incomplete. The classic case study are the aboriginal groups the Hohokam of SW USA and Pima of NW Mexico. Genetically these are the same people, now separated by political boundaries. They are adapted to an arid desert and carry a high incidence of "thrifty genes". With a sedentary lifestyle and access to a cheap, fatty foods the Hohokam have very high rates of obesity, but not 100%. Eating a more traditional, low fat diet and being more active, the Pima have very little obesity, but more than zero.

The same genetic variabilty that is accentuated in those groups is present in all groups. It's part of our heritage of 180,000 years as a species. Our genes aren't likely to change anytime soon, but our behaviour and diet can kill us. Those who carry the thrifty gene in western society carry a much greater burden of maintaining health in today's world, and a much greater burden of social disapproval than ever before.

What realistic steps can we take to make the population as a whole more healthy? I just don't know what will work to turn this ship around.
posted by Rumple at 1:13 AM on June 27, 2005


How are people supposed to take the BMI seriously when it's so blatantly wrong?

longbaugh, muscle mass throws off the BMI calculation, but for flabby folks it's pretty good.

At any rate, it worked for me. It was primarily the BMI chart in the newspaper that got me to face my encroaching obesity (BMI of 30, 235lbs on 6'1" frame), putting me on a regimented eating and exercise plan where I lost 50lbs over 6 months in a straight-line linear drop from 235 to 185, going from a 43" waist to a 35" waist (still could lose 2-3").

The bottom line is 3500 excess calories make up pound of fat mass, more or less./b>

But a calorie is NOT a calorie, if you ingest too much fructose the liver gets overwhelmed, says fuck-it and just starts putting out triglycerides that end up as fat around your liver and gut (instead of completing the normal fructose glycogenesis cycle -- IIRC the daily limit is 50-100g of fructose).

People complaining of low metabolism need to hit a gym to build muscle mass -- muscles are good for metabolism. Move your ass, fat ass.

People complaining of hunger need to MEASURE their diet, both intake and weight gain/loss.

DON'T shoot for more than 1% of body weight or 2lbs per week loss rate, whichever is less. IE, DON'T try to lose all the weight in one fucking week -- weight loss is a marathon not a sprint.

Build healthy eating habits, avoid crap simple carbs that spike the insulin cycle and make you hungry sooner, EAT FAT in moderation since just carbs and protein is a crap way to live, and if you're able-bodied, move your ass HARD at least 45 minutes EVERY day on average.

Also, drink at least 1/2 gallon of water per day. Losing weight is serious chemical activity and you need to flush your kidneys.

That is all. Please resume the pointless argumentation.

posted by Heywood Mogroot at 1:15 AM on June 27, 2005


So Heywood, if you are finished yelling at us, would strangers calling you fat ass have motivated you to lose the weight? I agree with everything you say except I am confused as to how the 30% of the population thats obese is going to get to the same place?
posted by Rumple at 1:25 AM on June 27, 2005


Heywood, you're dismissing a pretty edifying thread. But I do respect your points, as usual.
posted by bardic at 1:29 AM on June 27, 2005


I never said that eating less and exercising more was easy.
They're very simple steps though, and you either do it or you don't. If you don't, take responsibility for your choice.
posted by nightchrome at 1:36 AM on June 27, 2005


Lately there have been lots of "REALITY" (it was "Nannie'Intervention" or something like that) shows calling for the supposed return to the "family sit-down dinner" or something or other. I had plenty of 'em, growing up, and I still can't tell if this is the answer to so many American fat kids. I ate lots of garbage (Ahem, 7-11 "Taquitos") driving to my last job. It makes sense that some kind of married--sit 'em all down--everything--will--be--better could work, but this is not a culture (American) that embraces it. I'm just trying to say, as someone who needs to loose 20 pounds, it's this wierd double-edged sword of "Fuck you deal with it" and "Fuck you I'm rich enough to bang interns."
posted by bardic at 1:47 AM on June 27, 2005


If you must comment about this, try not to fat-bash. It's just tacky and predictable...

"Please don't express opinions counter to mine..."

The guy in the article refuses to help himself. It is possible to be overweight despite your best efforts, but this man has obviously made no real effort. He will be dead soon and it's his own fault. And yes, that makes it somehow less tragic.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:52 AM on June 27, 2005


Over here in the UK we have for the past couple of decades been slowly sliding toward the USA in terms of Obesity (this may be a similar effect to sleeping in the same bed as a fat person and slowly sliding toward their side of the bed - i'm not sure).

