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  #46   ^
Old Fri, Mar-03-06, 17:51
ItsTheWooo's Avatar
ItsTheWooo ItsTheWooo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakerchic
Really, around where I live, there is nothing to do besides go out and eat.


Bakerchic what you are describing is exactly the kind of situation I"m describing. Ask yourself WHY is there nothing to do but eat. Is it because our lives consist entirely else of obligations and a lack of time to cultivate yourself?

A stressful unnatural lifestyle encourages food abuse, and, it also encourages the physiological processes that facilitate obesity. The word stress assumes a direct, obvious source of adversity - working sun up to sun down is stress. Stress is more complex than that. I am defining (excessive) stress as any factor which retards or prevents ideal health. Stress could also be a deprivation of emotionally fulfilling relationships with humans (for example, no family meal like you said). It could be our throwaway consumer culture conditioning us to unnaturally always look for the next and the largest, therefore preventing ever feeling fulfilled (and thus the perfect consumer is born). If that first big mac didn't hit the spot, get another. Eat and eat until you feel sick, and then, learn to associate that feeling with satisfaction (since you have no idea how to really perceive pleasure and enjoy yourself in any real way, since you have been conditioned to ignore value/substance...)

I am kinda confusing the point and probably others since I seem to use physical and psychological causes of obesity interchangably. One minute I talk about a psychological result (stresses and eating), the next a physical one (stresses and metabolic syndrome). I should also mention that I don't think the two are compartmentalized and that mental health is often a product of physical health, and physical health is affected by mental health.

Quote:
For me, it really took a whole new environment to gain some self control. Moving out of the house, and in some cases, getting rid of friends and contacts that drained me emotionally. It’s hard, because it’s almost like you have to kill a part of yourself to change, and then you really have to want to change your relationship with food, even more so than the strong urges of temptation where you just want to throw in the towel.

Bakerchic, it sounds like what youa re saying is pretty much reaffirms my theory that eating problems (and obesity/health too) are the result of stress and unnatural/unhealthy living.

Would it be accurate to say your new lifestyle is:
1) Less stressful (because it)...
2) Allows you the freedom to be more you, and is less about the external obligations and confines of others and environment?
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  #47   ^
Old Sat, Mar-04-06, 20:46
Frederick's Avatar
Frederick Frederick is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsTheWooo
Thing is Frederick, I didn't do those things and neither did you, but a few exceptional humans did. Most people at the time were average and doing average things, just like today.


Woo, the quote below expresses my response to the above much more eloquently than I ever could. I think that we all have our challenges in life. In the struggle to constantly improve ourselves, it's the process that matter more than the result, in my view. For whether we are ultimately successful or not, I think it is the journey, in particular the self-revelation from our struggles making us vividly more aware of who we are as a person that is our ultimate reward.

There are only two tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want, and the second is. In my humble view, it is only in between those two extremes that one tastes the full vibrant flavor of life.

"It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed ... The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues."

-- From a letter to her son by Abagail Adams

With kindest regards,

Fred
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  #48   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 06:23
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Gstout Gstout is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ItsTheWooo
I have noticed two types of individuals who have weight problems. Those who are capable of learning moderation, and those who are not. (For sake of argument, let's assume both people are not triggering metabolic sensitivities. Also, when you read this post, it would help to realize when I use collective pronouns I am referring to our culture and the obese collective. I full well understand there are exceptions and for some people it is as simple as carbs. I am not trying to say what I say applies to you individually.)

There are those people who, even if it isn't natural to them, learn to feel satisfied emotionally when eating "fun" or "unsafe" food. They eat half an apple, feel satisfied, and never progress to self destructive behaviors.

Then there are those people who are triggered into self destruction by attempting to eat "fun food". At first they might find an evening treat of half an apple indulgent. Then, they find they find that half boring and not as psychologically fulfilling as it used to be, so they need a whole apple. Soon they discover apples are just not doing the trick anymore. Then they move to store bought low carb apple pie. By the time they move to the processed food, it's all over. They eat the entire pie, and, whatever they can get their hands on. All this over eating and eating increasingly carby food is also messing up blood sugar. Soon they are back in the cycle.

What is the difference between these people? Why can one person feel satisfied, and another just loses control? Even more perplexing, why can some people "recover" and learn to eat normally, while this dream of control continues to elude others?

