Big & Beautiful Thread of Sizeisms

[Cryptoplasty]

The time these people spend writing and reading these terrible blogs could instead be spent giving themselves the luxury of thin privilege. The average blog takes what.....20-30 minutes to write? Add to that the READING of the blogs, and you have yourself an hour of getting up from where your sitting and getting active. The internet is an enabler.

[riley-o]

I don't disagree that thin people have it better or even that they have it a lot better. But like Crypto touched on, most of us do work to not be fat pigs. No one is required to do that work and no one is required to be thin, but for the vast, vast majority of people, a choice between hard work and healthy diet, vs not those things, is being made, and there are consequences for that choice. Physical, health, societal, and emotional consequences. Is that fair ? Well, it's hard to argue that your body's response to your diet and lifestyle are unfair. The societal consequences might seem unfair, but at the same time you can't really argue for people to be attracted to you, which seems to be a common end-point for a lot of fat-acceptance women. Or to have fat bodies celebrated, when it's inarguably less healthy for most people.

[The Bill]

Thin privilege?? They must think Africa is over running with prima donnas.

[spacehamster]

Honestly, I think the biggest problem is that these people have convinced each other that it's not their fault they're fat and there's nothing they can do about it. Once you accept that, all the other bullshit follows logically. It's another one of those internet hive mind things that we talked about in the fedora thread, where ridiculous ideas suddenly gain traction with some people because they can find enough others that agree with them.

[Raw Ting]

I would love to see a study of people with slow metabolism/thyroid etc. Issues where the subjects eat unprocessed foods at a calorie deficit and work out 30 min. 3-4 times a week for 3 months....

[Zap Rowsdower]

Is there reputable science out there that gives a ballpark percentage about how many people actually have something glandular or fucked-up metabolism-related that would make it harder than the simple "calories in, calories out" equation? I read these articles and follow up comments and it seems that many, many people insist that for the vast majority of fat people, weight loss simply can not be done.

The problem isn't an overactive/underactive thyroid. It's just cookies are delicious.

[Necrometer]

there's that research about the liver virus (?) that helps you be fat, but even that's not a full-on determinant (lots of are obese without it and non-obese with it)

[Zap Rowsdower]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Size'd

[Black Jacques]

Can you give me the Reader's Digest plz

[a world of no]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

sloot

[Raw Ting]

I wonder if the guy got arrested?

[Broken Into Pieces]

lost it at "I wanted to give you time to get back from your second lunch"

[FVBTVS]

why dont you save your sisters life too?

[takeasneededforpain]

Is there reputable science out there that gives a ballpark percentage about how many people actually have something glandular or fucked-up metabolism-related that would make it harder than the simple "calories in, calories out" equation? I read these articles and follow up comments and it seems that many, many people insist that for the vast majority of fat people, weight loss simply can not be done.

As I understand it, it's something like 3% of obese individuals are obese due to thyroid issues or the like. The rest are fat by poor diet / lack of exercise.

I'll see if I can track that information down...

This is unrelated to the legitimate biological causes of obesity... but the studies linked and referenced in the 5 sections provide MORE than enough backing science to make the statement that they're fat because of their CHOICES...

http://www.gnolls.org/3484/can-you-real ... a-calorie/

[Raw Ting]

An extremely vocal 3%

[Zap Rowsdower]

Oh so I see they're claiming the lack of personal accountability isn't real and their problems are the result of the plot of "The Happening," but instead of suicide it's an invisible wave of fat.

[Geeheeb]

This is not the first time I've heard this rat study cited. I'm still missing the connection here. Because rats are getting fatter in some studies and people don't know why then it's not people's diets that make them fat. Ok.

It looks environmental to me, especially based on the multigenerational effects of environment on obesity outlined in that article. Mice didn't evolve in cages, and humans didn't evolve eating industrial foods.

[Zap Rowsdower]

Study: Americans Enjoy Watching TV, Eating

WASHINGTON—According to a new study published Monday by the Pew Research Center, Americans enjoy watching television and eating. “Our research indicates that residents of the United States take great pleasure in watching television, often for many hours at once, and enjoy eating food in large quantities, preferably several or more times per day,” lead author Dr. Richard Cowell said of the study, which follows an earlier report that concluded the nation greatly prefers sitting to standing. “Our findings also suggest Americans enjoy watching television and eating at the same time.” According to the study, Americans do not enjoy being hungry or having no TV.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/study- ... ing,33630/

[takeasneededforpain]

This is not the first time I've heard this rat study cited. I'm still missing the connection here. Because rats are getting fatter in some studies and people don't know why then it's not people's diets that make them fat. Ok.

It looks environmental to me, especially based on the multigenerational effects of environment on obesity outlined in that article. Mice didn't evolve in cages, and humans didn't evolve eating industrial foods.

Bingo. And "industrial foods" is sort of a misnomer. It should be "pasteurized processed food-like product".

They also test the effect of exogeneous cholesterol ingestion on rabbits. Essentially, they feed animals with next to no capacity for digesting meat and cholesterol products excess cholesterol and then arrive at the rather obvious conclusion that it increases their serum cholesterol.