However there has been for the past few years an ongoing public debate about how to stop this growing tide of fat kids clogging up the arteries of the country. We even had celebrity chef Jamie Oliver taking over the school dinners of a large proportion of London Schools in an effort to stop kids eating the awful rubbish that was being served up.

This is clearly the way forward - to help the next generation to be healthy, prevention is better then cure...
posted by Meccabilly at 4:03 AM on June 27, 2005




Scientists say genes are often the culprit

... and say that starkly rising obesity rates are a 'total coincidence'.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:32 AM on June 27, 2005


Try reading the article.
posted by jb at 4:46 AM on June 27, 2005


Most people have no problem with criticizing smokers or drug addicts, telling them to take responsibility for their lives and just quit.
At the same time, I believe alcohol treatment programs and some cancer treatments are likely being paid for with our (collective U.S. citizen's) tax dollars, so why stop with obesity?

In a way, it's like a second-hand pork barrel spending (if you'll pardon the pun). It's in the best interests of the mega-corp food industries to keep people eating the unhealthy crap they churn out; spending taxes on obesity-related illnesses is basically a giant subsidy.
So could someone explain how variation in genetics and metabolism could cause one person to gain weight eating 2000 calories a day (for example) while another person with an identical height/weight/sex and activity level does not gain weight?
Well, here's a (very) poor analogy: two swimmers, same height and weight, using identical amounts of oxygen; one swims a mile, the other swims a mile and a half. The wildly varying degrees of athletic performance are attributed to underlying efficiencies of the respiratory system that aren't obvious just by looking at input (O2) versus output (swimming distance).

The different, subtle mechanisms of metabolism are not as widely understood (certainly not by me). For instance, I would think that a person who was in good athletic shape would have more effiiciencies in their metabolism, similar to the efficiencies in the alveoli in their lungs. But I know from experience that some people do have a harder time "working off" calories.

My oldest friend is 5'5, weighs around 230 lbs. He walks about 10 miles a day, and has been heavily involved with kung-fu (Wing Chun and Hung Gar) for the past decade. When we used to train together, I would invariably end up exhausted at least a half an hour before he was ready to call it quits. Point is, the guy's in great shape. I doubt he ate more than 2000 calories a day, and it was primarily vegetables, rice, chicken, and lots of soy. He's never been thin. After all this time, I honestly don't think he ever will be, yet he's one of the healthiest people I know.

So, obviously there's something else going on, but I couldn't even venture a guess as to what it is. Point is, there are quantifiable differences in the way different bodies use energy. I'm sure these are exaserbated by poor diets and lifestyle choices, which may have their own psychological basis.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:56 AM on June 27, 2005


So it's settled. Obesity is an epidemic directly caused by capitalism and genes combined. There is too much money in the fast food and soft drink industry to simply cut the advertising off, and genetic predispositions hinder many peoples abilities to eat and drink such items while remaining socially attractive.

Go back to bed.
posted by Dean Keaton at 5:05 AM on June 27, 2005


Scientists say genes are often the culprit

Oh wow! Seattle Times, no less.

There is no way, save something like nuclear war, that a population can mutate as fast as obesity rate increases. South Carolina (first example that comes up in Google) went from 13.6% in 1990 to 25% in 2003. It basically doubled in 10 years. Where are "these genes" are coming from?
posted by c13 at 5:22 AM on June 27, 2005


You know, I've read this whole thread and what struck me is that almost everyone in it is right, at least on some counts.

Yes, diet and exercise are crucial to maintaining a healthy weight.
Yes, some people have a screwed up physiology that makes it much harder for them than others.
No, people should not take it upon themselves to judge fat people harshly or say hurtful things to them.
Yes, many overweight people are in denial and/or are not making a genuine effort to trim down.
Yes, slim people need to make sure they educate themselves on this issue before they opine.
No, you don't need to have been fat to understand this issue and contribute to a discussion.
Yes, socio-economic conditions play a role.
Etc...

It's a complex issue and there are no easy solutions. But I do think that we, as a society, need to work on setting up the conditions that will facilitate health lifestyles. Schools, for instance, are an incredible means of influencing our future citizens, and Jamie Oliver is doing some incredible work. Advertising works wonders. So do economic incentives. We can regulate the nutritional content of the food available. And all of these measures will be far cheaper than the costs incurred by an obese population.

