Obesity More Dangerous Than Terrorism: Experts
World governments focus too much on fighting terrorism while obesity and other “lifestyle diseases” are killing millions more people, an international conference heard Monday.
Overcoming deadly factors such as poor diet, smoking and a lack of exercise should take top priority in the fight against a growing epidemic of preventable chronic disease, legal and health experts said.
Global terrorism was a real threat but posed far less risk than obesity, diabetes and smoking-related illnesses, prominent US professor of health law Lawrence Gostin said at the Oxford Health Alliance Summit here.
“Ever since September 11, we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next, which has really frightened the public,” Gostin told AFP later.
“While we’ve been focusing so much attention on that, we’ve had this silent epidemic of obesity that’s killing millions of people around the world, and we’re devoting very little attention to it and a negligible amount of money.”
The fifth annual conference of the Oxford Health Alliance — co-founded by Oxford University — has brought together world experts from academia, government, business, law, economics and urban planning to promote change.
An estimated 388 million people will die from chronic disease worldwide over the next 10 years, according to World Health Organisation figures quoted by the alliance.
“There’s a political paralysis in dealing with the issue,” said Gostin, an adviser to the US government and a professor at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities.
He noted that prevention of obesity and its effects had hardly rated a mention in the current campaign for the US presidency.
“Yet the human costs are frightening when we consider that obesity could shorten the average lifespan of an entire generation, resulting in the first reversal in life expectancy since data collecting began in 1900,” he said.
Like terrorism, some passing health threats get major government attention and media coverage, while heart and lung disease, diabetes and cancer account for 60 percent of the world’s deaths, the meeting was told.
“It is true that new and re-emerging health threats such as SARS, avian flu, HIV/AIDS, terrorism, bioterrorism and climate change are dramatic and emotive,” said Stig Pramming, the Oxford group’s executive director.
“However, it is preventable chronic disease that will send health systems and economies to the wall.”
The conference is due to end Wednesday with a “Sydney Resolution” calling on governments and big business among others to take action to avert millions of premature deaths due to chronic disease.
“The way we live now is making us sick, it’s making our planet sick and it’s not sustainable,” said Asia-Pacific co-director Ruth Colagiuri.
The Sydney resolution focuses on four key areas, including the need to make towns and cities healthier places in which to live by urban design which promotes walking and cycling and reduces carbon emissions from motor vehicles.
Insufficient physical exercise is a risk factor in many chronic diseases and is estimated to cause 1.9 million deaths worldwide each year, said Tony Capon, professor of health studies at Australia’s Macquarie University.
“We need to build the physical activity back into our lives and it’s not simply about bike paths, it’s about developing an urban habitat that enables people to live healthy lives: ensuring that people can meet most of their daily needs within walking and cycling distance of where they live,” he said.
The resolution also calls for a reduction in sugar, fat and salt content in food, making fresh food affordable and available and increasing global efforts to stop people smoking.
© 2008 Agence France Presse
But Americans love obesity. So many are doing it these days. That’s why they need Hummers; compact cars won’t last under all that weight.
MILITANTLIBERAL
neither would i…….i only weigh 90 lbs. it always annoys me when i travel on airlines and am charged for excess baggage and the person who just went before me weighs about 3 times as much as me. there should be a surcharge for obese people. (unless their problem is medical rather than just plain greed or unhealthy eating.)
Typically, individual “lifestyle” is blamed for the obesity epidemic. I believe that much of this epidemic stems from economic insecurity and stress, external factors that individuals can’t control.
And fear of terrorism is certainly one source of stress, one that Bush and other scumbag politicians have used to boost their power, no matter what the social cost. The morally bankrupt media is only too happy to broadcast Bush’s paranoid view of the world. It sells. Overconsumption of food and other products is one way that fearful people attempt to comfort themselves.
We’ve gone from FDR, who said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” to GW Bush, who wants us to be afraid.
To really cure the obesity epidemic it will take a lot more than lifestyle changes and more even than curbing the corporations who are trying to jam their products down our throats.
I believe we need to commit ourselves creating a peaceful world, which means creating a world where justice can prevail — a world where people’s rights (including economic rights) and the viability of the planet are protected by enforcable law, where the conditions that promote life take precedence over profit.
I believe this is the century where humankind must choose between creating heaven or hell on Earth. I know which one I want.
Things more dangerous than terrorism:
Global warming
Tainted food
Economic disaster (including neo-liberalism)
A Police state
Environmental and workplace contamination
Poverty
Bigorty
Fundimentalism
Corporate rule
This reminds me of the recent study which showed that millions of Americans die prematurely because of excessive amounts of salt in their diets. When Bush was asked about whether his administration would do anything to regulate excess salt content in foods, he replied that it would be too much of a burden on business. So a few thousand are killed by terrorists and that justifies wars which kill hundreds of thousands, including thousands of Americans, and which cost trillions of dollars, and justifies spying on millions of Americans and rolling back the Bill of Rights, but when millions are killed by excess salt content, it is too much to try to regulate industry.
I get it. The words are nonsense and the Bush administration is a criminal conspiracy that promotes a cartoonish version of reality to make it easier for their cronies to fleece the American people. Gosh, they must be smart.
