[Scoundrel]

(04-17-2016 11:14 PM)Delta Wrote:  

^^God I'm sick of that horseshit about how hard it is to be thin if you're not wealthy. I eat almost exclusively cheap ass food and am still quite lean, because I eat it in moderation (I stop when I'm not hungry) and I play sports and lift. Nothing about that requires a lot of money.

The hilarious thing is that, if you think about it, historically it has always been POOR people who were skinny. The wealthy/rulers were the "fat cats"!

[Delta]

(04-17-2016 11:24 PM)EDantes Wrote:  

Doesn't take genius to figure out that one doesn't have to "eat organic" in order to not be obese; in Super Size Me they even featured a guy who's diet consisted of nothing but Big Macs for the past 30 years and he was only 140 lbs because he ate in moderation. Not to mention the sugary sodas - you can just replace them with water which is free.

Eating organic, in fact, does absolutely nothing in terms of keeping you thin. "Organic" just means no pesticides or GMOs, neither of which science has shown to be harmful. I laugh when I stroll down the organic aisle and see expensive "all natural" cookies, which gullible SWPLs will believe are diet food even though they'll make you just as fat as Chips Ahoy.

Reminds me of a Lindy West article I remember from awhile back, where she concludes her fat must be due to genetics, because she walks a mile a day to work (yes, a mile) and shops at a locally grown food store, as though there's some correlation between "locally grown" and amount of calories.

[EDantes]

(04-17-2016 11:38 PM)Delta Wrote:  

(04-17-2016 11:24 PM)EDantes Wrote:  

Doesn't take genius to figure out that one doesn't have to "eat organic" in order to not be obese; in Super Size Me they even featured a guy who's diet consisted of nothing but Big Macs for the past 30 years and he was only 140 lbs because he ate in moderation. Not to mention the sugary sodas - you can just replace them with water which is free.

Eating organic, in fact, does absolutely nothing in terms of keeping you thin. "Organic" just means no pesticides or GMOs, neither of which science has shown to be harmful. I laugh when I stroll down the organic aisle and see expensive "all natural" cookies, which gullible SWPLs will believe are diet food even though they'll make you just as fat as Chips Ahoy.

Reminds me of a Lindy West article I remember from awhile back, where she concludes her fat must be due to genetics, because she walks a mile a day to work (yes, a mile) and shops at a locally grown food store, as though there's some correlation between "locally grown" and amount of calories.

My self advice lately is to just ignore virtually every advice blog, magazine, etc out there (whether related to health, psychology, etc) and stick only to books based on time tested principles that have been around since the 1950s and before

The majority of this 'advice' is just clickbait designed to make money, or serve as small talk fodder for women.

Eating real food, getting exercise is time tested advice on how to not be fat.

And from what I can tell despite the 100 billion "new" discoveries out their on the web, genuinely "new" discoveries in science, technology, etc (nutritional or otherwise) are extremely rare finds.

The only noteworthy new scientific discoveries over the past 2 decades for example are the Human Genome Project, invention of the internet, and the Space Hubble telescope.

Yet on blogs and magazines you'll hear about 1000s of "revolutionary new breakthroughs or ideas" ranging from some new "superfood", pill, or workout gizmo that will make you lose weight, to uploading one's mind to a computer and living forever.

(A lot of 'game advice' out there also falls into the same camp; my view is that game really boils down to a set of basic core principles, while all of the specific tips and tricks and pickup lines are highly subjective).

[Jungle]

(04-17-2016 11:48 AM)EDantes Wrote:  

Maybe just taxing the shit out of fast food and processed food like we do cigarettes would help with it, I honestly wouldn't feel to bad about that considering how much it racks up in healthcare costs anyway.

If a 12 oz soda costs as much as a 2 packs of Marlboro Reds then maybe people would think twice about buying it.

The simplest solution to obesity epidemic is that ^^. Tax sugary food and junk food for the real consequential cost it has upon society, the same way they did with cigarettes.

