Posted on 08/22/2007 12:31:35 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Being unhappy. Being happy. Friends who eat like a horse and never put on weight. Childhood admonishments to think of the starving in Africa.
These are some of the reasons the overweight give to explain their size because they are too ashamed to admit they simply eat too much, according to a study.
Researchers found there is such a stigma attached to being overweight that over-eaters are desperate to find something - or someone - else to blame.
The findings mirror comments by Hamish Meldrum, the head of the British Medical Association, who said patients were increasingly seeking weight-loss pills and surgery rather than trying to change their diet and do more exercise.
Karen Throsby of Warwick University questioned 35 patients who applied for such surgery on the NHS to discover why they felt it was the only solution.
She found there were three main types of excuses used by the overweight, according to a report published in the journal Social Science and Medicine.
The first was genetic, with many claiming they had a "fat gene" or that being big ran in their family. Others said they knew others who ate more than they did but never put on weight.
The second most common excuse was that the problem stemmed from their childhood. Many claimed relatives gave them food as a reward and others said their parents told them to eat up and think of the starving in Africa.
The third reason was that a stressful lifestyle had led to weight gain. Illness, divorce, bereavement and parenthood were all blamed for over-eating.
Women cited both happy and unhappy events as reasons for eating more and men said stressful occasions gave them a longing for beer, curry and fast food.
Miss Throsby said the excuses were the result of the way overweight people were pilloried by society.
"Those who become fat often find themselves needing to account for their size in order to refute the suggestion of moral failure that attaches itself easily to the fat body."
Colin Waine, chair of the National Obesity Forum, added: "Many patients seek explanations that absolve them, saying it's their genes or their glands. But in fact it's 99 per cent to do with food intake and lack of physical activity.
"Our genes haven't changed since before the Stone Age - yet obesity has escalated in the last 30 years."
Of course obesity had grown in the last thirty years! Duh, there are NOW two or three fast food restaurants on every corner!
Must be nice for this author to be holier than thou.
Hey, I eat salad for breakfast and lunch. dinner is veggies and chicken or fish. no chocolates. 2 beers on the weekend. exercise daily. I’m still well above what my doctor wants. put most of it on thru meds. i’ll take it off, but it’s much slower than it went on. the trick is: exercise daily, no exceptions, and resist overindulging.
Which reminds me... it’s time for my hourly Triple Whopper, Super Size Onion Rings and bladder-buster Coke.
With one of those hot-fudge sundaes...
And a cookie...
To go...
Damn skinny people...
[/s]
This article makes me hungry. Damn you!
Yeah, no kidding. His chit must smell like roses too.
I once worked with a girl who constantly complained about her inability to lose weight. She had recently seen a doctor about getting some “skinny pills,” which I watched her take at lunch along with a fried chicken platter and huge slice of peanut butter pie. Her lack of weight loss was a total mystery. . .
And there are more food commercials per hour on TV than anything else.
That's not the only explanation. I eat fast food at least three times a week, and even when I eat at home, it's usually stuff out of a box that isn't very "good" for me. I drink slightly less than a 2-litre of pop a day, on average. I get a fair amount of exercise, however, even though I'm not hitting the gym. Yet, I'm not overweight. I think a person's genetics, and their propensity to exercise have as much to do with it as merely the food they eat.
I hate these articles. They never touch upon instant foods. Instant foods have no nutritional value and conga lines of ingredience that do nothing but make you fat and unhealthy.
And the nutritional value charts on the sides of the boxes can list vitamin info if supplements are added. Guess what? The supplements will not be processed without other components found in raw foods.
So, people not only gain weight; they become malnutritioned.
I wish these dumb ass scientists would quit telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing and invent no calorie bacon! It’s easy to say the consumer is ignorant - that must be the problem. And, you can always get more grant money to study it! Where’s the no calorie cream cheese?
I am currently on the Southbeach Diet and losing weight.
It is very easy to say everyone (99% according to the article) who is fat is just a pig. The truth is that it’s more complicated than that.
That depends on what you mean.
my chit smells like chit. I am a bad person. probably worse than you.
it doesn’t change the fact that fat people are fat because of a high calorie/exercise ratio.
I’ve been fighting the “battle of the bulge” for too many years to count. My excuse: I just love food.