Yes, I realize that even if we put all these measures in place, there will be some people like a former roommate of mine who will still choose to sit around and watch TV all night, every night, continue to deep fry everything, and regularly eat a bag of chips or a dozen donuts in one sitting. But the measures will have their effect and we can make statistically significant improvements.
posted by orange swan at 5:30 AM on June 27, 2005


it is reminiscent of the debate surrounding alcoholism, which is now recognized as an illness and not a moral failing.

That's just bullshit.

You get drunk because you go and get booze, and then you drink it. I don't see too many 12 Steps to Quitting Cancer groups anywhere, do you.

Alcoholism is not a disease; it's evidence of a weak will and nothing else. Alcohol abuse is alwauys 100% voluntary, whether we'd like to admit it or not.

Same goes with food.
posted by Dark Messiah at 5:37 AM on June 27, 2005


I guess the only defense is what ColdChef brought up--the guy had a fucked up childhood. But hey, so did most of us.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
posted by bobbyelliott at 5:45 AM on June 27, 2005


I've heard an explanation of the metabolism effects that helped me understand this issue better. Basically, your body doesn't just convert calories (from food) to fat - it also has to convert fat back to calories (of energy).
In some people, the former process is quite efficient, but the latter process isn't.
In some people, even though they may only eat a little bit extra, they need to do a lot (more than normal) of extra work to lose the weight.
The analogy I heard (here on MeFi, I think) was a bank where the minimum deposit is $100, and the maximum withdrawal was $1. Even if you only make a deposit once a month, and you make a withdrawal every day, you are still going to accumulate money.
posted by bashos_frog at 5:50 AM on June 27, 2005


If genes were really the culprit, there would not be an increase in obesity as food (especially junk food) became more plentiful, and exercise became less necessary. But there was. I think that's a pretty good indication a lot of it has to do with lifestyle. At one time, you couldn't have beef for dinner every night - it was a treat on sundays or whatever, and you might have an egg for dinner some nights (in the UK it's still somewhat normal to have egg for dinner, or to have vegetarian food by accident, i.e., a ploughman's sandwich, whereas in the US, no sandwich is complete without at least one kind of cold cut and often 2 or 3, and in big thick slabs, not just a few slices for taste). At one time, you exercised by default - working the fields, walking to the schoolhouse, cleaning & fixing the house. Now we hire other people or buy machines to do all this stuff, and the money we make to pay for that we usually make sitting in front of a computer (and absently drinking a coke, too). It's not at all mysterious that peoplee gain weight now.

To many people, "Exercise" means 45 minutes twice a week, which will simply not do anything. You have to make being active a regular part of life to start with - walk or bike to get places, take the stairs, go out swimming in the summer, build treehouses... And on top of that, you have your exercise regimen - 4 or 5 hours a week, at least.

And the same sort of change in relationship to food has taken place - to most americans, a meal is not complete without meat, starch and vegetable, and often dessert as well. And a drink that is often full of calories. You don't actually need that much to maintain your energy, certainly not three times a day, but it's become so normal that anything less is considered "eating like a bird" or a rabbit... but a good sized greek salad, with cheese and olives along with the veggies, is a totally reasonable meal, not just a 'first course'. A hearty soup with some bread & cheese on the side is a complete lunch, not an opener. But that's not how we see things these days...

This man won't have gastric bypass because: and would face severe diet restrictions afterward. "Them telling me I can't have fried fish or fried chicken is telling me they can't have my stomach," he says. I really don't think it's genetic. And the end where he recites his dream menu shows how focused he is on food. It really is analogous to being addicted to cigarettes or alcohol.

The memories of his dad were pretty touching, so the fact that he couldn't attend his father's funeral was really sad to me. Honestly, I don't know if it's helpful to become overly tolerant and remove any demand of personal responsibility. I have no doubt it's harder for him than it is for a lot of us, but it's all about developing habits. He started down the wrong path, and has just gone further and further down that road, but it still is up to him at any point along the way to switch gears. The further he goes in that direction, the harder it is to turn around, but he's still the only one who can do it. His house has to stop being focused on food - he has to develop other interests and realize that he has to give up this relationship to food. He can't just stop eating fried chicken for a couple weeks and then return to it after losing the weight - that's like stopping smoking for two weeks to clear the lungs. No, he has to stop eating fried chicken for good.
posted by mdn at 5:51 AM on June 27, 2005


If you read the article, you will see that they are not talking about why the prevalance of obesity is rising, but about why certain people seem more prone to obesity than others, given the social and lifestyle factors of our society.

