Canberra Hospital has built its very first "super-bariatric" room capable of dealing with patients weighing up to half a tonne.
Four dedicated bariatric rooms, which include three for patients weighing up to 250 kilograms, were unveiled on Monday as Chief Minister Katy Gallagher toured two recently refurbished wards at Canberra Hospital.
The $11.7 million refurbishment has created space for 60 extra surgical beds with orthopaedic, plastic surgery and oral and maxillofacial surgery services to be housed in the new wards. Orthopaedic services will move to the ward next week, with the other services to follow later in the year.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher visits the refurbished wards. The toilet is capable of supporting
500kg.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher visits the refurbished wards. The toilet is capable of supporting 500kg. Photo: Graham Tidy
Ms Gallagher said the extra hospital beds would help cope with high demand for such services, especially in orthopaedic services.
"We often have other orthopaedic patients located on other wards. That's not ideal from the medical professional's point of view or the patient's so this will allow a much larger orthopaedic service," she said.
"It's also an area where we have a lot of our elective surgery, particularly those who might wait too long for their elective surgery.
One of the refurbished wards at the Canberra
Hospital.
One of the refurbished wards at the Canberra Hospital. Photo: Graham Tidy
"It's almost like a hospital has this insatiable appetite for new beds so it is carefully managed where do those beds need to be, what speciality do they need to be for, how we run an efficient service as well but it will free up capacity across the hospital just by having those extra beds."
Ms Gallagher said the extra hospital beds would also help reduce elective surgery waiting lists.
Of the 60 beds on the wards, 32 are new hospital beds, Ms Gallagher said.
The wards feature four dedicated bariatric rooms, including the hospital's first "super-bariatric" room for patients weighing up to 500 kilograms.
The room features special beds, bathroom facilities, including a much larger toilet, as well as lifting equipment calibrated to 500 kilograms. There are three other bariatric rooms on the same floor for patients weighing up to 250 kilograms.
Ms Gallagher said the dedicated bariatric rooms were a sign of the times.
"It's very much a sign of how hospitals are having to be built now dealing with some of the weight issues across the community," she said.
About two-thirds of Canberra adults are overweight or obese.
Ms Gallagher said there would be a much smaller percentage deemed morbidly obese and a "tiny percentage" needing super-bariatric hospital services.
"In orthopaedics, that is an area where you'll find them because of the weight and the impact on joints, they'll often need specialised care whether it be around their hips or their knees ... so it is something the orthopaedic service has to manage and has to provide the right care environment for those patients," she said.
Eh doesn't surprise me, I think I recall at one stage Australia had skyrocketing rates of weight problems thanks in no small part to our she'll be right mate attitude we have to most things.
I remember the one episode of biggest loser that I watched the contestants were more shocked at how close our obesity rates were to fatty america rather than the actual number itself which should have been shocking enough.
Thought you all were slim and trim from trying to survive there...human bait?
Oddly enough people in rural areas who are more likely to be in contact with the killer animals are more overweight. Is that the same in other countries where the further away from the city and more remote you are the more likely you are to be overweight?
hotsauceman1 wrote: When I saw the link, I thought it was about people who thought they where actually trucks
I also initially thought maybe it was about a psychological issue, but sadly it seems to be another mock the overweight sort of situation. While often the US is mocked for it, the obesity problem is more widespread than just the US, with other countries having issues as well and it has been that way for some time.
This is a good podcast about just how bad weight is and why we may need to start looking at food manufatueres
one thing said that is a really good quote "No matter how skinny you get, you will always be a fat person. Your mentality, your metabolism will be that of a fat person"
Why not listen to the link?
And yes, when they add stuff to the food taking advantage of little quirks in your brain that make you crave sugar, fat and salt I think they need to be looked at hard.
Self Control is just one aspect of a big multi layered problem
I seriously think we're too harsh on most overweight people with the false senses of "beauty" girls are expected to aim for, but 500lb people disgust me. I realize it sounds awful. But the fact that people can allow themselves to get that big...shudder. It's a double standard-I know. "Fat is okay, but super fat is unacceptable". I don't feel that I'm right in this matter at all, I just feel like everything in life, there is a line. Once it's crossed...excuse me, I'm going to be a bit sick.
Again, I think I'm being an absolute prick here. But it doesn't change my opinion.
cincydooley wrote: We've gone down this rabbit hole before, but suffice it to say I think you're justification is nonsense. It's simple.
Know what you put in your body.
It isnt just that. even a simple bran muffin can contain stupid amounts of sugar.
Food companies add addictive gak to the food you eat so they can convince you to eat me. Remember lays "I Bet you cant eat just one"
timetowaste85 wrote: I seriously think we're too harsh on most overweight people with the false senses of "beauty" girls are expected to aim for, but 500lb people disgust me. I realize it sounds awful. But the fact that people can allow themselves to get that big...shudder. It's a double standard-I know. "Fat is okay, but super fat is unacceptable". I don't feel that I'm right in this matter at all, I just feel like everything in life, there is a line. Once it's crossed...excuse me, I'm going to be a bit sick.
Again, I think I'm being an absolute prick here. But it doesn't change my opinion.
TBF, there is a huuuuuuge difference between "he/she looks like they just walked out of a concentration camp/broom closet", "he/she could use a bit more meat on the bones", "he/she has a good, full figure", "ehh, he/she could stand to lose a couple pounds, but not bad" and, "daaaaayyyyummm... did you see that person walking!?"
timetowaste85 wrote: I seriously think we're too harsh on most overweight people with the false senses of "beauty" girls are expected to aim for, but 500lb people disgust me. I realize it sounds awful. But the fact that people can allow themselves to get that big...shudder. It's a double standard-I know. "Fat is okay, but super fat is unacceptable". I don't feel that I'm right in this matter at all, I just feel like everything in life, there is a line. Once it's crossed...excuse me, I'm going to be a bit sick.
Again, I think I'm being an absolute prick here. But it doesn't change my opinion.
TBF, there is a huuuuuuge difference between "he/she looks like they just walked out of a concentration camp/broom closet", "he/she could use a bit more meat on the bones", "he/she has a good, full figure", "ehh, he/she could stand to lose a couple pounds, but not bad" and, "daaaaayyyyummm... did you see that person walking!?"
Yeah, its like that "Its all about that Bass" I keep thinking "These women look fine, they are not fat"
Yeah, its like that "Its all about that Bass" I keep thinking "These women look fine, they are not fat"
They're not beyond the scope of what I'd consider dateable for their size. They're outside the scope of what I'd consider dateable for want of their choices in music.
cincydooley wrote: We've gone down this rabbit hole before, but suffice it to say I think you're justification is nonsense. It's simple.
Know what you put in your body.
It isnt just that. even a simple bran muffin can contain stupid amounts of sugar.
Food companies add addictive gak to the food you eat so they can convince you to eat me. Remember lays "I Bet you cant eat just one"
Unless you're illiterate, you can tell all of this stuff by the FDA required food labels on EVERY piece of food in the US.
Unless you're illiterate, you can tell all of this stuff by the FDA required food labels on EVERY piece of food in the US.
Literacy isn't comprehension, and sometimes the labels are misleading. I mean, I've seen things in bread that have a primary use as chemicals that go into roofing materials that you wouldn't know what they were beyond having the time and access to the internet to google it. That's one of the reasons why I bake my own bread nowadays, actually. Mass produced bread scares the hell out of me.
