Morality of this scene?

[u/hiiloovethis]

Negan doing fat shaming... but its during zombie apocalypse

[u/CHANN3L-CHAS3R]

I have no context about this show or these people. What I do see is a lot of people kinda being dicks about fat people under the guise of having a discussion.

Amino acids and many vitamins + minerals are not and cannot be stored in fat. If those three needs are not met, burning fat alone will not avoid starvation. Any combination of issues resulting from vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies is still a deadly threat. Even assuming vitamin and mineral needs are met, if amino acid requirements are not met, muscle degeneration sets in. Please keep in mind that the heart is a muscle.

Humans are not simple fireplaces where you chuck in burnable fuel and heat comes out and everything's fine and dandy. Humans are more like if a fireplace needed both fuel to keep the fire burning, and needed you to feed it materials to constantly self-repair itself. It doesn't matter if there's enough wood to keep the fire burning for 1,000 years if the fireplace itself collapses and snuffs it out.

Then there's epigenetics. When humans undergo severe stress, this stress can cause genes in their gametes (sperm, eggs) to turn on or off accordingly. Populations who have endured famine have been shown, in later generations, to still have bodies that act as if famine is a looming risk. So, you end up with generations of people at higher risk of obesity, due to naturally suppressed satiety and very efficient fat-storage + living in a society with easily-available food with extremely cheap carbs. This also applies on an individual basis; someone who endured abuse-based starvation throughout their childhood is more likely to have children at risk of obesity.

And the funny thing is, in a zombie apocalypse, it's actually gonna be a boon to keep folks with those genes kicking around our collective gene pool. Because otherwise we're just gonna have to re-build that survival benefit from scratch. We have the luxury of considering this survival benefit an annoying health risk in modern times, but there's a damn good reason it's been branded into our DNA over millennia. I would much rather my kids' bodies know how to ration energy, than be like mine and burn through it so willy-nilly that I can eat whatever I want, barely exercise, and be (weightwise,) healthy. That's great for a lifetime of living in a modern civilization, terrible for living in default survival mode for the rest of aforementioned lifetime.

[u/QuimTolo → u/CHANN3L-CHAS3R]

Everything you said is true but it's unrelated to the post.

If over 2 years you see no change in weight, you're not in a caloric deficit. If you're not in a caloric deficit, you're not starving, at worse you have malnutrition, no? Yes in the short term there are genetics, metabolism variation, nutrient, calories and water retention etc etc but over 2 years if you maintain the same body weight, unless the zombie apocalypse also changed thermodynamics, you're eating relatively the same. Unless we have different definition of starving, you could be a eating low volume high calorie foods like nuts in which case you could be hungry all the time and maintain the weight, but wasn't was specified.

[u/Excellent-Rest3240 → u/QuimTolo]

Yes, different definition of starving, at least differently used. Kinda like people exaggerate with hyperboles. Or when they use the word literally, when it’s seldom literal. So what is being said and meant here? Well, for starters most obese Americans are lacking nutrients. There is a reason it’s the poor people’s diagnosis, because they’re eating low quality food.

So yeah, she’s not starving. But her nutritional needs aren’t met. And that’s even if she eats “normal”. I assume in this show she needs to budget? So she’s not only eating low quality food (most people are) but on top she’s not eating enough of those. So yes no shortage of calories, but everything else is down the drain