Um…

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years. The results, based on brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent “severe brain degeneration,” said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology….

Obese people had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions), hippocampus (long-term memory) and basal ganglia (movement), the researchers said in a statement today. Overweight people showed brain loss in the basal ganglia, the corona radiata, white matter comprised of axons, and the parietal lobe (sensory lobe).

Courtesy of Slog tipper Rob—so be mad at him, not me. Or be mad at the National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Center for Research Resources, and the American Heart Association for funding the study in the first place.

239 replies on “Offered Without Comment”

  4. Makes sense. You get fat and your brain figures it can sit back and relax and not have to worry about finding animals to kill. Also you are relatively sedentary so you brain knows you aren’t spending a lot of time running from prey. So why bother maintaining brain cells used for planning etc.?

  7. @4 is on the the right track. Addicts often fail at making critical decisions, so maybe those areas of the brain atrophy.

    Wonder how these findings compare with the brains of other elderly addicts?

  8. To echo what a few have hinted at,…

    Correlation is not causality. If causality exists, it may not run the direction you assume (i.e. dumb people more likely to be fat, rather than the reverse).

    I call confirmation bias on Dan.

    But mostly, I just imagine a day when the body acceptance movement radicalizes and declares a bounty on Dan. Because that would be some funny shit.

  9. @4. or more likely:

    Exercise increases blood flow, aids circulation, you follow? The more you exercise, the more oxygen gets to your extremities and (go figure) your brain, along with all the nutrients in your blood. (Also, the more you exercise, the more capable your body is to pull those nutrients from your food.) So it stands that the less you exercise, the less oxygen and nutrients make it to your brain, which will over time cause deterioration.

    Question: people who exercise very little are more likely to be fat or thin? Right. The more exercise you get, the less likely you are to be fat. The less exercise you get, the more likely you are to be fat, and, I suppose, stupid. Oh, and don’t yell at me, people, I am not anywhere near thin.

  10. Correlation does not prove causation. Maybe you could wander down to SCCC and sit in on a freshman-level science class for a couple days?

  11. Hmm, I got fatter while in college and grad school, trying to get smarter. Some of the smartest people I know carry enough extra to be classified as obese. Would we all be total freaking geniuses if we’d stayed thinner?

  12. The body acceptance movement will probably lose enough of its collective brain that it wouldn’t be able to organize a movement against Dan. And it’s not going to be funny shit when half this country has diabetes and is senile.

  13. That’s an interesting train of thought, Allyn. I wonder if they did a similar study, just focusing on exercise habits, what they’d find. Is it the exercise or is it the weight (i.e., would a skinny person who doesn’t exercise have the same brain degeneration? Would a fat person who does exercise have it?)? You’d think that wouldn’t be too hard to test.

  16. Meh, there could be many causes of this. As long as nobody’s suggesting that fatties eat their own brains because they lack willpower and can’t stop stuffing their faces, it’s kosher by me.

  17. Brain studies recently released information pertaining to carrying belly fat in middle age and your predisposition of developing dementia. Their theory: what’s good for your heart is good for your brain.

    Sounds like a corresponding study.

  18. Fat acceptance folks have some valid points to make. Which is why it’s all the more annoying that their self-esteem issues get in the way of these points, and they hitch themselves to a whole lot of other nonsense about how bodyfat levels and physical health and food consumption are IN NO WAY RELATED TO EACH OTHER AT ALL EVER EVER EVER EVER I’M HEALTHY GO AWAY.

  19. Dan, normal people are not this obsessed with finding ways to condemn fat people. And you’ve met me, so you know that I’m not some giant lardass secretly seething with rage as I write this. I’m just saying that this is all getting a little out of hand. Why not just stick to your lifestyle of healthy eating and regular exercise, and live and let live? No one is forcing you to fuck fat people, or like fat people, or even respect fat people, so where is this need to keep harping on the subject coming from? This obsession of yours…honestly, to a casual observer like myself it just doesn’t seem healthy. But hey, it’s your blog, so do what you will.

  21. Hernandez- it’s in one of his books, I recall. He’s terrified of getting fat and obsesses over the possibility. Which means he’s probably always looking for studies to confirm that he’s doing the right thing by putting in so much time and mental anguish into staying thin.

  22. Julie,

    I realize as I re-read my comment that I presented my thoughts as fact.

    But I would like to see someone look into that theory. It’s understood that exercise affects the onset of diabetes as much as if not more than the food you eat. This study seems like a jumping-off point. It’s limited, as studies should be, yes, so there certainly needs to be more studies into the “why”. Exercise just seems to be the key, considering the benefits of circulation.

  23. Interesting, but not enough information. Especially, since we are looking at individuals who are 70+. Perhaps, physical activity and attitude are involved. Take my maternal grandparents as an example, my grandfather (who just left rehab, he fell and broke his hip three weeks ago, member of 1936 Olympic track and field team) is up around and sharp as a tack, my grandmother who is sedenatary and thin can’t remember most things. One sees the glass half full (grandfather) and the other sees it as half empty (grandmother). Is there any correlation? Perhaps.

  24. @13 I think that if people were more self-aware they could see it in themselves very easily.

    Many people use exercise as a means of combating depression and as a mood stabilizer.

    I know people who if they go more than a couple of days without a really good cardio workout become lethargic and irritable. I can feel a definite shift in my mood, memory and attention span if I go more than two days without working out.

    People just don’t attribute the way they feel to their lack of exercise or poor diet habits. They attribute it to outside forces, or just “not feeling well” or mood swings or whatever.

  25. But really Dan, what are your feelings on fat people? As EIC of the paper and popular man about town your true feelings about fat people are relevant. You keep posting these studies, these hints to something. Its like all of slog readers are alcoholics and you just happened to read something interesting on addiction recovery!

    Just let it out! Did a fatty bite you as a kid? did you get a stretch mark in college and just couldn’t deal? Was your first boyfriend crushed by some irresponsible fat guy? What is the deal? Why is fat something you care about?

  26. It’s things like this that make me wish the authors would be required to put “CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION – THAT IS, BEING FAT DOES NOT MEAN YOUR BRAIN WILL SHRINK”

    Because people casually read stuff like this, assume directionality, and run off to blog about it.

    The same shit happens when people see a headline that says “Children from two parent, heterosexual household are very well adjusted” and assume that kids from gay parents will be fucked up.

  28. @21 That makes complete sense in a “homophobes are secretly gay” sort of way. He’s deathly afraid of the possibility of being fat himself, so he overcompensates by degrading fat people.

  29. Why are the medical and scientific communities so obsessed with fat people. They only conduct study after study showing that being overweight is unhealthy because they are afraid of getting fat themselves!

  30. @26 – Maybe he just receives an avalanche of venomous hate mail every time he implies that obesity and bad health are related, and got sick of it.

  32. Is there a moment when you have anorexic tendencies?

    Dan, you should consider that state of being.

    You are obsessed, it must relate to you own body image fears

    My family has two body types, thin and agile and big and sturdy and heavy/sorta fat.

    The heavy types live years longer, many pushing the century mark, bright, engaged, even working in their 80ies.

    So much for stereotypes.

    Fred (thanks Hernandez – very well spoken)

  34. Ah, come on, we all know that the “fat and loving it” peeps feed off of these posts. It’s their chance to stand up and sing about how “happy” they are that they are big. Or to claim copious amounts of exercise to no end result, or play the victim role, blame biology, outside forces, or undiagnosed medical issues, Etc.

    The major problem that people have with these studies (or Dan, or anyone posting them) is that they AFRAID that the study MIGHT actually apply to them. When faced with an actual problem, what do people tend to do? Get defensive, lash out at the person who brought them the news, claim that they are a victim of something, or CLAIM that they are happy with how they look, make excuses, whatever, blah blah blah

    You may be fat happy and healthy, who fucking knows, but the majority of people who are fat are depressed and extremely unhealthy. That is just the way that it is. For fuck’s sakes, it’s not like that’s NEWS or anything.

  35. Hernandez,

    He wrote about it in “The Kid” and “Skipping Towards Gomorrah”, his love of eating and about the size of some of his family members. I’m guessing that he is like me, I refrain from overeating, am careful about my food choices, and exercise everyday (cardio and weights). My parents are not close to thin, and when I watch then take third helpings or load up on double cheeseburger and fries, I sometimes envy them. If I want a slice of my moms from scratch German Chocolate cake, I know that I have to keep the balance, which means that I am strict about what I consume before and after, and I work out harder that day and the next. This is my choice, and I don’t ask or expect others to live as I do.

    I know people who also work their arses off, restrict their food intake, but also allow themselves to judge others for not doing the same. I don’t know if Dan suffers from that, but this issue does come up a lot. And, its frustrating as hell, we need to focus on what we share not find ways to illuminate the differences.

    Take care.

  36. Allyn – no worries, I assumed you were just hypothesizing about “why”. And, it’s the “why” part that’s really interesting here right?

    Okay, so obese people in their 70s have different brains than non-obese people. But, why? Is it that they get less exercise (in which case, you’d expect thin people who didn’t exercise to have it too)? Is it that carrying the extra weight, regardless of how it got there, causes something to happen in how your brain works? Is it that people who are pre-disposed to develop this type of brain degeneration in old age are also pre-disposed to being obese? Is it that people who are obese are marginalized by our society and are less likely to receive the type of quality social interactions that help stave off brain degeneration?

    I, obviously, have no idea what the right answer is, but would be really interested in further studies. One place to start would be looking at the brains of obese people of different ages, not just older folks.

  38. @35: Yeah, I think you’re pretty disgusting, too. You better keep up your regimental self-improvement because if you let yourself slip, nobody will love you. Well, not that anyone does right now. I mean, you say you’re happy, talk a big game, run around rattling some cages, but you very clearly go after people who look like the person you think is inside of you trying to get out.

    But that person on the inside is coming out, day by day, little by little.

  40. Julie,

    Also consider the role of sleep on obesity (one affects the other, but which and why and how?) and sleep on dementia and Alzheimer’s (and how lighting affects sleep which affects brain function…). It’s all really interesting, I think, and all related, I suspect. If people could step back from their emotional responses (“Fat people suck!” “I’m fat and perfect and you are unfair!”), this topic could be really interesting to a far greater number of people. It’s not so much about blame, but about learning how it may all fit together.

  41. Guess what Mr. Whizzy Computer fact gatherer… do it the old fashioned way.

    Maybe then you don’t have to rely on cut and run tactics of advertised squallor.

    P.S.,

    I love you just as much as I hate your satellite stealing peeks from my window sill and redressing them in someone else’s story in your rag mag.

    No offence to the real team of professionals… it’s easy to get sucky with the ducky, isn’t it?

  42. I agree that this study as many others before it fall short. Those who struggle with disorderly appetites as any other type of mental disorder need to have further research done to find a way in which to better tackle this problem. The body is our best indicator for what’s appropriate, whats healthy and when the laws of nature are not follow thru, when we succumb and give in to conducts that we know are not good for us then it will be reflected on our canvas regardless of our age.

  43. This data is meaningless without before and after data in the same individuals. Otherwise you can’t say someone’s brain “shrunk.” Simply that there is variation in size. Brain size varies, bodies vary. C’mon that is just piss-poor science.

  44. @39

    Obviously my comment did not come across as I meant it to if you think that I find fat people disgusting or unworthy of anything. I don’t care if that is how you look, I do care about what kind of person you are and if you are my friend and you are obviously depressed and unhealthy and eating yourself to an early grave than I am going to give a fuck and do my best to assist where I can.

    The major problem people have with studies on obesity (or addiction or anything that can be taken as a “value judgment” on a single person) is that people don’t like to be confronted with something that may or may not prove that they have a problem. A problem that would be difficult to address or correct. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

    And I was totally serious when I said that you may be fat, happy and healthy, you just might be and I am totally cool with that. I know people who are like that and I don’t think about the fact that they are fat because they are lively and they have fun and they are good company. BUT the majority of overweight people in this world are extremely depressed, they are not happy and they are not healthy. Just because a few people don’t fall into that category does not make it untrue or a vicious thing to say. It is not meant to be vicious or mean, it is simply the way that it is and people don’t like to be confronted about it.

  49. 43, Or Loveschild, our favorite high school drop out, people could start watching what they eat and getting some exercise. There’s no evidence that mental disorders are responsible for the increase in obesity.

  51. This is a fat society. If not fat then pudgy – I see pudgies everywhere. They accept their fate as normal; it’s normal to destroy yourself with cheez-its and hotdogs. That stuff is food right? A person has to eat…BS.

    Grocery stores aren’t helping people either. Look at all the shit they sell that is frozen & pre-made. None of it fresh, most of it from cisco & the likes.

    It takes all kinds, so ultimately whatever, but I’m a little disappointed with the general appearance of most people. Go pick some blackberries like grandma used to do; she was skinny before wonder-bread, right?

  52. @52 I wish I could remember who it was who said that the healthiest way to buy your groceries is to just shop the perimeter walls of the store. The middle is usually the bad stuff: shelf stable, preservative-loaded junk.

  53. Can just one study differentiate between fat people who eat like shit and fat people who eat a ton of healthy food, but just eat too much of it?

    I’m not surprised people who eat cheetos all day would have brain damage. I would be, however, surprised if someone who ate fairly nutritious food but ate too much got brain damage as a result.

  54. This study was all of 70 year olds. I’ve read prior studies that show that your brain shrinks as you get older, and the amount of shrinkage can be measured and compared to a young person.