My first reaction is disease=population control. If we’re going to make people live longer, then we need to balance that with better family planning and education, globally. That said, it’s a bit of a simplication to call obesity a “lifestyle” disease. There are indicators that obesity is at least partly genetic. What’s next, fat people shouldn’t procreate?
Yep, is is frightening alright. Whenever I see a person who is overweight, I start to tremble. I fear they may be a terrorist and blow up right next to me. ___ Shit.
I bet is was a bunch of fat people who broght down the Twin Towers. Now there is a conspiriacy theory for us to mull over.
I work in predictive analytics. The inability of the masses to process and assess probabilities is shocking, but understandable since we’re idiots and just believe what we’re told.
The people in Wyoming, for instance, are they really worried and concerned that they’re going to die from terrorism? Please. Do you have any idea how many other threats trump terrorism in terms of probability?
As the conference pointed out, “terrorism” and obesity are related.
To the extent that the so-called Muslim terrorists exist, they are annoyed that the US is stealing their oil, killing their people and putting bases on their land. The money for the so-called terrorists comes from US car drivers.
And the obesity epidemic comes from US reliance on internal combustion engines to get around. No one walks, except in the big cities that were built before WW2. And the people who do live in those cities are thinner and healthier than the rest of Americans.
I know people who drive 4-wheelers to get their mail!
We need urban planning to stop the sprawl that destroys land and forces people to drive.
Terrorism! Brought to you by the people that gave you the consumer culture!
Everyone in America did not lose thier mind and become obese by choice. If you look at most grocery stores or where people get thier food, there is not much nutritional value there for the very high prices. Even pet food is a problem. Large corporations have bought all the pet food companies, aside from poisoning and killing them with bad ingredient, they also reformulate feed so that animals continually eat. Only a few very high priced foods ($35.00 a bag) actually contain what resembles a natural diet.
Jaded prole, you forgot the military industrial complex
(I’d put it right on top of the list together w/ global warming. In fact you take the trillion $ Pentagon budget and you solve global warming.)
Blah blah blah
Cigarettes have killed a lot more people than obesity. Americans don’t care because most of them simply don’t understand. Nutrition needs to be taught in public schools. (Not just the little food pyramid). How many times have we heard “Eat a well balanced meal” but so many of us have yet to hear exactly what a “Well Balanced” meal is. How many have seen a photograph of a real, nutritious meal. All I ever see is formulas and recommended portions.
I’m sure I could figure it all out but it’s easier to just throw a steak on the grill and lay it beside some mashed potatoes with extra gravy. Oh and more cheese sauce on my broccoli please.
To add to the list of things more dangerous than terrorism;
puppies
toys
pharmaceuticals approved by the FDA
old bridges
schools
George the W is for Will he ever stop killing? Bush
and last but not least…
religion!
This was my comment on the subject about a year and a half ago:
http://pwp.surfglobal.net/butterfield/Truth.html
Is this article actually useful? Any casual observer knows by now that “terrorism” isn’t of any real concern to much of anyone in power except to the extent that it can be used as a pretext to more strictly control society.
A real analysis of this “finding” by these “experts” would be much more concise…
Today a group of academics, businessmen, and bureaucrats thought that they’d be clever by pointing out that more people die (or are killed) by the lifestyles imposed upon them by industrial civilization than have been even remotely threatened by political or religious radicals opposed to state policies. While absolutely no one was surprised by the findings, the conference attendees - who flew from around the world, sat in traffic to arrive on site, and ate buffet-style at a banquet later that night - greatly enjoyed the chance to hobnob with each other at Oxford.
In response to the recommendations of the conferees, the US government did not take notice whatsoever, except to add to its classified “no-fly” list one of the scientists who made a sarcastic joke about Dick Cheney’s cholesterol accomplishing what Al-Qaeda has yet to do - effectively threaten the life of a government official. The joke was overheard by British Intelligence, and the scientist has been detained as an illegal combatant. He is being held and interrogated in an undisclosed location, presumably to be tortured in an attempt to find out what he knows about Mr. Cheney’s health records.
Geez! you all! Have you noticed the two companies that supply our countries restaurants? Sisco and Food Service of America. They dont sell 100% olive oil, they don’t sell alot of things you eat at home that is considered healthy. You cannot find out the ingredients for the things they make, just that they make you fat and diabetic, the hard way. Think of Olestra with out the hershey squirts, or the styrofoam bubbles in McDonalds shakes. This is what is unstudied like aspartame in soda. Unstudied like GM foods and Irradiation and co gas storage for our veggies. Do you ever think the fellas at the top are out to get you? They want your money bad! What do you think they would do to increase their hold on power? What if they found out that all these fattening foods made your brain work slower, made you depend on their drugs, made it hurt to get exercise so the average Joe would watch more TV that makes you even dumber? What would they do? How low would they sink? Black folk have a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. That takes care of them! All the thai, mexican, chinese, italian, french, and standard american restaurants buy the same grease and oils that kill us. Over processing and lack of diversity, lack of fresh food, over stimulation and a predisposition to get sick from not eating enough fresh foods are lining us up fast at the mortuary. Street drugs are less dangerous than western drugs if you count the numbers dead today and more people get sick in the hospital from monster viruses than out. Don’t worry though, the InfraGuard is your neighbor or your boss, and is watching out for you.