I believe it is how we perceive food which is the main difference. The first person is thinking "like an artist" - patient, calm, meditative, and enjoying the smallness and simplicity of their meal. Because they are more focused and attentive to details, normal and small portions saturates their brains with stimulus. This stimulus registers as pleasure, and, they satisfy emotional needs for food. They are more likely to find food associate activities a pleasure - the cooking, planning, and serving process are stress free and indulgent.

This theory raises two new questions.
1) How can all of us learn to think that way about food?
2) Why is it elusive to some, easily learned by others, and completely natural to a third segment of the population?

Differences in perception can explain the results of our behavior. It cannot explain why our perceptions are different to begin with, or, how to change them.
In a thread about this in the emotional eating forum, cartersg1 raises an excellent point I did not think of. The reason our perceptions are different is because our lifestyle, attitudes, and lifestyle demands are different. It's our stressful, faced paced lives which are making us stressed out compulsive eaters. We don't sleep enough, we don't spend enough time with our loved ones, and we don't take the time to make home made meals. We are always working or going to school or doing something. Constant stress does a lot of nasty things to our body. For one, it increases insulin resistance and makes us hungrier and store fat. It also does nasty things to your emotions and mind. It makes us want to eat fatty, salty, and/or sweet foods to relax and numb ourselves even when not really hungry. It makes us be in such a need state all the time that when we eat, we eat *so very much*. It's an emotional and physiological cycle.

There's more though...
I think it is stress that is causing us to feel so in need of relief, but it is our culture that is causing the obesity epidemic.
We don't know how to really enjoy ourselves. We don't see the value in anything around us, it is all for granted, all so trite. The west is obsessed with the future and productivity. This causes us to associate "pleasure" with novelty, new supercharged sensations, and getting the most for the least. If it isn't faster, bigger, louder, sweeter, or saltier than its predecessor, then it isn't what we're craving.

Our culture is so concerned with the future that the intrinsic value of the present escapes us. The thing is, valuing the present is the only way to ever feel truly satisfied and relieve stress. Other ways of relieving stress often make it worse in the long run. For example:

Our culture says "working a ridiculous amount and sleeping 4 hours a night so you can afford a huge car makes you happy". It does not say "a simple life with peace to reflect upon your world is actually better than working yourself to a heart attack death while stuck in traffic in your unsightly large car".

It is our cultural value system that says "the banquet 3 course carside to go meal at applebees will relieve your stress without sucking up precious time". It does not say "making the time to indulge in the simplicity of making a simple, beautiful, healthy small meal at home will make you feel even better".

We are so physiologically and psychologically stressed OUT, and, in a cycle, the ways we relieve our stress just make it worse in the long run. The psychological causes the physical, and back again, in a cycle.
We have rendered ourselves defective in that we are incapable of healthy meditation. It is so unnatural for us to sit, focus, observe and find this practice *enjoyable stress relief*. We say we don't have the time, but what we really mean to say is we don't desire to LEARN how to change the way we live.

Before we can learn to eat normally we need to resolve the stressful nature of our lives. We need to change the way we live and look at the world. We need to redefine our values, and what it means to enjoy ourselves and feel satisfied. We need to sleep, we need to be in the sunshine and take walks, we need to purge ourselves of all this extra that doesn't really make us happy and just chains us to so much work. We need to free ourselves from pressure and stress and live like we were meant to live. With that, the body will heal, and when the body heals, so does the mind.

Thoughts?






Nice read, only one thing comes to mind........ BS!~#!~#!

I'll address one word: STRESS. Do you think stress wasn't invented until the 21st century? BS!~#!~#! In the 21st century we label not being able to have 2nd helpings as STRESSFUL.

For more than a million years, humans have lived with 'normal' STRESS like, "if they don't eat, they die." Everyday was an obsession of 'what' to eat, with the major focus of 'what' being "WHAT THEY COULD GET THEIR HANDS ON!"

Take a few of our ancestors away from their 'pack' a few 100 thousands years ago and put them in the middle of a fast food burger joint, and I'm pretty sure you'd have a fight on your hands trying to stop them from eating. Of course, you'd be all 'stressed' out but they wouldnt. It'd be just a normal fight for food day to them.

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  #49   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 08:56
TheCaveman's Avatar
TheCaveman TheCaveman is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gstout
I'll address one word: STRESS. Do you think stress wasn't invented until the 21st century? BS!~#!~#! In the 21st century we label not being able to have 2nd helpings as STRESSFUL.