    All this study effectively says is that fat old people have neurologically aged faster than skinny old people. Cause and correlation not-withstanding, this certainly explains the difference between my mum and my dad :p

  55. @54: I dunno about that. There were all those studies on various mammals with calorie restriction. On all mammals tested they found that just eating less slowed the ageing process, in some cases dramatically.

    There’s no reason that this couldn’t be applied to humans, and there are people out there trying to apply it. I wish I had the will power! The self discipline and organisation required etc, plus I heart milk chocolate.

  59. I think 3 has a good point. Maybe being fat causes brain degeneration. Maybe degenerated brains cause you to be fat. Or, alternatively maybe the same activities that cause your fat ass (sitting on your ass, being lazy, being too lazy to make healthy food) cause brain degeneration. Either way it’s worth looking into more closely and it’s just another indication that you should eat right and get off your fat lazy ass and do something!

  60. From what I can tell this study simply found that when comparing brain scans of people with different BMIs, those with overweight and obese BMIs had less brain tissue. Any claims as to the reasons for this phenomena were made later by the denizens of “teh interwebz”.

    Studies like these are only meant to serve as a jumping off point for more research, not provide all the answers that everyone in the public is looking for. There is no need to sensationalize it. There’s always more questions to be asked and answered. That’s what research is about. Observe, hypothesize, test, repeat.

    What I find interesting is that this study may reinforce other research suggesting that exercise increases neurogenesis:

    http://www.dana.org/news/brainwork/detai…

    So hopefully we’ll get more research soon that tracks lifestyle factors (eating and exercise habits), and BMI along with relative brain degeneration.

    Until then I would hope that people would just come across articles like these and say to themselves “Well, that’s interesting, let’s see what shakes out as this progresses” rather than using them as cannon fodder for mean spirited arguments.

    Here’s some good links aimed at regular folks like us regarding evaluation of scientific research and sources.

    http://www.essortment.com/all/scientific…

    http://helios.hampshire.edu/~apmNS/desig…

    http://www.lib.flinders.edu.au/info/bran…

  61. Well, as Dan likes to say in regards to so many other choices in life, we all take calculated risks all day long. For some, that means smoking, or drinking to excess, or taking some sexual risks, for others it means eating too much and not moving enough. We all know there are consequences to our actions.

  62. See this Dan? There are all these people that are not you explaining away your actions! Let us know your story! We are here to read your thoughts.

    As an aside to the comments: I think its silly to draw comparisons to fat=bad. I think that anyone can come to that conclusion, fat people take up more space, have more problems. Even without their side of the story all you have to do to find out that fat is the “less good” option is to get fat! The second you wear through a pair of jeans because your thighs rub together too much you will realize that fat is a worse choice.

    And as someone who used to be super-fat and is now just heavy, I really don’t need any more studies telling me anything about fat=bad. It reminds me of an old Onion article, “It Was The Eighth Subscription Card That Convinced Me”

    There will be no magic 8th card that suddenly breaks through all the reasoning that keeps me fat and shines the way to a sexy perfect human body.

  63. Yo-yo dieting increases your risk factors, fwiw.

    Having sex and gardening are good for you, though. Just as is eating less red meat and a more varied diet.

  64. HI Rob: As I’m posting form work, and someone had used that phrase, I assumed that obesity was being viewed as a moral failing. From the site I posted earlier:

    http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

    “We found that obesity among men and women (see graph), as well as calorie intake and deaths from diabetes, are related to income inequality in rich countries. In addition, obesity in adults is also related to inequality in the 50 US states; and the percentage of children who are overweight is related to inequality both internationally and in the USA.”

    “The most consistent interpretation of all the evidence is that the main route hinges on the way inequality makes life more stressful. Chronic stress is known to affect the cardiovascular and immune systems and to lead to more rapid aging. Inequality makes social relations more stressful (see section on Trust and Community Life), by increasing status differences and status competition. These effects are important: Americans living in more equal states live around 4 years longer than those living in more unequal states. “

    Have a look at the site – it offers a very different perspective on obesity an d other social problems.

  65. Akbar Fazil,

    Okay, thank you for catching my typo for me. You might be interested to know that according to “Better Homes and Garden” it’s “German Chocolate Cake”. In all major cookbooks and even on Google it’s known as “German Chocolate Cake” even the original recipe (http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/Ge…) calls it “German Chocolate Cake”. Perhaps because Baker purchased German, and the formal name for the recipe is “Baker’s German Chocolate Cake”.

    Yes, I’m aware that the recipe originated in Dallas, TX. I’m also aware that coconuts don’t grow in Germany. I’m really not geographically illiterate, just prone to accept the most common name used for the recipe. Thanks for history lesson.

    Have a nice day.

  68. So what? Maybe it is true, maybe it isn’t true. Clearly Dan seems to think studies like this mean we can look down on people of a certain group because somewhere someone said that “it’s not good for them”. Using your same logic, being gay causes you to smoke and kill yourself. So let’s look down on gay people some more, k? I really hope that some day you get this. Sadly, it seems like no one close to you has ever truly struggled with their weight, otherwise I would hope you would be much less flippant and cruel and insensitive on the subject. I continue to be really freaking disappointed in you about your views on fat acceptance and bisexuality. The answer to a thinner nation is not shaming those who are already having a hard time. But hey, people have said the same shit to you for years, you aren’t changing your mind. God forbid you open your mind up to people who are actually part of the demographic you are putting down. Wake up to someone else’s reality for once. Jesus.

  69. The brain burns more calories than any of the rest of the body. But like the rest of the body, disuse causes loss of function. But this study makes it tempting to draw conclusions, particularly about the south.

  71. If anyone’s curious, I posted #68’s greyed-out link in post #40. And I brought up the lacking-moral-fiber thing because that seems to be what self-righteous thin people (as opposed to those who are not, of course) think makes fat people fat. “They need to get off their asses and put down the fork.” We’ve all seen this over and over. It seems to somehow give comfort to that variety of thin people, that they are succeeding where fat people are failing, with the same hand dealt. I don’t get it, really, but that’s okay.

  75. 73, that wasn’t me talking about economic factors. I don’t think you can say “people are overweight because ________” without a dozen people disagreeing and giving different reasons, each with a study to back it up. I don’t agree with your theory, for example. But I don’t know that we’ll come to any conclusions all posting our “reasons” people become overweight. I already posted mine, linking to the Gary Taubes lecture – I think it’s well worth watching.

  77. @71 Of course I am. How brilliant of you to notice. That is exactly my point. Dan (nor you it seems like) has no sympathy for the reality of the situation. Therein lies the problem.

  78. 75, I’ve not read it, but I also know that if I let myself get fat, it would be because of the choices I made, not because of the food companies and corn subsidies. Someone who says “I’ll be able to lose weight when the food companies change, and corn subsidies end!” will die fat. The book, like any other, represents the views and opinions of the author, not an unerring gospel.

  81. @78 – Rob, I’ve seen and, unfortunately, participated in a bunch of these threads before and what I don’t understand is why you care? We all know that some people are fat from bad behaviours, some have medical conditions, some – who the fuck knows? But your last few posts make you seem unsatisfied with any response other than, “You’re right. I’m fat because I choose to be.” What is going on in your life that you can’t just let it go? I wonder if you, like Dan, have some issues that make your relationship with food and/or your body so obsessive and unhealthy. Seriously, if this argument was about how people who choose to watch TV lose more brain matter than those who don’t own one, I don’t think you’d be so invested.

  83. No problem Kim, the whole German/German’s chocolate cake thing is pretty much the one thing left in the world (other than Loveschild when she opens her trap) that bugs the living crap out of me.

  84. sorry, dan, but that whole “be mad at them not me”/”don’t shoot the messenger” attitude is very beck/o’reilly of you. if you want to continue to advocate against pit bulls and fat people, at least do it honestly.

  85. @82, there’s no point in trying to talk to Rob. He’s got a pretty obvious agenda and no amount of reasoning will ever get him to see that he’s not helping anyone.

  88. @88, that would be “page views”, right? A simpler blog post would be: “Fatties”. Same end result, easier to type for Stranger staffers.

  89. 82, Why do you care what I think? It’s called a discussion, and I like to take part.

    I’m fine with food. I eat reasonable amounts of healthy foods, and limit my intake of junk food. I also work out on a daily basis. I take responsibility for my health and body. It’s not about food. It’s about people not being able to take responsibility for their own actions.

    I would have just as much interest in a conversation where people were blaming their TV watching habits on the networks, and show’s producers. Someone saying “I can’t help myself! The shows are just too good for me to turn it off!” would also prompt me to respond in much the same way.

  90. 87, What ever the books says, I haven’t read it, and somehow I still have managed to stay thin! How could that be possible without reading this book!

  91. @90 – No one is saying “I can’t help myself!” Point to the comment in this thread that says anything like that. YOU are obsessed. YOU have an unhealthy relationship with food and your body. Sorry for the newsflash.

  92. @ 91, that’s not the point. The obesity epidemic and its causes are the point.

    It’s up to you if you want to remain foolish and judgmental about this, sort of a Loveschild on the topic; but if you want to become more informed and come to some understanding about this, you’d be wise to read up.

    Talk to ya later.

  93. Wow has someone hit a nerve or what….Both the poster and the comments – Had a friend who never smoked, drank or did any illegal substances, totally fit no body fat and quite the looker, he went to the DR because of a bloody nose and died 2 weeks later from lukemia – EAT DESSERT FIRST!! BE as large as you want – We are not redwoods.

  94. @90, working out every day isn’t exactly good for your body. Hasn’t your doctor or your personal trainer ever told you that?

  95. Adding to 93… because the issue is more complicated than the choices people make. You’ll see that if you read up.

    Sorry, I hate add-on posts like what I just did but I want to make sure that you get the point; that it isn’t JUST the choices people make. I used to think as you did, but The Omnivore’s Dilemma exposed me to several new perspectives. It’s not gospel, just a good, well researched and thought provoking book.

  96. So vilifying gays (particularly teens), ostracizing them, telling them they’re horrible and evil and will die young is bad because it causes depression and they kill themselves.

    But doing the same thing to fat people is good because… umm… oh, because you can claim that it’s the FAT that makes them depressed not the fact they get treated like non-human pieces of shit on a daily basis.

    The asshole drunken redneck who landed me in the hospital last May is, in the world view of Savage, Rob, and like minded assholes, just trying to ‘help’ the fatties. He was just *concerned* that I get off the couch and exercise more. So naturally, his *concern* led to him lobbing an empty beer bottle out of his truck window while yelling at me to “get off the couch you fucking piece of lard” while I was riding my bicycle.

    And it wasn’t evidence of any bias at all but just sincere *concern* for my health when the nurse at the ER informed me that “these things just wouldn’t happen if you’d stop eating so much and lose a little weight”. Maybe she was just cranky because I made her interrupt her lunch by inconsiderately getting a major concussion and a scalp laceration. She seemed fairly eager to get back to the huge Burger King cheeseburger and extra large soda on her desk. It’s ok for her to eat like that of course, she’s skinny so OBVIOUSLY she doesn’t overdue it like us willpowerless and mentally defective fatties.

    Yep, it’s the FAT that has caused my depression and causes me to resist leaving the house whenever possible.

  98. It would be very interesting to know in what way Dan considers himself different from the schoolyard bullies who point at fat kids and laugh. OR rather, point at at a fat kid struggling to run, roll their eyes, and say, “No comment.”

    Does he think he is doing anything different?

    Does he think schoolyard bullies are good role models for public discourse?

  100. One thing is clear, Dan knows what subjects garner the largest amounts of comments. Any editor ignoring that fact would not be doing his/her job.

    Posts about waistlines help the bottom line.

  101. On reason people are getting fatter is that food is so cheap and we don’t have to struggle, physically, to get it.
    It seems, too, that the better a food is for you (i.e., the simpler and more natural it is) the more it costs.

    Clearly, though, the issue is way more complicated than many thin people would like to believe.

  103. Then again … it is BMI … which is kind of bull shit.

    But I don’t think there is a new trend of geriatrics juicing.

  104. 99ftw

    It would also be very interesting to know in what way Dan considers himself different from the schoolyard bullies who point at GAY kids and laugh.

    Does he think he is doing anything different?

    Does he think schoolyard bullies are good role models for public discourse?

    Dan get outraged when a gay kid is bullied and commits suicide but his attitude toward fat people is EXACTLY the SAME.

  105. I don’t think Dan hates fat people ….

    I think Dan obviously is afraid of becoming fat himself.

    I also think Dan is amused to no end by the hypersensativity obese people have toward their weight.

    And honestly, I don’t blame him … sometimes it’s funny as shit!

  106. 91
    don’t be smug, Bob
    just because you have that big ol’ jug of a fathead doesn’t mean your brain inside hasn’t shrunk up to the size of a prune…

  107. I will add to Hernandez’s point back in 19… I am obviously not fond of how people let themselves get bloated out of shape, and I really don’t like people who get into that condition and then complain impotently about it… but even I don’t give it that much thought in general.

    As for this study, like any study it was done in a limited control environment and the analysis is devoid of multiple contextual factors. Obviously, people in their 70’s are going to have degenerated brain tissue… that fat people have more on average than non-fat people out of a sample of dozens could be white noise from a small sample size. I’d give it little credence.

    Lastly, it’s hard for Dan to miss this story: Yahoo and a bunch of other major news resources front paged it a couple days ago. Can’t say this is him or Rob seeking it out out of malice as much as it slapped one of them (and a lot of us) in the face.