Further, and I'm cherrypicking, but you're hardpressed to find many people under the age of 40 or so who actually know what oleo is, and I see it in recipes that I cook up still. Just an example.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not to mention the fierce misdirection campaign that struggles to convince people that HFCS is as healthy as actual sugar, if not more.
Unless you're illiterate, you can tell all of this stuff by the FDA required food labels on EVERY piece of food in the US.
Literacy isn't comprehension, and sometimes the labels are misleading. I mean, I've seen things in bread that have a primary use as chemicals that go into roofing materials that you wouldn't know what they were beyond having the time and access to the internet to google it. That's one of the reasons why I bake my own bread nowadays, actually. Mass produced bread scares the hell out of me.
Further, and I'm cherrypicking, but you're hardpressed to find many people under the age of 40 or so who actually know what oleo is, and I see it in recipes that I cook up still. Just an example.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not to mention the fierce misdirection campaign that struggles to convince people that HFCS is as healthy as actual sugar, if not more.
I remember one of the ingredients in the vast majority of pre-shredded cheeses was a super complicated chemical name... but when you "translated" it to english, it was literally sawdust ( I just looked at the shredded cheese in my fridge, and I didn't see that ingredient, as I'd recognize it on the label when I saw it... but otherwise had forgotten what it was called)
hotsauceman1 wrote: And im sure most people know what half that stuff means. And dont say "Look it up" because I have tried that, it still is a web of lies and conceit.
Here's a way to get around it, make your own food. Cakes - very easy to make , sugar, milk, egg, butter done- you know EXACTLY what is in there
Spice mixes for making sauces - you made it you know what's in it
Bread - now bread truly is a pain in the butt as you have to make it virtually every day - i don't do this.
yoghurt - buy one of those easy make yoghurt kits, get a starter culture started then ditch the packets - insanely easy.
Every slightly ready food can be replicated in a generally easy way and you do not get all the crap food companies put in it.
My point is it isn't the food companies fault, it's peoples fault for not making their own food. I have a 14 hour day and I still make my own food. It's not hard.
One meal I ate for 3 dinners the other day
turn on rice cooker
turn on oven
cut up pumpkin , onion and courgette
turn on hotplate, put 1 tablespoon of butter in saucepan on low heat.
put vegetables in oven - i added chilli and home grown oregano.
cut chicken.
butter has melted add flour and make a sauce - I added some milk and water and garlic, could add stock if you wanted.
turn heat up slightly on hotplate, add chicken stir - and stir frequently, the flour is going to catch and burn if you don't
turn vegetables.
soon as rice is done and chicken is poached dinner is ready.
\It's that simple.
i think my effort was about 15 minutes with a few extra stirrings thrown in whilst watching tv.
This all said , anyone who is morbidly obese in my opinion has a mental problem. I grew up with an anorexic which i also regard as a mental problem and morbidly obese is just the other end of the scale. I regard addictions on a similar level , anyone who continues to self harm themselves has a problem. If anyone thinks morbidly obese people don't self harm, i'll just point out one thing (out of the many issues) knees and mobility.
Here's a way to get around it, make your own food. Cakes - very easy to make , sugar, milk, egg, butter done- you know EXACTLY what is in there.
This. Really this. The problem with any fad diet is that none of them teach you how to make good food decisions for yourself. They present you with lists or prepackaged meals and that's the end of it. It leaves you in a situation where you're basically tied to said diet because they purposefully omit any food education.
General rule of thumb: I'd you can't pronounce it it probably isn't a natural ingredient.
Heres the list of ingredients for Jif creamy peanut butter:
We make our own peanut and almond butter. Here are my ingredients:
Peanuts.
Almonds.
A pinch of salt.
I'm not going to pretend like it's easy, because it isn't. But all the information for you to make good food choices is out there.
daedalus wrote: you're hardpressed to find many people under the age of 40 or so who actually know what oleo is, and I see it in recipes that I cook up still. Just an example.
I didn't know what oleo wass , but I know what I am having for a snack next time I want one olio e olio! Pasta in dressed in olive oil and salt and pepper. I'd forgotten about it, thanks daed! (and thank you beasty boys for introducing me to the concept)
errrrr.. yes that is what i was referring to. Coffee won't help it's a distinct lack of alcohol , i cannot wait for this weekend to make up for a lack last weekend.
cincydooley wrote: We've gone down this rabbit hole before, but suffice it to say I think you're justification is nonsense. It's simple.
Know what you put in your body.
It is actually very simple, once you step away from your need to moralise the issue. Sure, people 'ought' to eat right and exercise, but when it comes to actually fixing the problem 'ought' is irrelevant. All that matters is how people do behave, and how we best respond to the problem given that.
I mean, people 'ought' not to smoke, but they do and so we respond, looking to discourage smoking where we can and look after people who did smoke and ended up suffering the consequences.
People ought not to drink too much, but they do so we respond, looking to discourage drinking where we can and looking after people who did drink too much and ended up suffering the consequences.
People ought not drive too fast, but they do and you probably get the point by now.
The basic reality, established by studies, will tell you that more than 90% of people will not escape obesity simply from being told to eat well and exercise. If we had a cancer treatment that only worked on less than 10% of patients, we'd stop using that treatment. Even if the reason it failed was because patients simply didn't use the treatment often enough. But for some reason with weight we not only continue using that treatment, lots of people will actually insist its the only treatment that should be considered.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
daedalus wrote: As a representative of the people responsible for Foster's, I'm not sure you know what alcohol is.
When I was in Berlin it was pretty trippy to walk in to an upmarket bar and see Fosters on tap... meanwhile Becks was the cheap drink you'd buy by the case to get drunk. It was the exact opposite here, except while Fosters was priced among the cheapest beers, people still didn't buy it because we have other cheap beers that less awful and higher in alcohol.
Incidentally, the US beers that come over here are Budweiser and Coors. I think it's fair to say it wouldn't be right to judge US beers by that stuff.
sebster wrote: The basic reality, established by studies, will tell you that more than 90% of people will not escape obesity simply from being told to eat well and exercise. If we had a cancer treatment that only worked on less than 10% of patients, we'd stop using that treatment. Even if the reason it failed was because patients simply didn't use the treatment often enough.
What if it was more important to focus on the moral failings and laziness of the patient than it was to cure them?
For the people who are already obese, it's a bit late to teach them how to not become obese. Education is primarily for the next generation.
Sure, education about healthy eating is essential. Even for people who are obese and need other approaches, healthy eating is essential. Lap band surgery, for instance, actually comes with really strict diet controls way beyond what people would think of as healthy eating.
The point is that simply talking about healthy eating alone isn't enough. It clearly isn't working, because we've talking about healthy eating for decades now, and the obesity issue is only getting worse.
excluding people that are fat because of medical conditions, the rest is just eating too much unhealthy stuff and not doing enough exercise (getting up from you couch and getting a drink from the refrigerator is not exercise!).
No, what's tiresome is that blame gets raised over and over again. Whether you blame society or the individual just doesn't matter, all that matters is fixing the fething problem.
And we know for a fact that saying obese people are to blame for their weight and that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
No, what's tiresome is that blame gets raised over and over again. Whether you blame society or the individual just doesn't matter, all that matters is fixing the fething problem.