Also - on gastric bypass surgery - an inspiring story, and some harrowing tales. It seems to work, but it is also deeply scary.
posted by jb at 5:54 AM on June 27, 2005


What is your point, jb? Fine, some people may be more prone to obesity than others. So what? Does it mean, on one hand, that they have to be more careful than others about what and how they eat. Or, on the other, its perfectly fine for them to eat baseball-sized meatballs since "its in their genes"?
Being predisposed to something doesn't mean you don't have to do anything about it. If you're diabetic, you check your blood sugar, if you have congestive heart failure, you don't pick up smoking, if you have alcoholic tendencies, you don't go out and buy booze. You can blame it on "the genes" or "media" or "society", but in the end it comes down only to you.
Let me state it more clearly: having a genetic disorder is not a choice. But doing something about it definitely is.
posted by c13 at 6:18 AM on June 27, 2005


So Heywood, if you are finished yelling at us

Rumple, it's pretty obvious that he erred whilst trying to colse a bold tag.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:20 AM on June 27, 2005


Purely from a public health perspective, I'd rather see the very fat pitied and helped than shunned and left to hoover up more of my taxes.

People have a bad time in N.A. separating pity from disdain. Remember that, denotatively, "pathetic" means "deserving of sympathy". The negative spin on it developed over time, like a lot of other words dealing with the unfortunate.
posted by dreamsign at 6:42 AM on June 27, 2005


Blame corn.
posted by senor biggles at 6:44 AM on June 27, 2005


I wonder how many people in this thread have issues with compulsion that aren't visibly obvious to everyone else around them, and therefore aren't scrutinized nearly as often.
posted by gnomeloaf at 6:59 AM on June 27, 2005


Alcoholism is not a disease; it's evidence of a weak will and nothing else. Alcohol abuse is alwauys 100% voluntary, whether we'd like to admit it or not.

posted by Dark Messiah at 5:37 AM PST on June 27


. . . teh DaRk mEsSiAh pHd . . .
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:08 AM on June 27, 2005


I wonder how many people in this thread have issues with compulsion that aren't visibly obvious to everyone else around them, and therefore aren't scrutinized nearly as often.

I read metafilter too much; it's evidence of a weak will.
posted by jb at 7:15 AM on June 27, 2005


There is no way, save something like nuclear war, that a population can mutate as fast as obesity rate increases.

I'd like to toss in another factor that no one has really mentioned much yet in this conversation -- prescription medications.

Its somewhat startling how the number of meds that people taken has shot up in the past few years (over about the same period of time we've started seeing this "obesity epidemic"), and how many of them list "moderate weight gain" way down the list of possible side effects.

I'm about 75-100 lbs overweight, and have been for years. I also eat between 1800 and 2000 calories (on average) per day. My weight is stable, and I'm otherwise generally health and active. So why am I so fat? Simple. I take a medication to treat a medical condition and that medication caused me to gain about 50-60 lbs in the first three months I took it, and that weight has stayed with me ever since. But, for me its no contest -- I can choose to be able to breathe and be fat, or I can choose to be thin, but not be able to breathe. Which would you choose?

I honestly think there has not been nearly enough work done on the interaction between medications (and often multiple medications) and weight gain.
posted by anastasiav at 7:42 AM on June 27, 2005


paecay writes : Well I'm not going to snark but the only thing I'd generally agree with in that paragraph is that there's no surprise that people are prejudiced.

My main point is this - any time people are being mean to someone who hasn't done anything wrong and hasn't hurt them in way, it's usually because the person they are being mean to reminds them of some part of themselves that they don't like or are afraid of.
posted by afroblanca at 7:56 AM on June 27, 2005


(sorry I spelled your name wrong, peacay)
posted by afroblanca at 7:57 AM on June 27, 2005


For a few years now, I've been wondering if there's another crucial aspect to the contempt so many feel for the overweight: they're visibly not in control of their lives.

In at least the US, it's okay to break down if you have a tragedy happen to you, but to cry in public or blow your top in public (or even screw up a presentation at the office) for pretty much any other reason is likely to inspire at least a lack of compassion, and possibly criticism if not outright contempt. Show that you can keep your cool when bad things are happening, and people will look up to you.

One of the running issues I've noticed with "Desperate Housewives" is the untenability of this pervasive notion that it's okay for your life to be falling to pieces, just so long as the neighbors don't find out. So, when you're wearing an extra 50+ pounds around your waist, it seems self evident that you're not on top of your life, and the reaction of many is to feel contempt.
posted by kimota at 7:59 AM on June 27, 2005 [1 favorite]


My mom got gastic bypass surgery, but also with a "duodonal switch" which makes it so you can eat more normally afterwards and very few gain the weight back. She's dropped 80 lbs. in 6 months...amazing. She's able to walk 1-3 miles a day now, get on the floor with my daughter, and she has so much self-confidence.