  108. Akbar – my mom also makes a mean German’s chocolate cake and I had no idea that there’s supposed to be an ” ‘s” there. I’m happy to store that piece of trivia in my brain somewhere….

  109. @ Akbar, Kim, Julie-Clearly we need a German (or German’s) or (Baker’s German) Chocolate Cake forum – clearly our mom’s rock the Choc, but for me….
    WTF???? – adding an apostrophe to my Mom’s German Chocolate Cake? NOTHING is getting added-good god this thing already has like a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, untold cups of egg yolks, sugar, chocolate, cocoa and coconut already! And it’s already been made clear that one must schedule extra cardio and a complete diet revamp to deal with the inevitable gorging Mom’s best, and my fave, cake will inspire. Another letter is just WASTED CALORIES dammit! I am not doing extra crunchies, lunges and squats for a freaking apostrophe-when will the madness end?

  111. 94 people in their 70s seems like a very small, very skewed sample size. Why couldn’t they at the very least do some kind of cross-section?

  112. You know who I hate more than fat people? Thin people who are not fit. The size 6 woman with zero muscle definition who can’t make it up a flight of stairs grosses me out way more than the size 20 women with cankles who is pushing her overflowing grocery cart with 2 small children in it through the parking lot.

    She may be a fat breeder and have Type II diabetes, but she will kick your ass, and I respect that.

  113. Chk_It @ 110,

    Thank you for making me laugh till my sides ache. I’m counting it as a pre-German’s/German/Baker’s German Chocolate Cake abdominal work out. Bless you.

  114. So I decided to actually read the study, since everyone likes to jump to conclusions and bite Dan’s head off and yell CORRELATION DOESN’T EQUAL CAUSATION which they might’ve heard in undergraduate biology, but without offering what correlation DOES actually mean.

    So the PI quoted in the article, Paul Thompson, seems to study aging and the brain, primarily, Alzheimer’s and dementia and the like, which explains why the group he was looking at are all in their 70s. And Dr. Thompson is not out to get fat people, ok? I went back and read some of his earlier articles, and he clearly wants to get better at detecting Alzheimer’s, and if obesity or diabetes, which are very easy to diagnose, can predict atrophy which can predict Alzheimer’s…well, you can see the benefit.

    HOWEVER. For those of you up there saying, well duh, you lose brain tissue as you get old and get neurodegenerative diseases, Thompson’s group controlled for that. These scans were done some years ago: they followed the patients afterward to make sure there was no cognitive decline five years out and to keep track of when they died. Therefore, they’re showing that the atrophy is associated with obesity independent of a disease like Alzheimer’s, even though obesity and diabetes are ALSO associated with Alzheimer’s.

    Science reports are kinda notorious for picking things out of articles that make people say indignantly HOW CARELESS ARE THESE SCIENTISTS FOR NOT QUALIFYING THEIR FINDINGS WITH X, Y AND Z when in fact they DID, their full discussion just didn’t make it into the article. First: of course, the authors corrected for age, race and sex. Higher body fat was still associated with lower regional brain volume. Second: the authors SPECIFICALLY say that they realize obesity is often related to generally poor health, which could also be related to lower brain volume, AND they say why it’s unlikely in their study: because the mean age of their subjects was 77, and really unhealthy people usually don’t live that long; there was NO correlation between BMI and 10-year death rate in their sample; and there was NO difference in vascular diseases that increase poor health and death between the normal, overweight and obese groups.

    More importantly for you idiots vilifying the authors and dismissing the results: of COURSE they say that they know it’s unlikely that one of those things CAUSES the other. They proceed to list conditions that are known to cause obesity AND brain atrophy in other contexts. They rule out a couple of them (diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension) based on their results and leave the others (reduced exercise, respiratory problems) as possible mediators.

    Basically, their (reasoned, NON-alarmist) conclusion is that even in healthy, cognitively normal elderly people, brain atrophy is STRONGLY correlated with obesity and being overweight. Therefore, for people with a higher risk of dementia due to OTHER health or genetic factors, it would be important to watch their weight because it looks like obesity could be related, too. That’s all they say, ok? It’s not ‘fat people are stupid’, it’s not ‘your fat is eating your brain’. So calm the frack down.

  115. i’m kinda fat, and i’m lazy, and i think a lot of fat people would like to have science excuse them from putting in a real, dedicated effort to lose weight… and i say that because i used to be WAY fat, and did put in that effort, and i feel a fuck of a lot better

    reality, bitches. you don’t have to as skinny as dan to be healthier than you are at 300 pounds.

  117. Fat people are fat because they eat more energy than they need because our culture provides tons of cheap calories and discourages exercise. Some people gain weight more easily than others, but no one can gain weight without eating too much. Just “dieting” doesn’t change much, you have to change your local culture to win–family habits, job, transport, where you shop, the size of your plates, how you eat out, the whole deal. If you get and stay fat, there are health risks, which you can reduce by taking in fewer calories and exercising more. This isn’t brain surgery or even criticism, just some facts of nature. Sorry if it offends anyone.

    As for Dan needing to be reminded that being teased for fatness is sad or that MSM get too much HIV, he doesn’t have one of those shriveled 70+ years old brains. If you’re born loving other men you need to use condoms and pick your partners cautiously; if you’re born loving food or you pack in on easy, you need to exercise and pick your meals cautiously. That’s just nature happening. Everyone throwing a hissyfit about it is welcome, maybe they’ll be too busy whining to cruise for men or eat doughnuts for a while.

  118. Yonush:

    Dan’s brain apparently is not fit enough to recognize that he routinely encourages cruelty, or that doing that is never an acceptable thing to do. People can choose not to read him; they cannot choose not to interact with every kid who idolizes him and is encouraged to abuse fat people by him. Nor can any animal in a shelter demand not to be adopted by a Savage reader.

    Dan SHOULD be as vigilant on behalf of gay teems as he is. He should not, as someone with a loud voice, encourage his readers to be assholes. Those of his readers who are not already asshole should be calling hik on continually shitty behavior.

  119. I think Dan is the editor of an online blog that generates ad revenue by the click and the comment. Y’all have been trolled, as the kids say, and he didn’t have to write a word.

  120. St. Beretta:

    Dan is also an advocate who decries the use of homophobia to generate sales. Of course, all of the ads on this page right now for me are for a movie which is being marketing using the lead actor’s bigotry, something Dan objected to.

    Why would it be acceptable for him to use his bigotry to generate money when it is not okay for others?

  121. While all of you droned on about the evils of watching what you eat and working out, I ate a delicious, but healthy dinner, and did a nice workout.

    I get it, I get it…Not mindlessly grabbing the french fries and deep fried fish sandwich, bad. Trading 30 minutes to an hour a day of TV, computer, for video game time for physical activity, evil. Taking responsibility for your body, and it’s health, the worst crime against humanity, on par with the holocaust. How dare I put time and thought into adhering to healthy habits! I should know it makes others feel bad about themselves. If I put on 50 lbs, will that make it up to you?

  122. Ummmm…so while brain damaged, people who are overweight but not obese live longer? That’s what the CDC and others have found, at least.

    http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20090625/…

    Correlation being what it is, I DO agree with those who argue that those who get less exercise might blame their mental decline on decreased blood flow and all. Plenty of people I know who are slightly overweight are hella active. Hell, most of my softball teams (work/social teams full of well-educated, articulate, intelligent people) are people who are clinically overweight, but who can run the bases a LOT faster than I can! Perhaps, as others have suggested, physical activity instead of weight is a better metric.

    But BMI is a terrible measure of health, and that is undoubtedly what the CDC is basing their categories on. After our last discussion on this issue, I went to my doctors and asked them if there was something I could do to incorporate a more normal lifestyle while maintaining my weight. They analyzed my diet and exercise regimens (which are better in the summer than winter), and stated that I was most likely not operating at optimal efficiency given that I have basically tripled my physical activity this summer (versus last year, I live further away from work and still walk, play on 3 softball teams instead of 1, and have moved up to the advanced level in my dance classes) while maintaining the same diet. So they (a) cut 1/5 of a serving of grain per weekday from my diet; (b) added 2 servings of whatever whole grain I wanted per month to my diet (yay, whole wheat pasta and long-grain rice, which I haven’t eaten in years); and (c) added 2 servings of whatever kind of alcohol I wanted (including beer, but not more than 1 drink per day, still) per week.

    So what were the results of this? I gained 6 pounds. I was devastated, considering that all my clothes still fit! Then, my doc ran 2 body fat percentage tests. The first (the egg) found that I had lost 1.5% body fat overall. The second (the pinch/size test) found that I had increased the size of my calves and thighs, but decreased my fat percentage in those areas. Muscle weighs more than fat. So, while having less attractive thighs and calves (depending on who you ask…one of my co-workers noticed and commented that he would like to have my “hella strong legs” strangling him…tee hee, if I were single, totally), I had actually become healthier, in an informed medical opinion. Meanwhile, the medical community at large would say that I am less healthy, given a higher, while still normal, BMI. While analyzing people over 70 might result in a correlation = causation situation, younger people are probably not as straightforward. If you are someone who is prone to putting on muscle, you could be on the high end of a normal BMI, or even overweight, and still be healthy given a low-end fat percentage, or you could be obese if you tend to be very slim with a very high body fat percentage regardless of size or lifestyle.

    The measurements used in these studies are inherently flawed. Looking exclusively at people at a certain point in time is also inherently flawed (people’s activity level, intellectual and emotional engagement, and other factors changes over time, and affect brain development/maintenance). The only way to come up with a definitive answers to these questions (are overweight people inherently less healthy? What level and duration of overweight/obese is harmful? Is there really a causation relationship here?), is to study people over time. Which the CDC and Canadian researchers have done, and found that people who carry a few extra pounds are actually the most healthy among us. Even though I’m still a normal weight, I’m on the high end of that, and I hope that provides the same benefits. As a social researcher by trade, I look for long-term, repeatable, stable trends. The one thing that sticks out in studies like these is that people who eat a balanced diet and get regular physical activity are healthiest.

    And to the RC people, you might be right, given the proper diet. Eating a very healthy, Mediterranean-style diet will result in a lower overall calorie intake, while making the participant feel full and have healthy chemistry. Being anorexic on one meal of donuts a day…not so much. Eating less calories is not the panacea, eating a healthful, balanced diet (that happens to have less calories, because fewer calories are needed if the food is good) that meets your nutritional needs probably is. OF COURSE someone who eats 2 lbs of spinach a day versus someone who eats 2 lbs of cake is going to be healthier! The difference is that 2 lbs of spinach will inherently be more filling, and result in 50-100% less overall caloric intake for most people. The real problem is that 2 lbs of cake costs next to nothing (a box of cake mix is about $1 where I live) while 2 lbs of spinach is hella expensive ($2/lb, so $4 for 2 lbs). THAT’S what’s wrong with people in the US today, by and large (not slog readers, REAL PEOPLE, who make far less than us…trust me, I started a gardening co-op in my new neighborhood, and these people CANNOT afford what the grocery stores charge for REAL FOOD).

  123. The reality is this: the advancement of humanity has removed it from the “normal” evolutionary process. As far as our weights/diet/activity go, much more so in the last hundred or so years than ever before.

    Some people have metabolisms that are more or less efficient than others, but what everyone has in common is this: no human is meant to be able to survive without much/any physical exertion, yet that’s the reality for many of us with office jobs or the equivalent. A thousand years or more ago, most if not all of us would live lives of constant hard labor. Even a hundred years ago most of us would have fairly active jobs or need to live equivalently active lives maintaining a household or the like. It doesn’t always take a huge amount of activity — I’ve known people who have had jobs as waiters/waitresses at one point in their life (a job with a reasonable amount of light carrying and a lot of walking around, but it’s not exactly pre-industrial farming either) and who gained a lot of weight as soon as they finished school and took more sedentary jobs. Some people live in places where walking as a primary mode of transportation is a viable choice; a lot of people don’t.

    Some of us (including me) try to compensate for this by forcing extra activity into our day in the form of running, hitting the gym, etc. This works up to a point, but it’s hard for a lot of people to stick with. This isn’t (exactly) because they’re lazy, it’s because (in this respect) they’re doing *exactly* what evolution selected them to do. We’re not designed to want to expend a lot of energy for no survival reason — people that did that would be the first to die in any kind of food shortage. We’re *built* to be lazy and conserve energy whenever we can be. Going to the gym is every bit as horribly unnatural as a deep-fried Twinkie could ever be.

    So while it’s nice that some scientists would like (essentially) to prove that being fat is bad, what would be a lot more useful would be discovering ways to cope with the unnaturality of the situation in which we find ourselves. Maybe we can engineer (gene-wise, through the use of drugs, etc.) humans that aren’t prone to retaining as much excess energy as fat in case of famines, since we don’t really have them anymore in the industrialized world. Maybe we can engineer humans that are inclined to be more active and don’t have famine-ready brain chemistry telling them to sit on the couch and eat some Cheetos instead of go run. Probably there are a lot of different ideas and options, and any of them would be ultimately more useful than this study.