And we know for a fact that saying obese people are to blame for their weight and that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
sorry sebster, addictions are solely on the individual. Over eating is as much an addiction as heroin or smoking, people over eat to get the overfull chemicals in the noggin or as a result of some other psychological issue. Blaming anyone but the individual whilst being kind, does not and will never help the problem. And yes I have addictions myself.
No, what's tiresome is that blame gets raised over and over again. Whether you blame society or the individual just doesn't matter, all that matters is fixing the fething problem.
And we know for a fact that saying obese people are to blame for their weight and that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
sorry sebster, addictions are solely on the individual. Over eating is as much an addiction as heroin or smoking, people over eat to get the overfull chemicals in the noggin or as a result of some other psychological issue. Blaming anyone but the individual whilst being kind, does not and will never help the problem. And yes I have addictions myself.
But the blame won't fix anything is what he is saying. Whether you blame the individual or the society, you are just wasting breath and trees. You need to fix the problem, which can be started by something as simple as better access to counselling for people who overeat, so conditions like depression which can result in that outcome can be dealt with, and the outcome behaviour of overeating can be dealt with much easier.
So really, stop blaming one or the other is what sebster is saying. Just fix the problem.
sebster wrote: that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
I have filtered this thread with your posts and haven't seen your proposal to fix the problem. Perhaps you posted it in another thread that I missed.
I am against "Fat shaming". Calling people out on it isn't doing anyone any good, unless you can only get an erection when you're mean to people. However, how do we fix it? What is your proposal?
No, what's tiresome is that blame gets raised over and over again. Whether you blame society or the individual just doesn't matter, all that matters is fixing the fething problem.
And we know for a fact that saying obese people are to blame for their weight and that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
sorry sebster, addictions are solely on the individual. Over eating is as much an addiction as heroin or smoking, people over eat to get the overfull chemicals in the noggin or as a result of some other psychological issue. Blaming anyone but the individual whilst being kind, does not and will never help the problem. And yes I have addictions myself.
But the blame won't fix anything is what he is saying. Whether you blame the individual or the society, you are just wasting breath and trees. You need to fix the problem, which can be started by something as simple as better access to counselling for people who overeat, so conditions like depression which can result in that outcome can be dealt with, and the outcome behaviour of overeating can be dealt with much easier.
So really, stop blaming one or the other is what sebster is saying. Just fix the problem.
But all of that already exists. Insurance companies are increasingly covering access to nutritionists and gym memberships nexus that kind of preventative care is cheaper for them in the in the long run. Access to a mental health professional in the United States is also quite available.
There is more availability and education opportunities today than there has ever been. But none of that is going to stop someone from kilimg a bag of Doritos in one sitting while playing diablo 3 on an 80 degree day.
At some point you have to make that decision to put the cookie down and trade it for a dumbbell.
Yes, but just saying that, and telling people who have an eating problem that, won't have the desired positive effect, at least as general interventions go. Sure, you might know a bloke or two who you've said 'mate, it's gone to far, you need to lose a few' and they go 'yep, ok' and make progress. But it isn't an effective clinical tool to just say 'they need to make the decision to put the cookie down and trade it for a dumbbell'. I mean sure, it sounds witty and cool, but it doesn't actually have any impact on limiting the spread of and eventually beating back the problems with obesity and overeating that we have as a society.
Yeah, they should exercise instead of eating sometimes. Will they, without the counselling and access to help? No. So don't bother getting into it until you cross those first bridges, because otherwise you've landed at Arnhem and you won't be able to make the change you want to make.
We are arguing for much the same thing, an improvement of the general health of society when it comes to weight, which will improve health in so very many other areas as a result of that. But it isn't something that will be achieved by telling them to do it, because 'the other stuff is already in place'. If it isn't having the desired effect, it isn't in place in the right way.
I feel like, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink is appropriate here."
I don't think further regulating the food companies, as some people have alluded to, is the solution. I, on occasion, want some horrible for me Doritos or a big, greasy basket of chicken wings. Just Because someone else can't manage their intake shouldn't mean the options should be removed from everyone
motyak wrote: Yes, but just saying that, and telling people who have an eating problem that, won't have the desired positive effect, at least as general interventions go. Sure, you might know a bloke or two who you've said 'mate, it's gone to far, you need to lose a few' and they go 'yep, ok' and make progress. But it isn't an effective clinical tool to just say 'they need to make the decision to put the cookie down and trade it for a dumbbell'. I mean sure, it sounds witty and cool, but it doesn't actually have any impact on limiting the spread of and eventually beating back the problems with obesity and overeating that we have as a society.
Yeah, they should exercise instead of eating sometimes. Will they, without the counselling and access to help? No. So don't bother getting into it until you cross those first bridges, because otherwise you've landed at Arnhem and you won't be able to make the change you want to make.
We are arguing for much the same thing, an improvement of the general health of society when it comes to weight, which will improve health in so very many other areas as a result of that. But it isn't something that will be achieved by telling them to do it, because 'the other stuff is already in place'. If it isn't having the desired effect, it isn't in place in the right way.
As I asked a post up: What should we do? Agreed on "Stop the Fat Shaming". But how do we fix the issue?
A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
not sure why having a dr or councillor tell you to eat better and excercise more when hearing it from multiple other sources wont...
Especially since DR/ect have been saying it for years.
simple fact,
Its easier to be obese right now then at any point in history, life is extremely easy, food is cheap and plentiful and avaiable in dorito form.
Not to mention you litearlly never need to walk anywhere if you dont want too, so even though it only takes a minimal amount of effort to eat reasonably well, and excercise enough to not be obese, since NO EFFORT is an option, it is often taken over "minimal effort".
So people generally take the easier (short term anyways) choice, and end up with the consequences of that choice.
Blame matters not a bit,
but the solution 100% cannot come from anyone outside of the person wanting to lose weight...
no one can excercise for you, no one is eating those doritos but you.
also... dear god.. I feel for the poor nurses in that new hospital wing.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
I don't even know what to say about this..... My goodness.
Madcat87 wrote: Oddly enough people in rural areas who are more likely to be in contact with the killer animals are more overweight. Is that the same in other countries where the further away from the city and more remote you are the more likely you are to be overweight?
In Russia, the further away from the city you live, the more likely you are to be a skinny, smelly peasant too poor to go the supermarket. That is why the vast majority of Russians lives in cities Dachas dont count of course.
But dear Lord, those poor Australians... All hope is now lost for them. How will they now run away from the drop bears, crocodiles and all those nasty poisonous creeps? They may now have a trucks weight, but they won't have a trucks speed.... (unless rolling downhill)
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
I don't even know what to say about this..... My goodness.
It is something that is done in many places for things that are bad for you. Alcohol, tobacco, drugs. I would imagine that it might not be the first thing banned to advertise in Australia.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
I'm not against it, actually. In theory. I don't know about ALL processed foods. Milk is "processed". You'll need to tighten that up a bit, but I'm willing to listen.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
I'm not against it, actually. In theory. I don't know about ALL processed foods. Milk is "processed". You'll need to tighten that up a bit, but I'm willing to listen.
Just look at TV adds for medications when describing side-effects.
The solution to this problem is very simple, but the issue arises when we conflate "simple" with "easy".
I mean, we all understand what is required for someone to lose weight- they must consume fewer calories than they use, over a long period.