BUY, BUY, BUY! Get your red hot candy coated cancer here, ON SALE NOW! Member Discounts! Up To Twenty Percent! Its not lead from China! Its Carcinogenic from the U.S.A.! The land of the FAT and the home of the DUMB!
I agree with dfairly. economic insecurity and stress are conditions to which we naturally respond by eating more. Our limbic brain tells us that there may not be enough food.
The swill that passes for food doesn’t help. Do you expect to be healthy when you eat the flesh of animals that have been tortured to death? Makes no difference you say? You expect to eat pain and suffering and have that make you well and happy?
Anybody who has been in a chicken house and can still drive past them on their way to eat eggs and chicken has already found a way to abdicate a fair portion of their own humanity.
You don’t have to be religious to see the wisdom in:
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”—Proverbs
“What you think today is what you will be tomorrow.”–Dhammapada
“You are what you eat”—Popular wisdom
Bush Inc. knows we are indifferent to the suffering of other sentient beings. We complain but keep the same old crowd in power.
So somebody else is in pain. How can that hurt me?
Harm? What harm can there be in profit I’d like to know.
And when a person is fat in their head, like our president, it’s even worse than that.
“Typically, individual “lifestyle” is blamed for the obesity epidemic. I believe that much of this epidemic stems from economic insecurity and stress, external factors that individuals can’t control.”
i’m sorry but it does come down to lifestyle. we can blame stress and economics, the events of the day but when it comes down to it, we can control our weight and our fitness level.
REF: The Sydney resolution focuses on four key areas, including the need to make towns and cities healthier places in which to live by urban design which promotes walking and cycling and reduces carbon emissions from motor vehicles.
Sounds WONDERFUL!!! But what about the addiction to gas guzzling trucks and SUVs? Also, what about the sprawling cities and metroplexes (Dallas, Houston, LA, NYC, etc., etc.?) The good ole US of A will need to TOTALLY remake cities and change public opinion before anything like this would be remotely possible. But I guess there is no time like the present to start the process.
Does anyone really worry about terrorism from day to day as they go about their business? I’m betting they rarely give it a second thought. But yes, stress from economic and financial pressures is much more real. Then there is the thinking about what other idiots are thinking about you, especially when you’re driving around in an older car. That’s the way we’re conditioned in our capitalistic, consumptive society. We shriek to think we might be losing ground financially against our neighbor. Talk about taking your eye off the ball.
EVERYONE GETS TO BE A SPENDER
Such a fine day, let’s go spending
Why waste a day, everyone’s vending
We got a great new superstore
You can never have enough
And there’s really just so much stuff
There’s more than you ever saw before
Come on, do it my way, spend
That’s what we work for my friend
You can never have enough
(It’s) the economy stupid, that’s for sure
Everyone is buying more
Go out early, before it gets tough
The Country’s got its agenda
Everyone gets to be a spender
Grab your share, Uncle Sam is the lender
Everyone gets to be spender
Shopping for the nation, buying for the flag
Gonna spend more, fill up some bags
Go out there, hit the main attraction
Hit the mall, bigger sales floors
With shopping you’re never bored
Consumer spending, a great distraction
Push out the plastic, shop till you drop
Open all hours, you don’t have to stop
It’s a habit you can’t ignore
Look all around, ‘cause you can’t stop
Be sure your bags are filled to the top
Go grab something extra, just one thing more
Music by: David L. Travis, 5902 Nob Hill Rd., Durham, NC 27704, tel# (919) 682-3577
Lyrics by: Roger Tony Carter, 4 Sussex Rd., Southsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire
I am still 100 pounds overweight. Eeeeek! Watch out! A solid wall of terrorizing, deadly fat is coming right at you!
Seriously, people. Stop scapegoating fat citizens. Are you afraid of taking on the most dangerous, overfed entity of our time - the Military-Industrial Complex? MIC wolfs down huge quantities our money every day and can’t get enough of that green stuff. It is nourished on fear and death. Decide to stop fearing and killing, and the beast will quickly starve.
The article above is nothing another “weapon of mass distraction.” So focus on the real enemy out there and pledge to bring it down!
If you really want a healthy, happy life, nothing less will do.
Living a healthy lifestyle while not being rich is anti-free market. Eat the crap you are provided in the stress-soaked environment that is intentionally maintained: be a good labor unit, and shut up.
What really gets to me is the whining absurdity that people don’t know what they should be eating…as in, what’s a healthy meal? Hello, hello? Maybe kids don’t have a clue, but is there a teen or an adult with even half a functioning brain who can’t figure out that never eating fruit, vegetables or whole grains is not healthy, that a constant diet of fat, salt and sugar is not healthy, that the half-pound of ground beef, made from a feed-lot downed cow, bacon slices and cheese dripping mayo, the super-sized fries and the 24 ounces of coke full of high fructose corn syrup might not be a “healthy” meal? The truth is, the American people are so miserable and so shallow that they can’t figure out that junk food will not assuage the hungering of their souls or fill the emptiness, the hell they live in because they’ve bought into Buy - Take - Mine!! and if it feels good, do it! What a pathetic people we have become because we are what we eat.