(04-17-2016 12:10 PM)Dantes Wrote:  

This is a community that is generally against higher taxes and government regulation. I'm surprised at some of the responses suggesting it's the government's problem to correct.

Of course in a fantasy utopian land we'd like there not to be taxes upon things, in reality things are a lot different. One way or another you are going to be paying for it, for example, if smokers weren't taxed by paying for expensive cigarettes, then it would be you as a non-smoker paying more of your income tax to subsidise and pay for the health care system, which now needs more funding because there are more smokers.

(04-17-2016 12:29 PM)sylo Wrote:  

This is such ridiculous horse shit. People are obese, fat people are lazy, and scoff at personal responsibility. So, because you do not want to fix the person, you tax the substance they are abusing. What this does is piss real men like me off. I want to drink a huge soda every once in a while. Sometimes I will eat Ben and Jerry’s for dinner. I have this right, because I am an individual. The moment you start to fuck with my food, because someone else is fat, is the moment I start fucking with your livelihood.

I refuse to pay more for something I want because you think some other people will benefit from the lack of it. You are actively calling in the government to get concerned with my personal eating, and you want to punish everybody because some of the people cannot control themselves.

You are actively promoting more regulation in my everyday life. You are advocating a restriction of civil liberties, SHAME ON YOU.

Relax, noone is imposing upon your civil liberties, you are more than welcome to purchase a huge soda, noone is stopping you from doing so or suggesting it should be illegal. You should be paying a higher tax on that soda. Why? Because that soda has an adverse health causation upon society at large. You only drink it once in a while? Well, then the tax doesn't even really affect you because it's such a minute amount.

Think about how much diabetes is costing you via your income tax right now. Whether you like it or not, you are already being taxed for other people drinking soda right now. If the health care system was being funded by fat people because they drink taxed soda everyday, then actually you as a healthy skinny person will be paying less income tax.

[Matt Warner]

First in Australia its just as bad if not worse than the USA. The absolute number one cause is people eating mass produced highly processed garbage. With big business and governments in bed with each other, I'm quite pessimistic really, we can't even get the pricks here to have decent simple in your face food labelling of the shite in supermarkets.

I was never fat, just a little overweight a while back. I have an Asian partner now and just don't ever eat shit like KFC and Macca's. The weight just dropped off easy as and I've completely lost the taste of junk food.

Maybe up taxes but I really hate the nanny state answers and don't think it would make much difference unless the government put it back into the problem, but that would never happen.

I tried to set an example for the children about all you can do. Part of that was not having junk like sweets, biscuits etc. in the house and a fruit bowl.

It's really sad how large some of the women (and men too) are here these days, that's a big factor in how popular the Asian ladies are here.

[orbiter]

I was recently in Thailand, drank a lot of fluids because of desire, opportunity and the hot weather.

Often went to 7-Eleven to get something to drink, but struggled to find anything sugar-free apart from diet coke and water. Was wondering if sugar-freeness was labeled on bottles somehow in a way that Thai people could easily see. Asked the store assistant for help, but she had to admit that choice for something non-sugary was severely limited. After some searching she found me a bottle of Japanese style ice-tea.

She told that drinks that were not "yummi" would sell poorly.

Thailand is among the richer and more westernized SEA-countries, with overweight-ness levels considerably above most other countries in the region (an exception is Malaysia which is richer per capita, and also more Islamic - these factors often go hand in hand with higher BMI values).

In malls for the richer classes, my impression was that people tended to be more overweight than on average. Beautiful cakes and desserts, western-style fast food stores and yummi-stuff were prominent and easy to reach inside those malls.

Obesity is on the rise in Thailand.

[n0000]

Refined carbohydrates definitely cause weight gain. More and more research is also showing the deleterious effects of seed oils:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article...ne.0132672

Soybean oil is the most heavily consumed seed oil. These oils are a new addition to the human, and throw off the all important omega 6:omega 3 ratio. Surprisingly enough the rats in the study that were fed fructose did not show as much weight gain as the soy oil group. They did end up with prolapsed rectums though. Ouch.

