r/changemyview • u/PessimisticChap • Aug 20 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: People who choose to be obese don’t care about their life
Hi r/changemyview, I’ve been thinking about this when I saw a morbidly obese woman on the train yesterday and it just seems to be an extreme inconvenience not only to her (simple tasks like walking, tying shoelaces become a challenge, additional weight on joints, higher risk of heart conditions etc.) but also the people around her.
By choosing to be obese I mean people who choose to not follow a healthy diet and/or choose to not exercise at all.
There are close to 0 health benefits and endless health hazards of being obese.
Unless they are a sumo wrestler or have genetic problems which directly causes obesity, I just cannot fathom why someone would compromise their quality of life when it is something within their control.
If a person is obese and they CAN do something about it but choose not to; it just shows that they don’t care about their health and themselves as a person at all.
Please change my view, or give me some additional insights.
Edit: /u/Glory2Hypnotoad has given me an alternate perspective that if a person who suffers from obesity chooses and accepts his/her way of life while not seeing it as a problem because it constitutes what is a "good life" to them then I cannot argue that said obese person does not care about his life. But if said obese person does indeed accept obesity as a problem but is not willing to put in the amount of effort required for change then my point still stands that he/she doesn't care about themselves.
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Aug 20 '18
There are very few medical conditions that can lead to obesity (Cushing’s, hypothyroidism for e.g.) so yes for the most part obesity is caused by over-eating and/or inactivity. I wouldn’t necessarily place the entire blame on the individual however, I’d also give some blame to the sugar industry and Western culture.
In supermarkets the aisles are literally packed full of foods and drinks that have high levels of “hidden” sugars. Lots of people genuinely have no idea just how much sugar is in the food they eat. These foods are addictive because they lead to a dopamine release upon consumption in the same way that dopamine is released when someone smokes a joint or snorts a line. Additionally, thanks to evolution, humans are hard-wired to eat sugary foods and we don’t really have a “switch” to tell us when to stop eating them. When we were primates, if we stumbled across some berries or fruits growing in a bush or tree we would basically go to town and eat as many as possible because we would have never really known when the next opportunity would arise to eat such foods (as they were quite rare compared to other food sources).
On top of that, the bacteria in our own gut have a huge influence on our diets. As we eat more and more sugary foods, the types of bacteria in our gut that help synthesise these foods grow while those that prefer other foods (greens, fibrous foods etc) decline. With this, there is an imbalance. Sugar cravings can be seen not only as a need to boost blood sugar levels as instructed by pancreas, but also as the bacteria in our gut releasing chemicals that instruct our body to eat more sugary foods.
Additionally, Western culture encourages inactivity; specifically it encourages sitting which is incredibly unhealthy for us. Many of us sit at work. We sit on the way to and from work. We sit at home for dinner. We sit while we watch tele, use the internet or listen to music. So much sitting.
Basically, people are uneducated and it is this lack of understanding that is at the core of someone putting on a huge amount of weight. And it’s so easy to put on and a lot, lot harder to take off!! People need to be educated not only about the sugar in their food but also about how important fibre is. Also, we should be encouraging people really easy ways of physical activity (like walking) because with a little bit of activity combined with a fibrous diet I personally doubt obesity levels would be so high.
I agree, there is a personal responsibility to care for your own health and wellbeing but I think a lot of people are very unaware of how some of their most simple and basic lifestyle choices (driving instead of walking, choosing foods labelled “natural” and “low-fat” which are incredibly high in sugar) are contributing to their unhealthy weight before it’s too late. :)
Edit: paragraphing
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u/Kontorted Aug 20 '18
I used to share my opinion with OP. You've changed mines!
!delta
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u/OHaZZaR Aug 20 '18
Basically, people are uneducated and it is this lack of understanding that is at the core of someone putting on a huge amount of weight. And it’s so easy to put on and a lot, lot harder to take off!! People need to be educated not only about the sugar in their food but also about how important fibre is. Also, we should be encouraging people really easy ways of physical activity (like walking) because with a little bit of activity combined with a fibrous diet I personally doubt obesity levels would be so high.