Exercise is also helpful, but mostly for the side benefits and increasing metabolic action overall- the most important point is to reduce calorie intake to less than what your body needs to fuel itself.
What you eat, whether it's all natural or processed, does not have THAT much to do with weight gain or loss. It may be related to other health issues (diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc) but weight loss is almost entirely predicated on calorie control.
The thing about that is, being hungry really sucks, it's quite hard to get through daily life while being hungry, and our brains aren't wired to tolerate it in an atmosphere of plenty where the issue can be easily solved.
If this were an easy issue to resolve, obesity wouldn't be such an issue, because let's face it- few people actually want to be overweight.
So it is disrespectful to imply that people are somehow weak for having trouble shifting weight. It is doable, but it takes discipline, and it is not easy at all. Simple, but not easy.
People are very slow to change their behaviour. The easiest way to impact on obesity levels is to go after the food manufacturers - limit additives, put into place limits on salts, fats, etc that can be in certain foods, etc...
You then impact significantly on the population with almost no effort, simply by enforcing certain food and health standards on manufacturers.
But even in the areas where the US restricts advertisement, it isn't banned. You're not going to find any print ads for Absolut in Highlights magazine, but you do find them in maxim.
So I guess it begs the question, "what would you ban it from?" Do we ban processed food ads from any magazine that has a demographic that includes morbidly obese people?
I mean, I don't think banning advertisement or food should happen at all, but If you're proposing it, where do we start?
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: A simple solution might well be to ban advertising of all processed foods, as those are where the major problems lie
(fats/sugars etc that people don't know, and don't want to know is there)
advertising reminds people stuff it there and available, above and beyond hunger
less advertising/brand display and people would eat less (and the less you weigh the easier exercise is)
I'm not against it, actually. In theory. I don't know about ALL processed foods. Milk is "processed". You'll need to tighten that up a bit, but I'm willing to listen.
Just look at TV adds for medications when describing side-effects.
Is that what we want?
My favorite is when you have a list of terrifying side effects, and then they don't actually bother to tell you what the medication is supposed to be used for, other than something to do with partially cloudy but still bright skies, healthy verdant fields, and smiling people at a hard to discern, but like 35+ year old age.
The fact that we even ADVERTISE medicine should be nothing less than utterly insane to any rational population.
SilverMK2 wrote: People are very slow to change their behaviour. The easiest way to impact on obesity levels is to go after the food manufacturers - limit additives, put into place limits on salts, fats, etc that can be in certain foods, etc...
You then impact significantly on the population with almost no effort, simply by enforcing certain food and health standards on manufacturers.
This, to me, is absurd.
No one is making you buy and eat it.
I should be able to eat whatever the feth I want. But bearing that in mind, it's also on me if I go on a two week bacon and donut bender, gain 30 lbs, and develop diabetes.
I just don't get the lack of accountability/responsibility these days. It really confuses me.
people ignore the plethora of education, labelling, doctors advice, ect that tells them to eat healthy and excercise.
solution?!?!
dont advertise junk food!
if it were an information problem, then why the heck is advertising unhealthy food "working" when advertising eating healthy food is "not working"
As people have said, its not "easy"(some people think easy means effortless which is why the quotes, to me, eating healthy and excercising is both simple/easy) to be healthy, it requires a small amount of work/planning, which is too much work for a large # of people, so they do not do it.
it cannot be easy/effortless, lifes not easy, lifes not fair, you have to put the effort in or it just wont work.
easy is why people are overwheight in the first place, making things even easier isnt the solution, thats just more of the same thinking that caused the problem in the first place.
smokers pay more on their health premiums for their bad choice, so should obese people who make that choice (not talking about the >1% of obese people who have legit medical conditions)
maybe put pictures of gross fat on junk food like they put gross pictures of cancers on smokes?
but again, if telling people to eat healthy doesnt work already, why do we think more of the same will work?
SilverMK2 wrote: People are very slow to change their behaviour. The easiest way to impact on obesity levels is to go after the food manufacturers - limit additives, put into place limits on salts, fats, etc that can be in certain foods, etc...
You then impact significantly on the population with almost no effort, simply by enforcing certain food and health standards on manufacturers.
This, to me, is absurd.
No one is making you buy and eat it.
I should be able to eat whatever the feth I want. But bearing that in mind, it's also on me if I go on a two week bacon and donut bender, gain 30 lbs, and develop diabetes.
I just don't get the lack of accountability/responsibility these days. It really confuses me.
The FDA already restricts what can and cannot go into food products - what is the resistance to a few more controls which are unlikely to impact upon you at all?
There are a few products on sale in the USA which cannot be marketed elsewhere because they contain substances which are banned for human consumption - some of these undergo different manufacturing processes to make them suitable for sale.
smokers pay more on their health premiums for their bad choice, so should obese people who make that choice (not talking about the >1% of obese people who have legit medical conditions)
In the old days of health insurance, a weight table was used, and if the person was above the "limit" for their height, they simply did not get coverage. Period. NOW, with Obamacare, the standard plans mean they dont pay any more than another person (if they are a nonsmoker) but there are many supplements out there that still use the height/weight chart.
So, in many ways, being TOO fat meant that a person didn't have access to a doctor who would tell them "hey tubby, hit a treadmill and eat less crap, or you'll die"
Personally, I agree that a person who is obese without the underlying medical conditions should pay at the same rate as a smoker, but I've no control of the insurance industry.
Do smokers pay anything extra under the US "health insurance via employer" system or is that just for private coverage? A quick search seems to show that a couple states made the decision not to let insurers charge extra for smoking.
Charging obese extra seems counterproductive, since weight loss (especially the level you are talking about in these cases) can require a lot of supervision to be done safely and with long term success.
But I think the same goes for smokers too. There is a lot of medical help that can be provided, and putting a barrier between smokers and that care (via higher premiums) is counterproductive.
And yes, smokers and obese people both make choices that increase their risk for illness down the line. Even if they don't change anything they do, removing barriers to health care (aka: higher premiums) lets you catch diseases and complications earlier and treat them earlier which results in cost savings in the long run.
A person might eat themselves into Type 2 Diabetes. But you can do yearly physicals and catch them when they are starting to show early insulin resistance and make lifestyle modifications there, or catch them very early in the disease process and start to treat with medications. Or you can catch it years later because they couldn't afford health insurance and now you have the same person with the addition of kidney damage, loss of eyesight, additional heart disease - all caused by untreated diabetes which could have been treated even if the person stayed obese.
A person might smoke themselves into high blood pressure. But you can do yearly physicals and catch them when they are starting to show early elevated blood pressures and make lifestyle modifications there, or catch them very early in the disease process and start to treat with medications. Or you can catch it year later because they couldn't afford health insurance and now you have the same person with the addition of kidney damage, elevated stroke risk, and additional heart disease - all caused by untreated hypertension which could have been treated even if the person kept on smoking.
Sure, you can use financial incentives to reduce either. Tax cigarettes and unhealthy foods more, make advertisements illegal, control additives. Lots of options, although we can always argue if they would be effective.
But putting a barrier between people who make bad choices and the health coverage that can keep costs down in the long run and offers the tools and help to turn your life around? That's just stupid.
d-usa wrote: Do smokers pay anything extra under the US "health insurance via employer" system or is that just for private coverage? A quick search seems to show that a couple states made the decision not to let insurers charge extra for smoking.
