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Fat aceptance

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I will review the video again, but in context, Mahar has specifically suggested fat-shaming before:

“In August, 53 Americans died from mass shootings. Terrible right? Do you know how many died from obesity? Forty thousand. Fat shaming doesn’t need to end it needs to make a comeback. Some amount of shame is good. We shamed people out of smoking and into wearing seat belts. We shamed them out of littering and most of them out of racism. Shame is the first step in reform.”

Bill Maher Asks People To Fat Shame More, Here Is The Response

I also think he is purposely misstating the issue; He is connecting how a person looks (where he discusses the ads of brands like Nike and...Victoria's Secret?) to celebrating unhealthy lifestyles.

Which it often is.

The fact that he points out a lingerie store as being something that should be focused on fitness suggests something about his image of beauty, and that how a person looks determines their health, and that different body types shouldn't have representation in the media. This is often untrue since a person's health is far more complicated than how they look, since both a healthy diet, healthy exercise, and healthy weight are dependent on the individual: Can you be overweight but healthy?

And yet, as Mahar pointed out, obesity/over-eating is the leading cause of death in the US.


There are always exceptions. I can show you a list of people who smoked all their lives and lived to be over 100, including the oldest person who's ever lived and the oldest person living now.

Does that mean smoking isn't a health hazard?

Anyway, we weren't talking about just being overweight, we're talking about obesity.

This from the link you posted, "Above 31% body fat is considered above average, and it’s recommended to try to reduce fat mass at that point".

Anything over 31% is considered obese, and really, 31% isn't all that much. I think 31% falls below what most people mean when they say someone is "fat".
 
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Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
He's 100 percent correct. Sugar coating it doesn't help anyone. And yes, that's a pun.

One thing that should be clarified...part of the reason is simply that more of what is on the store shelves is highly processed food than 50 years ago.
But the main reason is seditary lifestyle combined with gluttony.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
People who live well? You mean like this rakish gent:
https://www.tlc.com/shows/my-600-lb-life
Oh, that's not living well.
This is.
Just ask @ChristineM.
8522889-french-baguettes-and-wine.jpg
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
There are also some who can't afford to eat as healthy as a proper diet would require or have mental health issues that sap away so much of their energy that a healthy amount of physical activity becomes an achievement.

I think that's a big part of the problem, affordability and location. All too often neighborhoods are without a healthy choice but with a convenience store close by. There are many farmers' markets in the area and a few years ago they decided to accept 'snap' cards, very popular.

The fact that he points out a lingerie store as being something that should be focused on fitness suggests something about his image of beauty, and that how a person looks determines their health, and that different body types shouldn't have representation in the media.

I think the opposite is true as far as the media is concerned. Its about time people resembled reality. But I find that only applies to commercial interests. When is the last time you saw an older or more heavyset woman on the news desk or giving the weather report? Yet men can be of any age or weight.
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Oh, that's not living well.
This is.
Just ask @ChristineM.
8522889-french-baguettes-and-wine.jpg
We'll, according to statistics on mental health issues, divorce, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, etc., Apparently the rest of us living here in the first world aren't doing all that great either.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
When I was talking to a schizophrenic I met while in the army (who was later released due to his mental health issues), he told me that one of the main issues he had from antipsychotic medication was the significant weight gain despite barely eating anything. And he was still overweight in the army despite working out regularly and eating very little.

With many other overweight people I've met over the years, the reasons for being overweight have ranged from gland issues to eating disorders that therapists couldn't fully treat or diagnose. There are also some who can't afford to eat as healthy as a proper diet would require or have mental health issues that sap away so much of their energy that a healthy amount of physical activity becomes an achievement.

Of course, there are many people who are overweight due to poor diets, poor medical decisions, etc., but I think my point is clear here: we can't look at a random overweight person and assume by default that their weight issues are merely due to negligence or poor diets. Many have difficulty losing weight even though they dislike their being overweight more than anyone else does. With this in mind, being supportive and avoiding shaming indeed seems to me the wisest, most productive, and most empathetic approach to the issue of obesity.