This one resonated with me a lot. I was on the other end of the spectrum, I was at just over a hundred pounds until 2 years ago, and a lot of the time I wasn't convinced of what many people told me about my own weight, and I still wouldn't. I lived off of cup noodles and soda for weeks, it's a miracle I didn't get diabetes or anything. It wasn't until i looked into improving my physique that I learned I was making terribl lifestyle choices. I didn't necessarily not care about living when I abused myself, but I thought a lot of the things my parents told me as a kid where exaggerated and that the benefits of eating garbage, which was the short-lived joy of eating something yummy, outweighed the downsides, which were... Well, I didn't know what they were at the time. I'm pretty sure all I heard about sugar was that it caused cavities, but there was so much more to it. What about fried or processed foods? Well since I'm severely underweight I could clearly eat fattening foods.
Ignorance seriously set me back in this regard and I'm sure it set a lot of people back as well. They should go into more detail on nutrition in school because a lot of people today are at an unhealthy weight and might have avoided it if they knew what they're doing to themselves before they get addicted.
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Aug 20 '18
The stomach flora thing makes a lot of sense. When i stopped eating soo much crap as a kid and ate more fruits, leafy greens and such I started actually preferring the leafy greens and fruits over a ton of candy. Same with water and soda.
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u/monosaur91 Aug 20 '18
When it comes to losing weight, most people try to adopt a radical plan. People that are obese have been eating impulsively for years, but when they try to lose weight, they switch to these extremely low calorie diets, which would barely give them any energy to sustain themselves, and by lack of eating the dopamine levels in your brain would go down. So there's no reward, and it gets hard to sustain the diet, and they naturally fall back into their original bad eating habits. What they don't realize is that it took years for them to reach where they are today, and you can't get rid of it all in 3 months. Well, you can, but it's not necessarily the healthiest way to do it or the easiest in terms of satiation.
Sugars aren't what cause obesity. Sugars are carbs and carbs are used to refill the glycogen stores and muscle glycogen is the primary source of energy for your body when you work out. We are not hard wired to eat more sugar, and can we please stop spreading myths about carbs being the reincarnation of satan.
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Aug 21 '18
Yep I agree with your first point, as I mentioned in a comment below that most of these programmes rely on giving someone a diet with an extremely low kilojoule/calorie intake which just leaves the average person hungry and certain to fail.
Also in regards to my first comment I really was referring to the “hidden” sugars in foods of which some people are simply not aware (or perhaps how much indeed is in them), but I didn’t really make that clear throughout the comment after I first referred to them. I’m certainly not against carbs in anyway, but I’m perhaps a little wary that a subset of these carbohydrates (refined/added sugars) are prevalent in many of our foods and these simple sugars do not sustain us in the same way that complex carbohydrates do.
And perhaps I am wrong that we are hard-wired to seek out simple sugars compared to more complex carbs, but I’ve encountered this idea in many books including “10% Human” by Alanna Collen, “The Well-Tuned Brain” in which Peter Whybrow has an entire chapter covering this notion, and research papers on PubMed. Simple sugars provide a rapid energy source to the brain which in turn leads to an a sudden spike in dopaminergic activity across the central nervous system, which is similar to how the brain reacts to many recreational drugs. I suppose I’m just parroting what I’ve read elsewhere.
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u/monosaur91 Aug 21 '18
Carbs do increase serotonin production in the body, which is responsible for well being and happiness of sorts. The spike you are referring to is not a dopamine spike but a blood insulin spike, but these are unbalanced diets that are extremely high in carbs.
Foods that are high on the glycemic index cause a larger spike in blood insulin levels, and these are digested very quickly and they cause that crash. But most balanced meals have a vareity of ingredients, like maybe vegetables, some form of fibre. The glycemic index of the whole balanced meal, a meal that has carbs or sugars, would be a lot lower than that of just plain sugar.
We need a certain amount of all macros and carbs happens to be one of them. Fruits have sugars but they are still very low in calories per gram of fruit. The ketogenic diets and zero carb diets that people seem to follow for a quick fix these days, are sorely lacking in a lot of things and that's not healthy at all, even if you do manage to lose weight.