For more than a million years, humans have lived with 'normal' STRESS like, "if they don't eat, they die." Everyday was an obsession of 'what' to eat, with the major focus of 'what' being "WHAT THEY COULD GET THEIR HANDS ON!"


First of all, you're presuming that a million years ago, Homo had a problem getting food. To presume that a species as successful as ours had a problem getting food is kind of silly. Don't forget that a million years ago, food was free, or at least as cheap as effort using skills that we evolved with. Everything alive is built to get food, and we are masters at getting food. Adjunct to that is a very active (among animals) storage metabolism that makes good use of lean times, of which every living thing has has mitigation. Lean times are at worst episodic and must be presumed to be seasonal. But a chronic deficit over a million years means only one thing: adapt or die out. Ancient humans adapted to the environments they live in, and the proof is that we are still here.

Second, there is a lot of data to suggest that modern living is more stressful than life even a century ago. Many studies, testing for cortisol (stress hormone) in the blood of rural farmers and city folk pretty clearly show that living conditions, regardless of the people who live them, create stress and in ways that those folks can't detect in how they feel. Testing of workers and retirees, children and adults, farmers and city dwellers, desk-jobbers and emergency-room nurses show wide variation in endocrinology and other tests for stress.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gstout
Take a few of our ancestors away from their 'pack' a few 100 thousands years ago and put them in the middle of a fast food burger joint, and I'm pretty sure you'd have a fight on your hands trying to stop them from eating.


How would they pay for the food?
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  #50   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 09:51
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potatofree potatofree is offline
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Quote:
Second, there is a lot of data to suggest that modern living is more stressful than life even a century ago. Many studies, testing for cortisol (stress hormone) in the blood of rural farmers and city folk pretty clearly show that living conditions, regardless of the people who live them, create stress and in ways that those folks can't detect in how they feel. Testing of workers and retirees, children and adults, farmers and city dwellers, desk-jobbers and emergency-room nurses show wide variation in endocrinology and other tests for stress.


But how could they compare those results to people 100 or more years ago?
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  #51   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 10:27
TheCaveman's Avatar
TheCaveman TheCaveman is offline
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Originally Posted by potatofree
But how could they compare those results to people 100 or more years ago?


They can't. What are you really asking?
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  #52   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 10:31
Paleoanth's Avatar
Paleoanth Paleoanth is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCaveman
First of all, you're presuming that a million years ago, Homo had a problem getting food. To presume that a species as successful as ours had a problem getting food is kind of silly. Don't forget that a million years ago, food was free, or at least as cheap as effort using skills that we evolved with. Everything alive is built to get food, and we are masters at getting food. Adjunct to that is a very active (among animals) storage metabolism that makes good use of lean times, of which every living thing has has mitigation. Lean times are at worst episodic and must be presumed to be seasonal. But a chronic deficit over a million years means only one thing: adapt or die out. Ancient humans adapted to the environments they live in, and the proof is that we are still here.


It was not cheap, in terms of caloric expenditure, to get food. It was very costly even though we evolved a more efficient locomotion to deal with larger ranges than our primate ancestors. Plus our larger brains, longer juvenile periods and larger bodies demanded higher calories in order to just survive. This is why we needed higher quality foods:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...4&dopt=Abstract

http://www.johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/erectus

http://www.cas.northwestern.edu/ant...erican-2002.pdf

http://www.cofc.edu/~huberb/Reading...%20Activity.pdf
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  #53   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 10:47
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ValerieL ValerieL is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCaveman
They can't. What are you really asking?


I think the same thing I wondered when I read your post. How does a "wide variation in endocrinology and other tests for stress" in people of today translate to "a lot of data to suggest that modern living is more stressful than life even a century ago".

Not questioning the validity of your assertion, I just don't see what how cortisol testing of people today suggests that modern living is more stressful than living a century ago. Without cortisol tests from a century ago to prove it, and if, as you assert, people can't generally gauge their stress levels subjectively (so we can't rely on anecdoctal evidence from a century ago), what data is there to suggest that modern living is more stressful than live a century ago?
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  #54   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 11:07
TheCaveman's Avatar
TheCaveman TheCaveman is offline
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Originally Posted by ValerieL
Without cortisol tests from a century ago to prove it, and if, as you assert, people can't generally gauge their stress levels subjectively (so we can't rely on anecdoctal evidence from a century ago), what data is there to suggest that modern living is more stressful than live a century ago?