Yes, people love food and it brings comfort, happiness, pleasure in an otherwise unpleasant world.
Yes, some people have a genetic predisposition for being overweight.
Yes, we are not totally responsible for communities that are built for the car, and using a bike or walking puts our life at risk.
Yes, we can blame our bad diet on the industrial complex including their amazing ways to squeeze maximum profit for minimal quality out of hungry, misinformed people — like making fake foods, raising animals like crops, and putting stupid health claims on packages so we will pay top dollar for a little vitamin C powder.
BUT - we can fight back. We can use our heads and make decisions that protect our health, our pocketbooks, and our earth. People do not know how terrible our food supply has actually become in the past 20 years. I recently took a group of cancer survivors on a ‘grocery store tour’ where we looked at ingredients lists and labels - they were SHOCKED at the lack of food value in the foods they were buying and were MAD at how they had been duped by health claims. We are overeating cheap calories - I once found 1200 calories in Wal-Mart for $1.00 - 3 burritos. And we are grabbing food in restaurants that, of course, want to make money so they are not interested in our weight or our health, just our bucks and our hunger.
It’s obvious that there is no one source of info on how to know what to buy or to eat. That’s why I wrote my book, Feeding the Kids: The Flexible, No-Battles, Healthy Eating System for the Whole Family (www.feedingthekids.com). It tells you what to buy and how to recognize a healthy food. And places like Center for Science in the Public Interest and World’s Healthiest Foods. And watch the Sierra Club video: http://www.truecostoffood.org/truecostoffood/links.asp Defend yourself!!!!
Over a period of 10 years, the mean weight for the US went up two categories. I find this extraordinary. State after state saw the increase into grade 1 obesity and then grade 2. In ten years! There has to be a good reason for this but I don’t see the answer out there. Perhaps, as one poster said, its stress, or lack of purpose in life other than entertain yourself. Changes of this magnitude and in such a short time should be well investigated.
I have a newsflash for GWBush - there are no
terrorists after me, at least not the Islamic middle easterners that Mr. Bush’s advertising campaign are scapegoating in
Mr. Bush’s perpetually relentless
“WAR Against All Humanity”
which naturally excludes the wealthy haves & have mores he kowtows to.
If I were his mom I would forbid him to hang out with the zionist thugs & the christian fundamentalists, they represent
more danger to the teeny bit of sanity left in USA, land of my birth - I hate to admit it but it isn’t likely that there is anything left to salvage here after the savaging of ordinary citizens that accelerated with the advent of Ronald “ketchup’s a vegetable for school kids” Raygun.
Foodlady: I disagree. Americans don’t love food, they love to eat. Our fruits are grown to be good for shipping, not for eating so the taste is not important. Americans eat their meat well done and tenderized, which suggests they don’t even like meat. In general, Americans don’t know how to live. The whole world knows that.
@Lizard (poster above my 1st post)
After reading yesterday about the fact that we have been eating genetically modified food for the last decade and there is no scientific evidence of what havoc it may be
causing to our bodies, you have to wonder if
that rapid rise of obesity could be attributed to the schemes of the chemical companies to monopolize the world’s food supply.
The best predictor of a long life that I have ever come across is the number of calories you eat, regardless of its form. All species tested, showed an increase of 50% lifetime compared to controls, if their intake was limited to the bare minimum and supplemented with vitamins to avoid malnutrition. This was true in rats which resemble us a lot. Instead of living to eighty, you would live to 120. Food is poison. It is easier to let the body age and die than spend energy constantly repairing it. Food and its metabolization produces molecules that age your body by linking molecules together. I believe, however, that the kind of food does matter. Carbohydrates (sugar) burns cleanly, while proteins force you to metabolize nitrogen which is toxic. Fats also produce a myriad of radicals that cause all kinds of havoc. The diet of humans as derived from paleontology corresponds exactly to this concept: mostly sugar with occasional feasts of fat and protein. Grains are our natural food. Low in calories, high in vitamins, low on protein. Bottomline though, EAT LESS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE LONG.
The obesity “epidemic” has been rising every year since the mid 1980’s. Longer working hours at stagnant or declining wages has made fast food more important to more people than ever. Suburbia makes walking to work or school impossible for most. Cheap gas subsidized this lifestyle for a full 25 years. This monster has been lurking for an entire lifetime.
When gas rises to $4+, which it surely will soon, there may be a beginning of a great reversal. Despite much talk, a replacement for petro that is affordable and functional has yet to appear on the horizon. Laziness is about to become much more expensive.
Obesity is nature’s way of reversing overpopulation.