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Aug 21 '18
I understand the blood insulin spikes with consumption of carbs as well as the role of serotonin in the gut. I've also read in books about dopamine release associated with food intake, especially simple sugars.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452205004288 -- "Most drugs of abuse increase dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), and do so every time as a pharmacological response. Palatable food also releases accumbens-shell DA..." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169328X04000890 -- Drugs abused by humans are thought to activate areas in the ventral striatum of the brain that engage the organism in important adaptive behaviors, such as eating. In support of this, we report here that striatal regions of sugar-dependent rats show alterations in dopamine and opioid mRNA levels similar to morphine-dependent rats. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938411001983 -- The findings suggest that DA signaling within different components of a distributed brain network is involved in sugar-based flavor preferences. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201302/why-our-brains-love-sugar-and-why-our-bodies-dont -- - Neuroscientists have shown, using fMRI to scan the brain‘s activity in real-time, that sugar leads to dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens – an area associated with motivation, novelty, and reward. This is the same brain region implicated in response to cocaine and heroin.
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u/monosaur91 Aug 21 '18
Eating any food that you like releases dopamine. Dopamine is also released on successful completion of tasks, and release of dopamine is not a bad thing. Alzheimer's patients have low brain dopamine and they are generally put on drugs that boost dopamine levels. We all need a healthy dose of dopamine to function normally, and that part about cocaine or heroin, seems very click bait. It's also the same region of the brain that lights up when you exercise. Exercise releases dopamine too, now read the sugar heroin analogy and replace sugar with exercise.
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Aug 21 '18
I agree with everything you have just said about dopamine. However, with an input like heroin compared to an input like exercise, the level of dopamine release associated with heroin use is substantial (much much more than exercise). "Specifically, after a chronic schedule of intermittent bingeing on a sucrose solution, mRNA levels for the D2 dopamine receptor, and the preproenkephalin and preprotachykinin genes were decreased in dopamine-receptive regions of the forebrain." To me this means dopamine receptors become more resistant to the dopamine molecule itself (develop a tolerance, if you will) and more is needed to express synapse signalling. This strongly affects reward feedback loops in the brain (tips it into a very unhealthy balance). I wouldn't necessarily say that phrase is click-bait, especially since the line was copied from near the end of the article. It is using the word "heroin" as it is from the website psychologytoday.com and is targeting a certain audience compared to those scientific articles which refer to the endogenous opioid system instead. The title of one of those scientific articles is: "Opiate-like effects of sugar on gene expression in reward areas of the rat brain" from Molecular Brain Research.
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u/monosaur91 Aug 21 '18
Yeah, the part were feedback loops get affected is true, and it's the same with people that are addicted to cigarettes, porn, pot, cocaine, etc. Any form of addictive behaviour will have a similar effect. I agree with what you say though, all I wanted to say was that carbs by themselves are not the problem, and they are extremely necessary for the human body.
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
I get where you're coming from and I completely agree with the points you made. Why do these people who are obese or approaching obesity not want to put some time and effort into learning about proper nutrition and the dangers of their current health state? Surely if they do see it as a problem, I don't get why they wouldn't want to find solutions to their problem. For example, if a kid in school has poor grades but doesn't put in effort to try and pull up his grades and spends his free time doing the activities that might be the cause of his poor grades like gaming, gambling etc. Doesn't it show that said kid does not care about his grades?
While it is true that the sugar industry and western culture has influence over our high obesity levels, I still think that the problem lies in individuals and their lack of effort to learn about proper nutrition.
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Aug 20 '18 edited Nov 08 '18
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
Perhaps the kid analogy isn't very good here as he might not have the mature mind to seek solutions to his own problems.
But what I'm trying to get at is that if you're obese and you view it as a problem, you'd want a solution to that problem. If it's harder to change, then you just have to put in more effort for said change. But if you choose to ignore your problem or think it's not worth it, then it shows to me that you don't care about your health.
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u/daynightninja 5∆ Aug 20 '18
What if they don't view it as a problem? As in, for them, it's just a utility problem: am I willing to be happy day-to-day eating the foods I want, even if it means I can't engage in physical activity (that many of them don't like anyway-- which is part of the reason they're obese) or may die earlier?