I am having a miserable day that started with a call from my doctor’s office........I hear you.
Our bodies are genetically adapted to a starvation diet. Even when food is no longer a scarcity to most, the body’s mechanisms still functions to store/convert to fat as much of food as possible.
The only ways this system can be changed are either through drastic diet control coupled with strict, rigorous exercise(not the 20-minute-walk-per-day nonsense), artificial gene/body manipulation, or wait for natural selection to start taking out the morbidly obese ones before they reproduce, leaving the lean ones to be allowed to have more offspring.
>>>That depends on what you mean.
????
A lot depends on what you eat. For me, cutting out processed foods did the trick. You also have to increase your fiber intake and eat a reasonable amount of fat - both of these help you feel fuller for a longer period of time.
As long as it’s a Diet Coke you’re good to go.
I recently hired a guy from Australia - a legal immigrant - and he said something that really struck home. He was commenting about having to watch his weight because: “American food is so rich and cheesy and is served is such huge portions.”
My wife and I anymore just order one entre’ and two dinner salads when we go out and still rarely eat it all.
Another thing that I think has changed our overall health is the computer. We’re not out clearing forests, digging ditches and herding cattle anymore, we are doing knowledge work sitting on our duffs.
Actually it’s a lot easier than that. The trick is to NOT go into a starvation diet. You actually need to eat MORE than that, that’s why they call the diet eat less exercise more. Eating next to nothing triggers the starvation mechanisms which not only impede weight loss but do incredibly bad things to your body. You want to cut your calorie intake just enough so it’s less than your burning but not so much your body freaks out. It’s not really that hard, you just have to pay attention. And actually the 20 minute walk per day thing isn’t nonsense at all, it’s a good solid addition of calorie burning, sure it might not be enough to give you stellar results, but the target is 2 pounds a week anyway so people shouldn’t be that addicted to stellar results.
That is a rather ambiguous statement, and one which I'm thinking is not particularly correct, wrt vitamins. Water-soluble vitamins can be absorbed easily, and fat soluble vitamins require only that there be some fatty acids present in the bolus with the vitamins - but it doesn't particularly matter WHICH fatty acids. The fats from processed Raman noodles will aid fat-soluble vitamin absorption just as easily as will natural fats found in nuts and certain fruits (like bananas, which are actually pretty high in fats).
For that matter, why in our tolerant society am I assailed by Pious Liberals over my choice to (gasp!) eat meat, when they wouldn't think in a million years of asking the questions above of a (voluntary) AIDS victim?
My name is 50sDad, and dang, I love food!
Makes me want the usual. A Super Sonic Jalepeno Bacon Cheese Burger, with a family order of Extreme Tots and a Route 44 Ocean Water!
Ahhhhh....Now that’s livin!!!
Fat is energy. If you're expending as much or more than what you consume, and still not losing weight, then either you were not doing the amount of exercise required to lose weight, in relation to the amount of calories replenished/stored in the body, or your measurements for the calorie content of the foods consumed were wrong. If neither, your body is bending the laws of physics and creating energy out of nothing, which is quite unlikely.
That thing about walking 20-mins briskly everyday to lose weight is just BS, especially considering the richness of the modern diet. Running 5-8 miles a day, every single day, would do wonders to achieve fat loss, provided it is not replenished at a rate greater than the body's ability to store food as fat, and the length of the run depending on how much fat there is, to burn. Weight training allows muscle growth, through microtrauma on existing muscles, that help in burning calories even while resting, thus enabling one to "keep" the weight-reduced state for longer.
People know that over eating and less activity leads to gaining weight- duh- but it still hasn’t stopped people from doing it.
It's really pretty simple.
If you ingest more calories than you burn, those excess calories are converted to fat by your body in preparation for the next famine.
It doesn't really matter where the calories come from.
Indeed. Increasing the ratio of "quality" caloried foods like proteins and moderate amounts of fats, is better than reducing food intake drastically, overall.
Bless you! Overweight folks do bear much responsibility for the weight, but it really does get tiring to hear the holier than thou types who constantly pat themselves on the back for being so virtuous. Many in our society overindulge, and not always with the same results. Just like anything else in life we deal with.......Life isn’t always fair or equal. ;>)
And of course avoid the final mistake of dieters and think it’s a temporary thing. Going back to “normal” only leads to gaining all the weight back. It’s a total redo of your lifestyle, almost as thorough as a religious conversion, even after a person hits their target weight they need to keep control of their intake and burn.
