A complete and total repudiation of all the people who bleat "calories in, calories out"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

100%. Ive been healthy and I have been obese. I dont change but people think my worth does. The assumption is I am lazy and we eat horribly. I am losing 1lb every 2 days on Mounjaro and havent really changed anything. I may eat less (I wont deny that I could be eating maybe 200-500 calories less but I have been loosely tracking and I still have had pie and hot chocolate at night, etc.) but I am not eating 2000 calories less a day, which is what would need to happen for CICO to be validated. Ive done macros and weighing my food, I have a walking treadmill for work (walk at least 1 hour per day), Ive been a pretty high-level athlete and could do 5 strict pullups at 165lbs as a female. I had untreated hypothyroid for a long time, which was exacerbated by pregnancy. Ive been trying to lose weight for almost 5 years. I play with my kid and walk the dog and still get 6-8k steps outside of dedicated exercise. I take the stairs, I park away from the entrance, I only eat half of a takeout/eat out dinner, I have vegetables or fruit with every meal (sometimes both). I have watched my family struggle with weight and all of that struggle have hypothyroid. My grandmother starved herself. My aunt had bypass. My dad goes through crazy keto phases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

Yes, they are overtly angry at the development of medical treatments for obesity. They are furious at the idea that, for instance, semaglutides make people stop overeating, because that’s hard evidence that they aren’t morally superior. It’s really interesting to me to see just how angry they are, and how much they lash out — it shows just how much of their own self-worth they have tied to their thinness. It reminds me of the rages that you sometimes see from narcissists who are suddenly forced to confront a reality they don’t like. Those kind of rages can be incredibly destructive, and I see a lot of that in the angry obesity moralists in this thread and others. The hard evidence of drugs like the semaglutides and bariatric surgeries is perceived by these posters as an attack on their own self-worth, and they lash out furiously in response.

I wonder what they will do if semaglutides start being used for treatment of alcoholism (studies are now underway as it turn out many semaglutide users lose any desire for alcohol). I suspect the cognitive dissonance will be too much for them.

I think you hang around a lot of low quality people if this is your reality.

I think it’s sad you want to hitch your wagon to a pharmaceutical instead of working on fixing it yourself. Have at it.

It’s also sad that a bunch of weak minded people that can easily fix all this themselves are sucking up the supply of these drugs for those that actually need them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

100%. Ive been healthy and I have been obese. I dont change but people think my worth does. The assumption is I am lazy and we eat horribly. I am losing 1lb every 2 days on Mounjaro and havent really changed anything. I may eat less (I wont deny that I could be eating maybe 200-500 calories less but I have been loosely tracking and I still have had pie and hot chocolate at night, etc.) but I am not eating 2000 calories less a day, which is what would need to happen for CICO to be validated. Ive done macros and weighing my food, I have a walking treadmill for work (walk at least 1 hour per day), Ive been a pretty high-level athlete and could do 5 strict pullups at 165lbs as a female. I had untreated hypothyroid for a long time, which was exacerbated by pregnancy. Ive been trying to lose weight for almost 5 years. I play with my kid and walk the dog and still get 6-8k steps outside of dedicated exercise. I take the stairs, I park away from the entrance, I only eat half of a takeout/eat out dinner, I have vegetables or fruit with every meal (sometimes both). I have watched my family struggle with weight and all of that struggle have hypothyroid. My grandmother starved herself. My aunt had bypass. My dad goes through crazy keto phases.

My fact set is very similar to yours. I was a soccer player/cross-country runner in my past. I know what it's like to be in tip top shape. Like you, I pretty diligently track calories with the Lose It app. I exercise (lifting and running). But none of it was ever enough to stop my weight from re-baselining every year. I've been on Mounjaro for a month, and I've lost 18 pounds. I eat a little bit less each day (as evidenced by the app), but only to the point of "a pound per week" under the purely CICO method. It's clearly optimizing my internal "calorie burning" engine. I.e., this must be like what it's like to be "normal". If somebody can have "normal" without medical intervention, more power to them. I could not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

Yes, they are overtly angry at the development of medical treatments for obesity. They are furious at the idea that, for instance, semaglutides make people stop overeating, because that’s hard evidence that they aren’t morally superior. It’s really interesting to me to see just how angry they are, and how much they lash out — it shows just how much of their own self-worth they have tied to their thinness. It reminds me of the rages that you sometimes see from narcissists who are suddenly forced to confront a reality they don’t like. Those kind of rages can be incredibly destructive, and I see a lot of that in the angry obesity moralists in this thread and others. The hard evidence of drugs like the semaglutides and bariatric surgeries is perceived by these posters as an attack on their own self-worth, and they lash out furiously in response.