Hey, we may have found a new target for the neocons! Let’s make good use of USAPATRIOT and MCA and Guantanamo. Nutriterrorism, we can call it. Start using forced disappearance to render McDonalds managers to the Gitmo Gulag. Place surveillance cams to catch people ordering supersize entrees. Waterboard fatsos till they fess up to where they got their unhealthy grub. Find out who’s buying and checking out comfort food cookbooks. Enforce a no-eat list in restaurants. Hell, profiling won’t be hard! I’m sure Michael Moore will be the first one targeted.
The radical rightwingnuts are ever ready to hold other people to personal responsibility for their own unhappy situation. The mortgages being foreclosed are the fault of the borrowers, The poor have no one to blame but themselves for their laziness. Drug users should be put away forever because they knew what the law says.
But guess what? The obesity epidemic is affecting the aforementioned wingnuts more than any other group so all of a sudden, personal responsibility is not on the table. As some of the previous posts have alluded, the epidemic has been going on for over a generation so you can’t blame genetically modified foods. They haven’t been around that long. And you can’t blame genetics either because our genes haven’t changed that much in two generations. Evolution just does not work that fast.
As one post says, you can put the blame on all sorts of external factors, but you still have the personal responsibility to do what you can for yourself and your family. No one is forcing you to eat as much as you do. No one is forcing you to sit glued to the boob tube for an average of over three hours a day. That’s three hours that you could be actually doing something productive and burning calories while you do it. No one is forcing you to not walk around your neighborhood and talk to people. There is a saying in the veterinary profession that if your dog is fat, you haven’t been getting enough exercise.
Poor obese people being the victimes of stress, food-labelling shenagigans from the mean corporates and what not—Cut the crap.
Yanks tend to be fat pigs (followed closely by the brits) becasue thay can afford to be so, courtesy of the plundered natural ressources of other nations.
nofois dixit
The obesity epidemic will end when oil becomes scarce and as we start using biofuel. All that corn syrup burned as fuel instead of being turned into fat.
you nasty fat gringos, how disgusting it is here now,
especially Redneck Riviera
not so much in Cuba, but getting there,
fast food in 3rd world,
what a travesty
Most of the very fat people are the poor who go to the eat as much as you can places and just stuff food down their throat for a couple of hours. The idea is of course to prepare for the harder times to come.
The British as a nation are not nearly as fat as the Dutch or Germans, Americans are by far the fattest.
Send Ronald McDonald to Gitmo!
If you’re addicted to cigarettes, it’s your fault, right? That’s the tobacco companies’ stance. Actually, they learned how to add other chemicals to nicotine to increase the addictiveness of cigarettes.
So, you’re fat. It’s your fault, right?
Your meat producer is adding fattening hormones to your pigs and cattle. You eat traces of those hormones. In fact you, just like any carnivore farther up the food chain, concentrate those hormones. And you wonder why you puff up like a pig?
Nietzsche (5:03)”Do you expect to be healthy when you eat the flesh of animals that have been tortured to death? Makes no difference you say? You expect to eat pain and suffering and have that make you well and happy?”
These animals live and die under unnecessary and cruel duress. As a result, they release stress hormones into their bodies. That has to affect the people who eat them.
So I have more to “fear” from the Coca Cola company (carbonated water + 9 teaspoons of corn sweetener) and ITT (makers of Twinkies) than Osama. Who’d a thought?
Actually pistonbroke makes an excellent point; our legislators subsidize starchy, fattening food which thus are dumped on supermarkets and are the cheapest foods available. Lean protein, fresh fruits and vegetables which receive no such subsidies are the most expensive items in your grocery store. Guess what the poor tend to buy and why they tend to being overweight? You get what you subsidize.
Ezeflyer has a point: And our legislators have opted for the poor to die young of obesity complications and leave Social Security for everyone else….
As a person turning 50 this August I’ve watched the decades turn from very skinny to grossly obese. I have textbooks from the 1970’s which depict rail-thin teachers and students in polyester pants. I recall my grade school classmates making fun of the one “fat” girl (an old photo of her reveals a little girl with somewhat rounded features, but dimensions that today would peg her at normal weight). Shopping in for clothes over the years, I’ve noticed the Plus Size department expand from 0 space to 1/2 the women’s section.
This is a serious problem. And it’s not genetic. We’ve changed from being a active culture to a sedentary culture. We’ve moved from food that had to searched for and prepared to food that appears instantly before our eyes. These “instant” foods (from the fast food restaurants, the vending machines and the delis) are not nuts and berries - they are are attractive shiny packets filled with salt, fat and sugar - with little fiber, minimal nutrients. I am considered a thin person, but I’ve watched my own waistline grow after taking a job in which I was confined for 8 hours to my seat taking calls and where I typically ordered out for food or depended on the lunchroom vending machines. When you’re middle-aged, it’s harder to get rid of those inches too!
I’ve read some very interesting studies that have shown how women who become overweight and then pregnant, actually pass on a proclivity to diabetes and possibly obesity, in their offspring. Apparently there is an effect on the pancreas, which in turn causes biochemical changes that can be picked up by the fetus. Of course, we needn’t mention that lifestyle is also passed down from parent to child…
It’s easy to vilify “fat people”. But our environment is primed to produce them. I don’t believe the momentum can be turned until conditions actually change. When food is more difficult to get and people will have to walk more, we’ll see skinnier people. Otherwise, no.