[Leonard D Neubache]

While I despise Government intervention in all its forms, it's the only relevant player in matters like this.

But instead of taxing crappy foods they should move in the other direction.

In socialist nations like Australia anyone able to keep their body fat percentage
at a healthy level from birthday to birthday should be given a health care rebate on the basis that they're likely not draining the health care system as much as they would if they were fat.

Furthermore, fat people who's weight lands them in hospital need to be treated as psych patients.

It makes no sense that a kid cutting their wrists will end up getting psychiatric help while a man can eat himself to death and draw millions of dollars in health care over many years all the way to the end.

Cash rebate for staying light. Enforced medical solutions for the morbidly obese. The rest can muddle through. You can't convince most people to floss their teeth when it's functionally free and effortless, much less improve themselves in a drastic, unpleasant and time consuming manner.

A generation or two from now methinks that whatever nation goes GATTACA will consign the fatty nations to the bin of history.

[ShootTheMoon]

(04-18-2016 02:36 AM)Jungle Wrote:  

Relax, noone is imposing upon your civil liberties, you are more than welcome to purchase a huge soda, noone is stopping you from doing so or suggesting it should be illegal. You should be paying a higher tax on that soda. Why? Because that soda has an adverse health causation upon society at large. You only drink it once in a while? Well, then the tax doesn't even really affect you because it's such a minute amount.

Think about how much diabetes is costing you via your income tax right now. Whether you like it or not, you are already being taxed for other people drinking soda right now. If the health care system was being funded by fat people because they drink taxed soda everyday, then actually you as a healthy skinny person will be paying less income tax.

I have a real problem whenever I hear people make this argument. You're essentially saying that you believe that it's perfectly OK for the government to try to control people's behavior via taxation, which is antithetical to what a free society is supposed to be. The tax code is a way for governments to raise revenue, not try to engineer society by punitively taxing behavior (or products) bureaucrats deem undesirable.

You say that this tax will somehow lower taxes in the future by cutting health care costs, but nobody ever asks the question "Why am I having to foot the bill for other people's healthcare costs?" I personally believe that healthcare is not a right, but an economic good no different from any other and that the costs of healthcare should be paid on an individual, not collective manner. Nobody would care how healthy/unhealthy everybody else is if public money wasn't being used to pay for it or if health insurance wasn't pooled collectively.

Here is an excellent essay written by John Cochrane of the Hoover Institution of Stanford about the state of health care in the United States and what kinds of reform would be needed to actually fix the mess we have:

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2012/1...-care.html

As far as obesity goes, the only thing that can really be done is to try hammer home to children in school the dangers of being really overweight and to teach proper nutrition and diet (lots of lean meats and vegetables, lighter on the fruit and avoid wheat products like the plague.) I gradually figured out the truth about what a healthy diet looks like on my own (before I discovered red pill stuff) by piecing together bits of information I picked up here and there and realized that most of whats taught by mainstream society about health is completely false.

[WestIndianArchie]

I'm with Hank.

1) End subsidies
2) Significantly raise taxes on sugary drinks and foods, and processed carbs.

If people are determined to make their own coca cola and cookies, then so be it. But put Nabisco and Hershey's out of business.

The culture part that needs to change
- more cooking
- no more snacking
- bring back fasting.

^ good luck with these

WIA

[Khan]

(04-17-2016 11:14 PM)Delta Wrote:  

^^God I'm sick of that horseshit about how hard it is to be thin if you're not wealthy. I eat almost exclusively cheap ass food and am still quite lean, because I eat it in moderation (I stop when I'm not hungry) and I play sports and lift. Nothing about that requires a lot of money.

It simply isn't politically correct to speculate that maybe, just maybe, the same traits that cause people to be unable to land a good job (lack of discipline and self-control) are also causing their obesity.

Could be, but I know a lot of people with good jobs who are still lazy fat fucks.