I wonder what they will do if semaglutides start being used for treatment of alcoholism (studies are now underway as it turn out many semaglutide users lose any desire for alcohol). I suspect the cognitive dissonance will be too much for them.

I think you hang around a lot of low quality people if this is your reality.

I think it’s sad you want to hitch your wagon to a pharmaceutical instead of working on fixing it yourself. Have at it.

It’s also sad that a bunch of weak minded people that can easily fix all this themselves are sucking up the supply of these drugs for those that actually need them.

Okay. Feel sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

I don't know who you're referring to, but I am not thin - simply average and trying to stay that way in my middle age by making healthy food choices. What I see in these posts is at least one poster who seems unwilling to admit that obesity is an undesirable state in any way. I think it's a form of denial or something. Yet others are championing these weight loss drugs and the fact that they lost weight - so clearly some do know that obesity is bad and are happy to try to fix it, through diet, medicine, or other means. That is what we should be doing - recognizing the problem and trying to fix it. Not sure what is so controversial about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

It is not normal in terms of the span of human evolution. Our bodies have changed rapidly in just the last 30-40 years, due to the food supply and lifestyle changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

Yes, they are overtly angry at the development of medical treatments for obesity. They are furious at the idea that, for instance, semaglutides make people stop overeating, because that’s hard evidence that they aren’t morally superior. It’s really interesting to me to see just how angry they are, and how much they lash out — it shows just how much of their own self-worth they have tied to their thinness. It reminds me of the rages that you sometimes see from narcissists who are suddenly forced to confront a reality they don’t like. Those kind of rages can be incredibly destructive, and I see a lot of that in the angry obesity moralists in this thread and others. The hard evidence of drugs like the semaglutides and bariatric surgeries is perceived by these posters as an attack on their own self-worth, and they lash out furiously in response.

I wonder what they will do if semaglutides start being used for treatment of alcoholism (studies are now underway as it turn out many semaglutide users lose any desire for alcohol). I suspect the cognitive dissonance will be too much for them.

I think you hang around a lot of low quality people if this is your reality.

I think it’s sad you want to hitch your wagon to a pharmaceutical instead of working on fixing it yourself. Have at it.

It’s also sad that a bunch of weak minded people that can easily fix all this themselves are sucking up the supply of these drugs for those that actually need them.

The person I pity is you. I’m just sorry you have to live your life the way you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

I agree with this and I’ve thought about it a lot. And the reason they don’t feel the same resentment about weight loss surgery is because WLS is more extreme. It has costs. Physical, monetary. It’s harder to hide. You’re left with scars and a permanently abnormal way of eating. They’re able to mark WLS surgery patients as different than people who are thin through genetics and “lifestyle.” With the medication no one knows who is “superior” anymore and can’t tell who took the “easy way out” and that pisses them off to no end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

I agree with this and I’ve thought about it a lot. And the reason they don’t feel the same resentment about weight loss surgery is because WLS is more extreme. It has costs. Physical, monetary. It’s harder to hide. You’re left with scars and a permanently abnormal way of eating. They’re able to mark WLS surgery patients as different than people who are thin through genetics and “lifestyle.” With the medication no one knows who is “superior” anymore and can’t tell who took the “easy way out” and that pisses them off to no end.

Yes, well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

I don't know who you're referring to, but I am not thin - simply average and trying to stay that way in my middle age by making healthy food choices. What I see in these posts is at least one poster who seems unwilling to admit that obesity is an undesirable state in any way. I think it's a form of denial or something. Yet others are championing these weight loss drugs and the fact that they lost weight - so clearly some do know that obesity is bad and are happy to try to fix it, through diet, medicine, or other means. That is what we should be doing - recognizing the problem and trying to fix it. Not sure what is so controversial about this.

You can’t truly take the position that the PPs yammering on angrily about Big Pharma and people stealing medicine from diabetics sound rational. I mean they are obviously unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

There also seems to be resentment that there are evolving Medicare options to help with obesity. Like there’s a “cheat code” now to have what they have.

What are you talking about? Desperate and frantic? The only desperation I read it the people trying to argue they are obese bc of all other factors besides their personal habits. But you can’t get obese without overeating. Argue away at hidden ingredients, plastics, GMOs or whatever. But overeating is the cause of obesity- full stop. Losing weight is a different issue…but if you entered adulthood at a heathy weight and become obese- your own behaviors are the majority of the cause. I don’t think anyone cares personally if you need to take a med to control your intake. If that’s what is needed, do it. But to deny how you got to be obese in the first place hinders you from moving forward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

I don't know who you're referring to, but I am not thin - simply average and trying to stay that way in my middle age by making healthy food choices. What I see in these posts is at least one poster who seems unwilling to admit that obesity is an undesirable state in any way. I think it's a form of denial or something. Yet others are championing these weight loss drugs and the fact that they lost weight - so clearly some do know that obesity is bad and are happy to try to fix it, through diet, medicine, or other means. That is what we should be doing - recognizing the problem and trying to fix it. Not sure what is so controversial about this.