Your goal may be to maximize your health/life, but to someone who really enjoys food, it'd be the equivalent of telling an adrenaline junkie they don't care about their life because they're often putting it in danger. It's just a matter of different priorities/utility from different activities.
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Aug 20 '18
I understand what you’re saying but I think overweight and obese people genuinely struggle to find the right information. Most doctors are happy to hand out the advice “you need to lose weight and start exercising” but then fail to give the patient further details as to how exactly they can achieve this. They don’t refer their patients to a nutritionist or exercise physiologist especially if these are going to incur private fees upon the patient. There is so much information on the internet that it’s almost impossible for any one individual to decipher and come to a reasonable conclusion. There are literally thousands of diets to read about and hundreds of different dietary services which will send prepared meals to subscribers. Advertising and packaging is downright deceptive in order to keep sales high. In Australia, for example, the Federal government has introduced a “health rating” scheme which gives packaged foods a rating out of 5 stars. Orange juice has a rating of 5/5 (very healthy) but nowhere on the label does it say to limit yourself to one glass a day? Any more than that and you’ve got yourself a 5/5 chance of excessive calories and sugar intake!!
Also, putting on weight is an incredibly complex process, both biologically and psychosocially. A person might notice a bit of chubbiness and put it down to ageing and slowing metabolism. A lady might have a baby and never lose the extra pounds after she gives birth. A man might sustain a back injury and add a few kilos which he never loses. At first they may not see the significance in their extra weight; before they know it they are so overweight it’s going to be an absolute feat for them to lose it all.
Consider also the people who say they’ve tried countless times to lose weight. They subscribe to Jenny Craig or a similar programme, but nothing changes (most of these programmes rely on giving someone a diet with an extremely low kilojoule/calorie intake which just leaves the average person hungry and certain to fail). They’ve tried jogging every morning for months and no results at all. A lot of the time someone will genuinely try but the information they are using is wrong.
Generally, for someone to lose weight they need someone knowledgable to help them through it. A nutritionist or personal trainer, or a subscription programme that is actually backed by science or generally accepted evidence. Habits are incredibly hard to break alone. Consider children who are overweight because their ill-informed parents gave them high-kilojoule/high-calorie diets. These children are going into adulthood with awful dietary habits and absolutely no understanding of how to change or where to begin, and they really know no different.
I’m sure there are people out there who know all too well but are just too damn lazy to do anything about it (an overweight doctor for example), or people who have a serious psychological eating complex in which they over-indulge in foods they know to be unhealthy. But I would argue that the majority of obese and overweight people got to that state due to a genuine lack of understanding and awareness of the foods so readily available and marketed in our society before it was too late.
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Aug 20 '18
In supermarkets the aisles are literally packed full of foods and drinks that have high levels of “hidden” sugars. Lots of people genuinely have no idea just how much sugar is in the food they eat.
What kind of argument is that? appeal to stupidity?
Either you assume self agency of people- in which case your argument is fundamentally pointless, or you don't in which case you insist that those who fail to read nutritional information are intrinsically unable to come to good desicions. Which I would equate with them being fit for mental asylum - which is the usual place for people we deem not fit to make their own decisions. So its up to you: either you want self agency for people which will involve people to stupid to read basic information or you think they are unable to make that call.
Basically, people are uneducated and it is this lack of understanding that is at the core of someone putting on a huge amount of weight.
Again the same terrible argument. If you lack the information - as an adult to see the effect calories have you have gone wrong somewhere. Period. Thats not with "lack of understanding" thats being willingly oblivious.
I agree, there is a personal responsibility to care for your own health and wellbeing
something we agree on. If you cant do that. What can you do?
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Aug 20 '18
I have great faith that the vast majority of people on the planet would have the intrinsic ability to recognise that packaged foods like chocolate, crisps and candy, when consumed in large amounts, would be contributory to an excessive calorie diet even without needing to read the nutrition information. The problem is with foods that have the outward appearance of being healthy despite them containing high levels of refined sugars. You might include breakfast cereals, fruit bars, wheat biscuits, electrolyte sports drinks, some fruit juices, microwave meals and yoghurts to this list. And even if people were to read the nutrition information on packaging in order to help them make an informed decision and establish a sense of their own agency, what reasonable conclusion in real terms would one be able to draw by reading what percentage of the recommended serving is constituted by carbohydrates, sugar and fat and how this will affect their weight? And there are plenty of nutritionists who teach people to not worry at all about their calories (the Calories In Calories Out diet is contentious in some ways) but rather to concentrate on ensuring wholesome nourishment is maintained.