I lost weight on a low carb diet (a dramatic amount), but lost muscle mass. I’ve gone back to counting calories, watching the fat, and exercising. I now make my own meals exclusively and freeze them for a month so I’m not tempted to go to fast food restaurants or eat processed foods. I also exercise for at least an hour five days a week(aerobic and weights) and I’ve not only lost weight, but my figure’s finally beginning to look sorta cute! :-D At 51, I’m glad I can say that!!!
calories
consumed
verses
calories
burnt
Yes, I somewhat indirectly mentioned that in the last line of my post #29.
Who cares. We are all gonna die of something. Just dont expect me to float your hospital bill while you try to avoid meeting God
Nobody to blame but me. I like good food, not salads and tofu sh*t, and I eat big portions. Yeah, I eat big portions because restaurants and my parents served them to me, and therefore, I’m used to that...but I lift the spoon to my own mouth.
Change that Route 44 Ocean Water to a Cherry Limeade, and now you're talking!
We are all going to die of something...but if is so much nicer to feel well and have energy while we’re inhabiting the planet than to feel slow and unwell. At least, I feel better when I exercise and eat right.
Well, some overweight people. Not all.
Three pounds? I've taken bigger dumps.
Portions are THE #1 culprit. Look at French food. Save for a few more natural ingredients, it’s certainly no lower in fat than American food - in fact, it’s higher.
But the PORTIONS are smaller, and they’re used to that. We’re used to larger portions.
Cutting portions is MUCH harder than eating healthier food IMHO. I can easily order a grilled chicken instead of KFC’s Original Recipe, but I will still eat “too much” of said grilled chicken.
“Many people likely think that excessive eating and zero exercise are the sole culprits for weight gain. The reality is that as few as 100 calories a day can make a major difference in weight gain or loss, according to LSU AgCenter nutritionist Dr. Beth Reames.
Americans already are gaining 2 pounds a year, according to the University of California Wellness Letter. If you do the math, that converts into an average of just 19 extra calories per day. (One pound equals 3,500 calories. Multiply that by 2 for 7,000. Divide that by 365 days per year for 19.17.)
“Chances are you won’t keep track of 19 calories, but if you think in terms of 100 extra calories a day, you will gain 1 pound per month or 10 pounds a year,” Reames points out”
~snip~
entire article here...
http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/food_health/nutrition/weight_management/As+Few+As+100+Calories+A+Day+Affects+Weight+Gain+Or+Loss.htm
In most cases, yes.
People walk less and eat horrible food and drink tons of sodas here. I just got back from 2 weeks in Sweden where people eat sensibly and don’t drink soda, and walk EVERYWHERE, or at least to the subway or bus station.
The good news is that in 2 weeks I got into great shape. The bad news is I’m now a functioning alcoholic.
But on a serious note, it’s not a hard issue to figure out. We eat too much crappy food and don’t exercise. Duh!
Of course it is ambiguous. I was speaking broadly.
And it is true. Catalysts are needed for many substances to react.
It isn’t really too bad to consume fats. Remember, a number of nutrients, including vitamins A and K, etc, are fat-soluble, meaning that the body needs the vitamins along with fat.
Muscle-loss is bad because it makes it much easier for the body to gain weight if the muscles aren’t present to burn the fat. Thing is, muscles are “twitched” by a minuscule, almost unnoticeable amount by the body each and every moment of existence, just so that the muscles may be ready to make larger moments on command or otherwise. Those minuscule oscillations help the body generate heat, which in turn, uses up energy.
Weight training improves muscle mass. Each time the muscle is strained beyond its ability, micro-trauma results on the muscle fibres. When the necessary rest is provided to those muscles, the body repairs them, but this time, makes them slightly larger than before. That’s how muscles “grow”. The only way to allow this growth is by weight training, with consistently increasing weights. Long durations of aerobics do almost nothing to gain muscle mass. Aerobics is good for fat loss. Weight training is essential for muscle gain. Together, the body can replace the fat mass with muscle mass, and continue losing fat even while resting. Overall, it helps keep body fat at a healthy percentage.
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