(06-28-2013 03:33 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:28 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Who is "we"?

Our society.

There's a conveniently nebulous term. You really don't do thinking, do you?

Why is it "society's" responsibility to interefere w/ people's lives?

Oh, and go ask drama queen AL about her silly fat shaming rant.

(06-28-2013 03:51 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:26 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  What do you guys think we should do to change our overweight country?

good parenting wold be a start. A few years ago I was in a 7/11 and I'm watching this mother of 2 walk her kids up and down the aisles. One kid picks out a bunch of small cakes and slim Jims and the mom asks the other kid what he wants for "dinner."

Btw, I've never seen more over weight people than I have here in El Paso. Even small kids are grossly obese.

I was at the zoo with my kids when I saw a woman with a baby in a stroller. Baby gets to fussing because its bottle is empty. Mom takes the bottle, pulls a half-liter bottle of Mountain Dew out of the diaper bag, unscrews the nipple, pours the bottle about half full of Dew, pops the nipple back on, and hands it back to the kid.

(06-28-2013 03:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:39 PM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:37 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:34 PM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  Don't eat so damned much?

How do we get everyone to do that?

We can't. If you mandate smaller portion sizes they will just order more portions.

Surely we need to do something, though.

Why not MYOB?

(06-28-2013 03:54 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:39 PM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:37 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:34 PM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  Don't eat so damned much?

How do we get everyone to do that?

We can't. If you mandate smaller portion sizes they will just order more portions.

Surely we need to do something, though. What about something similar to the anti-smoking campaigns?

That's the same line of thinking that leads to abstinence only education, which is a poor method of prevention.

Oops. Research proves you wrong.

Yeah, I'm inclined to think that people should be allowed to go to hell in the handbasket of their own choosing.

I'm against the nanny state.

Sooner or later, personal responsibility HAS to come into play. This is not something you can baby people along on their whole lives (unless it's a short one).

(06-28-2013 04:00 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:54 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:39 PM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:37 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  How do we get everyone to do that?

We can't. If you mandate smaller portion sizes they will just order more portions.

Surely we need to do something, though. What about something similar to the anti-smoking campaigns?

That's the same line of thinking that leads to abstinence only education, which is a poor method of prevention.

Oops. Research proves you wrong.

Research proves you wrong. Please go away.

(06-28-2013 03:58 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:33 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:28 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  Who is "we"?

Our society.

There's a conveniently nebulous term. You really don't do thinking, do you?

Why is it "society's" responsibility to interefere w/ people's lives?

Oh, and go ask drama queen AL about her silly fat shaming rant.

The state of our society effects everything. Society is a vague term that references popular opinion, acceptable behavior, widely held beliefs, etc. We need to make it socially unacceptable to make unhealthy choices. People look down on smokers, but don't tell them what to do. It's worked pretty well.

(06-28-2013 03:51 PM)Smaug Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 03:49 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Kids need to be outside more time during the day. It would actually be more beneficial if it weren't because of PE either. I'd have to get the papers from my mom's office, but some studies show that kids who take part in "very loosely supervised" play on a regular basis are more likely to not be obese before 20-something. PE can be negative reinforcement against exercise because of all the rules, especially at primary level.

When I was younger, it was understood that after school time was playtime and the parents weren't there. We played softball, basketball, hockey, boxed, anything we could think of and parents didn't routinely stop us and try to enforce the rules. We just played and the exercise was just a byproduct of it.

We would play football into the evening until someone got hit in the face with the ball, because they couldn't see it.

We played until someone would get mad, take their ball, and go home. So just about everyday at 7pm.

Of course we, or I, didn't have 2,000 TV channels and all sorts of video games
smart phones and all sorts of things. Makes it harder to get kids outdoors.

(06-28-2013 04:05 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Of course we, or I, didn't have 2,000 TV channels and all sorts of video games
smart phones and all sorts of things. Makes it harder to get kids outdoors.

My parents only let me play an hour of video games a day. Too bad more parents aren't doing that.

Hell, during summer my mother would throw us out the door right after breakfast, and didn't want to see us again until lunch (or dinner, if we could get some other kid's mom to feed us lunch).

Even more alarming, the food industry is making every effort to keep people eating more and more:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013...ction.html

Quote:It's not surprising to Bruce Bradley. He's a former food industry executive who spent 15 years working at General Mills, Pillsbury and Nabisco, and ran some common food brands including Honey Nut Cheerios and Hamburger Helper. But one day he discovered he couldn't do it anymore.

"There were certainly times that I felt uncomfortable or troubled by what I was doing," he said. "I think that’s ultimately one of the reasons why I left the industry. As you start to get glimpses of products and you understand better how consumers are using them, and then you see trends like obesity and health issues that are increasing, mainly driven by the food we eat, it was hard for me not to just take a more thorough assessment of what I was doing."