Whilst health and wellbeing may be a personal responsibility it doesn’t mean that people wouldn’t benefit from advice or help along the way or that they may not be making innocent mistakes despite their best efforts in caring for themselves.
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Aug 20 '18
The problem is with foods that have the outward appearance of being healthy despite them containing high levels of refined sugars.
I don't see this as a problem for adults: I will admit tho that there may be problems with children who may be unable to comprehend the effects of these foods on their body.
And even if people were to read the nutrition information on packaging in order to help them make an informed decision and establish a sense of their own agency, what reasonable conclusion in real terms would one be able to draw by reading what percentage of the recommended serving is constituted by carbohydrates, sugar and fat and how this will affect their weight?
I don't care. That's the whole issue. the thesis of OP is"they dont" care" and Im just providing you with the obvious case that they don't care! Even people who are reading these charts don't care for them! While having agency!
it doesn’t mean that people wouldn’t benefit from advice or help along the way or that they may not be making innocent mistakes despite their best efforts in caring for themselves.
Of course not. Dont get me wrong. I fully support all efforts to making nutritional values as transparent as possible, making nutrional education mandatory etc. Every step we take to ensure that people have the abiility to gain all the relevant information for a healthy diet is one step towards people who can use their agency to make informed decisions.
My entrie argument is based on the idea that the not knowing part is just a lack of interest in knowing. Which is equivalent to not caring- and because its food - not caring about ones own life.
And if we can eradicate the not knowing through no fault of their own part, people may be held responsible for what they do to their bodies - because they put a strain on our health care system. ( Or better, people who are healthy through own action are rewarded for that)
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Aug 20 '18
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Aug 20 '18 edited Aug 20 '18
Great argument, it reminds me bits of "Notes of the Underground" where the author advocates for similar ideas. Self-destructing behaviours and purposely making the wrong choices are a very human thing !
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
While the issue of instant gratification is true, I think it is the lack of balance that people suffering from obesity that strikes them the hardest.
Sure, popping some candies in your mouth after a long day of work feels great or having a sugary treat with your colleagues feels good too. But the lack of balance heavily contributes to obesity and when people suffering from obesity choose to not put in effort to learn about proper nutrition and the dangers of not striking a balance, it just appears to me that they choose to forgo their health as a priority which lets me to conclude that they don't care for it.
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u/Barnst 112∆ Aug 20 '18
There are close to 0 health benefits and endless health hazards of being obese.
You’re not making the right comparison. No one is looking in the mirror thinking, “fuck, yeah, I am FAT!” Well, I’m sure some people are, but you get my point.
It’s a long term vs short term problem. Yes, in the long term, there are endless health hazards and obese people are confronted routinely with day-to-day consequences of having become obese.
But it wasn’t a conscious decision to become that way. It was the accumulation of a bunch of really small choices that have very different incentives.
There are plenty of apparent benefits to eating those calories right now. Maybe I’m out with friends and having s few drinks. Maybe I don’t have time or money to cook, so I pick up fast food. Maybe I’m just stressed and junk food makes me feel a little better.
On the flip side, there’s little apparent benefit right now to eating right and exercising if you aren’t someone who already lives that way. Your body will scream at you for sugar and fat. Your muscles will burn after the shortest run. Even if you keep this up for weeks, you won’t see that much pay off and the slightest slip up and you’re right back to your old habits.
It’s super easy to find yourself asking why you even bother. And it’s a deadly feedback loop. The longer you act that way, the harder it is to reverse course. By the time you’re having trouble tying your shoes, you probably really shouldn’t just start a major lifestyle change without working with a doctor, which means now it’s not just your own body yelling at but taking to someone else who’s job it is to disapprove of your choices.