  124. No, you’re right to some extent, Mongoose, we are programmed to be lazy. But it doesn’t have to be the medical community that saves us, we can do it ourselves. First, looking for healthier food. Whether we grow it ourselves or commit to spending a little more at the grocery store doesn’t really matter. You would be surprised how much more satisfied your body will be by a natural, earth-given product than some processed crap! Second, by finding something(s) that we LOVE to do that are physically active. You don’t have to walk or run or go to the gym if you don’t like it. I HATE going to the gym and doing other regimented exercises, so I walk to/from work because I LIKE it (it’s good for waking up in the morning/clearing the brain in the evening), I play softball because it’s FUN and SOCIAL, I dance because it’s BEAUTIFUL to make your body do something so pleasing, I do yoga and pilates because they are crucial to dancing properly. Humans are given the unique ability to overcome our base instincts, but it doesn’t have to be torture. Even something as simple as walking around your neighborhood and admiring architecture/natural beauty/wildlife counts! Even things that are fun are a little hard, but if you focus on finding something that isn’t torture it will be a lot easier than something you hate!

  125. Funny thing about the occasion of yet another Slog article on obesity is that as much as I extol the virtues of a good diet, I probably ate more junk today than I have in a long time. I ate a couple donuts today. They tasted sweet. I also baked and ate a little pizza from Trader Joe’s just now. I was on the run for lunch so I stopped at a burger place and had a mushroom burger with fries.

    In my apartment right now, I have frozen turkey breasts, frozen salmon and rice. Lots and lots of rice. If I want to eat again… it’s going to be something healthy.

    We can all eat junk, but it’s a good idea to do it occasionally, rather than every freaking day like a lot of people do. I know I used to eat junk every day. Stopping that was hard. But it was worth it. You do feel better when your daily diet’s got natural foods and healthy fruits, grains and vegetables and the drinks give way to water.

  126. Yeah, Gomez, that’s great. But what if all you can afford is junk? I’m not talking about on-the-run meals for the slog readers (I will happily pay more for a salad than crap…the difference between $5 and $7 for me, on the rare occasion that I don’t have time to pack my lunch, doesn’t mean much), but people whose choice is between a meal that seems filling, maybe frozen boxed/bagged chicken nuggets and fries, and one that seems not-so-filling, maybe a small bag of salad mix and a few fresh fruits/veggies. I say this based on the fact that, while you all know my diet is restricted, my BF is allowed to bring whatever he wants over for dinner for himself, and he recently brought over a dinner of randomly-shaped chicken parts and somewhat-kind of like-potato things that, while big enough for 3 or 4 people, cost less than what I pay for 1 meal (the nuggets were $1.50 for the box of 20+ and the fries were $2 for a HUGE bag…while my dinner of salad, mixed veggies, normally shaped natural chicken parts, and seasonings cost me over $5).

    I’ll tell you, and maybe Rob can back me up on this, given that he’s in the same metropolitan area that I am, the morbidly obese people running (slowly walking, scooter-ing) around my office building are the secretaries and support staff who are supporting families by themselves, while us well-paid professionals are eating well and looking better.

  127. yes, of course, why can’t I see that it’s ever so easy to just pick up and quit your good paying job, sell your car, get a job as a farm laborer 20 miles away so you have to walk, and somehow manage to still spend more than you make now on food, while having less income.

    I’m sorry my mere existence is SO horrible for y’all. Will you be happy when I finally kill myself? Because being hated tends to make someone want to do that.

    Even if I wanted to “get off the couch” as you’re so fond of saying… how eager would you be to even leave your house if your reward was getting mocked by assholes like you yelling “get off the couch” and “earthquake!!!” and making assorted farmyard noises… and that is when even bigger assholes aren’t throwing shit at us.

    I wish I was gay. I wish to HELL I was gay. Because at least gays have the fucking option of a closet. You can just never mention it, and while you might be frustrated and in danger of blackmail if it gets out… at least you can walk down the street without every single fucking shithead in the country making assumptions about your lifestyle and your diet and what a wretched waste of oxygen you are. Sure, they might think that about gays in general… but they won’t be applying it DIRECTLY TO YOU just by sight alone most of the time, because you don’t LOOK any fucking different than anyone else unless you choose to do so. You actually have to do or say something to get stigmatized, all I have to do is wake up in the morning. An activity which, I assure you, I would take steps to stop doing if it wasn’t for the fact I’m a coward and a wimp.

    So yeah… you assume that my flaws are that I’m gluttonous and greedy and lazy… in reality (a place you have no goddamn clue about), my flaw is that I’m too much of a coward to take the coward’s way out.

  128. How did they calculate that 8 percent measure? For people who are overweight, the proportion of their bodies that contain their brains are, by definition, relatively smaller — but it doesn’t mean their BRAINS are smaller than people whose brains are in smaller bodies…So much research is misinterpreted when the media covers it, I don’t mean to ask a ‘stupid question,’ but does anyone know? Thanks…

  129. @ 122, just knowing what you’re talking about in regards to the obesity epidemic will make it up to us. For example: why is it that poor people are disproportionately obese? Why is it that a healthy lifestyle seems to be a luxury nowadays? Answer those questions thoughtfully and can the judgment and you’ll earn some respect.

  130. I think one limitation we have in this discussion, given my comment and 130, is our urban environment. I will say that I grew up in a suburban area and spent a good bit of time in a rural area, and it wasn’t a lack of good, affordable food for them, but overconsumption and undermovement. When I go back now, I do notice a pronounced lack of basic physical activity (the grocery store is 2 blocks away? drive!!! and while you’re at it, don’t forget the cheez-whiz). But I’ll still argue that a liiiiiiitle bit more movement is all that is needed, and a number of people are trying and not succeeding. And also that a HUGE number of people are set up for obesity by the economics of food. I spend something on the order of $175-200 a month on food for just one person, in order to have good, healthy stuff in my house. That’s A LOT for most people (even taking into consideration cost of living differences for living in one of the most expensive cities in the country). The poor ARE disproportionately overweight/obese. But I think that, given my experience, neighborhood gardening initiatives, encouragement of farmers markets in less-developed areas, and advocating green food credits and farmers market bonuses on food stamps can do much in this regard. There’s no reason why, if someone can’t afford it, they can’t grow it (I have a container garden, which is just as productive as in-the-ground endeavors), but no one is promoting/helping this along.

    Geneva…why not just do it (not the suicide, the exercise)? About a year ago, a friend of mine and I were walking through the neighborhood when we saw a very large girl running to the gym. It registered only because she was working so hard. A few weeks ago, we saw the same girl, maybe 100 lbs lighter, running the same route to the same gym. Much respect for that. I lost 70 lbs overall, but this girl has got me licked. No one is laughing at her now! You show ’em…of you want to do it, someone will notice…in a good way!

  131. @ 106, interesting what happens when you change a word here and there.

    I don’t think people hate gay people ….

    I think people obviously are afraid of becoming gay themselves.

    I also think people are amused to no end by the hypersensitivity gay people have towards their sexuality.

    And honestly, I don’t blame them … sometimes it’s funny as shit!
    .

  132. Epic thread, I wish that I had been watching cartoons instead, but since I’m here at the bottom:

    I think that I owe someone (fluffybottom, something, Lilly?) an apology, though Double Helix20 really provides a fulcrum for the whole discussion (quite late as he went to read the Damned Thing).

    The bottom line for me is that the smartest (and longest sustained: five years) partner I’ve ever been with was also the most lovely and I enjoyed parking my hand on her big hourglass (or “pear”, or because of her natural upper body: “whole-day-glass”) hip when I put an arm around.

    You only live once and I like big butts, end of discussion.
    ^ vwv ^

  133. @131 – Does it matter? Do I get a free pass if I have reasons, will my stating “I have X physical or mental disability” cause all of society to suddenly start treating me as a human being?

    How low does my income level have to be before I can be excused from spending several hundred dollars a month on gym memberships, and how many hours a day must I work before it becomes ok for me not to spend an hour running to the gym, an hour working out, and an hour running back?

    How little do I need to eat before I’m allowed to show my face in public without being harassed or attacked? What foods, if I cut them entirely out of my life forever, can I trade in for the right to go grocery shopping without strangers looking into my cart and telling me that at my size I shouldn’t be allowed to purchase certain things… even if I’m not buying them for myself.

    How many sit ups do I need to do before I’m allowed to go to the movies without being mocked and having popcorn and soda thrown at me? Will I gain the right to enjoy the aforementioned treats during the show without listening to people make barnyard noises at me if I jog a certain number of minutes? Or does it need to be measured in miles?

    How many pounds do I need to lose before I become a human being? Before I can get treated to ONLY being ignored or laughed at? Are there cut offs? At this weight they are humans and can be treated as such by everyone for example, while at this weight society should leave them alone but doctors need to lecture them incessantly about their weight? At what weight should adults just think disparaging thoughts but only children and doctors are encouraged to insult and mock me, and at what weight can everyone begin the public shaming?

    How much damage should I have done to my body before it becomes ok to show a picture of someone my size on the news WITH their head attached, instead of just a headless “watch out or this could be YOU!” dire threat? Do I need to have my stomach amputated, or can I get away with just having electrodes installed in my brain?

    What do I need to change before someone can see me eating the exact same two doughnts as Gomez up there and not make the assumption that that is ALL I eat, or that I already ate the first ten or whatever?

    If the next time I leave my house to try and get some exercise I end up crippled for life by someone attacking me because my weight offended them so… will I have suffered enough that I become human instead of a disgusting THING that you are free to think, say, or do anything at all you like to?

    The really absurd thing… you’re probably picturing me as some huge, 600lb plus behemoth that cannot walk without waddling, doesn’t fit through doorways without turning sideways, can’t climb stairs without stopping to pant every other step, etc. I’m not… in fact, even doctors until they see the scale rarely peg me at over 200lbs — which sounds heavy, but for my height the ‘middle of the road’ BMI of 21 falls right around 160, 170lbs anyway. I’m perfectly capable of walking a straight line without waddling. I can climb to the top of 7 Falls in Colorado Springs, CO, hike BOTH the trails (the half mile to Midnight Falls and the full mile to the overlook) out and back, and then climb down the stairs again (there are over 200 of them) without any more difficulty than my average weight husband, and less difficulty than several of the people who were there the last time we could afford to make the trip… people who were both younger and thinner than myself. I may not walk as fast as my husband, but I can keep going for much longer than you are probably assuming… a six or eight hour trip to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (which is literally built on the side of a mountain, it’s pretty much all up and down steep grades) was, prior to the job loss, a pleasure in which I indulged at least twice a week. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can do that I could not also do. Maybe not as fast or as well all the time, but I’m pretty sure there are things I can do that you wouldn’t be able to do as fast or as well as I can.

    The real crux of the issue… why is it ok for media personalities and public figures to say that people like me have chosen to live an immoral lifestyle that will cause us to fall prey to various diseases and it is dangerous for children to be exposed to us for fear they’ll turn out just like us… but it’s not ok for them to say the exact same thing about gays? Some of them honestly, truly believe that being gay is 100% choice and that every gay will get AIDS and die young… just like Savage and company believe that being fat is 100% choice and that every fat person will get type 2 diabetes and die young.

    He and all the other talking heads may be right. Even go as far as to assume they are right. Does that make it ok to treat another human being in ways you would be incensed to see someone treating a dog?

  134. @122 – Once again, nobody even came close to comparing extolling a healthy lifestyle to the Holocaust. Well, except you. People calmly and rationally offer you evidence of what should be obvious, that there are a lot of factors that contribute to obesity and you respond by sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “La la la! I can’t hear you. Fat people need to admit that they have no self control!” Why you NEED people to admit that is still a mystery, but I have some theories. Anyway, a little personal anecdote: After trying to lose weight for 15 years, I finally lost 30 pounds this year. I won’t bore you with how I did it, but I will fill you in on one thing I did – STOP going to the gym. That’s right. I lost weight by excercising less. Weird, huh? All anyone on this thread is asking is that you stop making willfully ignorant assumptions about people that you know nothing about. That’s it. You can be Karen Carpenter skinny if you want, but I don’t see your body, only your words. And from that perspective, you’re pretty ugly.

  135. @129

    They used brain imaging to calculate brain volume. It’s an absolute measure, and it’s not just that their brains are PROPORTIONATELY smaller — certain regions of the brain are actually atrophied. Again, neuroimaging is not my specialty, but from what I can tell it most definitely is Paul Thompson’s, and he has a lot of data to compare these scans to besides just the brains in this particular study.

    @133
    Thanks 😉 Glad someone actually read it.

  136. 130, It is you who doesn’t know what you are talking about. I grew up poor. I worked my way through college, nearly broke most of the time, yet I still was able to keep a good diet, and get exercise. I knew to pick the bag of rice over the bag of potato chips. I knew to get the skim milk over the sodas. I reached for a head of lettuce and tomato rather than the pound cake. So don’t tell me about being poor. I know more about it than you.

  137. 135, Look up the word sarcasm sometime. People don’t have to go to a gym to exercise, and stay fit. I don’t. I do work out on a daily basis, using my body and a few weights I have. I’m within normal BMI, and body fat measurements. My friend got a Wii fit for Christmas and lost 50lbs in 6 months just by getting up on the sofa, and moving, along with following the diet tips from the program. It makes me want to get one. There’s a lot of ways to keep in shape. As long as you lost the weight in a healthy way, (a crazy fad diet that can’t be maintained for life is not healthy) kudos to you.

    For the record, I don’t consider Karen Carpenter an example of healthy eating. Anorexia is not a healthy method of maintaining your body. It’s as bad as just eating whatever food is in front of you because it’s there.

  139. @ 137, sorry, but that’s not a pass. We’re talking macro, not micro here. This is why you’re not coming across so well here. There are fit poor people, to be sure, but obesity is still striking them disproportionately. Why do you think that is?