If your fat eat healthier and excercise, simple and no excess tax money has to be wasted for lazy slobs who dont want to help themselves.
Overweight is, in part, a genetic problem. In areas where times of food scarcity occurred, it was advantageous to put on weight quickly - you had a reserve to get through the hard times. This is especially true of some island peoples in the South Pacific — clinical obesity and diabetes are very common.
People also put on weight more easily as they grow older. I was never overweight until I hit fifty. Now I’m another of those ‘pig people’ you despise. We eat well - I grow a lot of our food during the summer, buy organic the rest of the year. We only eat free range meat and have cut down drastically on the amount. Oatmeal for breakfast every morning. Two little dogs to walk, plus gardening, and I walk into town (only about a mile) unless I’m shopping and have things to carry. I go to the library twice a week and walk in. But I love to cook. After a lifetime working, now I’m retired I can perfect my croissants and pastry. Somehow, steamed broccoli isn’t as satisfying to cook or eat.
Incidentally, our income is above the national average. I can do a lot of these things because I can afford to. I wouldn’t buy factory farmed meat or eggs regardless of income. But I’d forget the organic vegetables. Our food costs are about 50% higher as a result of refusing to shop in some stores and buying organic.
Sensible, moderate diet with the emphasis on natural foods.
Be active, and get a moderate amount of exercise.
Above all, keep your sense of humor.
Bush Unveils New War
Washington, DC — (Permanent Press)
Citing the success of the “war on terrorism,” White House spokesmen
today unveiled a new front, the “war on obesity.”
“Obesity is epidemic in our nation and a grave national security
concern,” said Vice-President Dick Cheney at an afternoon press
conference. Asked to define “obesity” Mr. Cheney explained “all those
traits, characteristics and behaviors of the obese and potentially
obese. I can’t be any clearer than that so go fuck yourself.”
The Bush administration refuses to be “straight-jacketed” by limited
definitions. “There is no hard and fast rule as to how many pounds
over-weight equals obese,” explained Condoleeza “White” Rice. “As
commander-in-chief, the president will make that difficult
determination by himself on a case-by case basis.” The president’s
decision, White House legal advisors say, is not subject to review by
the courts. “In wartime we fully expect every decent American to
rally behind the President,” Rice said.
As part of this bold initiative, congress was this morning presented
with the 11,000 page “Intelligent Diet Initiative on Trimming”
legislation, known as the IDIOT ACT, which it passed almost
unanimously in time for the 10AM coffee-and-donuts break. The sole
dissenting vote was cast by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) “I think
there’s way too much pork in this bill,” he said.
The IDIOT Act gives the Department of Homeland Security, working in
conjunction with the FBI and local law enforcement, broad new powers
“desperately needed” in the war on obesity.
Among them:
Libraries and bookstores will be required to maintain records
“tracking” diet books, exercise books and cookbooks — all “of no
legitimate interest to the regular law-abiding American, but of vital
interest to the obese and potentially obese,” observed VP Cheny.
Scales will be installed at the entrances of public buildings and at
airports to help identify the obese. “These weigh-in’s will be in the
nude, of course,” explained the Vice-Presidentl as he shifted his
newspaper to cover his lap.
Warrantless “sneak and taste” searches will enable law enforcement
officials to enter a suspect’s home without their knowledge or
consent to “search and sample” various food items for sugar and fat,
and to root out “obesity materials” used in preparing “obesity-
facilitating” dishes.
The bill also provides for a crackdown on bakeries, pastry shops and
candy stores that may “knowingly or unknowingly support obesity” and
the creation of an obesity data base to include lists of gym and
health club members (”where obese persons may frequent”).
Suspected obese or potentially persons may be subject to arrest,
imprisonment, and forced dieting — all without access to an attorney
or personal trainer, or the right to seek a writ of habeus corpulent.
Nadine Strossen of the ACLU expressed concern that the legislation
violated the fundamental constitutional rights of law-abiding
citizens, persons who have been charged with no crime.
“Only the thinnest evidence is required,” she said.
“This is war,” commented President Bush “Are
we going to worry about the quaint niceties of the constitution,
international law, the UN or the Nutra-sweet Accords? Fat chance.”
While polls show that 90% of Americans support the President’s
actions, there has been some protest from a small segment of Un-
American, lunatic-fringe, demented, drug-abusing, child-molesting,
conspiracy-nut, pinko faggot commie fatsos, estimated at no more than
250 million. A tiny group of malcontent demonstrators that brought
all traffic in New York City to a stand-still for twelve hours,
gathered in Times Square to gorge down Twinkies, Yo-yo’s, Ha-ha’s and
a variety of other jovial foodstuffs on the “suspect” list issued by
the FBI. “This is still America,” said one demonstrator, between
bites. “We have a right to eat and drink whatever we want. The
president has no lawful authority to say what’s good for us and what
isn’t. We’ve got to stand up and show that we have the courage of our
confections.”
To assist over-burdened local law enforcement, the military may be
called upon.