There are lots of other studies done in which the parameters are either poorly defined (what constitutes a high-fat or high-carb diet? I several studies I've seen, they've defined them as one or the other with only a 15% difference in macronutrient ratios) or they use industrial food products in the high-fat, and (what would pass for) raw vegan in the high-carb, and pass the data off as "authoritative".

It's MADDENING when you read the methodology, and realize it's literally garbage in, garbage out. Their input data is less than worthless, so the conclusion is even less valid than that (half of less than worthless?).

[Zap Rowsdower]

Chuck Klosterman

I just had to look this guy up and it turns out he's been doing an advice column for NYT? I want to play chicken with all this horseshit, scoring points every time I find a deep contradiction like "An Illegal Marriage That Benefits Society? It’s a loveless transaction. Unless it isn’t."

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/ ... index.html

Chuck Klosterman Corners Guy At Party Wearing Dio Shirt

NEW YORK—Author Chuck Klosterman reportedly cornered a guy who was wearing a Dio shirt at a party Thursday evening and dominated an exhaustive discussion on the metal band, addressing the group’s fantasy themes, deconstructing lyrics, and expounding a variety of related and semi-related topics.

According to several eyewitness accounts, Klosterman encountered the party guest in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the Dio logo at approximately 9:30 p.m., walked directly over to the man, and immediately launched into a treatise on how the band’s 1983 debut release Holy Diver represented the purest manifestation of heavy metal music, “or, at least, our collective idea of what heavy metal music means.”

“Hey, man, it’s interesting that you’re wearing that,” Klosterman was overheard saying as he darted toward the man. “When Dio put out Holy Diver it really filled a void left by the band’s contemporaries Motörhead and Judas Priest, and yet there’s a sly sense of almost half-parody coursing through the record, too, where it’s almost saying ‘This is a record that knows what you expect of it, and is willing to both satisfy and subvert those expectations.’”

“And yet, with its expert power riffs and and its sense, lyrically, of overcoming Stygian forces, it also completely rocks, and thus sort of fulfills its raison d'être,” added the 42-year-old author.

Klosterman, who reportedly never introduced himself or asked for the man’s name, reflected on the “winking aggression” of Ronnie James Dio’s lyrics, which he acknowledged were emblematic of an escapist realm that reflected the needs and desires of a largely working-class fan base.

Though the man reportedly thought the conversation had concluded after 45 minutes, Klosterman moved closer, blocked him from leaving with his body, and started to talk at length about Dio’s bassists Jimmy Bain, Teddy Cook, Jeff Pilson, Larry Dennison, and Rudy Sarzo, and how the band’s shifting lineup “only further emphasized what remained constant” about the group.

“Now, of course it’s easy to recognize Jimmy Bain’s influence on Holy Diver, The Last In Line, Sacred Heart, Dream Evil, Magica, and Killing The Dragons, even as he’s being subsumed into a concept that is, if we’re being honest, larger than his own skill set,” Klosterman said to the man who appeared to desperately search the room for help. “But Jeff Pilson, who came from Dokken, may have had an even more significant impact on the band’s sound while recording Strange Highways, Angry Machines, and Master Of The Moon, in that I think you can actually hear him actively fighting against the group’s core identity in a way that creates tension.”

“It’s also interesting that Rudy Sarzo has a Black Sabbath connection since he had previously played in Ozzy Osbourne’s solo act,” added Klosterman. “In a way, he has the most impressive metal pedigree of all the bassists, if you also consider his work with Quiet Riot and Whitesnake.”

The man, who did not speak one word during the entire exchange, reportedly purchased the Dio shirt at a thrift shop.

Sources confirmed that Klosterman continued to invade the personal space of the man who tried to look away but was unable to escape the columnist’s ceaseless monologue, which swiftly hit on subjects such as the symbolic elements of Dio’s stage show, the significance, and “narrative continuity,” of recruiting former members of the groups Black Sabbath, Rainbow, and Sweet Savage, an obscure Canadian teen television drama, a road trip he took in the summer of 1995, and the inherent comic dualism of the Dio logo, which is Italian for “God” and spells out the word “devil” when viewed upside down.

“Perhaps what’s most intriguing is how the band’s persona and mythos essentially depicts a rock god, whether or not that distinction was earned,” Klosterman reportedly told the man who nodded, then tried to walk away, but was followed by the essayist. “Part of the reason I find the group so fascinating is that Dio’s career was peaking at roughly the same time as Sylvester Stallone’s, who had just co-written and starred in the smash-hit First Blood. I don’t believe that it would be arbitrary to include Arnold Schwarzenegger in this discussion, considering he had just achieved worldwide fame with his role in the film Conan The Barbarian. It’s interesting; all of those artists were sort of toying with, or rebranding in a sense, our own popular sense of machismo. It’s also probably worth mentioning that the animated series He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe had gone into syndication during this period as well. And in that sense, the muscular riffs and bravado of Dio’s brand of fantasy-infused metal are sort of right in step with the zeitgeist of the early 1980s, during which we saw our cultural heroes striking full masculine poses in the shadow of the Cold War. We must ask ourselves: What was the affection for the action hero—be it in cinema, television, or music—at the time? Why did we long for the archetype, and why, to a certain extent, do we still long for that archetype? How is “macho,” as a cultural signifier, being defined? How is it being confined? These larger-than-life and over-the-top heroes were boarding on cartoonish. And in that vein, Dio does verge on parody. But is it genuinely a knowing parody? Oh, man, I’m going to go grab a fresh drink. Let’s continue this conversation in a minute.”