Charging obese extra seems counterproductive, since weight loss (especially the level you are talking about in these cases) can require a lot of supervision to be done safely and with long term success.
But I think the same goes for smokers too. There is a lot of medical help that can be provided, and putting a barrier between smokers and that care (via higher premiums) is counterproductive.
And yes, smokers and obese people both make choices that increase their risk for illness down the line. Even if they don't change anything they do, removing barriers to health care (aka: higher premiums) lets you catch diseases and complications earlier and treat them earlier which results in cost savings in the long run.
A person might eat themselves into Type 2 Diabetes. But you can do yearly physicals and catch them when they are starting to show early insulin resistance and make lifestyle modifications there, or catch them very early in the disease process and start to treat with medications. Or you can catch it years later because they couldn't afford health insurance and now you have the same person with the addition of kidney damage, loss of eyesight, additional heart disease - all caused by untreated diabetes which could have been treated even if the person stayed obese.
A person might smoke themselves into high blood pressure. But you can do yearly physicals and catch them when they are starting to show early elevated blood pressures and make lifestyle modifications there, or catch them very early in the disease process and start to treat with medications. Or you can catch it year later because they couldn't afford health insurance and now you have the same person with the addition of kidney damage, elevated stroke risk, and additional heart disease - all caused by untreated hypertension which could have been treated even if the person kept on smoking.
Sure, you can use financial incentives to reduce either. Tax cigarettes and unhealthy foods more, make advertisements illegal, control additives. Lots of options, although we can always argue if they would be effective.
But putting a barrier between people who make bad choices and the health coverage that can keep costs down in the long run and offers the tools and help to turn your life around? That's just stupid.
When I was doing Health Insurance, I "specialized" in (read: only dealt with) single paying customers, usually small business owners... not any form of group/business based health insurance, so my knowledge of whether a company that uses BC/BS over another to provide coverage for employees will charge that business/employee more for being a smoker. A few of the companies that represented DID offer work insurance, and I believe that the policy offered through a business, in order to be ACA compliant had to be the same as what was offered to individuals (as in, if I work for John's Logging Company and get HI through "ABC Health Insurance" but then I leave, and go work for Brian's FIshing Company who doesn't offer coverage and I go to the "ABC Health Insurance" website to get my own coverage through them, the policies should be the same, and at the same, or very close in premium). So, in that way, it makes complete sense to me that even getting a large company policy through work, someone is still paying extra for the worker who smokes.
In the fine print, I do believe that many smoking cessation type products can be gotten through your health insurance at a decent discount, with the eventual goal of the person quitting smoking, and after a couple years, that person can qualify for a "non-smoker" policy. In my mind this would necessarily be how any approach to obesity would have to work, from the insurance side of things; Provided they actually treat fat people the way they treat smokers.
smokers pay more on their health premiums for their bad choice, so should obese people who make that choice (not talking about the >1% of obese people who have legit medical conditions)
yup we have gross pictures of mouth cancer, various tumours and gross looking teeth on our fags (smokes to you yanks, im a 1 gen immigrant.)
healthy food is well defined already, if people cannot use common sense apporaches like "fruits and vegetables are healthy, candy, potatoe chips and fast food is not" then thankfully there are numerous sources for concrete informations on nutritional guidlines.
its even printed on all food products what the ingrediants are, how much of them you are supposed to eat per day, and how that food fufills them...
again, the information/definitions are ALREADY there, people just ignore them, dont care, or unfortunatly, are too easily confused by something that says along the lines of:
"package size 100g,
serving size 50g,
daily quotient per serving of fat, sodium, sugar 100%"
to figure out that eating this item is 200% of the recomended daily intake of these things.
It really isn't. What might be healthy for someone like me, a person who burns upwards of 5k calories a day, might not be healthy for someone who doesn't do that. As is generally the case, context is important.
I'm not taking the mick out of Americans, but a lot of Americans like guns, a significant portion of those gun owners will be overweight, and lastly, some of them probably smoke as well!
It's a triple whammy of an open carry, overweight, cigar toting average American. Health insurance companies must be going bankrupt at that combination
Ending the obesity crisis would involve either tampering with the human mind to not crave junk food anymore or force overweight people to eat less. Neither of these sound pleasant.
Heres the list of ingredients for Jif creamy peanut butter:
WTF is "Rapeseed" and why is it in my Peanut Butter?!!!!
Joking, I don't eat peanut butter.
OT: I believe the morbidly obese are a tiny sliver of the population that truly deserve the scorn of society.
I see people in Wal-Mart using those scooter things and just want to cry for humanity. Of course I believe a significant portion of the worlds population need to die off anyway. There is no tragedy in people dying of their own stupidity and laziness. More air for me.
I believe it was George Carlin who said "the morning I wake up and cannot see my di%& I'm sewing my mouth shut."
I see people in Wal-Mart using those scooter things and just want to cry for humanity.
Wait... In American supermarkets, you can ride on scooters?
Where is the nearest emigration office!
SlaveToDorkness wrote: Of course I believe a significant portion of the worlds population need to die off anyway. There is no tragedy in people dying of their own stupidity and laziness. More air for me.
But that is kinda disturbing...
It sounds almost like a certain failed Austrian painter of whom I can't recall the name at the moment...
I didn't say I was the instrument of their demise. I just mean there's very few world problems that wouldn't be solved by 20% or so of the population not being here.
Yes. There are "I'm too fat to get around this huge store" scooters provided by the big box stores.
Iron_Captain wrote: But that is kinda disturbing...
It sounds almost like a certain failed Austrian painter of whom I can't recall the name at the moment...
That's the funny thing. People always say stuff like "stupid people shouldn't be allowed to breed" and "we'd be better off with much less of the population", but when asked who decides that and on what metric, they can't really come up with an explanation that doesn't make them sound like a monster.
Bullockist wrote: sorry sebster, addictions are solely on the individual. Over eating is as much an addiction as heroin or smoking, people over eat to get the overfull chemicals in the noggin or as a result of some other psychological issue. Blaming anyone but the individual whilst being kind, does not and will never help the problem. And yes I have addictions myself.
Take your example of heroin, and think about what we do with a heroin addict. We recognise that yep, the heroin addict got themselves in that situation, but we also understand that while the heroin addict might have gotten themselves in that situation, just leaving them to try and get themselves out will almost certainly fail and end up costing society a stupid amount of money in police resources, damage from crime to feed their habit, jail times and so on. And so we ban heroin to stop people getting in to that situation, and we force people in to rehab programs and all kinds of other stuff.
While obesity doesn't need anything like those drastic measures, the basic logic still remains - regardless of whether the person did it to themselves, it makes sense for society to understand the cost of the issue it faces and do things to minimise that cost, and help people with that problem as it does so.
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kronk wrote: I have filtered this thread with your posts and haven't seen your proposal to fix the problem. Perhaps you posted it in another thread that I missed.
I am against "Fat shaming". Calling people out on it isn't doing anyone any good, unless you can only get an erection when you're mean to people. However, how do we fix it? What is your proposal?
I haven't given a solution. This is an issue that I don't believe I've seen any kind of particularly good solution proposed yet.