I agree that healthy food is not expensive. If that were the case, third world countries would endure an obesity epidemic while everyone in the West would be lean.

[Hannibal]

Fuck asking the government for more regulation.

End the corn subsidies, but don't turn sugar into the next tobacco.

Seriously, fuck that train of thought. The government in many ways caused the obesity epidemic, but you can't expect them to fix anything they profit from. The only way to take things back to the way they were is to end the corn subsidies and make fatness a disgusting, shameful state of being again. Ask anyone what they think of smoking and the first thing that pops into their head is "cancer".

Sometimes I like going to the grocery store and buying a large chocolate bar or a tub of gelato and eating it all in one sitting. This might happen two or three times a year and cost all of $4. I don't want it to cost $20, I don't want to have to swipe my drivers license to do this, and I damn sure don't want to put "I consume sugar products so and so many times a week" on health insurance forms.

The last thing I want (or any man should want) is for the government to have more power. You don't give the government less power by taxing a substance that the average American eats 130 lbs of in a year.

People didn't stop smoking because cigarettes got expensive. I started smoking when it was $5 a pack, now it is $10. Have people quit drinking now that a decent 6 pack of beer is $10? Did they quit driving when gas was $4 a gallon?

Most people quit smoking (or never started) largely because everyone around them thinks it's disgusting. You can thank the efforts of public schooling for this one. Maybe they should focus on fat hatred instead of fat acceptance; you'd see a lot less fatties in the same way you see a lot less smokers.

Smoking went from being socially acceptable to :
1)unhealthy
2)disgusting
3)bad for the environment (my reply was always "Did you drive here to tell me that? Fuck off.")
4)offensive
5)bad for you and everyone else
6)rude
7)selfish
8)trashy

I'm not saying that fat is perceived as beautiful nowadays, but the problem is that society seems to think that fatness is out of your control, whereas smoking is a choice. Ergo, we can't criticize fatties because it's not their fault.

I used to get told all the time to move further away from the entrance of buildings because the law now states in many places that you have to be 50 feet away from a building. Imagine the hilarity if you told a fattie that they had to step outside because they're a fire hazard.

No, we need to bring back fat shaming in a big way. You make a choice to stay fat every time you pick up the fork.

[birdie num num]

This photo was taken on a BART train. BART is the metro system for the San Francisco Bay Area, ground zero for such nuttiness. Shocking, isn't it?

[floor7]

Being ectomorphic thin (not skinny fat, but lean and fit) doesn't require much money.

If you are an ectomorph and want to put on proper size, it definitely costs money.

[Switch]

The average American gains only about a pound per year after age 18. A pound of fat is about 10 sodas, or one bag of Doritos. There needs to be more fat shaming and more skinny glorifying. If people can be convinced to forego one soda per month, or walk an extra mile every ten days, the obesity epidemic would practically disappear. Much smaller changes on a micro level are needed than many people think. Just a matter of convincing people to make what in reality are really small changes.

[Leonard D Neubache]

Anyone that thinks fatties are going to give up their sodas because they're a bit more expensive is out of their minds

Cigarettes in Australia cost a stupefying amount and people still smoke. Meanwhile the government treads a careful balance between milking the addicts with their sin tax without charging so much that they'll quit.

People put smokes above other arguably more essential needs. Tax the hell out of cola and you will simply have fatties living in hovels, clothed in rags, still sucking down Pepsi like it was going out of fashion.

I have a more shocking propsal.

We must create a two-class society.

We must lawfully be able to treat fatties the way negroes were treated under slavery. It's not exactly the same thing because while blacks were black for life, fatties have the chance to be thin if they work at it.

We should be able to do the following:

Ridicule fatties with an implicit legal protection against repercussions.
Send fatties to the back of the line at the DMV, food stands, etc.
Displace fatties from jobs when slim people require employment.
Make fatties ride at the back of the bus and stand when a slim person needs a seat.
Make fatties drink from different fountains and use different restrooms.
Ride fatties as and where it's deemed hilarious.
Beat fatties at will adhering to traditional rule of thumb. (Not violently enough to cause injuries requiring hospitalisation. After all. We're not monsters.)