The modern data from folks who now live under the same conditions that we did a hundred years ago. (I remember data comparison between Argentine sheep herders and Buenos Aires professionals.) Because the differences in stress level can be so profound even today, and can be predicted based on lifestyle, the data only suggests, but suggests it strongly.

Is there anything you can think of that might confound the data or conclusion?
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  #55   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 11:09
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Lessara Lessara is offline
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I will not compare myself to those who have never had a weight issue or an eating/food issue...it just would not be fair to me. I am unique as we each are...making broad generalities to try to understand an aspect of myself does not work for me.


This still is the rerailing cause of my low carbing. I look around and see everyone else eating whatever they want especially breads, and desserts and such. I feel deprived like I'm broken.
Why do I think that way?! If a friend told me this I would say the same thing you said. We are all different. After all there are things I can eat others may not. For example: I can eat butter and cream cheese, almost no one else in my office can. Also I can eat cheese, same result... for everyone is low fat. Now who is unfair?

Quote:
in my situation i know that for me, from a small child i was criticised for my weight by my family (i was only a few pounds overweight). i was constantly restricted food, and pestered about what i ate. and of course, what do we always want?? what we cant have. i would sneak it, and inhale it (didnt want to get caught of course). it got to be like a rebellion rather than a hunger that drove me. at least thats where i think it started.


Same thing happened in my home. Food was controlled by parents and if I got in trouble no dinner for me. Food became a weapon and I binged with all my $3 allowance could give me.
Thankfully I got control of this years ago through counsilling.
I just made sure I didn't raise my children that way.

Quote:
People work 2-3 jobs to put food on the table and a roof overhead and still can't afford much more than lots of rice, pasta and potatoes to eat.


This is so true! I'm a single mom and I blame myself for my teens overweight. 1) Food is so expensive unless you want junk.
2) I was never home to make the kids go outside and play or take to sport events.
3) I was so tired after a long day at work, fast food was too easy.. way too easy.
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  #56   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 11:48
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ValerieL ValerieL is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCaveman
The modern data from folks who now live under the same conditions that we did a hundred years ago. (I remember data comparison between Argentine sheep herders and Buenos Aires professionals.) Because the differences in stress level can be so profound even today, and can be predicted based on lifestyle, the data only suggests, but suggests it strongly.

Is there anything you can think of that might confound the data or conclusion?


No, it just wasn't clear to me from your earlier statements where the suggestion was coming from.

You still haven't said explicitly that the Argentine sheep herders have lower cortisol levels than Buenos Aires professionals, though I suppose that given your assertion that the data suggests there is more stress in modern life than in life 100 years ago, I can assume that the Argentine sheep herders are meant to represent life 100 years ago and the data shows they have lower cortisol readings.

I just wasn't clear before that you were using an underlying assumption that we can infer cortisol levels of people 100 years ago from those tested today living basically the same lifestyle.

As I said, I wasn't challenging your assertion, I just didn't see where you were getting it from, but I understand now.
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  #57   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 12:38
ItsTheWooo's Avatar
ItsTheWooo ItsTheWooo is offline
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Originally Posted by DietSka
Similarly, there are two types of people: those who can drink socially and those who become alcoholics. That's why I don't think overeating is something you learn (or can unlearn). It's something you either have or you don't. Like the propensity of becoming an alcoholic.


I agree in a sense, you either have the tendency to do it or you don't...
but some people who do have the predisposition to such eating, seem to be able to learn how to control it. I consider myself one of those people.

I believe there are 3 types, not 2. I said there were two types of people who have the problem, but there are actually 3 types if you consider the people with out the problem:
1) Those who naturally never have any over eating (binge) problem,
2) Those who do and can only control it by strictly denying themselves anything "triggering" (which usually is anything other than the most bland, low carb food)
3) Those who do and learn to control it while also eating a reasonably varied diet (meaning foods they USED to binge on and over eating compulsively with they no longer do).

It is not appropriate to compare this to alcoholism because alcohol will ALWAYS produce a physiological response that begins the addiction cycle.
What I am talking about is more like if an alcoholic started drinking o'dools (non-alcoholic beer) and then slowly letting his habits slip till he was deteriorating back into downing a pint of vodka a day or something.