There's lots of things being experimented with - an interesting one is simple food labels - just showing healthy food in green, neutral in no colour and unhealthy food in red has a ridiculously good impact on people's food selections at a cafeteria. It hints at a simpler, more emotionally effective labeling system might give better results than the list of number we get on packaging right now.
Increasing subsidies for lap band surgery might even be part of a solution - better to pay for a lap band now than have to renovate a home to handle an obese person in retirement.
There's all sorts of things being looked at and discussed, but for the most part that kind of stuff gets lost in the margins because right now society seems unable to actually see the problem as it really is. It's like climate change in that sense - we need to have discussion about the various forms of clean energy and the role they might play in a future economy and the economic structures we might build to encourage their development... but that discussion never happens because it gets drowned out by people who want to claim global warming is still being scientifically debated.
My point is that once society as a whole finally actually sees a problem as it is, it's amazing how quickly and painlessly we solve it. Most of the problems come in the years (decades) in which get ourselves confused about the issue.
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cincydooley wrote: I feel like, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink is appropriate here."
I don't think further regulating the food companies, as some people have alluded to, is the solution. I, on occasion, want some horrible for me Doritos or a big, greasy basket of chicken wings. Just Because someone else can't manage their intake shouldn't mean the options should be removed from everyone
I don't think completely removing food items is an option that anyone anywhere is seriously considering. Apart from everyone recognising that you can eat the odd snack food with no ill health, just think of the practical reality of something like ever getting up - right now the food lobby is so powerful that they can effectively pressure health agencies and even WHO to remove sections on food quantity from population health studies... the idea that whole foods could ever get banned is just never going to happen.
To the extent that direct control of food happens, it will be to ban specific ingredients such as trans-fats, where there are healthier alternatives that might cost slightly more but produce the same flavour.
sebster wrote: that they should eat better and exercise doesn't fix the problem.
I have filtered this thread with your posts and haven't seen your proposal to fix the problem. Perhaps you posted it in another thread that I missed.
I am against "Fat shaming". Calling people out on it isn't doing anyone any good, unless you can only get an erection when you're mean to people. However, how do we fix it? What is your proposal?
I have a solution. It involves African plains, cheetahs, video cameras, and a laugh track.
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Da Boss wrote: The solution to this problem is very simple, but the issue arises when we conflate "simple" with "easy".
I mean, we all understand what is required for someone to lose weight- they must consume fewer calories than they use, over a long period.
Exercise is also helpful, but mostly for the side benefits and increasing metabolic action overall- the most important point is to reduce calorie intake to less than what your body needs to fuel itself.
What you eat, whether it's all natural or processed, does not have THAT much to do with weight gain or loss. It may be related to other health issues (diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc) but weight loss is almost entirely predicated on calorie control.
The thing about that is, being hungry really sucks, it's quite hard to get through daily life while being hungry, and our brains aren't wired to tolerate it in an atmosphere of plenty where the issue can be easily solved.
If this were an easy issue to resolve, obesity wouldn't be such an issue, because let's face it- few people actually want to be overweight.
So it is disrespectful to imply that people are somehow weak for having trouble shifting weight. It is doable, but it takes discipline, and it is not easy at all. Simple, but not easy.
Why do anything? If they want to eat themselves into oblivion thats their call. They will save health care costs via a shorter life so its win win.
There's lots of things being experimented with - an interesting one is simple food labels - just showing healthy food in green, neutral in no colour and unhealthy food in red has a ridiculously good impact on people's food selections at a cafeteria. It hints at a simpler, more emotionally effective labeling system might give better results than the list of number we get on packaging right now.
Increasing subsidies for lap band surgery might even be part of a solution - better to pay for a lap band now than have to renovate a home to handle an obese person in retirement.
1. Labels. Agreed. When I go out to dinner, I would love for EVERY restaurant to have on their menus the fat, calories, and other pertinent info on each menu item. While I can generally make a good decision these days on a somewhat-healthy choice for dinner, "Secret Sauces" can trip you up. "The cheif has prepared a wonderful "blah blah" sauce for your grilled chicken" to me instantly means that a Ribeye would probably have less fat, but I don't think many people realize that.
2. I'm actually ok with that. Hospital and doctor bills for the senior obese is rather expensive, I would think.
1. Labels. Agreed. When I go out to dinner, I would love for EVERY restaurant to have on their menus the fat, calories, and other pertinent info on each menu item. While I can generally make a good decision these days on a somewhat-healthy choice for dinner, "Secret Sauces" can trip you up. "The cheif has prepared a wonderful "blah blah" sauce for your grilled chicken" to me instantly means that a Ribeye would probably have less fat, but I don't think many people realize that.
I agree. Because, although most every restaurant's menu, with nutritional value content is on their website, or A website somewhere, I'd much rather be able to see it right in front of me.... And none of that "Items with this idiotic leafy symbol are all under a certain calorie limit"
Bullockist wrote: sorry sebster, addictions are solely on the individual. Over eating is as much an addiction as heroin or smoking, people over eat to get the overfull chemicals in the noggin or as a result of some other psychological issue. Blaming anyone but the individual whilst being kind, does not and will never help the problem. And yes I have addictions myself.
Take your example of heroin, and think about what we do with a heroin addict. We recognise that yep, the heroin addict got themselves in that situation, but we also understand that while the heroin addict might have gotten themselves in that situation, just leaving them to try and get themselves out will almost certainly fail and end up costing society a stupid amount of money in police resources, damage from crime to feed their habit, jail times and so on. And so we ban heroin to stop people getting in to that situation, and we force people in to rehab programs and all kinds of other stuff.
While obesity doesn't need anything like those drastic measures, the basic logic still remains - regardless of whether the person did it to themselves, it makes sense for society to understand the cost of the issue it faces and do things to minimise that cost, and help people with that problem as it does so.
.
What I was trying to point out is that the act of blaming food companies takes the onus away from the person to change their behavior. Addictions take a lot of work to overcome and taking personal ownership of the problem (even partially) away from the addict is very counter productive.
If someone else is to blame, how can the individual change their behavior?
No matter how much help you give an addict ( or price inflation as well incidentally) the behavior will remain until they make a personal decision to change behavior. Blaming anyone but yourself is counter productive.
Bullockist wrote: What I was trying to point out is that the act of blaming food companies takes the onus away from the person to change their behavior. Addictions take a lot of work to overcome and taking personal ownership of the problem (even partially) away from the addict is very counter productive.
If someone else is to blame, how can the individual change their behavior?
Except that there is not a single person on Earth saying that it is all about the food companies, and therefore we can tell people they shouldn't worry about what they eat because when we have the companies under control they'll only have healthy foods and quantities available to them.
But there is vast number of people who believe that obesity begins and ends with personal choice, and all we should do is blame the fat person and do nothing about food and information in society.
It does begin and end with personal choice. All addictions do and until someone makes a personal choice to change behavior ie realises there is a problem, nothing is going to change. You can have all the programs you want but until someone realises there is a problem thosde programs don't matter.
Things like those hilarious fat scooters in the picture above are just agents of the status quo for fat people.
Telling people that big is beautiful and the ridiculous "i'm happy with my body"statement from obese people are also agents of the status quo. Being obese is not healthy, being obese with all it's limitations ( like under-wiping) is something that no one should be happy with. If someone is happy being obese then why are they still over eating?
sebster wrote: But there is vast number of people who believe that obesity begins and ends with personal choice, and all we should do is blame the fat person and do nothing about food and information in society.