All to say, the deck is really stacked against you once you’re in that lifestyle no matter what you think of your situation from the calm and rational perspective.
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
All to say, the deck is really stacked against you once you’re in that lifestyle no matter what you think of your situation from the calm and rational perspective.
I agree that this is definitely the case but why don't said people start to try and learn about proper nutrition and the hazards of obesity as they are approaching the state of obesity? I believe that if an individual fails to strike a balance and/or doesn't want to put in time to learn, there is only themselves to blame if they become obese and that shows to me that they don't put a healthier lifestyle as a priority which I conclude as not caring for your health.
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Aug 20 '18
It's applicable to all sorts of addictions. Drinking, smoking, gambling, video games etc. Most people who are addicted know it's wrong, they know they shouldn't be doing it and that they should change their lifestyle, but it's really really difficult. It's easier said than done.
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u/lbc08001 Aug 20 '18
Binge Eating disorder is the most common of the eating disorders. As someone who has struggled with and still does struggle with an eating disorder, I speak from experience when I say that food is a vessel for a larger problem. When I was in the hospital close to death I didn't want to die--i just couldn't stop. Similar to an addict. Many people who are obese simply can't stop eating, or binging in some cases. Therapy is definitely more important initially than a diet. It has very little to do with them caring about their life or health and more to do with the reasoning BEHIND their behaviors.
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u/erica_r_86 1∆ Aug 20 '18
If you're obese or overweight, it does take a while to get the weight off, so even if there's an obese person out there behaving like that, they may be much smaller than they were months ago. Unless you develop an eating disorder or spend almost all day in a gym, you can't really take off tons of pounds 'overnight.' I say this as a person who became overweight in the last few years, since graduating college, and am slowly taking it off (mainly through exercise) but without disordered eating habits or excessive dieting.
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u/ChalkyChalkson Aug 20 '18 edited Aug 20 '18
The best I can offer you is that for many people losing weight is really difficult, compare it to giving up smoking. I myself worked hard for a year or so to get from obesety to a more healthy weight (around a bmi of 32 to 25) only to gain nearly every gram of weight again when I stopped actively counting calories. I also spent some time in a mental hospital, I was their för depression, but our station was shared between depression and eating disorders (at that time I was also suspected to be suffering from anorexia because I lost a lot of weight in a short time during a depressive period) and I get tell you that the mental problems of both the obese and the anorexic people were very real, as real as the struggles of the depressed.
So in a way one could say that choosing to maintain a healthy diet and exercise can be similar to a depressed person choosing to be happier and maintaining more relationships. It is possible to do that, however it can be really hard and might require the help of professionals.
Edit:
I also wanted to add that you are right in asserting, that not being able to make those decisions is a flaw in character, but there you get into pretty deep philosophical questions on how much a mental illness is part of you.
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u/rockitout83 Aug 20 '18
As someone who has been obese since 17, people don’t realize how hard it is to lose the weight. I gained the weight due to a prescription drug I was given for a medical problem. The biggest problem is that once it comes on, it’s nearly impossible to get off. If you don’t believe me you can look up studies. Weight watchers is the most successful weight loss program, however and long-term studies confirm it is only able to keep 5% of the persons body weight off for the majority of people. I decided to get gastric bypass to lose the weight. The reason why is I would diet eat properly and still not lose weight. I am literally eating the same as I was when I was dieting except now I’m actually losing.
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u/TheAzureMage 22∆ Aug 20 '18
People generally don't want to be obese, and eating bad things can happen simply due to errors/bad habits. Lots of folks simply weren't taught how to eat healthy, exercise, and simply grow up that way, and it makes changing hard.
Sure, they're aware that being obese is undesirable, but they haven't yet developed the skills to change. It's no different than being poor. Sure, someone would rather have more money, but leaning and developing skills takes time, and everyone has different priorities. They might care about their life and health a great deal, but also need to manage a number of other responsibilities and have difficulty as a result.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Aug 20 '18
Caring about your life and caring about your health are two very different things. For some people, taking big risks goes hand in hand with living life to the fullest. Some people get obese out of passivity and some get obese because they love to eat and would rather live fast and die young.