“We’ve been preparing for this, just in case,” commented General
Tommy “Ballpark” Franks, “and I think we’re ready. After all, fat
people make big, slow targets that are pretty easy to hit.”
The role of the military may not be confined to domestic fat-
fighting. As yet unconfirmed reports of significant American troop
movements along the Swiss border have begun to circulate.
“We know for a fact that the Swiss have a whole lot of chocolate,”
said President Bush, “and that a whole lot of that whole lot of
chocolate is targeted for the United States.”
Liberty &; Justice,
SJ
www.spartacusjones.com
more dangerous than terrorism:
Lightning & Flooding
Pneumonia & Flu
Automobiles
Talking about obesity is always a fiery hot topic!
I agree that genetics play a role. The women on my mother’s side are tiny-I’m the “fat” one as I wear a 6 or 8 and they are all 2-3 sizes smaller. We’re all active, though I tend to eat better and less than they do.
The women in my husband’s family are obese. Many morbidly. I am sure they are not meant to ever be a size 2 like my sister, but having spent many vacations and days with them, they could be a lot slimmer and healthier if they ate less and moved more. Genetics doesn’t make you eat bacon and eggs everyday followed by a few giant muffins and a morning of sitting on the couch and eating sweets; HOWEVER, if that is what you grew up doing, it’s awfully tough to change. And as you age, those weakened joints make it even more difficult to become active.
I have Lupus, Interstitial Fibrosis, Fibromyalgia and Arthritis and was put on Prednisone, 80 mg daily. It put 65 lbs. on me, the way I was mistreated, looked at, the snickers and comments, doors dropped on me was ridiculous. I weaned myself off the steroids, against all of my Specialists advice.
All the weight is gone plus more was taken off, not even due to my eating habits.
WTF, always we talk about what and how ourselves and those of other nations are treated yet you talk as if a person that is overweight is just a pig that overeats and YOU have the right to tell them what and what not to eat. I am still me, although a lite-me, I ate once a day but the weight, while on steroids stayed. I would not eat in public for the stares. “How dare someone that is overweight eat?” The harm and isolation that your treatment and rude remarks do to obese individuals normally causes them to overeat more only in the privacy of their homes.
Do not appear with all your condemnation of unjust actions against other nations as such empathetic sympathizers and demean obese people. They are the same person, heavy or at an average weight, to tell them what or how they should eat is just as Fascist as the governments actions against us.
Dare say there is no comparison, while on Prednisone I had high blood pressure, breathing problems and hated myself due to the treatment I received by people like many of you, not all I am sorry if I inferred that, it is damaging emotionally to the point I still care to isolate more than be around others, anyone that treated me differently while heavy I will not speak to, think before you damage many more people that are in the same dire straits I found myself in.
Dare to act in a caring for all, regardless of color, religion, ethnicity and I say, “LIAR”, and it is damn true, when if I made a traffic error they would yell, “FAT PIG”. Tell people, “You have such a pretty face.”, code for fat ass bitch. As if I never looked at myself in a mirror. It is damaging, and you haven’t a right in the world to do such things and put up a pretense of being a Humanitarian.
I just went through the posts once more. I heard, Fat Pig, Lazy, Obese Mcdonalds eaters a myriad of attacks.
Aside from the cancer I have, I am always working on bills, campaigns, helping Sister and Brother Vets, in other words, i do not sit still, never could, it just so happens when they had me on Prednisone I was in so much emotional pain from those type of persons it was draining by the time I got home, shameful you people that have never understood what it feels like, or the once overweight now anorexic Nazis of food control. We are what we do and say not what a scale says, many posters today prove it, prejudiced and hateful, acting a part while supporting good causes. Take your F$$KING masks off, I can see through you.
What appears to be Fatness, is often times a form of Malnutrition. When the body consumes food that is devoid of essential fatty acids and minerals and vitamins..People eat and their poor bodies are still starved- of nutrients - so they eat more. Our society has been treated like a population of guinea pigs and now we even resemble them.
I used to be fat until I stopped shopping at all the discount food marts everywhere. I stopped going to the coffee house and spent my savings on organic food. People thiink I am into yoga and dance and walk a mile a day because I appear fit. I wish it were true, I just eat nutritionally dense food, therefore I dont need to eat much. It is very simple.
ORoe, I also was put on steroids for a spinal injury and I also “instantly” gained 65 lbs. I understand. My husband was put on prednisone for athsma and went psychotic-like a certain percentage of all people on it. Talk about judgemental and not understanding: crazy is right up there with fat.
Like parachutes, minds function properly when in an open state.
Yeah, I heard a few Quaker Oat Men gettin all Puritan on everybody’s FAT asses.
OROE & BARKSNOTBITES: In some cases one can take a pro-active approach to healing and NOT take what big pharma advises. Most illnesses are a result of imbalances brewed over time. Stress and diet play into the mix. I believe one must also locate the CAUSE factors that are less tangible. LOUISE HAY has written about these with a good deal of insight. At one time I had breast lumps and I changed my diet AND listened to my body language. The combination of modifying diet (no fat, only ONE coffee in the morning) AND understanding the MEANING of this particular response in the way of body language healed the condition. I have found that this type of approach works for EVERYTHING.