I'm talking about those of us who are eating for metabolic health, but the foods "remind" us of old behaviors and foods and trigger old ways of thinking. Eggs and cheese sweetened with splenda only appears to be the same thing as a real cheesecake... in our bodies it does not cause the same response. (I know some people are supersensitive and do respond to non-caloric artificial sweeteners with a big insulin release... but MOST people do not)

In my opinion the way we behave with foods that do not aggravate our blood sugar, but, remind us of "exciting carbohydrate food" is mostly a behavioral relic of physical addiction, and our perceptions of some foods.

Why can some of us learn to overcome that "instinct" to manically eat more and more of it, and eventually, accept such foods as part of our diets...
Why do others become so triggered that escalate into increasingly degenerative behaviors and lose control?
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  #58   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 12:49
Gstout's Avatar
Gstout Gstout is offline
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Plan: Steak & Beer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCaveman
First of all, you're presuming that a million years ago, Homo had a problem getting food. To presume that a species as successful as ours had a problem getting food is kind of silly. Don't forget that a million years ago, food was free, or at least as cheap as effort using skills that we evolved with. Everything alive is built to get food, and we are masters at getting food. Adjunct to that is a very active (among animals) storage metabolism that makes good use of lean times, of which every living thing has has mitigation. Lean times are at worst episodic and must be presumed to be seasonal. But a chronic deficit over a million years means only one thing: adapt or die out. Ancient humans adapted to the environments they live in, and the proof is that we are still here.

Ancient humans, like alot of mamals learned to procreate REALLY FAST! And usually, not unlike today, totally at the whim of nature - flood, drought, volcano, hurricane, would wipe 'em out and their 'free' food sources. Despite what you think (and I disagree) FOOD HAS NEVER BEEN MORE PLENTIFUL OR EASY TO GET AS IT IS TODAY. Try spending a month, on your own, in a starving country, and begging those televanglists for a few scrapes of rice... Life can be tough!!


Second, there is a lot of data to suggest that modern living is more stressful than life even a century ago. Many studies, testing for cortisol (stress hormone) in the blood of rural farmers and city folk pretty clearly show that living conditions, regardless of the people who live them, create stress and in ways that those folks can't detect in how they feel. Testing of workers and retirees, children and adults, farmers and city dwellers, desk-jobbers and emergency-room nurses show wide variation in endocrinology and other tests for stress.

whatever..... BS!~#!~#! Try avoiding being eaten by a pack of hungry lions or wolves all day and still trying to find something to drink or stuff your gut with... -> thats what I call REAL stress.



How would they pay for the food?
Pay? They'd chase off the minimum wage, part-time workers without health insurance or retirement plans and then pig out.
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  #59   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 16:35
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bladegem bladegem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by potatofree

I think one of the answers is to find something in your life that's more important than food. Volunteering is very rewarding, and it's hard to think that whether or not you've gone over your carb limit for the day is such a big thing when you're helping people who don't HAVE food, or someone who isn't going to live another month, or someone who just lost their child.


Finding something more rewarding than food doesn't "cure" a weight problem. I know lots of overweight people who lead lives filled with service to others, case example being two ladies who go to Africa on a service expedition 3 times a year. They still eat every day, and still eat too much food/wrong kinds of food. Both have made admirable efforts to lose weight. Both have admitted to an unhealthy relationship with food. Both are in stable marriages and constantly volunteer for the less fortunate and ENJOY it...probably what you would call "fulfilled" lives.

Getting a hobby isn't going to fix a food problem--it IS more complex than that.
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  #60   ^
Old Tue, Mar-07-06, 16:52
bladegem's Avatar
bladegem bladegem is offline
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The above are pictures of immigrants. Some are quite overweight, some are middling, and the only person really SLENDER is the guy in the last photo.

Quickly adding on...

I think we may be overestimating the "obesity epidemic" or at least overestimating the number of slender people in the past. Because of this thread, I've been looking at paintings and photographs of people a century (or two or three) ago. While I don't see a lot of 300-pounders, I see a LOT of chubby people by about age 30. It seems like there's a similar number of thin compared to chubby middle-aged people then and now. And if we're lacking historical portraits of the morbidly obese, I would say that's as due to 1) the fact that portraits weren't commonplace, 2) the heavier you are, the less likely you WANT your portrait/photo taken (Renaissance era excluded).

Sure, I'll concede that we have MORE overweight people now. But I don't concede that most people (who weren't starving on the streets) a few centuries ago were generally SLENDER.

Last edited by bladegem : Tue, Mar-07-06 at 16:59.
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