  140. 140, For some, being in bad neighborhoods in the inner cities, and not having easy access to full grocery stores is the reason. For the most part, it’s a lack of information, instruction, and willingness to adhere to a healthy diet. If you go into any public school, library, government welfare office, the info is available, but you can lead a horse to water, yadda yadda yadda.

    Often among the poor there is a feeling of hopelessness, and resulting “Why bother?” attitude. For that same reason, people in lower socioeconomic classes smoke more. (Money being spend on tobacco product means less money for healthy foods.) The feeling of not being in power of one’s own life can lead folks to resist being told what to eat, and not to smoke, etc.

    Even with all that going on, it’s not the food corporation’s responsibility to monitor and enforce individuals’ diet habits.

  142. 140, don’t you think that condescending attitudes like yours might be contributing?

    Someone else here commented that you could have a beautiful body, but the problem is that we don’t see your body. We see the thoughts that you deign to share with us here, and those thoughts make you look uglier than any fat person I’ve ever seen.

  143. 143, Contributing to what? You’re holding me responsible for the diets and actions of others? You’re saying I personally hold the power to make others fat? They’re not responsible for themselves? It’s my fault somehow? If only I would change my attitude, then others could start taking care of themselves?

  146. Please get off your cross, Rob. We need the lumber.

    Also, you know that trite old saying about assuming things about others? Maybe it’s time you refreshed your memory on that one.

  147. Second to Rob in Balmer – I’ve been shit poor, and junk just wasn’t an option. Beans, rice, cheap greens, frozen chicken thighs sometimes….junk is not cheaper, and eating it, you quickly learn that you both feel like shit, and are hungry an hour later.

    Nor do you need to spend ‘several hundred dollars a month” on gym membership. If you have absolutely no gym equipment, zero zip nada, you should be an absolute master at pushups and bodyweight squats, lunge walks, Bulgarian squats….For under $20, you can rig up a facsimile TRX system from stuff from the hardware store, and bang, another 20 or so exercises. Squats with a sandbag? Massive cardio/fat burning stimulus, and sand is still about $5 per 75 lb bag. A couple of pillowcases to put it in, say, 1 20-lb, 1 35 lb, duct tape ’em shut, bang, you’re set.

    When I lived in Seattle, I worked at the best-equipped gym in town (‘The Vault,’ called something else now I think), and I still did at least half my workouts at home, with nothing but a second-hand bar, some plates, and 2 cinder blocks to set the bar on for loading. I worked out in my tiny studio apartment, in a space about 4′ x 7′. Those workouts were hard as hell, and all that equipment was both cheap, and lasts forever. And fit either in the corner, or the closet.

    Geneva, a little hysterical, I think. Really, you can’t leave the house because roving bands of vigilantes will ‘cripple’ you for being fat? Really? And there’s nothing I can do you can’t? Please include your abilities at, say, pushups, single leg squats, and pullups, or if you’d prefer, squat, military press, and deadlift. That’s quite a brag you put out there, and no, not buying it. If you’re so obese random strangers single you out on the street for abuse, you’re not cranking out 500 bodyweight squats.

  149. @138 – Congrats to your Wii friend. If he’s anything like me, he tried to lose weight before, but it didn’t work. The way I did it this time was healthy, sustainable, and actually EASIER than things I had tried before. I just had to find something that worked for me. But according to your math, before, when I failed at losing weight, I was irresponsible and unwilling to be accountable for my own body. But now, since I’ve lost weight, I guess I am accountable like you. It’s funny how you can make that kind of judgement about me from the number on a scale. BTW, thanks for the head’s up that literally starving yourself to death doesn’t represent healthy eating habits. See? I looked up sarcasm. I guess you’re full of helpful advice for people you know absolutely nothing about.

  150. 127. Um, produce is fairly cheap, Ms D. So is rice when you consider one cup can make up to 3-4 servings when cooked. And when you consider how many 4 oz portions for a meal you can derive from a pack of turkey or beef or pork, meat isn’t all that expensive either.

    This isn’t hard. It’s really not.

  151. The Scapegoats are Fat this time around.
    (and pssst…. PeTA’s in on it)

    Hey progressive LGBT types and supporters, no matter how unfat you prefer your fuckables, don’t fall for this crap.

    Dan, don’t you fall for this crap, either. I’m begging you to temporarily lay off the fatty feud you have going with assorted fatties, just for now, because this sudden flurry of media fatfiller is all about Health Care Reform.

    The “Cost Of Obesity” is just another “Death Panel” scare tactic.

    America has an obesity epidemic. Or so they say. The BMI is flawed and catagorizes people as obese when they are not what most of us considers obese.

    This in itself is not important to us as individuals, we are either healthy or we’re not, we are either desirable to our partners or we are not, reasons notwithstanding.

    What is important is that the powers that be are exploiting this well documented “design flaw” in the BMI (google “BMI flawed”) in order to influence the Health Care Reform efforts.

    We know that there are no DEATH PANELS, we know the very term “death panel” is hyperbole and that even though there IS end of life counseling, no one is going to decide for granny how she gets to die. (and if anyone bothered to ask a dead person they would surely tell you the counseling helps)

    I do not doubt the results of this study, just as I do not doubt the results of studies saying overweight people live longest of all and have fewer heart problems. But the study doesn’t even matter because a lot of you have no idea what “obese” actually looks like.

    I hear people say things like: I don’t have a problem with chubby folks, I don’t get hot for chubby, but heck, chubby isn’t OBESE. But the fact is, “chubby” or a “spare tire” or “love handles” or the average “bear” IS OBESE. Thanks to the flawed BMI. Again, it’s usually of no importance to most of us… but it’s important now because it’s affecting health care reform efforts. Obesity epidemic = epidemic of people “choosing” to be “obese” (cuz fat’s a choice!) = people who don’t take personal responsibility for their health = people who will cost taxpayer money because they were selfish and gluttonous = no healthcare because we don’t want to pay for the selfish fatties.

    And I don’t know if any one posted this yet:

    a 5-foot, 5-inch adult would be considered:
    Underweight at 110 pounds or less (BMI <18.5)
    Normal weight at 111 to 149 pounds (BMI = 18.5-24.9)
    Overweight at 150 to 179 pounds (BMI = 25-29.9)
    Obese at 180 to 210 pounds (BMI = 30-34.9)
    Extremely obese at 211 pounds or more (BMI = 35 or greater)

    The Health Care industry that has been literally bleeding us to death for years has a lot to gain from demonizing “obesity”, and with the help of the flawed BMI (developed in 1850 – and I wonder what medicine said about gay people back then), coupled with the publics assumption, and even the coveted liberals make the assumption, that obese equals needing a forklift to get you out of your house so you can be cared for on Johnny Taxpayers dime in the Personal Responsibility Fail unit at the local Socialist Hospital. – well it’s the motherfucking trifecta of Public Health is Evil Propoganda. Bet on it.

  152. 150, I made no judgments about you. I don’t know you. I don’t know what methods of weight loss you’ve tried before, nor can I confirm or deny any of your claims. I spoke of medical facts and statistics on obesity in the US. Go to the CDC website. Too many Americans eat crap, and sit around too much. That is the main reason why obesity is becoming a problem in this country. I wonder why you took my comments so personally?

  153. How about a comparison of the brain mass of “obese” people to that of 1) Stranger staff, 2) Stranger readers (or commentors) and 3) the population in general?

    PS Pass the Cheese Doodles.

  154. Rob, from one physically fit guy to another, two things:

    1) Yes, staying healthy is very doable: eat healthy, put some time into your meals, and exercise. However, I also believe that systemic problems usually have systemic contributions. Americans are getting lazier and eating more crap: why is that, then? Also, the fact that more of the food in America contains more unhealthy ingredients year after year is significant, even though you and I still avoid these foods ourselves. I for one would like to expand the variety of real, healthy food available to me, rather than accept limitations on it because they’re (currently) not that devastating (to me).

    2) There are problems with food corporations beyond what they’re putting into their food. Their business practices are harmful in all sorts of ways; they’re inefficient, environmentally destructive, abusive towards their workers, they have unethical trading practices, and they severely limit the variety of crops that can be widely grown. For example, there are supposed to be somewhere around 4,000 varieties of potato; all colors, sizes, flavors, etc. But since only one or two companies have a global monopoly on potato crops, all but a few dozen (if that) varieties are pretty much phased out because variety doesn’t work well with how these companies’ operations are set up. So most farmland is devoted to growing a very limited variety of crops (not just with potatoes; with all sorts of things). That affects fresh vegetable eaters like you and me; so no, we’re not immune from the problems caused by these food corporations just because we won’t eat the frozen dinners they sell.

    These books that people are recommending to you aren’t just diet tips or rants on how corn syrup is bad for you. Even healthy people need to read up on this shit.

  155. @153 – I’m not taking them personally. I’m one of the good ones now, remember? I am now officially taking responsibility for my own actions. Because I lost weight. Yay.

  156. 155, Yes, food corporations, like all corporations, are not without their problems, but they are not why Americans are getting fatter. These companies make what people buy. If people don’t buy a product, their response to to make less, or stop making it at all. People want to eat more junk food, and sit in front of the computer, TV or video game console. Folks aren’t as active as they once were. It’s a personal choice they make. Just like it’s a personal choice for you and I to watch what we eat, and get exercise.

    Until the food corporations start sending armed agents to people’s houses, and forcing them to eat crap, the obesity problem is not their fault. As I said before, if a person is waiting for the food corporations to change their ways before he or she starts watching what they eat, and exercising, that person is going to die fat.

  157. 157: and like I asked, WHY are more Americans making the “personal choice,” all of a sudden, to be so much less active and eat so much less healthily than they did 30 or 50 years ago? That doesn’t just happen in a vacuum.

    This isn’t about finger-pointing. This is about finding larger root causes which, I assure you, do exist. People in one specific region during one specific, relatively short period of time don’t just decide all at once that they want more junk food and less exercise for no reason.

  158. 158, Mental inertia. It’s because they don’t have to do as much now. So much of our work is automated and computerized. People don’t have to get up and do stuff anymore. Why do something physical for fun when you can sit still and play video games? They get so used to not moving, that it becomes difficult for them to start doing something because they let themselves become so physically unfit. People choose the technology over activity. They choose convenience rather than nutrients. They can’t blame the technology for how they choose live their lives with it. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads forcing them to make these choices.

  159. To add: to 159, This problem has become so much true about Americans that they now claim it’s an unreasonable demand that people watch what they eat, and exercise. Somehow a person who doesn’t sit around and eat junk food all day is told they have body and food issues.

  160. @160 – You are not just a person “who doesn’t sit around and eat junk food all day”. You are a person who smugly makes assertions that you are not qualified to make. Like, for example, that all people who are overweight “sit around and eat junk food all day.” Do you not understand that that is a totally dickish thing to say to people who struggle with their weight everyday? Maybe you don’t understand it because you have food and body issues. Maybe you’re just a jerk. Maybe you can be friends with Madge from a previous thread like this one. Here’s what he/she said to me (and remember this is back when I was fat, before I became acountable for my actions): “cuz y’all r a bunch of lazy fatties who eat too much and don’t exercise.” Or maybe this guy, “dear fat people: do you eat healthy and exercise? i’d be willing to bet if you’re hanging out on a fat forum, you’re probably also nibbling on chips, twinkies, diet cokes etc. while you’re posting shit to make your fat ass feel better. get up from the keyboard, eat a carrot and run until you pass out. eat another carrot and repeat the running thing until you’re not fat anymore. you’re fat because you eat too much and don’t exercise.” Or this one, “Fat people do have issues with hogging all of the gravy. It’s really rude when you eat the spoon and then pour the entire bowl in your mouth. I wanted some of that.” Do you understand now why people are frustrated with you? Here’s a hint, it’s not because you rock the stairmaster.

  161. “Obesity changed its social distribution during the epidemiological transition in which chronic diseases replaced infectious diseases as the leading causes of death. In the past the rich were fat and the poor were thin but in developed countries these patterns are now reversed. . . . . we don’t find high rates of obesity in all modern, rich societies. ” Sweden is rich and has low rates of obesity: America is rich and has high rates of obesity. WHY? And why the class reversal in obesity?

    Obesity is NOT just a personal issue: it is tied to societal factors. “Caloric intake and exercise are only part of the story. People with a long history of stress seem to respond to food in different ways from people who are not stressed.” Quotes are from The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. Well worth reading ….

  165. Rob wrote:

    “Somehow a person who doesn’t sit around and eat junk food all day is told they have body and food issues.”

    Someone who is himself quite fit but sits around all day obsessing about how horrible fat people are certainly has issues of some sort. Please look into it.

  166. From 148 (who is such a pussy he can’t even link his thoughts to a SCREEN NAME) Geneva, a little hysterical, I think. Really, you can’t leave the house because roving bands of vigilantes will ‘cripple’ you for being fat? Really? And there’s nothing I can do you can’t? Please include your abilities at, say, pushups, single leg squats, and pullups, or if you’d prefer, squat, military press, and deadlift. That’s quite a brag you put out there, and no, not buying it. If you’re so obese random strangers single you out on the street for abuse, you’re not cranking out 500 bodyweight squats.

    —

    Last may, a fat bashing drunken redneck threw a beer bottle at me out of his car window. It hit me in the head, I fell off my bike and cracked my head on the curb. If the person following had not been paying attention, it’s entirely possible that I could have been hit (and they didn’t stop either, probably thought it was HILARIOUS). I know it was because of my weight, because the asshole yelled at me to get my fucking lard ass off the couch once in a while as he threw it.