You can’t truly take the position that the PPs yammering on angrily about Big Pharma and people stealing medicine from diabetics sound rational. I mean they are obviously unhinged.

I am not that PP and that's not my position. My position is that obesity is serious public health crisis that we all need to pay more attention to address. Whether it's through diet, exercise, drugs, surgery, meditation, hypnosis, whatever works! I am not resentful of a "magic pill" - if it helps people, more power to them.

What I am arguing is against some pp's who don't even want to acknowledge that obesity is a problem. This seems to go along with the fat acceptance movement and "healthy at every size." No, you can't be healthy once you get to a certain size - and more and more of us are heading that way! We can't blame obesity on everything else under the sky and throw up our hands and give in, much less try to rationalize it as "helping women live longer." That is insane, and sends mixed messages to the public, letting them think that perhaps obesity isn't so bad, so why not eat that extra helping. We need to address this on all fronts, and yes, that includes encouraging personal responsibility for making better choices. That's not the full story (and recognize of course a few people have rare medical issues), but it's definitely part of it when we're talking about the full spectrum of people becoming overweight these days including small children. Parents should have full control over what their kids are eating at home (granted school lunch is not the healthiest), but looking around at the increasing number of obese kids, it's so sad thinking about how they already have a strike against them at such a young age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

It is not normal in terms of the span of human evolution. Our bodies have changed rapidly in just the last 30-40 years, due to the food supply and lifestyle changes.

Well, you want to talk evolutionarily, you should then also being saying that it is normal for 1/3 of babies born to not make their first birthday. Do you consider that “normal” or do you reserve that word only for obesity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

It is not normal in terms of the span of human evolution. Our bodies have changed rapidly in just the last 30-40 years, due to the food supply and lifestyle changes.

Well, you want to talk evolutionarily, you should then also being saying that it is normal for 1/3 of babies born to not make their first birthday. Do you consider that “normal” or do you reserve that word only for obesity?

That is such a strange and irrelevant analogy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obesity is 100% a FAILING, a personal, familial and societal failing.

No, it isn't. But lack of education, kindness, and empathy is.

Obesity is not a good condition to be in, no matter who is at fault. When we start normalizing it, that does not help us fix the problem.

Well, when it is the state of the majority of the population, it is by definition normalized. You can have all the temper tantrums you like, but your desire to be nasty doesn’t actually help anything. It does make me pity you, though.

Just because the majority of the country is overweight does not mean obesity is a normal or healthy condition for the human body. Not being nasty, that's just a fact. Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. And I think your “facts” aren’t actually facts.

Obesity is normal now. You may not like reality, but at this point in history, it is the people with BMIs that are under the overweight range that are abnormal. The term “normal” — which has fallen deeply out of favor by health scientists, incidentally, and your use of it quickly identifies you as ignorant — generally refers to a population characteristic shared by a significant percentage of the population. Therefore, if you want to even use the term “normal” (which, as previously noted is disfavored), you should more properly refer to BMIs under the overweight range as “not normal” as they are the ones in the minority (e.g. not the norm). Personally I suggest moving away entirely from the term “normal” like health scientists are, as you can see it’s not a useful description.

Healthy is a much more complex question. There is strong evidence for the idea that in general super morbidly obese people or morbidly obese people have worse health and shortened life spans (although even that data is not so easily simplified). But weight is so deeply intertwined with other health risk factors that I also don’t know if you can ever really separate them out. Meanwhile, being overweight or slightly obese seems life-extending and protective of older women (there are multiple studies on this) but not for older men. So I don’t think you can just make the black and white judgment (not a fact) that you want to make.

When I read a lot of the posts here, I see people who are desperate and frantic to cast obesity as a personal moral failing. It’s striking to me how panicked they sound and how unwilling they are to consider any thoughts of any complexity regarding obesity. I think it is because they have tied their own self-worth and value to being thin, and therefore the idea that obesity isn’t a personal moral failing strikes deeply at their own conception of their own value. It is sad to watch.

Also — because I know what your tired next post is going to be and I want to end run it — I don’t have a weight issue myself.

It is not normal in terms of the span of human evolution. Our bodies have changed rapidly in just the last 30-40 years, due to the food supply and lifestyle changes.

Well, you want to talk evolutionarily, you should then also being saying that it is normal for 1/3 of babies born to not make their first birthday. Do you consider that “normal” or do you reserve that word only for obesity?

That is such a strange and irrelevant analogy.

But accurate.