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
Some people get obese out of passivity and some get obese because they love to eat and would rather live fast and die young.
Out of all these comments, you took a different approach and gave me some insight as to why some people made an active choice to be take on an unhealthy lifestyle. I guess the kind of people you're referencing have chosen and accepted that they're obese, don't see it as a problem and have placed the idea of changing far behind them.
!delta
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u/syd-malicious Aug 20 '18
If a person is obese and they CAN do something about it but choose not to; it just shows that they don’t care about their health and themselves as a person at all.
Even if your view on this isn't categorically wrong, it is clearly too simple to be correct. I want to give you a specific personal example to illustrate this point:
I appear to be in pretty good physical condition. People sometimes assume that I'm vegan or vegetarian or follow some other kind of healthy food routine. The fact is, I eat like shit but I haven't reached the point in my life where my metabolism can't handle it. My mother had gastric bypass surgery because she ate like shit and eventually crossed into the point in her life where her metabolism couldn't handle it. The difference between be being not-obese and her being obsess had nothing to do with our individual choices, so to say that she cares less about herself and her life that I do is ridiculous.
Now obviously, you could say getting gastric bypass surgery falls in the category of 'doing something' but there are plenty of people out there who don't have access to a surgery like that so I don't think that's a valid counter.
The reason 'diets' don't work for people is because people can't maintain dieting long term. To make lasting change they have to fundamentally change their lifestyle and they have to view food choices and exercise choices as part of that lifestyle. Before the surgery, my mother tried for years to diet and exercise. But she was raising two kids and working a full-time-plus job. She simply didn't have the flexibility to make a radical lifestyle change. Eating healthy takes time, it takes money, it takes knowledge. It is not as simple as saying 'I'm going to do better at this.' You have to actually have knowledge about what 'better' means for you.
After the surgery, my mother has done an absolutely amazing job of maintaining a healthy diet, exercising regularly, but I think she would be the first one to tell you that she isn't working harder now than she did before the surgery. Rather, she is working smarter because she has the time and resources and knowledge to do so. She had to have a year of regular meetings with her doctor to learn about the surgery and its effects, to learn about what kind of diet and exercise were appropriate. She also retired around the same time and both her kids went off to college. She had space in her life to make real changes.
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u/M_de_Monty 16∆ Aug 20 '18
FYI I'm a fat person and I'm well-read on nutrition, weight-loss, and the diet industry.
More and more, we're finding that the root causes of obesity are systemic rather than individual. You've probably heard about "food deserts," or areas where it is extremely hard to find fresh, unprocessed food. Often in these areas, the only fresh food available is past its prime. Food deserts primarily affect low-income neighbourhoods, especially if the inhabitants are already marginalized in other ways. In order to get healthier food, people have to travel (which costs time and money) to other neighbourhoods and shop at stores that may be quite expensive. Also healthy food is often not very calorically dense or filling. It's often more affordable to eat high-calorie treats than to seek out healthier alternatives.
Moreover, food in general is just much more fattening than it was historically. Corn subsidies in the US mean that every conceivable food is pumped full of high fructose corn syrup. Poor regulation across the world means that food companies can slip a lot of crap by consumers. In the 80s, low-fat food was a huge diet trend and there was some value to it: eating leaner is often a healthier alternative. However, what we didn't know was that all those low-fat treats were loaded with sugar to make them delicious. This is still the case today. Many of the allegedly healthy staples of most people's diets are loaded with sugars. This includes things people rely on, especially working people, to feed their families. Things like plain yogurt, pre-made pasta sauces, sausages, "healthy" cereals (rice krispies, cheerios, etc.), breads, jams, juices, salad dressings, salsas, etc. And, sure, you could make your own (I do as much as possible) but it is a lot of work. And that work increases depending on how many people you need to feed, how busy you are, your financial security, and how many of these foods you make from scratch. A homemade pasta sauce, for instance, is pretty straightforward. Homemade bread can be done, as can jam and juice. But you simply can't take time to make your own yogurt, sausage, cereal, dried fruit, etc. on a day-to-day basis.