    You’re saying I’m paranoid for not wanting to risk that a second time? Or how about the last time I dared to go swimming, which was several years ago… some asshole tried to hold me underwater to see if “whales really do breathe water”. The lifeguard on duty? He thought it was hilarious, and when I complained his response was I needed to learn to take a joke. What about when my husband and I went hiking two months ago before he lost his job and some smart ass asked him if bestiality was all it was cracked up to be and if it’s true that once you fuck pork you never go back?

    After the bottle incident, I managed to walk myself and my bike to the nearest pay phone to dial 911… at least a fifty or sixty cars passed by, I was streaming fucking blood down my face and staggering. At least four times that I recall, someone thought it was just hilarious to honk their horn at me and scream an insult… “jump fatty jump!”, “hey porker, you’re supposed to ride the bike!” are the two I remember. Nobody stopped to see if I was ok.

    But I’m just imagining society wide hatred of fat people aren’t I?

    When I got to the ER, the nurse flat out told me that if I’d just be willing to lose weight and not eat all the time, things like this wouldn’t happen. Before she went back to her burger, fries and 48oz pop. During a checkup at my PCP later, he asked me if *now* I was ready to talk about bariatric surgery. The irony of that is, even if I was… that surgery is never recommended for anyone under 400lbs. I’m not even 300. And I’m certain that the six physicians two years ago who consistently missed a diagnosis of strep throat because my throat was ‘just sore from breathing too hard because you’re fat’ would have treated a skinny person the same way. And besides, rheumatic fever is just so fun I should be thanking them for the lifelong heart damage I have from it.

    But I’m sure that there really isn’t a system wide problem in the medical industry of doctors treating fat people differently than they treat everyone else.

    As for your ability to do all those fancy exercises… yeah almost certainly you can do more repetitions of them. That doesn’t mean I can’t do any. I never said that there is nothing you can do that I can’t do *better* or *just as well*, I said there was nothing you can do that I can’t do at all. Is there anything else you can do, anything that actually serves some purpose other than stroking your own ego? What useful tasks does the ability to bounce up and down looking like a moron accomplish? So you’re “pretty”… big hairy deal, lots of people are “pretty” (or at least think they are… much like Dan, you’ve probably got an overinflated view of your attractiveness to your chosen partners). Rob and Dan alone are proof that “pretty”, socially acceptable exteriors can hide some damn ugly personalities, and here you go proving it again.

  167. The BMI hater who was on earlier is right. It’s a flawed measure. Some people who are just muscley are classed as obese because it doesn’t incorporate fitness or differentiate extra fat from extra muscle. The waist-hip ratio is a much better measure, and including some measure of fitness would be ideal. But c’mon. Does anyone seriously think that the Governator cried himself to sleep, or was teased, because he was “obese” by BMI when in fact he was just muscles? If you’re carrying around a lot of extra fat, its not a secret to you, your doc, or anyone, and it’s not healthy–the complainer noted a 5’5 person would only be obese at 180 pounds! I’m 6’3 170 for goodness sake. Is obesity your business? Sure. Should you be harrassed for it? No. But your doc wouldn’t be doing his/her job if he didn’t mention it / ask if you wanted help in a nice way.

    And yeah, it’s a social issue. There are reasons why we get fat together–as a culture, or more locally (there was a piece on friend networks in JAMA on this). Same goes for smoking–stinky, expensive, deadly–and changing the structure of culture by barring smoking at workplaces, raising taxes, funding quit help sites, providing support with doctors–we’re supposed to nag you at every visit and hospital admission–has made a difference. Same would work for obesity–we should tax junk, stop subsidizing all the corn and beef, allow insurance to reward healthy behaviors, engineer our cities to encourage activity and reduce driving and sitting, get kids moving, etc. DESPITE THAT, it is still a choice to go buy cigs and light up and smoke. People who are gaining excessive weight have a choice about how much they eat, and what calories they burn, and they can fight for their health every day (like I do, working out, eating dry salads, eliminating almost all my white carbs/ beef, converting to safer treats and diet drinks etc etc). And while they’re boo-hooing about the social stigma, this country is now about equal parts nonobese, overweight, and obese. And I can’t find 31-35 pants anywhere, unless I buy those 38-32’s at Marshalls and make a sail to drive a raft to thailand for a cheap tailor.

  169. What, ‘Geneva’ isn’t a screen name? You’re somehow less of a pussy for using that?

    I had bottles thrown at me in Seattle streets, also. They didn’t stop to give reasons. I kept biking. Good exercise, and you really don’t need a car in Seattle.

    The exercises I listed aren’t ‘fancy,’ they’re dead basic, and they cut to the heart of your complaint that gee, you WOULD exercise, but the gym’s an hour away, and you need to spend an hour there, and then an hour back…bullshit.

    As for what purposes the exercises I do serve, well, quite a few. My joints don’t hurt, my energy is high, and because I use free weights and odd objects such as sandbags, as opposed to all those fancy machines in the gym, I’m quite strong in practical, move-heavy-furniture-up-stairs ways. More than half of the American population has back pain or knee pain, and I don’t, and I’m not going to. I can play multiple sports, hard, and not get injured, and when my car got t-boned at an intersection, I walked away with no injury. It’s pretty cool.

    Don’t want to exercise? Don’t. Really, I don’t care. I suspect that your husband, or whoever will have to deal with the consequences of your increasing bad health over the years (“NO, that’s too far to walk! No, stairs hurt my knees! Oh, can’t we just stay home, I’m tired!”) may wish that you did, but it won’t affect me. Don’t kid yourself, however, that you’re a helpless pawn in this whole deal, and goshdarnit, you WOULD work out, if things were just different….

  170. @younush18 @168

    BMI has its flaws (generally fewer than its opponents would like you to think), but if we stick to the ACTUAL STUDY UNDER DEBATE (omg I know), I don’t think that mistaking extra muscle for fat was a big deal among their mean-age-77-years study population. So the argument that the findings are invalid because BMI doesn’t work for everybody falls exceedingly flat.

  171. But, doublehelix, if we stick to the actual study under debate, we would have to know enough about neuroscience to understand that this study confirms things we already believed more than it gives us new knowledge. What most people here do not understand is that this study tells us that the brain is like any other part of the body: in order not to atrophy it must be exercised. You would notice similar differences between 74 year olds who do crossword puzzles daily and those who only watch TV. No one should be surprised that obstacles that prevent people from exercising their bodies similarly impact their willingness to exercise their minds. That’s what we would get by sticking to the article. Which is not why it’s here. It’s here because Dan Savage and his readers like to point and laugh at fat people. That’s why the discussion itself has not for the most part been about the article.

  172. But that study wasn’t done and I’m not a huge fan of idle speculation (so what am I doing commenting on this blog, you may ask, and I do not know), and anyway, I don’t think such a conclusion necessarily follows. I mean, basically what you’re saying is that in general, people are fat because they’re lazy, and lazy people also don’t use their brains, and I don’t buy that. More importantly, this study doesn’t support it, either: white matter AND gray matter volume decreased as BMI increased. All parts of the brain are not created equally, and this atrophy didn’t just hit the parts involved in language and higher reasoning. Something else is going on.

    As for why Dan posted the article at all, yes, I realize. However, it’s clear that a large portion of Dan’s readers do NOT, in fact, like to point and laugh at fat people, as there is an awful lot of indignation in this thread. Dan probably enjoys having 170-comment threads more than any other reason.

  173. doublehelix:

    The crossword puzzle study has been done and, unlike this one, replicated.

    And I’m not saying that there is no physical component to the correlation. I chose my words in order to allow for the possibility of both laziness and disability. It is impossible to look seriously at science and deny the link between stress and both obesity and brain atrophy.

    Teasing is only successful if it hurtful enough to draw a serious response from the victim. Then the victim can be ridiculed not only for the initial cause, in this case obesity, but for a lack of toughness. This is how schoolyard bullies work. Dan was successful here in hurting people badly enough to make them cry, and get a crowd to join in to join him as he laughs at them for being fat crybabies.

  175. I realize the crossword study has been done, but you’re assuming the mechanisms are actually the same, and that remains to be seen. There’s certainly no indication, given all 94 people in this study were cognitively normal and equivalent (irrespective of education level), that those with a higher BMI exercised their brains less.

    However, if you happen to have a reference for said crossword study, I’ll be happy to look at whether or not there was a strong correlation in affected areas of the brain. (bearing in mind yet again that I am not a neurologist)

  177. doublehelix:

    You stated directly that the crossword puzzle had not been done. I pointed out its existence because you accused me of speculation and flatly denied the rather well known evidence I cited. not because I was offering to do research for you.

    If you had questioned its relevance, I would have agreed that all of the factors you bring up are significant. However, I would argue that it is among the most relevant factors to the actual study brought up for discussion. I would also remind you that our methods of studying brain tissue and our understanding of neural physiology are in their infancy, so it is foolish to dismiss atrophy based on disuse as the factor which is most in line with current understanding.

  178. I specifically said that it wasn’t done, i.e., that this study did not look at such factors, not that it hadn’t been done ever by anyone.

    I accused you of speculation because you stated that this study tells us that “in order not to atrophy [the brain] must be exercised”. There is nothing in this study that indicates the atrophied brains the group saw were unexercised. Citing research showing that not using your brain causes it to atrophy and then extrapolating to say that these atrophied brains must ALSO therefore be due to lack of use is not supported by the data in this study. There are many KNOWN mechanisms for neural tissue atrophy besides disuse. I can provide you with a list and references, if you like.

    Sorry, I just assumed that since you were citing the study and its follow-ups, you might happen to know the year, author or even journal that the study was in. I’m happy to skim a couple articles; I don’t have time to sift through PubMed for them, so there’s no need to act like I asked you to do a homework assignment for me.

  180. I never intended to indicate that neural disuse MUST be the cause here. Rather, I stated my educated layman’s understanding that it is likely to be the MOST significant factor here. If you could point me to something that would indicate that neural disuse is not currently believed to be the most significant cause of neural atrophy in healthy adults (and by healthy I mean unimpaired by factors directly impacting brain function, not BMI) that would be of interest. Otherwise, I think I have just communicated so poorly that you think I am saying I think all neural atrophy is cause by disuse. Of course it is not.

  181. Which brings us back to the whole problem with articles based on studies like this in the first place, I think. If indeed that is what conclusion most people come to, it should be the obligation of these reporters to make clear what the researchers are NOT saying. In this case, they’re not saying that fat people are stupid.

    …not that I ever think reporters will DO that, but that was my intention in going to the source, to try and reassure the reactionaries that while the data are interesting for a number of reasons, nobody’s jumping to any conclusions.

  182. This just in, I did a very enjoyable workout, and ate a reasonable dinner. Haven’t gained a pound. Sorry about all your weight related baggage. It’s not my fault.

    I guess I must be some sort of supper human being. Maybe, I should think that I can eat like Paula Deen, (or Jimmy Dean since Paula Deen cooking would require effort) have the activity level of Stephen Hawkins, and just take a pill, to look like Megan Fox.

    Oh no. People who work hard at maintaining their physical health and body actually achieve better health and physique. The nerve!!!

  183. Whatever its implication, we agree that this study in no way indicates that fat people are stupid or lazy. I think my initial message gave you the idea that I believe that to be a reasonable conclusion to draw from this data. Again, that is the result of my bad writing.

    Anyway, the only place I am now aware that I disagree with you concerning this less than burning issue is that you seem to find the study more interesting and more significant than I do. Again, I am a layman with a little knowledge, but these are pretty much the results I would have expected. I don’t mean to indicate my opinion is more educated or valid than your own, and I don’t think this is actually that much of a disagreement.

  184. Rob,

    It is very nice that you have good health habits and I commend you for them. Your need to antagnize fat people over the Internet indicates to me that your mental health may not be on a par with your physical health. I can think of no reason why a healthy adult would spend his day playing, “Let’s pick on fatty!” Really, you need to give your mental fitness the same attention you give your physical fitness. I think tomorrow I shall follow my advice.

  186. This just in… I had another hamburger today. I am a few dozen hamburgers from obesity :P… probably more after hopping off the bus and walking 3/4 mile uphill to my home.

  187. Rob in Baltimore and Gomez,

    Your both are reminding me of Loveschild, and it isn’t a compliment. Do you really need to be reminded that people deserve grace, and that it is never okay to pass judgement, or presume about others? It’s great that you both have found plans that work for you, and I mean that more sincerely. Unfortunately, any good you had to offer has been silenced by your pride and judgemental attitude. Now, knock it off the both of you, you are both better people than this. You want grace and acceptance from others, than both of you start offering it. Please.

  188. 159, 160: So then why are people so much thinner in Western Europe? Is Western Europe less technologically advanced? What about its correlation along class lines? Do poor people possess more advanced technology than rich people?

    The advance of technology has something to do with people getting more sedentary (and therefore obese), yes. But it’s not the common denominator; it’s not a smoking gun. I think that Europe, for example, has urban areas that are more conducive to walking and biking rather than driving everywhere. They also have much better regulatory organizations for their food, and better nutrition education. They don’t overwork people quite as much, making prepared crap look more tempting. In other words, preventing obesity at the societal level is complex and you have to take many factors (not just “personal responsibility” mantras) into account. Talking about how you, personally, always make time to cook a decent meal no matter how busy you are may be great for a pep-talk to an overweight friend, but isn’t a good model for public health policy.