Yes, she ate too much before and didn't exercise and drank too much at meals. Yes, she yo-yo'd on diets her whole life. Yes, it's also in her genes as her whole father's side was obese like her. Yes, the surgery has made her change her eating habits (no drinking and she eats TINY portions.) She is not on the low end of the socio-economic scale. She didn't eat fast food...but she ate too much food. She didn't eat huge desserts or bags of chips, but she also didn't eat a ton of salads.

There is no easy thing on which to blame obesity. Mom tried her whole life to get it under control, but she also never really exercised, either. It's so hard...I wish this guy would get the surgery my mom got. It was horrible in the beginning for her, but she is SO HAPPY now she's gotten it.
posted by aacheson at 8:05 AM on June 27, 2005


If someoen in your immediate vicinity is too fat to get up and get their own food, you might want to consider not getting it for them... or at least only give them something healthy.

That's the first real thought I had about it: "Since he was unable to get out of bed, why didn't his wife put him on a diet?"

Now I think he'd just have gone back to overeating as soon as he wasn't helpless. I know the first thing I did after hearing I had complicated a "common cold" into bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma was go have a couple cigarettes, coughing the whole time.

What finally motivated me to quit, seven years after I started having to pause halfway up a flight of stairs to have a coughing asthmatic fit, was meeting a hot babe who's allergic to cigarette smoke. Parallels, anyone?
posted by davy at 10:01 AM on June 27, 2005


The trick, even more than eating less, is exercising more. If you cut your diet back radically, your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to everything it can.

These sad sacks of blubber are just too lazy and chicken to do something about it. I know what I speak of. Four years ago, I was tipping the scales 300 lbs. I dropped a 100 lbs in less than a year with a little bit of work. I still have some more to loose; wait until that last twenty-five, that's the tough part.

If you're fat, you richly deserve all the scorn you get.
posted by keswick at 10:16 AM on June 27, 2005


One other thing from the story that seems relevant but hasn't been mentioned here (though Kimota touches on it a bit):

The Keitzes never believed this moment would come. They are not packed. They have no place to go.

Once the eviction notice is signed it's pretty clear that the moment has indeed come, and it's time to prepare for it. These folks seem disengaged from reality. It's not hard to extrapolate this kind of denial to "one more Big Mac/Whopper/7-11 hot dog won't matter"...
posted by Lazlo at 10:19 AM on June 27, 2005


Obesity is a complicated subject. I would simply like to see people be nicer when referring to morbidly obese people.

I am in the process of losing weight right now (19 pounds, so far, yay me) and one of the things that has really helped is the encouragement I get from others. At the gym especially-no one has called me lard butt, everyone is cheering me on basically.

So much of eating is emotional-I know in my case that was so. I have had to face a lot of emotional reasons for eating, and have realized that I have actually been using my fat to hide behind....I am sure that if I had a bunch of people calling me names regarding my weight the first thing I would have wanted to do is stuff my face.

So give the fat people in your life some slack. Yeah, they need to correct things in their lives-but so do we all. Your sniping ain't helping.
posted by konolia at 10:21 AM on June 27, 2005 [1 favorite]


Hey davy, not much different here. I smoked from age 12 to 24, and only quit when a girlfriend of mine said it was her or the cigarettes. It turns out that she was worse for me than the cigarettes anyway, but in the end I managed to give both of them up.

I did gain weight after, and had a nasty bout with pneumonia within a month of quitting. It was good timing, definitely pushed me past the recidivism period.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:25 AM on June 27, 2005


Jesus, Keswick. I agree with you that it's possible for many people to lose weight who haven't done it because they haven't been as strict about their lifestyle as they should be. But for some people it's honestly harder to lose weight than for others, and while it's their responsibility when they don't it doesn't mean we should kick them to the curb.

And how do you define "fat"? There's BMI, and body fat percentage, but that's not the only thing determining health I'm 5'6', and made it down to the normal 125-135 range in my life only once--after months of bulimia, starvation, and half a year of three-four hours of exercise a day. When I got over the eating disorder I went up to 140-145, but my triathlon times actually improved and I completed a half-Ironman in a pretty good time (for a first-timer) at that weight. It wasn't all muscle, either, since my body fat percentage and clothes size increased as well. So I've accepted the fact that in the body type world, I'm the rugby player, not the ballet dancer. Not fitting into a size 2 doesn't mean I'm a lazy fatass, that's just me.