Now he writes a blog, critical of the food industry.

"I decided to step out and ultimately speak out in hopes of bringing more awareness to the issue," he said. "What we eat and drink from a lot of these big food and beverages companies isn't that good for us and we should reconsider it,” he said. "These products are designed to keep you coming back to eat more and more and more. They're trying to increase their share of your stomach."

My question is: at what point do we do something about things like this? The line between personal responsibility and manipulation gets fuzzy, and makes it hard to decide how far we should go to combat obesity.

How about we do what the government always does and change the definition so more people "pass".

This is an imagined "social" problem. If someone wants to be fat or can't help it, let them be.

Why should we do ANYTHING to combat Obesity?

Because being heavy poses health risks? How about we stop saving people from eating themselves to death and get better numbers that way? For those with a thyroid or other problem, keep working on medical science solutions.

(06-28-2013 04:21 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  How about we do what the government always does and change the definition so more people "pass".

This is an imagined "social" problem. If someone wants to be fat or can't help it, let them be.

It's not imagined at all. The effects of obesity are rather staggering and far reaching. The US may actually begin seeing a decline in IQ due to obesity.

(06-28-2013 04:15 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Even more alarming, the food industry is making every effort to keep people eating more and more:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013...ction.html

Quote:It's not surprising to Bruce Bradley. He's a former food industry executive who spent 15 years working at General Mills, Pillsbury and Nabisco, and ran some common food brands including Honey Nut Cheerios and Hamburger Helper. But one day he discovered he couldn't do it anymore.

"There were certainly times that I felt uncomfortable or troubled by what I was doing," he said. "I think that’s ultimately one of the reasons why I left the industry. As you start to get glimpses of products and you understand better how consumers are using them, and then you see trends like obesity and health issues that are increasing, mainly driven by the food we eat, it was hard for me not to just take a more thorough assessment of what I was doing."

Now he writes a blog, critical of the food industry.

"I decided to step out and ultimately speak out in hopes of bringing more awareness to the issue," he said. "What we eat and drink from a lot of these big food and beverages companies isn't that good for us and we should reconsider it,” he said. "These products are designed to keep you coming back to eat more and more and more. They're trying to increase their share of your stomach."

My question is: at what point do we do something about things like this? The line between personal responsibility and manipulation gets fuzzy, and makes it hard to decide how far we should go to combat obesity.

Sooner or later the Healthcare Insurers are going to up to cost to fat people just like they do now for smokers. Right now, it's not PC to label fat people as "unacceptable" (not a great word, but you know what I mean).

IMO, it is not the job of the state to nanny peoples eating and exercising habits - that should be left up to each individual. However, just like smokers pay more for heath insurance - fat people should be doing the same. Just like a driver with many accidents or tickets pays more for car insurance.

My only fear with this is how the Healthcare and Medical Professionals will determine obese or fat. The current BMI index is a joke as it doesn't factor in anything other than Height vs Weight. I know that my youngest son was training for NFL workouts and was 6'4" and 240 lbs. His trainers actually did the bodyfat check in water and he was around 6% bodyfat at that time. Went to his first job and they were going to charge him more for healthcare because his height and weight per BMI made him Obese. Obviously it wasn't an accurate determiner.

How about something as simple as reducing the influence of BigAg, the producer of so much of the "food" that people buy. Their lobby is very strong.

Eat real food, not processed crap that spikes your blood sugar.

One thing troubles me about dmac. Often, his solutions seem to involve government coercion. Nannyism. I believe in personal responsibility.

(06-28-2013 04:43 PM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  How about something as simple as reducing the influence of BigAg, the producer of so much of the "food" that people buy. Their lobby is very strong.

Eat real food, not processed crap that spikes your blood sugar.

One thing troubles me about dmac. Often, his solutions seem to involve government coercion. Nannyism. I believe in personal responsibility.

I'm just brainstorming. I haven't actually expressed support for any one solution. I would support ad campaigns and in school education, which I don't think is a nanny state thing. Nanny state in my mind is heavily regulating people's choices, rather than encouraging better ones. Public perception is a much better tool than laws.

That being said, I do think that reducing the influence of "big ag" is a great idea. They're doing as much to bend our perception as anyone.

Sure, you can do all those things, but there's only so many horses that are going to drink when you get them to the water.

People still smoke (granted their numbers are way down).

You fatties stay out of MN. We have enough issues.

Don't look at me, I've got a BMI of ~23.5 and the resting heart rate of a teenage athlete.

Alabama's full of porkers, though, so when the zombies attack, I like my chances.

(06-28-2013 04:56 PM)Smaug Wrote:  Sure, you can do all those things, but there's only so many horses that are going to drink when you get them to the water.

People still smoke (granted their numbers are way down).

Obesity isn't going to ever be eliminated. The trend needs to be combated though.