Uhm…no surprises…study after study, and they all conclude on the same…America is getting fatter and fatter.
That is actually a good thing. The more fat people there are, the more those of us fit ones stand out. That’s the kind of attention that I do not mind getting at all.
No, it’s not a good thing. Obese people mean obese kids, who can only become healthy when they move out and figure out how to eat healthy themselves. They will still be hamstrung by an entire childhood of terrible eating, though. I respond extremely poorly to carbs even years after I finally put together a decent diet, and I suspect my borderline diabetic kid years can be blamed.
By the time someone is able to take care of themselves, it’s too late to a huge degree. At best, I can aim to be a dime a dozen short, beefy bodybuilder, which honestly doesn’t look that great compared to a tall marathon runner. It’s better than being fat, but not ideal.
Bad obesity policy hurts the kids, who can only partially repair that kind of long term damage to their health. The best thing we could do is ban working say more than 20 hours a week for women, because food quality simply collapsed when women began to work instead of cook healthy meals.
These days, only the rich or the single (me) can enjoy a healthy diet, because it takes 2 incomes to support just a 4 person family now, and that’s with the cheapest food available.
It’s all because we’re running out of oil. It takes more and more labor to get fewer and fewer resources. Soon child labor laws will be repealed to get even more labor, since a dual income family will soon not be enough. It was just 50 years ago a single income supported a family of 7…
But do you really want attention from fat people for being in shape? I would much rather have attention from a good looking female than a fatass.
One thing that stood out very clearly on the page provided is that they would like to place the burden of responsibility to fix this on the federal government.
Why is that?
People make personal choices to become what they are, but it is the federal govt., and ultimately the taxpayers (us) responsibility to provide a solution?
I disagree. That looks like a good idea, but bad execution.
Trends have peaks and troughs. Obesity has been trending upward for a long time.
I think that this obesity epidemic is self solving. People will eventualy suffer enough consequences- whether it be shorter lifespan, inability to reproduce, or any of the myriad of problems that occur due to obesity, that this trend will eventualy reverse. It may take a while, but it will.
But, since some folks feel the need to demand answers and solutions to what they see as a “right now” problem, heres one-
Let the fat bastards fix their own damn problems, or let them suffer and die.
You guys still don’t get it. Obesity affects more than just lazy fools; it affects their children, their family, and the whole economy. It is a federal issue because it drags down all of society, just like drugs. The libertarian stance simply doesn’t work with obesity.
All of society would be better off if things like TV dinners, restaurant food, etc were regulated to higher standards, since home cooking is very quickly becoming a luxury only the rich or single can enjoy.
In the very long run, the solution is to end the overpopulation crisis and create a society where a single income can support a whole family, just the way it used to be, but for right now, we need regulations on our food quality to keep America healthy.
I don’t quite get it. Isn’t the U.S. the country of free choice par excellence? People want freedom of choice, do they not?
Well, weight management is a choice as well: Choice to be more physically active, or not. Choice to eat healthier, or not. Choice to take more responsibility for the consequences of your choices, or not. Choice to pass on healthy habits to your children, or not; etc, etc.
It just baffles me that in this age and time, with so much available information, people are still choosing things for the conveniences they offer: Drive-thrus, remote controls, frozen meals…
I do not see why the rest of society should carry the burden, let alone the government. If it is a question of health insurance getting more and more expensive, well, there are many more ways to offset that.
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
You guys still don’t get it. Obesity affects more than just lazy fools; it affects their children, their family, and the whole economy. It is a federal issue because it drags down all of society, just like drugs. The libertarian stance simply doesn’t work with obesity.
[/quote]
Drugs are not a constitutionally federal issue where they are not sold or transported for sale between states. Neither are food choices. Just because the federal government made a power grab years ago doesn’t justify more power grabs now.
I see nowhere in the tenth amendment that obesity can be legislated on the federal level because it “drags down all of society.” That sort of argument can be used for anything you dislike, since everything is interrelated to some extent.
And what you are saying is that the “libertarian stance” doesn’t work with any problem you dislike. Leave that freedom stuff for the unimportant issues.
[quote]valenciaord wrote:
It just baffles me that in this age and time, with so much available information, people are still choosing things for the conveniences they offer: Drive-thrus, remote controls, frozen meals…
[/quote]
We are creatures of convenience. Convenience was never so mass-marketed and pre-packaged before the last fifty years or so. It shouldn’t baffle you at all; cooking food takes work. Commute times are up. Despite improvements in technology, we have less and less time that is truly our own. Healthy food is expensive and takes time and skill to prepare. Unhealthy food contains all the stuff that makes it taste good, requires none of the work, and has no immediately perceptible negative effects.
The intellect came into being because it allowed the human being to gain more while doing less. Is it any wonder that it falters when all needs are accounted for?
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
You guys still don’t get it. Obesity affects more than just lazy fools; it affects their children, their family, and the whole economy. It is a federal issue because it drags down all of society, just like drugs. The libertarian stance simply doesn’t work with obesity.
All of society would be better off if things like TV dinners, restaurant food, etc were regulated to higher standards, since home cooking is very quickly becoming a luxury only the rich or single can enjoy.
In the very long run, the solution is to end the overpopulation crisis and create a society where a single income can support a whole family, just the way it used to be, but for right now, we need regulations on our food quality to keep America healthy.[/quote]
This goes against some of the most basic principles of liberty on which this country was founded. The last thing we need is for the government to start dictating what we can and cannot eat. education, yes. regulation, no.
