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Diet and Exercise
Reply to "Can we have an honest, good faith conversation about fat acceptance and body positivity?"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To answer OP's title question, no, we really can't have a productive conversation -- for reasons this thread has largely shown. Personally I think it's important to separate "body positivity" from "obesity." I admit some availabilty bias because this is just my own anecdata, but I came from an obese family. Meat and potatoes for every meal. A second helping with velveeta on top. Dessert with every meal. Not much exercise. Oh sure, because the boys in the family played football, we'd tell ourselves that although we were big at least we were "active," but we weren't, not really. And anyways, my brothers and cousins stopped football after high school but kept up the eating. And everyone in the family tells themselves it's "genetic" and there's nothing we could do about it. "We've always been big-boned." As an adult, though, I basically ended up testing the genetic hypothesis by committing to getting to a size and lifestyle that I viewed as healthy. Yes to vegetables, no to sweets. Consistent exercise, almost every day. And it worked. It turns out there was something we could do about it. Sure, there are genetic things that differentiate me from a supermodel. I have wide hips, chicken wing shoulders, and am self conscious about a dozen other things that I can't change. And I'm grateful for body positivity for helping me accept this about myself. But true obesity is rarely like that. With extremely few exceptions--like a rare medical condition actually diagnosed by a doctor, not just family lore--you simply do not find morbidly obese people, my relatives included, who are eating clean, tracking calories, regularly exercising, and only having sweets and booze in extreme moderation.[/quote] I agree with this. I cringe when people talk about how they are naturally thin. [b]Healthy, naturally thin people do not exist. These people eat much less and/or move much more. If we cannot even agree on this, then we are stuck.[/b] Obesity can be treaed by eating less and/or moving more. Our soceity has to find ways to make healthy eating and movement more attractive and accessible. Nobody wants to be obese. [/quote] Except that as per these scientific references (and there are others), the heritability of obesity is between 40 and 70%. Now, that's a wide range, but even if it's "just" 40%, that means that genes contribute close to half of the variability in determining obesity. That could very well mean things like predisposition to satiety and activity levels, but they're still genetically-mediated. So, if *you* and others who insist it's all environment can't acknowledge the role of genetics, then we are, indeed, stuck. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3104766/[/quote] Thin people eat much less than obese people, and some obese people have some genetic predispositions that contribute to their obesity. I don't see the contradiction here at all. [/quote] But do we eat less because we are less hungry? Because our parents had access to healthy foods and taught us healthy eating? Do we gain less weight because we have faster metabolisms? I got to 37 without ever having to put in effort into losing weight, BMI normal during my entire adult life. Doesn't mean I was healthy - I've never eaten enough veggies, honestly. I never restricted how much junk food I ate. Finally now at 37, pandemic hit, I weaned my daughter and I've finally gained more weight than I'd like and putting effort into losing it. But it's not a ton, so it feels very manageable to lose it. Very different from someone who has started adulthood off overweight/obese or has a medical issues or trauma that contributes to their weight. You don't know what factors have led someone to be overweight, and it's none of your business.[/quote]
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