The point of that TMI derail is that people are different. Some people are always gonna be bigger than everyone else and it's gonna be harder for them to lose weight. It doesn't excuse them ballooning to 500 lbs, but it provides an explanation besides "They're worthless people."

And given how closely irregular food habits are tied to psychological issues, I wonder whether flippantly sticking the "Lazy Fatass" label on a morbidly obese person is like telling someone with serious depression to shape up and get a job or someone with fatal insomnia to lie down and go to sleep.

Note: I'm not saying that this means you can be healthy at 5'6' and 300 lbs, or 5'6' and 250 lbs, or even 5'6' and 200 lbs (unless you've got some crazy muscle mass).
posted by Anonymous at 10:45 AM on June 27, 2005


Davy, from looking at the pictures of his wife I'm betting she's got many of the same bad habits/psychological problems/physiological issues/what have you that he does and isn't the greatest judge of how best to take care of her husband.
posted by Anonymous at 10:47 AM on June 27, 2005


Perhaps someone said it already and I missed it. At least we no longer have to worry about the poor starving. In America, the poor are now fat.
posted by paleocon at 10:58 AM on June 27, 2005


Hey Keswick, I never got more than 40 pounds overweight by the standard tables; now I'm 20 lbs. too heavy. Should I hate myself too?
posted by davy at 11:14 AM on June 27, 2005


Actually, senor biggles, I blame the corn industry. The plant itself is (tah-dah) just another food grass.
posted by davy at 11:16 AM on June 27, 2005


Unbelievable that so many people embrace simplistic "eat less, exercise more" solutions to this complex issue, given what we now know about obesity (check out the latest Scientific American's take on it; it's no coincidence that this is the same magazine that ran the April Fool's piece lambasting the Bush administration for ignoring scientific results that didn't fit their ideological preconceptions.) This is not like looking at an alcoholic and saying, hey, it's his fault. It's more like looking at someone with a liver problem or who blacked out behind the wheel and saying, this obviously had to have been caused by excessive alcohol intake in some way, so it's his fault.
posted by transona5 at 12:02 PM on June 27, 2005


So why ARE more people fat, and fat people fatter, than when I was a kid? And who gets guillotined for it?
posted by davy at 12:23 PM on June 27, 2005


davy: The fast food industry, the junk food / soda industry, pervasive and more effective advertising targeting children, and the commercialization of schools.

Sic 'em!
posted by gurple at 12:59 PM on June 27, 2005


  • Bigger portion sizes, in restaurants, fast-food places, home, etc.
  • Crappier food is now more readily available and cheaper than good food. By "crappy" I mean pre-packaged, highly processed, high fat corn-syrup and simple-sugar filled shit--not just candy and chips, but stuff like instant dinners and Kraft macaroni.
  • Healthy food takes time to prepare. Used to be the wife stayed home and took care of all that, now that's not the case any more and people don't have time to sit down and have a decent meal. (Not that I'm advocating for a return to the '50s by any means)
  • Crappy food is addictive. Not just psychologically, but physiologically. Spurlock explored this in Super-Size Me. Not only is your body is wired to want fat, and that wiring doesn't go away when you have too much, but when you get used to all those excess sugars it's hard to give them up.
  • Massive food advertising campaigns that weren't present 20, 30, 40 years ago.
  • Less exercise. Suburban life means people drive everywhere. You don't walk to the market, you drive to the local Wal-Mart, load up on everything you need for the next week, then return home and resume your sedentary lifestyle. More people work in little offices and cubicles and sit down all day.
  • People pass on their bad habits to their kids, so the kids grow up not enjoying the taste of vegetables or knowing how to live healthfully. They pass it on to their kids, the cycle continues.
And those are just a few basic reasons. If you want to get even more meta, you can talk about how a materialistic goal-focused culture leads to feelings of unfulfillment in one's life, leading to people seeking comfort in things that give them an endorphin charge like crappy food. Or how a time-constrained get-rich-quick consumerist PC-Nazi raises a work-ethicless generation that doesn't realize it's not a basic human right to get everything you want exactly when you want it.

Um, just blame everything. Everything.

On preview: Gurple got most of it first.
posted by Anonymous at 1:01 PM on June 27, 2005


From the Scientific American article just pointed to by transona5:

"(Weight gain is a common side effect of many diabetes drugs.)"

