Is obesity becoming to normalised

[Deleted]

Yes, of course it is.

Pointing out that someone is obese to the point of endangering their health has been cast as "fat shaming". Even doctors who are performing their duty of care to patients by pointing out that they are engaging in risky behavior and their health problems are rooted in their fatness stand accused. Patients expect nothing other than a prescription to fix the problem.

"Normal" clothes sizes have expanded with national waistlines. Here in the UK we're one of the fattest European countries, and rapidly catching up to the USA, which is oen of the fattest countries in the world. Our NHS is now spending massive amounts of money on buying oversized, reinforced wheelchairs, beds,ambulances - even furniture in waiting rooms and doorways have had to be enlarged.

Not least because, of course, the morbidly obese are using the health service a lot more than the average person. Because it's unconditional and free at the point of use, the NHS is spending gigantic sums trying to mitigate the health effects of the every increasing numbers of people slowly killing themselves.

Diabetes now consumes 10% of the entire NHS budget - and the vast majority of diabetes is type-2, which in many, many cases can be controlled and even reversed completely by maintaining a normal weight with exercise and a moderate diet.

So called "weight loss surgery" is on the increase. The reality is that the surgery works because it forces fat people to diet, it removes their option to overeat - although in some case sit fails because the pies continue to the point of bursting the stomach staples.

We also have misguided models who promote the idea of "plus sized". They are not "plus sized", they are fat. They claim to be happy but refuse to use the words "fat" or "obese". They also promote the idea that they are "healthy".

But this is invariably because they occupy young bodies; young bodies are much better at coping with bad lifestyles. When they become middle aged fatties they will get the diabetes, heart disease, ruined joints and all the rest.

The problem has become "medicalised". The reality is that loads of fat people just enjoy eating and are unwilling to control their impulses. Excuses like "healthy food is expensive" and "I can't afford to go to a gym" are trotted out.

Go shopping in any supermarket. Yoou'll see morbidly obese people pushing massive trolleys full of terrible crap - and quite often they'll have their obviously destined to be morbidly obese kids as well.

You even get the crazy situation where people are so fat they can't work, so they move onto welfare. With free money to buy the food and nothing to do other than lay on the couch all day,they just get even bigger and it goes on forever.

Look at the documentaries about the truly morbidly obese. Where do they get the money to live, to buy all that food? They can't get out of bed, but they continue to be supplied with food. In nature if you become so fat you can't get food you lose weight. In human society you get the welfare state paying carers to feed you with the pizzas and donuts you demand as your "human rights"

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The one MAJOR drawback to eating healthy is that it seems to cost more to do so. Yes, fast food and eating out in general is going to be more costly than buying ingredients and cooking them yourself. l.

Complete and utter twaddle. Fast food and eating out is always more expensive - you pay for someone else to prepare the food, eating out is the most expensive way to eat.

Healthy, basic ingredients - vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses - are the cheapest calories there are. Root vegetables, non-exotic fruits, pulses like dried lentils and beans, wholegrain rice and pasta....they are all dirt cheap.

There is a reason why the poor people of the world eat foods like that and cook for themselves. Poor people in India are almost always vegetarian, for example: not only for religious reasons, but because it gives them the nutrition they need on the budget they have. One might almost suspect that the religion was actually developed with that in mind.

Ironically, thos epoor people - not the ones starving in poverty obviously - probably have much healthier diets than the average American.

When we had the peasants and ruling lords here in Britain - the peasants were healthier! They did lot sof manual work and ate mostly vegetables, grains and whole breads.

The lords could afford to eat tons of meat, sugar and refined white breads!

[Louisa Bannon]

Granted, there are times where you have to make the choice to either lose a little sleep to cook yourself something healthy or go hit up a drive-thru to get the extra sleep, but those should not be an everyday occurrence.

I've seen it all when it comes to justifying fast food: expense, quick food, nutritional value, etc. It's all 100% pure bullshit. If people want to eat fast food, that's fine. But there's almost zero chance that its actually cheaper, or faster, more nutritional, or anything else like that - it's not.