I think one of the saddest things is that a lot of nutritional information that has been thrown around for the last 30 years was based on the Seven Countries Study. Which had a lot of problems and made a lot of claims that aren't corroborated by modern studies. The fallout of that was the notion that eating fat makes you fat, which has now been largely debunked. In fact it seems now that eating fat might actually help you stay thin by suppressing insulin production.
So these foods that were supposed to be 'healthy' ended up being decidedly unhealthy. Removing fat ruined the flavour, so they pumped them full of sugar, and then when all this sugar was eaten there was no fat with it to help suppress appetite and insulin production. So people were hungrier and gaining more weight than ever before.
I think maybe I was fortunate that I grew up with my grandparents, who were appalled by the idea that people would drink skimmed milk (In their day it was just a waste product from cream that was given to animals). I've never eaten 'lite' anything, or forbade myself fatty foods, and I've always been very healthy. While the most vulnerable people, people who were struggling with their weight, and young girls who were self conscious about their figure ended up turning to these 'low fat' foods to be better, but what they got was actually toxic.
So I think a lot of these overweight people have actually been trying to better themselves, but it's difficult when there is so much misinformation circulating.
You keep saying this, and I keep explaining how simplistic a view it is. I'll try again, and this time I'll use a lot of expletives, maybe that might get us the breakthrough we need.
While the individual's personal choice is relevant, claiming it is the only factor is fething ridiculous. For a simple fething example, consider that almost all diets don't fething work. And then consider a lap band, which works most of the time.
It's the same fething people failing on diets, but succeeding with lap band surgery. Nothing's fething changed but the method used to address the condition. The will of those people didn't fething change one fething bit. And now, because a better method has been used the future medical costs to society are lower.
What is food like in Australia? I mean do you typically get big portions when you eat out? Are the lots of meat portions available?
I often get frustrated in the UK by the size of portions, it feels like they're being so stingy when a large steak is only 10oz :( In south Africa I got an 18oz steak (I was so happy) and that wasn't even the biggest.
Things like those hilarious fat scooters in the picture above are just agents of the status quo for fat people.
Thing is, those really aren't "fat scooters" they're supposed to be for people with some form of walking disability, such as they need a cane or walker, or some form of device in order to be mobile. But in a society that is as heavily litigious as the US, most or all of the stores that have them cannot, or will not stop some fatty from using them.
Also, at some point we "allow" obesity to be a disability on its own and so the huge people get to, often times, park closest to the store when really they should park as far away from it as possible, just so they can get some kind of exercise.
A single serving of steak is only supposed to be 8oz. Start eating ACTUAL RECOMMENDED portion sizes for two weeks and you'll no longer think there is any skimping on portion size.
cincydooley wrote: A single serving of steak is only supposed to be 8oz. Start eating ACTUAL RECOMMENDED portion sizes for two weeks and you'll no longer think there is any skimping on portion size.
2-4oz.
USDA gives 5-6oz for 2 servings. AHA gives 2-3oz for a single serving. Max recommended for meat is 4oz.
[insert comment about people talking about personal responsibility and "it isn't hard to know this stuff" getting the serving size wrong]
I have yet to see this Mythical SuperSize. There is small, medium and large. And the size of the meal doesnt change, only the drink.
Fries generally change sizes too. The supersize term went away after the movie of the same name came out, but it WAS a thing back when I was in high school. I want to say it was McDonald's thought abomination, but I'm not sure.
Semi off-topic: Has anyone here watched the movie Branded?
cincydooley wrote: A single serving of steak is only supposed to be 8oz. Start eating ACTUAL RECOMMENDED portion sizes for two weeks and you'll no longer think there is any skimping on portion size.
Meh, that might suit some people, but if anything I would like to gain weight. Eating enough to make that happen actually requires quite a lot of dedication, and I end up feeling hungry a lot. I was completely in my element when I visited America! I bought a foot long sandwich that had like 6 chicken breasts in it. The only downside was a lot of the food seemed to be more processed, especially things like cheese (which apparently you only have in liquid form?). I wish I could get those kind of portions here more frequently though.
cincydooley wrote: A single serving of steak is only supposed to be 8oz. Start eating ACTUAL RECOMMENDED portion sizes for two weeks and you'll no longer think there is any skimping on portion size.
2-4oz.
USDA gives 5-6oz for 2 servings. AHA gives 2-3oz for a single serving. Max recommended for meat is 4oz.
[insert comment about people talking about personal responsibility and "it isn't hard to know this stuff" getting the serving size wrong]
I stand corrected. The 8oz is the high end of the "recommended" daily.
But then again I don't typically use the USDAs recommendations because they also recommend far too much dairy and grains. But then again we do eat a fairly Paleolithic diet at our home.
Good news is it that is affects in no way, shape, or form the ability to read a food label and avoid gak you can't pronounce.
I have yet to see this Mythical SuperSize. There is small, medium and large. And the size of the meal doesnt change, only the drink.
Fries generally change sizes too. The supersize term went away after the movie of the same name came out, but it WAS a thing back when I was in high school. I want to say it was McDonald's thought abomination, but I'm not sure.
Same here.... Yeah, McD's had "Super Size", Burger King had "King Size" and I honestly don't remember the other brands' special, extra big size names, but many of them had one.
But then again I don't typically use the USDAs recommendations because they also recommend far too much dairy and grains. But then again we do eat a fairly Paleolithic diet at our home.
Same here... I've found the "difficulty" in trying to go as close to full Paleo as possible, is getting the wife on board
No bat meat sadly whembly. We do get Sugar Glider meat though, in a couple of forms. Not burgers, but there are kebab (the stick kind not the wrap) sort of things and I guess 'nuggets' (best term for it I suppose). This is a full grown sugar glider. Usually need 3-4 to make up the meat side of a meal
Spoiler:
And roo meat isn't bad. The steaks can turn some people off, as can the snags. But then there are other people out there who don't like regular steak, so who knows. You can also get crocodile and camel in just the regular supermarket, without having to go too far afield.
You keep saying this, and I keep explaining how simplistic a view it is. I'll try again, and this time I'll use a lot of expletives, maybe that might get us the breakthrough we need.
While the individual's personal choice is relevant, claiming it is the only factor is fething ridiculous. For a simple fething example, consider that almost all diets don't fething work. And then consider a lap band, which works most of the time.
It's the same fething people failing on diets, but succeeding with lap band surgery. Nothing's fething changed but the method used to address the condition. The will of those people didn't fething change one fething bit. And now, because a better method has been used the future medical costs to society are lower.
Do you get it now?
Sebster with swearing! ;o
A lap band is merely a physically enforced diet. A guy I know has one and it is bizarre to see the amount of food he can eat. What I am trying to say is society can spend all the money it wants on programs and suchlike but until the individual can realise they have a problem all that money spent does not matter.
People will fail on diets , i've failed giving up smoking 6 times , but i still realise I have to give up and will be trying again soon. At the end of the day it IS the individuals willpower that matters , other things can assist them but do not have the ultimate say in the chance of success.
If a society is 60% overweight then over time overweight becomes normal and therefore acceptable.
The whole 'fat hating 'thing is overblown, personally as I am a smoker I find it humorous that somehow shaming a fat person is somehow worse than shaming a smoker. Both are preventable conditions.