Seriously, my short time on this earth has taught me not to waste my life trying to drag the feckless masses to enlightenment. In the vast majority of attempts you will fail and they will hate you for trying.

[WestIndianArchie]

Taxing things works. Smoking has seriously come down in the States compared to where it was in the 60's.

Addicts are still gonna addict but make them pay for it.

And you small government and government doesn't work types, just lol.

Given all the calamities this week, Would you rather be in Ecuador or Japan (or Houston)?

The US ain't North Korea or Cuba. Go someplace with a weak rule of law and look at how "good" that society is.

WIA

[thoughtgypsy]

Assuming obesity is a result of sugary food addiction (and I believe it is), is there a reason for the increase in rates of addiction, in general, in recent years? Note that the rate of heroin addiction has also increased during this time.

Perhaps the sense of meaning and purpose is being eroded amongst people en masse. With the destruction of the family, the difficulty of finding full time work, and the destruction of national values and identity, I can see many people turning to addictions for short term distractions from the disillusionment of modern society.

[rpg]

It comes down to high fructose corn syrup and refined flour.
Eliminate those two and the tide begins to turn.

[spokepoker]

So... what can we actually do?

[WestIndianArchie]

As players, we should only bang chicks that are the correct BMI/health level. Create the next generation.

But agriculture, restaurants, pharmaceuticals, medicine depend on the status quo. It enriches them. They have billions at their disposal to keep things the way they are. It's like trying to rein in the banking industry.

WIA

[orbiter]

(04-19-2016 01:46 PM)thoughtgypsy Wrote:  

Assuming obesity is a result of sugary food addiction (and I believe it is), is there a reason for the increase in rates of addiction, in general, in recent years?

You make some good points. If to look at the sugar addiction part, I can imagine these reasons play a role:

- Food businesses are like most others, growth is in the essence. As we know, sugar is a cheap component. As products are made at increasingly lower costs, more is made, and mountains of ice cream etc need to be sold / dumped into the market. Often at low prices, and people eat more when they can buy it for cheap.

- With globalization, more and more non-food products like clothes and electronics are manufactured in faraway places. Meals are best when prepared freshly and therefore locally. Hence money is more easily made in Western countries by selling food nowadays. This means an increased proportion of local businesses are in the food business. The increased earnings is typically achieved by having local people eat more calories through sugary delights. More sugar in the average meal leads to increased addiction levels in the population.

- Food engineers and marketers get smarter at figuring out what make their products high on the craveability scale. Another term for addiction, according to Michael Moss.

Related is a quote I found from some organization called the Food Marketing Workgroup:

Quote:

Impulsivity and addictive behaviors. So-called “rewarding foods,” those that are high in sugar, fat, and salt, “are altering the biological circuitry of our brains,” as David Kessler explains in his book, The End of Overeating. “Sugar and fat are reinforcing, and cues, quantity, concentration, and variety all increase that reinforcement value.” Food and beverage manufacturers continually research and perfect these combinations of “flavors and tastes in order to maximize their appeal to consumers.

[Jungle]

(04-19-2016 04:01 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Anyone that thinks fatties are going to give up their sodas because they're a bit more expensive is out of their minds
Cigarettes in Australia cost a stupefying amount and people still smoke.

Of course some people still smoke, that's not the point. The point is that statistics prove that taxing cigarettes has decreased the amount of smokers. It has increased the 'barriers of entry' and the number of 'friction points' for the average person to smoke, it's as simple as that. There were 35% smokers in 1960 to under 10% now. You can find out more at tobaccoinaustralia.org.au

If there was a tax on sugary products, it would result in people consuming less sugary foods, therefore resulting in less fatties.

(04-19-2016 04:01 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

We must create a two-class society.

Hahahahhahahha that's a good one