So anastasiav might be onto something. I can tell you that many psychiatric drugs help one gain weight; I don't know whether it's from sedation causing lack of exercise and/or from making one forget to watch one's calories and/or from impaired metabolism, but I know it does happen easily. And medicated in-patients get fat more often, and fatter faster, because those places are so DULL and offer little chance to exercise (and when I'd pace up and down the halls they'd raise my dosage).

Is there a relationship between the corn and pharmaceutical industries?

(Just to point at one item that gurple and schroedinger didn't include on their lists.)

Side note: the Bay area (especially San Francisco) and in Baltimore (I recently visited for a week) have their share of fat people -- as "fat people" used to be defined, 25 or so extra pounds (like me). In neither place did I see as many "land whales" as here in Louisville. My guesses are that San Francisco is much hillier and Baltimore somewhat less flat than here, and that both cities have better public transit systems. A possibly relevant anecote is that in San Francisco I did manage to supersize myself up about 40 pounds in one winter, but once the weather improved I dropped a bunch of that just by walking to the downtown library and so on. (SF has a better transit system than here, but it's still sometimes quicker to walk 12 blocks than to wait for the bus, especially during rush hour when the buses are crowded.) Emphasizing the "exercise more" side of the equation does make sense to me; trying to diet just makes me think about food more. (So this way I'm not losing any but I ain't gaining either.)

Anyway.
posted by davy at 1:23 PM on June 27, 2005


Lying in bed, he has lost 156.8 pounds.

I think some of you may have missed that part. I hear a lot of people talking about how sad it it that this guy won't consider surgery and how he won't take reponsibility for himself. The guy has lost 157 pounds. He's already lost an entire person. Yes, he still has a long way to go. Yes he's still tragically overweight and unhealthy but damn, the guy's doing something about it. He's lost more weight than any of us will ever have to lose and he still has people preaching at him and tsk-tsking thier disapproval.

A, but it was so much funnier when it was someone who was skin-welded to a couch.

Yeah that was fucking hilarious. I always get a good laugh out of folks who die humiliated and in intense pain. Jesus.

These sad sacks of blubber are just too lazy and chicken to do something about it. I know what I speak of. Four years ago, I was tipping the scales 300 lbs. I dropped a 100 lbs in less than a year with a little bit of work. I still have some more to loose; wait until that last twenty-five, that's the tough part.

If you're fat, you richly deserve all the scorn you get.


Ugh. Lord save us from the self-righteous formerly fat. You're just as annoying as pompous ex-smokers and the newly born again. By the way keswick, this guy has lost a lot more weight than you did.
posted by LeeJay at 1:27 PM on June 27, 2005


My weight used to be pegged at 165 no matter what I ate (I'm 6'2"), but ever since I got Type I diabetes I've gained about 10 pounds per year unless I employ rather extraordinary measures to lose weight (such as walking for 7 1/2 hours a day). The responsibility for my weight gain is of course, my own, but there are numerous helpful enablers around me, such as gain in portion size, addition of corn syrup to most foodstuffs, and overly sweet non-nutritive sweeteners which have desensitized my palate. Additionally, insulin intake stimulates appetite, and my ability to feel satiety is somewhat blunted. The increase in appetite affects my ability to estimate portion size. The only way for me to control my caloric intake is to carefully weigh all of my food on a scale.

'Not really true. People are not mean to others who have cancer, or how lose a limb, or many other "poor physical conditions". The problem with being over weight is we assume the person is at fault (not saying that's right or wrong).'

I call bs on this. Do you really treat an amputee or someone with a facial birthmark the way you treat a 'normal' person. If you do, you are a rare individual.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:35 PM on June 27, 2005


'Not really true. People are not mean to others who have cancer, or how lose a limb, or many other "poor physical conditions". The problem with being over weight is we assume the person is at fault (not saying that's right or wrong).'

I call bs on this. Do you really treat an amputee or someone with a facial birthmark the way you treat a 'normal' person. If you do, you are a rare individual.


That's not what they said. They said people aren't mean to them. In my experience that's generally true.
posted by LeeJay at 1:53 PM on June 27, 2005


LeeJay, I don't judge fat people now anymore than I did before I lost the weight. The only difference is now a) I'm not a hypocrite and b) I don't hate myself. corn syrup and fructose come from satan himself
posted by keswick at 1:58 PM on June 27, 2005


You don't think being treated differently would be construed as mean? Is meanness in the perception of the actor or the subject?
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:01 PM on June 27, 2005


You don't think being treated differently would be construed as mean? Is meanness in the perception of the actor or the subject?