I could probably go to some store like Dollar Tree and get all the tools I'll need to cook healthy meals at home for around $50. Another $50 will get me a whole set of pots and pans. Sure, they will be cheap tools and may need replacing from time to time, but basic tools you can get cheaply: flatware, plates, cups, mugs, bowls, knives, cutting boards, grating box, peelers, colander, etc. There's a really good chance you could ask friends or relatives to give you extras or castoffs, and the cost might actually be zero. In the U.S. I've never personally seen a rented apt of any kind that did not have a frig or stove. If you bought a home, you may have to supply those but don't forget used appliances if cost is a factor. From there on, there's no real need to spend more except that you can and better tools make a better cooking experience. Could cost hundreds, probably free and readily available. Most healthy cooking can be done with a cutting board, a chef knife, and a plate or bowl to serve up the food, and then maybe a fork or spoon. Personally, unless its a steak dinner, I do all the butchering in the kitchen and the eating can be done with a fork or spoon.

Fastest meal in the world is salad. There's no way you can drive to a fast food chain, place your order, pay for it, collect it, and then drive back home faster than you could just walk into the kitchen, chop some veg and meat, and eat a salad. If you do meal prep one or two days a week, meals can be very fast. A salad can contain 8-12 kinds of vegetables very easily. You can add some hard boiled eggs, grilled chicken, chili, or whatever you want really. Top with dressing or salsa, maybe sour cream or shredded cheese. Done. And it will be very, very good - better than eating out by far.

Let's say you ate 1/2 pound of meat every day. For chicken or pork that's probably under $1 for pure white meat, $30 for a month's worth of meat. Whole Foods seems to now regularly stock pasture raised beef for $4 a pound. Last week I ordered some ground beef and watched the butcher counter fellow select a cut, chop it roughly by hand, toss it into a grinder, and serve it up to me in 2 x 2 lb packages. So that was ground beef, pasture raised, from a single animal. Short of raising and butchering cattle myself, that seemed fairly clean to me.

It used to be that the lady of the house and I would go to a steakhouse once or twice a week. Which is odd actually because my culture is a grill culture, and we grill our asses off. So I was going to buy a grill and stop eating steaks out. But then we eyeballed an indoor smokeless infrared grill "as seen on TV." Sure, we thought the commercial was probably pure bullshit. Except so far, the product works exactly as advertised. We bought the grill for $230 and every time we use it it must be saving us $15 from not going out and the extra bit is the fact that we can utterly control the inputs of the food: nothing we don't want, everything else exactly as we do want it. So far, I've made three meals that were superb in terms of rare or medium rare cooked steaks. Somewhere around 16 uses and we break even with going out instead, after that its pure savings. Clean up is quite easy if you sensibly protect some surfaces with foil. These steaks are pretty good for taking about 20 minutes and providing a steak that is at least 95% of everything I might want it to be. I come from a charcoal background so I actually fault the results for not tasting of charcoal, fuel, and smoke. But I think I will eventually stop caring and enjoy the purity of the flavor.

So yeah, we each get a 1/2 pound sirloin steak for a total of $6 in 20 minutes. I served it with cauliflower mash and some Keto gravy.

Fast food can fuck right off, it is neither fast nor food.

[Deleted]

No, it's not. All you have to do is travel with a low cost airline like Ryanair. I'm a tall and big guy, but lean, and I had to sit next to an obese guy. He probably had the most uncomfortable flight ever, he hardly fit in his seat and my shoulders spilling over the width of the arm rest probably made him even more uncomfortable

[Bajat]

She can't choose the fundamental laws of physics, but has to live with them. If energy in exceeds energy out, the excess must be staying somewhere.

That said, "shaming" in general is not a good way to get people to change behavior.

Shaming is actually great! Shaming and hating nazis and communists helped.

I mean she seems to be having a lot of issues with being fat.

So maybe she should just..not be fat.

Being fat is mostly a choice. Very rarely do people have a irreversible or unconquerable medical issue that causes them to be undeniably fat.

You'd think having all these issues would be very motivating to go running and have a better diet but I guess the laziness and self control is just too hard?

Can't exactly be sympathetic.

Yup; being fat is a choice.

For instance, I have a choice right now whenever I will drink my coffee plain, or if I will pour some cream into it and add 10 spoons of sugar.

[Rexosaurus]

Yeah, out of the 17 years I was in the Army... a lot of people would always get fast food. Granted, there are times where you have to make the choice to either lose a little sleep to cook yourself something healthy or go hit up a drive-thru to get the extra sleep, but those should not be an everyday occurrence. Sadly, most Soldiers went for the extra rack time and then had to suffer through extra physical training for their choices.

That sounds like a familiar situation haha. But yeah like you said, that should be an occasional thing, not your standing dinner plan.

It should astound you that the general population is even worse than (mostly) 18-22 year olds in the military.

Greeeeeat! I look forward to seeing what that looks like.