Bill Maher is yet again trying to profit off misunderstanding and simplistic generalizations. It seems to me that comedians aren't the best source of information on medical issues like obesity, much less comedians with an extensive record of vitriol and blind partisanship.
Very hard to find fat people in Hong Kong.
Except for tourists.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
We'll, according to statistics on mental health issues, divorce, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, etc., Apparently the rest of us living here in the first world aren't doing all that great either.
Most I know are doing well.
Perhaps you should move to Revoltistan?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
I find Maher's lack of empathy appalling.
His writers ought to have put in that what makes Americans overweight is all the sugar and the lies about sugar that were put upon us. We were told to avoid fat and to err on the side of sugar. I was told this from childhood. For decades lay people were lied to about this, so we bought things that said 'Low fat' on them. This made us fat. We bought horrible foods. Bill is striking close to the point that we shouldn't be praising people for being fat, which is true. We shouldn't. He is missing out that we aren't overeating. We were being drugged and told lies up until very recently. Now we do indeed have an obesity problem, and the sugar lie is gradually being exposed. It is being exposed, however every place I go to buy food or to eat is always trying to push pure sugar. The lie has been exposed, but the food vendors want to kill us. They want us caffeinated and craving sugar, and they want us fat and are making it hard to find good food. They gaslight the truth by selling so much sugar.

By the way @Vee come to the USA and look at the poison that is sold as cereal for children. Its nothing but sugar and food coloring, and it is marketed to children and their parents. Our FDA which supposedly is there to protect us from bad foods is behind it. Sometimes foods in vending machines have 'Heart healthy' stamped onto them, and they'll make you fat and sluggish. As a kid I used to love going to some small shop and ordering an inexpensive 32 oz (about 1 liter) soda and drinking that sweet madness all at once, and nobody told me it was bad for me.
 
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Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
Most I know are doing well.
Perhaps you should move to Revoltistan?
Point is, according to statistics living the good life doesn't actually equate to living a good life.

Health and happiness tend to go together. Happy people tend to take better care of themselves, healthy people tend to have a better outlook on life.

I also have this theory that each one of us here in the first world knows deep down that we're blatantly destroying the planet and that a lot of our toys and goodies are the results of somebody else's misery and that its part of the reason we spend so much of our lives keeping ourselves distracted.

Doesn't work though. The guilt from all this is there deep down and it affects everything we do.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Point is, according to statistics living the good life doesn't actually equate to living a good life.

Health and happiness tend to go together. Happy people tend to take better care of themselves, healthy people tend to have a better outlook on life.

I also have this theory that each one of us here in the first world knows deep down that we're blatantly destroying the planet and that a lot of our toys and goodies are the results of somebody else's misery and that its part of the reason we spend so much of our lives keeping ourselves distracted.

Doesn't work though. The guilt from all this is there deep down and it affects everything we do.
I know many healthy people here.
Some unhealthy ones too.
I'll reserve some criticism for India & China for
their massive populations....over 3,000,000,000.
And they aspire to our more lavish lifestyle.
 

Quagmire

Imaginary talking monkey
Staff member
Premium Member
I know many healthy people here.
Some unhealthy ones too.
I'll reserve some criticism for India & China for
their massive populations....over 3,000,000,000.
And they aspire to our more lavish lifestyle.
I would guess that pretty much everybody does.

Isn't going to happen though. The Earth can't support the less than 2 billion stuff-junkies it already has.
 

1137

Here until I storm off again
Premium Member
I'm another "underweight/proper weight and unhealthy". I'm actually drawn to and have exclusively been with bigger women about a decade now, and while they have their own health issues (often the cause of rather than from weight, like PCOS) its always me that is the sick one, at doctors, changing meds, having surgeries, etc.

I think the topic illustrates a much larger problem: obsession with others and how they live their lives. People will clutch on to anything which allows them not to look in the mirror.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I would guess that pretty much everybody does.

Isn't going to happen though. The Earth can't support the less than 2 billion stuff-junkies it already has.
And yet....so many people are advocating economic
expansion, increased immigration, & "family values"
that mean big families.
 
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