    I’m proud of the care I take of my body as well. But with me, that doesn’t translate into a need to view this as the one and only thing that can save people from obesity. I’m not interested in convincing people that a lack of my virtues is what’s causing problem X. I’m interested in finding out what the cause of problem X actually is.

    While there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that overeating and laziness lead to obesity in an individual (that’s obvious), there is no evidence to suggest that the trends of obesity are due to people just plain bein’ lazy ol’ slobs all of a sudden, for no reason. When very large numbers of people, in a very specific place, along specific class lines, during a specific time period, live a life that is conducive to obesity, there are going to be larger factors guiding that very specific pattern. The problem doesn’t just stop at the lifestyle itself; it’s not that simple.

    You’re saying that if more people exercised and ate healthily, fewer people would be obese. I agree. The only difference is that I’m going a bit further to say that if nutrition education, urban infrastructure, and food regulation were improved, more people would exercise and eat healthily.

    Sure, the added ease of healthy eating and exercise would mean that they can’t be as proud of their healthy lifestyles as you and I are of ours, but oh well. And sure, in an ideal world it shouldn’t take so much restructuring and educating and regulating to get millions of people to eat right and exercise, but oh well. Whatever works.

  189. I’d like to issue an apology. I’m so sorry that I insinuated that people’s weight and fitness were in anyway their own responsibility. Clearly it’s the food corporations’ and government’s job to make sure people eat right, and get exercise. It’s not like you can walk into any school, library, hospital, clinic, doctor, or welfare office and find this information. Okay, I mean, the information is there, but do you really expect people to WALK and READ it…for THEMSELVES!?! Then they actually have to heed the advice!?!

    I know, I know, some people are just superhuman that they can see an ad for Giant Cheetos, and not rush out and eat them. It’s obviously Frito-Lay’s fault. Surely we need to regulate the food companies. What kind of monster would expect people to regulate themselves!?!

    As for exercise, there’s just not enough that there are sidewalks and parks. We need the government to attach Giant Cheetos on the end of sticks and put the sticks on people’s heads to get them out there. They should have a law that forces all TVs, computers, and video game consoles to go dark for 3 hours everyday so that people can break the the hold of the Jon & Kate plus 8 marathons, web-blog, and home game. It’s not like people can just turn these things off themselves!

    So in conclusion, if you are overweight or obese, just continue what you are doing. Any day now the corporations will see the error of their ways, and the government will send someone to your house to teach you how to eat and exercise. It’s in no way your fault or responsibility. The world needs to change, not you.

  190. Rob in Baltimore:

    You are a well educated and very intelligent person. I respect you because of the comments you usually post: you do not sound like yourself on this thread. Please do me a favor: look at the website I posted earlier and read some of the linked papers and evidence that obesity is not simply and only a personal issue. Or skim the book I recommended or one of the others mentioned. Think of it this way: this stuff is written by people with doctorates in epedemiology and the social determinants of health – they might have a valid point or two. And if you are able to prove ’em wrong you’ll be famous!

  191. Rob-my obese roommate walks a minimum of 6 miles a day often doing 20 a day on the weekends. He eats a reasonable amount of food that’s not crap and visits the gm 3 nights a week. His weight loss has been almost non-existent this year, after he lost 100# the year before. I just don’t understand how your public vitriol will help anyone become more motivated to live a healthier lifestyle.
    I mean, shaming and public humiliation have worked so well in the past at getting the undesirable to change their ways. Fat people know they are fat. Loosing significant amounts of weight can be very difficult and take a long time. The last thing they need is a smug pretentious jerkwad telling them they’re stupid, weak willed and lazy based on one easily noticed aspect. If only 1% of the overweight people you revile have a medical condition that caused that weight gain, can you tell who they just by looking, and do they “deserve” the scorn you’re all so ready to heap upon them?
    It’s not about who’s responsible-it’s about your readiness to stoop to name calling and puerile insults. Why not say-hey, I bet it’s hard dealing with that weight. You can still be smug about your own life.

  193. Rob:

    It is the job of the CDC and the WHO to track health data and promote good heath. That is why they are so obsessed.

    It does not answer why someone who is not malignantly obsessed with fat people and generally hateful would spend as much time as you have trying to hurt people just because they are fat and because you find what they write after you hurt them fun to laugh at.

    Do you act like this with grown ups in real life?

  195. @Stace

    The researchers expected these results, too…you can tell based on the statistical tests they did. But their reasoning was different, and wasn’t a “common sense” sort of deduction…they expected to see atrophy because they already knew that type II diabetes and obesity were risk factors for Alzheimer’s. What I thought was interesting was that this atrophy occurred in patients that never developed dementia or Alzheimer’s. Whether “crossword-related” atrophy and obesity-related atrophy are connected remains to be seen, and to my knowledge data are not out there to support the hypothesis that the mechanism is the same.

  196. If that’s what you meant by, “but that study wasn’t done” I think my confusion is understandable. I would not have argued with what you write here at any point. I would have seen it as a continuation of the discussion rather than an attempt to be dismissive.

  198. 192. Video or it didn’t happen. The ‘my fat friend actually walks a dozen miles a day, does four dozen hindu squats inbetween sprints around the track, and eats nothing but raw tofu and vegetables’ comeback seems to be the fib du jour in obesity discussions these days. One long IRL look at the average morbidly overweight person’s lifestyle, their ACTUAL activity, lifestyle and eating habits, easily illustrates who that person got to where they were. A lot of people make these claims and they don’t at all reflect reality.

    I would know: My overweight mother does it all the time, talking about how she eats well and tries to be active blah blah blah and she’s still overweight, but seeing her on a day to day basis when I visit, it’s clear she’s actually quite inactive, her eating habits are quite irregular and a lot of the food she eats is processed, lacking in nutrition and/or fattening. And aside from her on-her-feet full time job, she doesn’t do enough exercise. And a lot of her fellow overweight peers make the same claims, and live the same reality that shows thaeir claims are not the case.

    188. Kim, as with anyone else who makes the requisite, “You’re being judgment” attack, do you realize that, by making that statement, you yourself are being judgmental and making presumptions about others? It’s a pointless projection of insecure butthurt.

  200. What Gomez said. I’ve been a trainer 20 years, doing intakes all that time, and people make outrageous claims as to how active they are, how much they lift, what they eat…the first 2 being immediately revealed during an intro workout. I’ve had guys tell me straight-faced that they have 32″ waists, with a pendulous gut hanging over the tightly cinched-in waistline (bet that hurts). And I repeat – if you’re so fat that random stranger attack you on the street for your fatness, then yeah, I strongly doubt your fitness.
    I’ve seen and worked with all body types, including heavy fit guys/guys doing strongman training, and they have a very different look than just fat and out of shape.

    But again, your deal. I don’t make comments, throw bottles, or yell taunts, and I would hire a morbidly obese person no problem if they had the skills I need for a certain situation. I just wanted to call bullshit on the ‘only the affluent, or those with tons of free time can exercise’ myth. Home gym consisting of free weights, bang, you’re set. Good instruction = ‘New Rules of Lifting for Women/Men’ (2 different books). I work with a lot of seniors or people who’d become resigned to living with pain and fatigue, finding out that they didn’t was a pleasant surprise. Anyone doesn’t want to? Feel free.

  201. And I’ll add I don’t feel good at all about referencing my mother. I love her, but she’s been battling her weight for over two decades now, and while she’s made improvements in her approach, she’s still way off where she needs to be to burn it off. It’s an IRL example I felt needed to get brought up, though, in case anyone still thinks I’m talking out of my ass about this subject.

  202. But you have no problem, you know, making other people’s mom’s cry. Or can you read your comments on this thread and imagine that you have not done so?

  203. Gomez-
    I often walk home with him-starting in The Loop in Chicago and ending up in Evanston. Even at a good clip it takes several hours. Why think I’m lying just because your mother misrepresents her daily activity when talking to you? After all, I’m not asking you to prove your fitness level.
    Rob-
    I’m not disputing the data on the health problems relating to obesity, or why weighing less is a good idea for most of America. I’m glad that large science-based organizations are looking into the problem. (Although those same organizations have made bad correlations in the past, such as being homosexual meant that you were crazy) I’m just tired of smug people claiming it’s merely a failure of will that keeps fat people fat. Many of those people ore young men who lost a modest amount of weight in their twenties by increasing their exercise levels. By the time you’re forty that doesn’t work as well. If there are any other non-weight related medical problems involved they will also make weight loss harder. Taking anti-depressants for example, which often have weight gain as a side effect.
    The statement “The obese are morally weak failures who have no-one and nothing but themselves to blame for their disgusting state” is not a good way to help fat people loose weight. It is also not true.
    Can a problem as widespread as this one not be seen as even a little bit complex? Difficult to handle? Hard to live with? Can your perfection not manage a smidgen of compassion for people facing prejudice and harassment in their daily lives? Because if you can’t, then pretentious jerkwad is only a polite way of describing your behavior here.

  205. @198 – Very informative. If only fat people could find the willpower to put down those nachos and watch that 3 minute video, everyone would be skinny, because they obviously have never looked into possible ways or made any effort to lose weight. They just wait there for someone else to make them thin.

    Let’s try this:

    “A healthy diet and excercise help promote weight loss” != “You can tell just by looking. If someone is fat, they eat shit all day and never get off the couch”

    “One makes a genuine effort to make changes in his life to lose weight” != “One is in shape”

    “You are being a smug dick” != “Fat people are helpless victims who take no responsibility for their actions”

    Ok, this is the part where instead of going, “You know, I can see how it’s irritating when I tell people who struggle with their weight that they are video-game addicted, fast food inhaling shut-ins with persecution complexes. Sorry ’bout that.” you say, “Poor me. Why is everyone attacking me for saying that excercise and eating well are good things? Here I am being kind, empathetic, and helpful but people, for absolutely no reason, tell me I’m being an asshole. Must be their brain shrinkage from being fat.”

  206. Post #190, Translated:

    “Things must only be as complex as I can comprehend. Since personal behavior is the only factor of societal patterns that is simple enough for me to comprehend, I’m going to insist that it’s the ONLY factor. After all, if I’m not smart enough to understand it, it doesn’t exist.”

    You go ahead and think that. It works for the climate change deniers and creationists, after all. You sound like those people who talk about what a ridiculous myth climate change must be every time there’s a cold day during winter. When you start getting all shrill and douchey and touting off bitchy little strawman arguments, you know you don’t have a valid argument. Since you’ve apparently reverted back to your 11-year-old self, I’m done here.

  207. Gomez,

    I’m not insecure at all, I feel no need to defend myself or prove anything about myself. You chose to write some of your comments with a tone that lacks any evidence of humility, and I’m not the only one who called you on it. You have authority on your own story, what works for you, and insight into your own family, but that doesn’t make you an authority on any other person. It makes you an authority on the subject of yourself. That’s all. That’s not to say that your comments don’t have merit, but you shouldn’t pride yourself that you wrote them all with a tone of humility and kindness. You, of course, are free to ignore my observations and opinions in regard to what I see as a deviation from your usual respectful manner.

    Have a good day.

  208. 204, See you are the one injecting morality into the conversation. You are imaging I am saying things that I’m just not saying. No where did I say fat people were immoral. Yes there are valid medical reason for a very small percentage of people to be heavy, but this is not true for most. The facts are people have developed poor eating habits, and do less physical activity than ever before.

    In the last couple of decades, technology has changed the way people live. In the 70’s virtually nobody had a computer in their house. Home video games were fun for about 10 minutes because they played one game, Pong. Most people got 4 or 5 TV channels. Home Microwaves were just taking off.

    Now there are so many diversions that keep people sitting still, and reaching for the quick and easy things to eat. It’s bad habits, not a moral issue.

    No matter what your age, if you eat more calories than you use, you will gain weight, and if you eat less calories than you use you will lose weight. Eating less junk results in less caloric intake. Exercising results in more calories burned. That is not a debatable theory. It’s proven scientific fact.

    As for the sexual orientation vs. eating/exercising habits. That’s a straw man argument/ apples to oranges comparison. The average person can choose to exercise or not. He or she can choose to eat junk food or not. A person cannot choose to change his or her sexual orientation. People don’t wake up and say I think I’ll be gay today.

    In case you missed it: http://www.cdc.gov/CDCtv/FindingBalance/

  210. Thanks for the huge shift in tone, Rob. If you keep it like this, your malignant obsession with other people’s fatty deposits seems at least less creepy.

    You seem not to be aware that many people are overweight in part because of laziness but also because of factors such as physical disability or mental illness. Someone whose obesity is caused in part by limited mobility cannot decide that tomorrow exercising will be as effortless for her as it for you. I share your frustration with fat people who take no responsibility for how their own choices and actions have helped to make them fat.

    What I dispute is that someone who is neither mentally unhealthy not simply cruel would behave as you have in this thread.

  211. 211, Exactly how have I been cruel? Stating facts and statistics? Telling people to take responsibility for themselves? The vast majority of overweight people can do something about it.

    If you’re heavy and happy with that fine. If you are unhappy, it’s within your power to change. One thing is for sure, if you go around saying “I’m fat, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”, then nothing will happen.

  212. 204. BakerB, again taking you and your buddy at your word is highly suspect since all of your offered details are vague, and given many, many overweight people claim they do everything right to lose weight… and then it turns out they don’t.

    208. Kim in Portland, the point is that, by attacking people for being judgmental, you yourself are being judgmental. Whether or not you’re secure in making your ironic statement is tangential to the point at best.

  213. What purpose do your comments have then, Rob, if not to be cruel? If you intend to encourage healthy change, do you think your attitude is an effective one to project?