Well, you may have a point there. I know that a lot of people (including myself at times) don't always know how to act around someone who is disabled or seriously ill. But usually that discomfort leads to people trying to be extra nice and accomodating. I'm sure that can be annoying for a sick or disabled individual but I think most understand that people's intentions are positive.

Do you really believe that the obese are treated the same way?
posted by LeeJay at 2:10 PM on June 27, 2005


In children, I am sure a few things have really contributed to the rising obesity rates:

- (mainly) unwarranted fear of the world means parents drive their kids to school and everywhere else. For a lot of kids, that alone may have cost them 30 to 60 minutes of walking or biking each day.

- more TV, especially child-oriented TV -- maybe sesame street was a curse in disguise?

- video games

- portion sizes, especially of chips and sodas. Even my beloved peanut butter cups went from 2-per package to 3-per package

- the gutting of phys-ed programs in schools

- busier parents making less home made food, including school lunches

- to some extent, a generally more anxiety-provoking, stressful, sensory-overload world makes those who take comfort from food take it more often

All obvious, but not all obviously reversible...... pervasive obesity is a symptom of a sick society, a society most of us partake in and benefit from. What can we do about it?
posted by Rumple at 2:34 PM on June 27, 2005


LeeJay, I think the obese are treated worse by some, and the same way by others; depending on how strong the belief is that life is completely controllable.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:18 PM on June 27, 2005


Yeah that was fucking hilarious. I always get a good laugh out of folks who die humiliated and in intense pain. Jesus.

Perhaps you should read my other posts...I was being as sarcastic as I possible could be to the people who think that it's ok to make fun of overweight people. I was NOT calling the above sad tale 'funny'.
posted by Kickstart70 at 5:05 PM on June 27, 2005


Perhaps you should read my other posts...I was being as sarcastic as I possible could be to the people who think that it's ok to make fun of overweight people. I was NOT calling the above sad tale 'funny'.

I apologize for the remark. Read too quickly.
posted by LeeJay at 5:09 PM on June 27, 2005


From the Scientific American article just pointed to by transona5:

"(Weight gain is a common side effect of many diabetes drugs.)"

So anastasiav might be onto something. I can tell you that many psychiatric drugs help one gain weight;


One thing which is worth keeping in mind about these correlations is that it is not clear which comes first: diabetes may be caused by people gaining weight to start with - the rates of diabetes in this country are also on the rise. So the medications for it may not help, but again, type 2 diabetes (which 95% of people with diabetes have) could be the result of the weight problem in america to begin with.

And even depression could be related to our nationally sedentary lifestyle. A lot of people are put on psychiatric drugs these days, and it is reasonable to consider that only some minor percentage of them really have an intractable genetic imbalance. Exercise has been shown over and over to reduce depressive tendencies. Human beings are meant to be active, but we live in a world where it's superfluous, not central, to our routines. It takes a particular commitment to be an active person, and it is easy to get into the habit of just not bothering, which can have a significant effect on mood.

Medications may have negative side effects, but it's worth asking what's causing people to need so many more medications these days.
posted by mdn at 6:05 PM on June 27, 2005


The stat I last heard said 65% of Type II diabetics were medically obese at time of diagnosis.
posted by BrotherCaine at 7:06 PM on June 27, 2005


Less exercise. Suburban life means people drive everywhere. You don't walk to the market, you drive to the local Wal-Mart, load up on everything you need for the next week, then return home and resume your sedentary lifestyle. More people work in little offices and cubicles and sit down all day.

This is so true. I've never been a skinny girl, no one in my family is. However, I used to be fortunate in that I "carried it well," as they say.
Over the last three, four years I've been living in the middle of the boonies, driving everywhere, and packed on at least thirty pounds. I went from a curvy girl who could still fit into the larger sizes in normal stores to plain old fat shopping at plus sized stores pretty damn quick.

I moved back into the city not even a month ago. I can't give an exact pound amount (no scale, I'm more of a tape measure kind of gal), but I've dropped two clothing sizes in that time. The only time I get in my car now is to drive to work, and I'm planning to sell the car before my next insurance payment is due and start taking the bus. No diet changes. In fact, if anything, my diet now is worse since I went from playing happy homemaker to being a single gal again. Fast food at thee am, going out drinking with friends three or more nights a week, things like that. By all accounts I should be ballooning up. But because I'm walking everywhere (on average two miles a day) I'm getting smaller.

I know the way we eat plays into it, but I really do think the suburban lifestyle is a hundred times worse than McDonalds could ever dream of being.
posted by Kellydamnit at 7:24 PM on June 27, 2005


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