Bullockist wrote: I am a smoker I find it humorous that somehow shaming a fat person is somehow worse than shaming a smoker. Both are preventable conditions.
Heh, I agree they are analogous, but I think there is a difference between: "You are doing something repulsive", and "You are physically repulsive". Smoking (being a doing something) is also quite easy to not do, when it doesn't suit you. I have a friend who is 27, and she still hasn't told her parents that she smokes, and she lives with them. Fat people don't have that luxury. They have to be fat all the time, even when they'd rather not be (which is probably all the time).
If I was going to compare them more fairly: Eating is to being fat as smoking is to lung disease. Lung disease is pretty gross, no one wants to be next to someone on a train or bus who keeps coughing up loads of crap. And while it might be self inflicted, you wouldn't say that someone with lung disease doesn't need help, or deserves to be shamed.
Food is a pretty unique addiction because sobriety is just something that is impossible to achieve.
You can eat without being addicted, just as you can smoke without being addicted, or take pain medication without being addicted. But the ultimate cure for alcoholism and drug addiction is sobriety. If you are an alcoholic you cannot "drink in moderation". Drinking what you are addicted to will lead to relapse. Same with drugs.
But people who are addicted to food can never quit eating, ever. Every single day, every single meal, they have to consume the very thing that they are addicted to. The conventional treatment for addiction, just quit, is not an option for food addiction.
That is what makes food addiction such a difficult disease to treat.
Now, not every obese person is addicted to food. But it is something to keep in mind.
That is the thing. Think about the joke "If I cant see my Wang, Im sewing my mouth shut" it is funny because he would die.
Everyone eats, so those who eat and dont get fat, even those who eat tons of stuff don't exercise and stay skinny, see it as a failing of those who do become big as a control failing, when in reality it is more then that.
A smoker who quit would never say to someone "Just stop smoking, it is easy"
Again, food companies share the blame.
d-usa wrote: But people who are addicted to food can never quit eating, ever. Every single day, every single meal, they have to consume the very thing that they are addicted to. The conventional treatment for addiction, just quit, is not an option for food addiction.
'Food' is quite a broad term though. There are foods I love and foods you couldn't pay me to eat. I imagine most people with a food addiction are actually addicted to a specific component of food, namely sugar. It would certainly be possible to cut refined sugar out of your diet, and you could probably also cut a lot of carbohydrates that get metabolized into sugars too.
hotsauceman1 wrote: That is the thing. Think about the joke "If I cant see my Wang, Im sewing my mouth shut" it is funny because he would die.
I believe an obese man did actually manage to not eat for over a year under medical supervision.
d-usa wrote: But people who are addicted to food can never quit eating, ever. Every single day, every single meal, they have to consume the very thing that they are addicted to. The conventional treatment for addiction, just quit, is not an option for food addiction.
'Food' is quite a broad term though. There are foods I love and foods you couldn't pay me to eat. I imagine most people with a food addiction are actually addicted to a specific component of food, namely sugar. It would certainly be possible to cut refined sugar out of your diet, and you could probably also cut a lot of carbohydrates that get metabolized into sugars too.
hotsauceman1 wrote: That is the thing. Think about the joke "If I cant see my Wang, Im sewing my mouth shut" it is funny because he would die.
I believe an obese man did actually manage to not eat for over a year under medical supervision.
Being addicted to sugar is definitely something that happens, and companies also add additives to reinforce that effect.
But there are also people who are addicted to the physical act of eating. That is the hard thing to treat.
A smoker who quit would never say to someone "Just stop smoking, it is easy"
.
it happens.I've heard it about 5 times so far.
Make that 6, I tried to quit smoking for years and it was impossible. Then I tried quitting using an ecig,for when I got the urge. That worked well, it was fairly easy. Have been clean almost 5 years now.
I find it funny so many people are quick to blame the individual. Yes, a good amount of blame falls on the individual to eat better, but by that same right we should demand better health options of the people who make our food. The corn I ate ten, fifteen years ago is not the same corn being sold today. GMOs and additives are all too commonplace in most food.
Also, to everyone who says health information is out there and so easy to get a hold of: yes, now a days it is. But most people grow up eating what their parents and rarely change their eating habits. Part of the responsibility comes from the parents to show their kids how to eat healthy.
In short: yes, people are fat because they eat too much and don't exercise, but eating crappy food and exercising won't make it better. We need to solve not only the personal responsibility to eat healthier, but make food actually be healthy. I cannot remember the last time I had an apple that that tasted like what it was supposed to. And the name "heirloom tomatoes" should terrify you, if you truly understand what it means. Working at a grocery store, especially in the produce section, is terrifying
Bullockist wrote: A lap band is merely a physically enforced diet. A guy I know has one and it is bizarre to see the amount of food he can eat. What I am trying to say is society can spend all the money it wants on programs and suchlike but until the individual can realise they have a problem all that money spent does not matter.
Once again - yes the individual matters and no-one is saying otherwise. But to say the individual matters and then ignore all the other factors is nonsense, because other factors matter as well. So if we can make losing weight a bit easier through some other means, then it stands to reason that some people who might have lacked just enough will and commitment to keep the weight off will now manage it.
Yeah?
If a society is 60% overweight then over time overweight becomes normal and therefore acceptable.
It has nothing to do with normal and everything to do with health.
The whole 'fat hating 'thing is overblown, personally as I am a smoker I find it humorous that somehow shaming a fat person is somehow worse than shaming a smoker. Both are preventable conditions.
I think the better point is that shaming a smoker is an equally crap thing to do. Basically we shouldn't be shaming anyone for their own lives. We've all got a bad habit, something that we know is bad for us but gives us just a temporary fix - whether its junk food or smoking or Twlight books or any other kind of crap, and it's both hypocritical and kind of obnoxious to pick out someone else's bad habit and make it out as if they're bad people because of their one bad habit.
jreilly89 wrote: We need to solve not only the personal responsibility to eat healthier, but make food actually be healthy. I cannot remember the last time I had an apple that tasted like what it was supposed to. And the name "heirloom tomatoes" should terrify you, if you truly understand what it means. Working at a grocery store, especially in the produce section, is terrifying
It's funny, there is a supermarket that has just opened in my city. It's called hiSbe. Everything in the shop is fair-trade, I believe most stuff is organic, and all the produce is sourced locally from local farms and industry. Everything is seasonal, everything is sustainable, and there is much less waste packaging. It's actually a really fantastic place, and I try and buy stuff there whenever I can. It isn't even expensive. The problem is it's about 100 feet from an Aldi, which is the complete opposite. Everything is cheap (like 1980s prices) and you don't want to know where it's from.
When I do go in hiSbe, I get annoyed that there is hardly anyone in there. When I go in Aldi I get annoyed that you can hardly move in there. I feel very lucky that there is a shop like hiSbe close to me. Not just because I'm a self righteous jerk, but because it gives me a choice. If I want something that isn't processed or something that comes from local farms, then I have a place to get that. The problem is that choice will be taken away if other people don't support it, and the truth is people don't. People walk straight past hiSbe to go do their shopping at Aldi, because it's cheaper, it doesn't matter that you get what you pay for. People won't even help themselves.
( I just looked at the shredded cheese in my fridge, and I didn't see that ingredient, as I'd recognize it on the label when I saw it... but otherwise had forgotten what it was called)