    Again, you just want to poke the fat people until you can get an entertaining rise out of them. This is disgusting, juvenile behavior that Dan Savage should stop encouraging and facilitating.

  214. Gomez:

    You do realize that you are making exactly the argument made by fundamentalists who oppose equality for gay people then object to being called bigots. “You’re being intolerant by not tolerating me!!!”

    No.

    You are being purposely unkind. For your amusement. That is a fact, not a judgment.

  218. I have stated it directly: you’ve spent hours over the last few days needling fat people, behavior which indicates that you have a serious mental problem of some sort or other. If not to hurt the feelings of people like Geneva then laugh at their reactions, what is your purpose?

    You know you have been been acting like a third grade bully. If there were any other excuse for your behavior you would have offered it by now.

  220. Rob:

    Once again: have you looked at any of the evidence offered by Matt, Bonefish, or myself on the causes of obesity at a macro level? In my opinion, the social determinants of health (including obesity) are really interesting and worth adding to one’s mental map of the world.

    Oh – your post at # 190: sounds as if you are needling fat people….at least that is my perception.

    Take care and have a good day,

  221. Rob,

    Thanks for so completely admitting defeat. We agree– there is no way to justify your behavior, so trying to needle me into providing some method for you to attack is your only out. Other than acting like a grown up and admitting that you’re being a jerk.

    I’m not playing, thanks.

  223. And, yes, every time you do that you do look even more desperate, crazy, and pathetic.

    Ha, ha, Look at little Robby. Can’t find a way to explain his actions and isn’t brave enough to admit he is being mean.

  225. 215. Oh good, you’re playing the ‘fundamentalist [whatever I don’t agree with]’ card. And by ‘good’ I mean ‘wow you have trolled the shit out of this thread’.

  226. Yes, I have trolled the shit out of this thread, something I am willing to take responsibility for.

    Please note that, like Rob, you are unable to come with any defense for your bad behavior and are trying to shift the focus onto me. You are not able to refute my point, so you focus on my metaphor. That you are unable to indicate any way that the metaphor does not fit your behavior pretty much proves its aptness.

  228. Well, Rob, asking for your backing was the wrong tactic. I forget that Baltimore is a totally different beast from DC (like my one co-worker whose house is 3x the size of mine but was cheaper, A LOT cheaper). Yes, I can agree with the poor people have given up idea to some extent. That was actually one of the challenges I encountered with some people when I approached them about the gardening co-op. I’m glad to have convinced some of them that it was worth the work…and hopefully more next year as we are having our end of the season neighborhood cookout/block party this weekend, and hopefully they’ll see how awesome the food and experience was. The fact remains that there are few people who are working against that, as well as the pricing problems that limit their food choices.

    But growing up poor versus being poor now are different things entirely. I did not grow up poor, but due to certain factors I am not going to get into here, experienced poverty first-hand while a young adult. Fortunately I was living in an inexpensive rural area at the time, so I could still hit up the roadside stand for cheap, fresh food. Also, I grew up in a very depression-era household and neighborhood, where it didn’t matter that we had money, we still grew our own veggies and herbs, as a matter of tradition, which many people have not been exposed to. As I stated in later posts, in most of the U.S., poor people are not hurting for access to good food. I DO agree that MANY poor people can actually afford good food. But SOME poor people (especially the urban poor) cannot. In earlier postings, I posted exact comparisons between healthy and unhealthy versions of food in terms of price, at my local grocery store, which serves both a well-to-do area and a developing fringe area. Not only do they NOT carry certain healthy items (the manager point blank stated to me that they WOULD NOT carry plain non-fat yogurt because they couldn’t move enough of it to make it worth their while), but the healthy options are 50-100% more expensive in many cases. When you’re stretching every dollar, the difference between $1.00 for a box of crappy white pasta or >$2.00 for a box of whole-wheat pasta or a pound of tomatoes means something. Sure, information showing that the whole wheat pasta or tomatoes will be more filling and, realistically, a better deal is readily available in libraries and whatnot, but are these people really exposed to that education? And even if it’s available, can they understand it (try, for a moment, to imagine reading educational nutritional articles/books/etc. with only a high-school education or less)? And also, try putting a healthy meal on the table when you’ve got 4 adults over 2 generations living in the same house who are all working 2 jobs just to get by. I, for one, did not have any nutrition information in my basic education (elementary and high school, again, in better-off-than-poor-urban-areas suburbs). That was multiplied by having my cafeteria serve me chicken nuggets and grilled cheese (on white bread with oil-based cheese food product) and fries and install soda machines for the revenue. Could I buy healthy food on less? Probably. The politicians who attempted to live on food stamps did buy healthier stuff than the average food-stamp recipient, but they have lived a life where having fresh fruit and veggies and healthy stuff is the norm. Even with only 1 job and a maid, I still have moments where I don’t have time to pack my own lunch. I can’t imagine trying to do that with 2 jobs and kids and a house full of people who are struggling just to get by.

    And Gomez, I disagree that the healthier options are always available and affordable. I have stated in earlier posts that ground turkey, for example, is several times more expensive than ground beef, and boneless skinless chicken breast is a whole lot more expensive than skin-on wings or chicken leg quarters. Considering that beef has WAY more fat than turkey, and the skin of the chicken is where all the fat is at, that means something. Sure, lentils are only slightly more expensive than white pasta (definitely within reason for even a poor family). Fine, I’ll grant that, it’s true. But do they know that lentils are healthier for them? Given that gaining a pound only takes 3500 calories, and the difference in calories between something like a filling serving of white pasta and a filling serving of lentils is HUGE, it’s not hard to gain A LOT of pounds eating white pasta in lieu of lentils (I don’t have any white pasta in the house, but the whole wheat pasta has 210 calories per serving and the lentils have 70…140 calories x 7 days a week = 980 calories/week x 52 weeks a year = 50,960 calories a year = 14.6 lbs a year). As I have stated over and over again (and also here), MANY if not MOST obese people in the U.S. have no one to blame but themselves. They eat crap and don’t exercise and, sorry, but they should know better. But A LOT of obese people are that way because of little choices, often driven by economics, that add up to A LOT of weight gained. I DISMISS the fat-acceptance movement by people who know better and can afford to change. Not that they don’t have the right to be fat if they know it’s their fault and don’t care. Fine, whatever, except for the health costs. But I dismiss those who say that’s just the way they are, when they’re clearly doing it wrong. And also, I desperately want to help those who are victims of their circumstances. Helping them, by lowering prices for healthy food, *might* also have an impact on the more well-to-do, as LOTS of people focus on the cost of their food, not only poor people, and changing the economics of that might move things in the right direction. Ending things like corn subsidies is a low-cost, non-invasive way to do this. Encouraging gardening, credits for those on food stamps at farmer’s markets, and, instead of just doing away with subsidies, moving them to food that is actually good for us, are also solid, low-cost options.

    And my other point, over and over again, is that there’s a lot of ground between being on the high end of normal or slightly overweight due to your natural body state and being morbidly obese, even due to small choices like pasta over lentils or chips over green beans. Our country is way out of whack on this front, but some people are just going to be large/pudgy. While I encounter plenty of people who look at me and give compliments or think my body is desirable (try to apply the whole controversy over Nadia Lutkin/Shawn Johnson in the Olympics last year to a normal person…I’m just as healthy and in-shape as someone much thinner, but I have LOTS of muscle that makes me look bigger…if I was willing to reveal myself to random strangers on the internet, I’d post a pic of my friend and I, who are the same size and height, but I weigh 10 lbs more than her, and also she has a gut and a pudgy face and couldn’t run a mile without dying, and I just look solid (and could run a mile, but hate running), which is what those people who compliment me notice), I also encounter a number of people who think otherwise. There was an infamous statement on a website in DC a number of years ago that said anyone who was bigger than a size 4 (a few years ago, and made by someone who probably only wears high-end designer clothes, so that’s a pretty small size) was fooling themselves if they thought they were really trying to keep their weight in check. There was also some conversation in my dance class this spring about “looking” like a “proper dancer” for our charity performance, which was clearly directed at me, because I’m not rail-thin like most of the women in that class (but, phooey on them, I’m the only one who moved up a level this year). It’s those people I want to kick in the teeth, not people who say that if you’re morbidly obese you’re likely fooling yourself if you think that you’re trying to maintain a healthy body. Every morning in the cafeteria I run into this woman who is, like, 3 of me, hauling her ass around in a scooter. I get my unsweetened iced tea and walk back up to my 5th floor office, and she gets coffee with a number of sugars and a few donuts and scooters to the elevator and then back to her office. It’s totally her fault, I’m not denying that.

  230. I’ve rec’d some blistering notes after my last comment, and feel I should clarify! I am by no means an authority on neural (?) development, and (upon re-reading my comment) can understand how this might’ve been misunderstood. I should make a habit of preceding all comments with, “IMHO.”

    The humble opinion of which I speak is based upon my own, personal experience. While I am not someone who has struggled with weight issues, I have had other compulsions that have cost me, well, a lot, and I continue to learn about them today. One thing that I have been told by professionals — one thing that has seemed to make sense to me as I work through my bullshit — is that, when I experience successes in my self-discipline, I effectively build new neural paths. Relaxing that discipline results in atrophy. An over-simplification? Yes, I’m sure, but it serves me well enough.

  231. “Bad behavior”, Stace? You’re not even making sense anymore. Carry on, though as long as you do so with these fallacious attacks instead of having an actual discussion, this discussion is basically over.

  234. Gomez,

    I stated the truth: your only purpose in participating in this thread has been to be cruel. If not, what was your purpose?

    samiant:

    I don’t need sympathy, thanks. I just think when people are celebrating their assholism its appropriate to point out what they are doing.

    That makes you uncomfortable, so you mock me.

    Does making fun of other people make you feel better about yourself?

  236. No, Stace, my purpose of participating in this thread is to shed some light on things people may not have considered (or refuse to consider) with the subject matter. You, meanwhile, are clearly here to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with your worldview. Who’s being more productive in this discussion?

  237. To everyone who has posted in this thread to give external (outside of themselves) reasons for why they are fat/obese:

    I feel sympathy for you, and I don’t mean that in a snide, sarcastic way. As an adult woman who was sexually abused as a child, I know what it is like to have your life negatively impacted in a huge way because of forces outside of yourself, forces that you have no control over.

    But you have a choice here. You can choose to live a life you don’t want because other people have pushed you into it. Or you can choose to overcome those people.

    I didn’t have any control over being abused. I didn’t have control over the councilors who thought I should be able to have a relationship with my father by stopping him from abusing me (aka, by having me be the “adult in the relationship”). I didn’t have control over the teachers who didn’t care if I was having problems because I had been abused. I controlled none of those things, and if I had killed myself at 19 because the suffering had been too much, I would have been able to justify my suicide as a result of mental illness due to childhood abuse. I could have been right and dead.

    You also have this choice. If you want, you can live a life that you have described as terrible (poor physical health, shorted lifespan, people mocking you, people assaulting you, people limiting your options, etc) and you can justifiably blame it all on these other people. You can go on about how terrible this is, how unfair it is, and you can be 100% right. Or you can do what I did, and you can do whatever it takes to make your life what you want it to be. The second choice isn’t easy. I know. In my effort to make my life what I wanted, I had to endure flunking out of school, moving home to a town I hated, checking into a mental hospital, taking various types of medication (some of which made me quite ill), spending days unable to get out of bed, lasting through periods of not knowing if I would ever get better, and in general spent a lot of time suffering. It took me about 5 years to get to a state where I was generally happy, and even now I have days where I can barely breathe from the pain. However, I don’t regret my decision to be healthy and happy rather than to be justifiably miserable. Eventually, I returned to school and got my degree. I moved across country. I’m not in a mental hospital. I’m taking fewer meds, and none of them make me sick. I’m as healthy as I’ve ever been, and happier than I could have imagined. Your road may be just as hard, or harder, but I believe that I am no stronger, smarter, or better than you. I believe you can do what I did.

    So, you have a choice. You can continue to live the life you are living now (a life that seems terribly miserable to me, if you are going through some of what people have mentioned in this thread) or you can change it, even though your unhappiness isn’t your fault. Because let me tell you, the people who are making you unhappy aren’t the one who will pay the price if you can’t overcome them.

    Now, none of this applies to you if you are happy and fat. If you are fat through your own free choices, then that’s fine. There is no reason to chide you. It is your life, and you should live it in the manner that you find most satisfying, regardless of what anyone else says. But if you are fat because other people are doing bad things to you, I beg you to not let them destroy your life, no matter how justified you are in your assertions that it isn’t your fault. It is no victory to be miserable and powerless. Please, pull your life free of their hands and take it into your own.

  238. Gomez:

    There was no productive point to this discussion. The article was posted here because Dan Savage likes making fun of fat people. No positive intent can be read from the snarky “No comment” place the thread began. In fact, you began your participation by making excuses for him, didn’t you?

    I’ll take you for your word that your intent was positive. May I suggest that adopting a more positive tone toward the obese would be more likely to result in shedding the light you desire? Most people, like you have with me, shut down and become defensive when their view of the world is threatened. It is hard to believe that you so naive about communication, but there it is.

  239. Hey Rob and Gomez: good for both of you with your respective weight control programs. Now can you please, please, please, do something about your receding hairlines? Because, you know, if you weren’t so incredibly lazy you’d just get off the couch and enroll yourselves in Hair Club For Men. You’re only near-bald because you make excuses for yourselves.

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