Eyewitnesses told reporters that the man promptly fled the party, pushing several guests out of his way while frantically attempting to exit the apartment.

[Necrometer]

Did you guys see this one?
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3016112/why- ... re-obesity

Of course the POP-science headlines - essentially "BMI is useless! - will be well-received by the obese while this chart will be disregarded, or will be minimized to "see!?!?!? that skinny guy is almost as unhealthy as the fat fatty, which doesn't describe me - I'm a fit fatty like the one on the left, who is the only one walking, you'll notice"


Cute how the summaries spin a study with an abstract like this:

The Health Risk of Obesity—Better Metrics Imperative
Rexford S. Ahima, Mitchell A. Lazar

Obesity has increased worldwide; is a major risk factor for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, sleep apnea, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, and other ailments; and has been associated with disability, mortality, and enormous health costs (1, 2). Despite these clear adverse consequences of obesity, some studies have suggested that obesity as defined by body mass index (BMI) improves survival under certain conditions (3–8). Here, we discuss the controversies surrounding the “obesity-mortality paradox” and offer potential mechanisms to explain the effects of obesity on health.

This is not the first time I've heard this rat study cited. I'm still missing the connection here. Because rats are getting fatter in some studies and people don't know why then it's not people's diets that make them fat. Ok.

It looks environmental to me, especially based on the multigenerational effects of environment on obesity outlined in that article. Mice didn't evolve in cages, and humans didn't evolve eating industrial foods.

I actually emailed that professor about that study. If I remember right, the paper seems keen on it being all thanks to viral infection. Here's our exchange:

Your "Canaries in the coal mine" manuscript is intriguing and left me wondering about variations in lab animals' diets over the decades. The paper dismisses such variation as a likely important variable due to the "highly controlled diets, which have varied minimally over the last several decades". I wonder if there is some variability lurking in the standard chow; might increased processing have influenced the average weight? As the paper notes, a ubiquitous increase in the extent of food processing would also explain how feral rats gained weight on average, assuming their diet consists of refuse intended for humans.

Thanks for your interest in our work. Your idea is certainly conceivable, but the aspect of processing would need to be a subtle one, because the lab chow used a few decades ago was also processed.

I was not too satisfied with his answer; it's not like processing is all or nothing...

Geeheeb, what do you think is the mechanism of the multi-generational effect? Epigenetics? Inheritance of fat mitochondria? Chubby rodent culture?

[Zap Rowsdower]

Forgive me if I don't know how to science here, but for lab animals meant for testing, are their conditions suppose to mimic average conditions for humans, albeit on a proportional scale ? E.g. supposing the average caloric consumption of humans has increased leading to increased body mass, would appropriate lab testing desire a similar condition for the test subjects thereby increasing this tightly controlled diet?

I still like my "The Happening" invisible fat wind hypothesis.

[FVBTVS]

it was alright

[Necrometer]

would appropriate lab testing desire a similar condition for the test subjects thereby increasing this tightly controlled diet?

nah, I think the idea is "rats get 10 g rat kibble per day" and that's that

assuming the analysis was done correct (and I haven't seen it critiqued) I do think those findings are pretty mysterious

[takeasneededforpain]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... nst-cardio

Now, I realize that Scientific American isn't exactly peer-reviewed and scientific, but the studies referenced herein could be tracked down and checked for validity.

Of particular interest, from paragraph 5:

"Stampfer’s findings do not merely suggest that saturated fats are not so bad; they indicate that carbohydrates could be worse. A 1997 study he co-authored in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated 65,000 women and found that the quintile of women who ate the most easily digestible and readily absorbed carbohydrates—that is, those with the highest glycemic index—were 47 percent more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes than those in the quintile with the lowest average glycemic-index score. (The amount of fat the women ate did not affect diabetes risk.) And a 2007 Dutch study of 15,000 women published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that women who were overweight and in the quartile that consumed meals with the highest average glycemic load, a metric that incorporates portion size, were 79 percent more likely to develop coronary vascular disease than overweight women in the lowest quartile. These trends may be explained in part by the yo-yo effects that high glycemic-index carbohydrates have on blood glucose, which can stimulate fat production and inflammation, increase overall caloric intake and lower insulin sensitivity, says David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston."

"Healthy fatties" should start weeping their tears of Oreo Creme now.
They're bullshitting no one but themselves.