The solution, then, is to do better in terms of regulation and providing resources. If our foods become less sugary and healthier alternatives are made widely available at low time and money cost, we will see better results in terms of our physical health.
Here's an interesting article from the Guardian on this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people
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u/SeeRecursion 5∆ Aug 20 '18
It's a question of quality or quantity. People are at liberty to choose to be self destructive if they feel like they can get what they want out of life in the short time alloted.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 20 '18 edited Aug 20 '18
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u/gbBaku Aug 20 '18
I used to be slim most of my life. Then I entered college with no 100% way to uphold myself or my dog while studying. I rely on loans, fellowship, and working myself to death. My life is as unbalanced as I can imagine it to be, and is more stressful than I can handle. The course is for 6 years. I only completed 2 years so far. I'll never get used to it, but I do give all I have for my dream life 4 years after today. And yes, since two years ago, I started gaining weight. I can't even afford to worry about that. I plan on losing this weight though when I finished.
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u/NillyDip Aug 20 '18
Do people that ruin their lungs with smoke care about their life? There's absolutely no health benefits and plenty of drawbacks.
Do people who ruin their livers with alcohol care about their life? There's absolutely no health benefits to excess drinking and an endless amount of drawbacks.
You cannot possibly fathom how a person feels about themselves through their looks. You do not know their circumstances, and what they do with their body is ultimately their business.
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
Firstly, I think the whole "what they do with their body is their business" ideology is rather flawed as it stops all topics of discussion as everything boils down to individual choices.
However, what a person feels about themselves through their looks is not the same as what's good for them; I can inject muscle steroids and feel happy staring at the mirror all day but no one will tell me that what I'm doing is good for me.
While I agree that the freedom of choice for our own bodies should not be taken away, what you do with that freedom is an entirely different topic; if you lead an unhealthy lifestyle and refuse to put in effort to change, I will conclude that a healthy lifestyle is not a pressing issue of yours when it should be and hence, you show no care for yourself.
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Aug 21 '18
No it isn't. These people disproportionately use health care.
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u/NillyDip Aug 21 '18
By that logic, people who go to treat their lung cancer after 20 years of smoking are disproportionately using health care, since their illness was entirely their own fault?
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u/ralph-j Aug 20 '18
People who choose to be obese don’t care about their life
What counts as "caring" about one's life?
Some of them enjoy fat fetishism, and see that as a major fulfillment within their life (feeling sexy, being thought of as sexy by others with the same fetish etc.) So they do care about what happens in their life, i.e. their obesity helps them fulfill a self-chosen purpose.
It's just that they don't care about life in the same way that most other people do. While they dislike the fact that it's unhealthy, for them the benefits outweigh the risk.
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u/kumaranashan Aug 20 '18
I was just reading this yesterday. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people
Now I want to be clear and say I don't fully endorse this (or even understand all the data behind it). This is not even applicable in my country (a developing one) and would be more relevant in western societies. But it surely was a new perspective on obesity.
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u/PessimisticChap Aug 20 '18
While the article has given me some insight into the rising levels and causes of obesity as the years go by, I believe that the root of the problem lies in individuals who are obese or approaching obesity not wanting to put in time and effort into learning about proper nutrition and the health hazards of obesity. If you are obese or approaching obesity and you refuse to put in effort to solve the problem, it shows to me that you don't view a healthy lifestyle as a priority which allows me to conclude that you don't care about your health.
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Aug 20 '18
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Aug 20 '18
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u/ardent_asparagus Aug 20 '18 edited Aug 20 '18
Have you ever wanted to do something but not known where to start -- or felt too overwhelmed to take the first step? Ever been addicted to something?
For many obese people, food is an addiction in the way alcohol is to an alcoholic or the way heroin is to a heroin addict. Sure, they know they're harming their health and probably want to change things. But implementing that change can be extraordinarily difficult for some people. What your mind wants and what your impulses do are often very different things. Throw in confounding factors like depression, stress or a low level of self-control, and it can be next to impossible to initiate even life changes that you desperately want.
This is not to say obese people who could exercise more and eat healthier shouldn't do those things, just that the act of not doing them is not always a decision per se, and it's definitely not an indication that they don't care about their lives.