There was a chiropractor in the Florida Keys (he’s since relocated) who took a property of sand and over time built up an equivalent rain forest floor (by taking the mulch from all local exotic wood shops) and he grew everything you can imagine on his little property. He had people with terminal cancer living there. They ONLY ate what he gave them from his land and SLOWLY got well. In an instant gratification society that is accustomed to seeking a PILL for every ILL, this type of approach is scoffed at. However, it results in GENUINE healing as opposed to a masking of symptoms. Since most drugs interfere with body processes they create symptoms, and then a 2nd or 3rd set of drugs is normally offered to offset the “side effects.” The body becomes a molotof cocktail of sorts. As Ralph Nader’s group once pointed out, few if any tests are done on HOW all these drugs react in combination.
It is very empowering to recognize that if your body creates a condition, it can “un-create” it. When I had a baby at home on the floor with a mid wife, I realized how powerful we are. Our cells have built-in mechanisms that work FOR life, but if we compromise the integrity of the cells, they break down. In the Florida Keys (Big Pine), the health food store, “Good Food Conspiracy” is operated by a VERY knowledgable woman. You can ask her what remedies are required to assist healing. I remember spending $26 on herbs and avoiding the need for the surgical removal of a cyst that developed on my back when I was sedentary for months after a major car crash.
Learn to empower yourselves! The more people who do, the greater the chance for a Renaissance which might offset the need for revolution in this land of the braindead and poorly fed.
Certainly it’s a combination of individual responsibility and many external forces. Would those who vilify overweight people do so if they had grown up in an economically & educationally challenged household where the importance of healthy eating was never modeled or taught? Even though I grew up in a relatively privileged, middle-class home, I find that as a single mother of one (just one!) middle-schooler, who lives on a limited income & works fulltime, & also assists a parent with Parkinson’s, life can be hectic to say the least. We do pretty well eating healthy (no fast food or overly processed junk) but certainly are not perfect. I don’t have time to hit the gym every day, & I simply am not able to have food & caloric intake as my daily focus. Again, just wondering how many who have written are at a point in their lives where they can afford to be somewhat self-absorbed.
I agree that the biggest reasons waistlines have grown are our sedentary/suburban (yet all the while stupidly hectic) lifestyle combined with an emphasis on bottom-line business profits vs. any considerations of health in the food supply. (Just look at the downer cow scandal. Just look at the typical offerings in school cafeterias. But, it costs more money to do it right….) And gosh only knows how I’d manage if I didn’t have the benefit of a college education & was working TWO jobs to support TWO kids to make ends meet. What is needed more than anything is more money for proper regulatory mechanisms & for education. Finally, since when is everyone who is overweight “obese”? Isn’t the loss of any distinction itself indicative of the disdain with which overweight people are now viewed?
I’m making a website/blog on nutrition, http://www.hightruthdose.com . It’s still incomplete but in it I plan to address the following issues:
1. The U.S. Farm Bill makes Americans fat by subsidizing foods linked to obesity.
2. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) changes your metabolism and makes you fat.
3. The declining amount of nutrients and increased chemicals in our food, cause increased consumption because the body isn’t getting what it needs.
4. GM foods are dangerous, unnecessary. Organic food has higher amount of nutrients, so it’s worth it, even though it’s more expensive.
5. Things the U.S. government says are good for you are actually bad: dairy products, f luoride in drinking water, etc.
A few years ago I used to be 40 pounds overweight, but now I’m the normal/right weight. Although my entire mom’s side of the family is FAT, I don’t believe it’s genetics… they could switch their diet like me, and be skinny.
Fat isn’t the problem, in my opinion. I know many fat people who are drop-dead beautiful to look at. They are healthy too. That’s the issue. The food that many, if not most, people (fat and thin alike) consume is just plain unhealthy. It’s crap to be blunt. It may be more expensive to eat a healthy diet, but in the long run it pays off because you definitely save on health care costs.
I am far from rich, but my one luxury in life is eating healthy, organically produced food whenever possible. It’s more time-consuming than fast food but it definitely adds to the quality of my life and I highly recommend it to everyone. Eliminating animal products from my diet enabled me to lose weight with no other lifestyle changes and feel better about my relationship with the planet.
A few simple rules to eat by
- Eat a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. If you do not eat fat, you body will convert carbohydrates into fat and store it.
- Do not under eat, or your body will convert some of what you eat into fat and store it.
- Rigorously avoid artificial colors and flavors. They cause changes in brain chemistry which result in behavioral and mood changes.
- Just as rigorously avoid artificial sweeteners. Diet soda makes you fat! Aspartame makes you fat! Aspartame also brings other serious problems with it. Aspartame is poison. Spelda is poison too.
- High fructose corn syrup is a drug, not a food. It can only be metabolized the the liver. Ordinary sugar can be utilized by every cell in your body.
- Natural is good, artificial is not. Eat real food, not laboratory experiments that make corporations rich at your expense.
- Read all packaged food labels and reject anything using artifical ingredients.
Good nutrition is everyone’s responsibility.