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
You guys still don’t get it. [/quote]
Did it ever occur to you that if you are in a state of conflict or misunderstanding, that it is YOU who is in a state of conflict or misunderstanding, and not the rest of the world.
Ever?
i remember watching the director commentary for the movie Apocalypto and at one Mel Gibson mentions alot of the actors before filming were a bit fat so they were put on a diet of meats and vegtables to make them lean.
to me there is a glaring problem in that the worlds population is growing too fast such that once the demand for lean diets (low-carb, high meat etc) exceeds supply alot of people will be forced into choosing grains/refined flour diets that… make you fat.
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
You guys still don’t get it. Obesity affects more than just lazy fools; it affects their children, their family, and the whole economy. It is a federal issue because it drags down all of society, just like drugs. The libertarian stance simply doesn’t work with obesity.
[/quote]
Cause it works so well with drugs?
Which ones?
[quote]
All of society would be better off if things like TV dinners, restaurant food, etc were regulated to higher standards, since home cooking is very quickly becoming a luxury only the rich or single can enjoy.[/quote]
Says who?
Have you ever done a cost comparison between prepared and unprepared foods?
Cause if you did, you would know how utterly fucking ridiculous that statement is.
[quote]
In the very long run, the solution is to end the overpopulation crisis and create a society where a single income can support a whole family, just the way it used to be, but for right now, we need regulations on our food quality to keep America healthy.[/quote]
Should we also enact some legislation to force people to cooperate with your “solution”?
Would you consider your idea a good final solution?
What if that did happen, and a bunch of people refused to abide by it? What would you do then?
I’m not a politician but I know a problem when I see it. When things get really bad, like with global warming, people will wake up and pay attention, even if it means having to make personal sacrifices. The key is that we take action today because it is always more difficult to solve a problem later than earlier.
And seriously, anyone with a brain knows we’re better off not having Wal-Mart selling crack next to the candy bars. We can do without drugs and we can do without excessively unhealthy foods. Even if they’re more expensive, if you count time as money, the convenience factor makes unhealthy food much cheaper.
Just compare wild salmon to farmed salmon to hamburger, or compare olive oil to canola oil to soybean oil. As quality increases, price increases, and that’s not the way it should be when it comes to what our children consume! Capitalism only works with those with the ability to consent.
[quote]valenciaord wrote:
Uhm…no surprises…study after study, and they all conclude on the same…America is getting fatter and fatter.
That is actually a good thing. The more fat people there are, the more those of us fit ones stand out. That’s the kind of attention that I do not mind getting at all.
http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2007/[/quote]
Yeah but the attractive female pool dwindles more and more every year. It used to be funny to see a skinny guy holding hands with a fat bitch in public. It may not be long before it’s a necessity if we intend to continue procreating.
hold on to your hustlers boys. The day is coming when sex was an activity to look forward too rather than a chore to maintain the human species. We’ll need something to remind us of what sex can be again.
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
I’m not a politician but I know a problem when I see it. When things get really bad, like with global warming, people will wake up and pay attention, even if it means having to make personal sacrifices. The key is that we take action today because it is always more difficult to solve a problem later than earlier.
And seriously, anyone with a brain knows we’re better off not having Wal-Mart selling crack next to the candy bars. We can do without drugs and we can do without excessively unhealthy foods. Even if they’re more expensive, if you count time as money, the convenience factor makes unhealthy food much cheaper.
Just compare wild salmon to farmed salmon to hamburger, or compare olive oil to canola oil to soybean oil. As quality increases, price increases, and that’s not the way it should be when it comes to what our children consume! Capitalism only works with those with the ability to consent.[/quote]
So, WalMart sell crack, the time it takes to prepare good food is not worth it, we should nurture children that we shouldn’t have, and the govt. should control everything.
Is that what you are trying to say with these posts?
You wouldn’t happen to have a tinfoil hat laying around, would you?
The government would legally define as “healthy” whatever ADM and P&G told them anyway. Such is the nature of politics.
McDonald’s is our future. Its a Big Mac world.
Fat people are easier to rule also. Lean and hungry people make trouble.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
The intellect came into being because it allowed the human being to gain more while doing less. Is it any wonder that it falters when all needs are accounted for?[/quote]
Most brilliant Nephorm quote ever! You definately touched a nerve there.
I think that the solution lies more in the school systems. When are state colleges going to require nutrition classes? When are these nutrition classes going to become a science? right now nutrition classes amount to reading an outdated text book written by a fat woman that thinks she knows nutrition because she has a phd in chemistry. Its not the same. Where the government needs to regulate is the standards to which nutritional information is taught. Except it would help if instead of pushing hi carb low fat, they got their shit together.
[quote]Higher Game wrote:
You guys still don’t get it. Obesity affects more than just lazy fools; it affects their children, their family, and the whole economy. It is a federal issue because it drags down all of society, just like drugs. The libertarian stance simply doesn’t work with obesity.[/quote]
The problem with a Federal solution is that it becomes a single point of failure. You let some guy in Washington “solve” this problem and you’ll see subsidies for high-carb, moderate-protein, low-fat diets, goals based on BMI instead of waist-to-height ratio or body fat percentage, and exercise recommendations that include “cardio” and “more cardio.”
The problem will not be solved, and taxpayer money will be wasted, but at least everyone can feel like they’re “doing something.”