Masterthemoment
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Joined: 1/28/2012
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quote:
ORIGINAL: thompsonx
It might be the donuts?
I never met a maple bar that wasn't my friend
I never met a maple bar that was. 
quote:
ORIGINAL: OriginalRebel
Obese individuals are highly stigmatized and face multiple forms of prejudice and for that reason I'm going to challenge the man who suggested that overweight and obese persons are lazy, unmotivated, lacking in self-discipline and going to die 10 to 15 years earlier than himself.
There are no guarantees that a slim fit looking person is healthy. Something known as 'visceral fat' is a fat that builds up around the vital organs and is known as 'the silent killer. You really don't have to look fat to have this deadly visceral fat and the scary thing is, its much more dangerous than subcutaneous fat. So, we can have obese people who aren't storing visceral fat and thin people who's organs are well and truly suffering. If that is the case, the thin, fit looking person is more likely to die sooner than the obese one.
We all have to work at it, not just the obese.
Challenge accepted. (Imagine the scene where Boss Nass is shaking his head wildly and spittle flies everywhere.)  I agree that obese individuals are stigmatized, marginalized and prejudiced against. However, I'm going to argue controversial position that they SHOULD be. They spill over into other people's seats in theaters and on planes, occlude doorways and drive up the prices of everything from health insurance to buffets. I haven't been to the UK in a few years but I can tell you that here in the US the THIRD of the population that is considered to be clinically obese don't generally carry it well. Most obese or chubby people carry a non-insignificant amount of belly fat, which is the topic at hand.
Rebel, what you didn't mention is that visceral fat cushions and surrounds our organs and we NEED a certain amount of it to live. And yes, excessive amounts of visceral fat, like just about anything, can and will kill you. But 'a few extra pounds' doesn't usually lead to large amounts of visceral fat. The body can absorb and store some excess fat, and it matters where and how it's carried. I've never really cared about a woman's weight, and I'm clueless about dress sizes. I'm a-gonna stare at you with a blank look if you start talking about that. However, I DO care very much how her weight is distributed.
You're right in that there are no guarantees that a slim looking fit person is healthy, just as there are no guarantees that an overweight-looking person is unhealthy. In this as in many things, you play the odds. Could that fat individual through a quirk of genetics and lifestyle live to be 100? Yes. Could that thin (but not scrawny) individual die tomorrow? Yes. However, both are unlikely.
Thousands of years ago on the savannahs, we didn't have all the status symbols and medical care and identification and documentation we have now. We chose mates based on the Mk. 1 eyeball. Why are men attracted to women with large breasts? Large breasts SAG with age. When a man can't check a driver's license to determine a woman's age, and the woman in question mightn't know how old she is herself, large breasts provide a visual gauge of a woman's age & her reproductive value. Big perky breasts = young female with high reproductive value. Big saggy breasts = older female with lower reproductive value. Small breasts = difficult to judge.
Continuing with the story of the mark one eyeball, the ideal feminine proportions were locked in before recorded history. Here in the western world, the ideal female is 36-24-36, whereas other groups have other dimensions deemed more desirable. Worldwide and through the ages, however, the magic number is .7. Any culture. Any race. Any era. The idealized feminine form has always had a .7 waist-to-hip ratio. Women were more voluptuous in some eras, but that ratio didn't change. Visceral fat is something you can SEE. A woman with an 'unfortunate waist-to-hip ratio' is at a much greater risk for (or currently has!) a host of diseases from hypertension to diabetes to stroke. Most importantly, however, a proper ratio CANNOT be maintained by a female who is pregnant with another man's child. Thus, aversion to mating with them. Note: women with large breasts and a narrow waist tend to have the greatest fecundity.
Visceral fat is something you can SEE. Today we all wear clothes and hide our bodies, so it's easier to deceive people as to our general health. However, it doesn't take a genius to note that big middle plus little hips = BIG problem. Men will tend to avoid those females. If you're interested in targeting men as your demographic, you need to appeal to them.
The modern western diet is primarily based upon 3 extremely dangerous ingredients: gluten, dairy, and sugar (as you said Rebel, fructose is the worst form of natural sugar, but some of the artificial ones are worse). If you remove them from your diet, most of the 'modern' diseases go away. The human body is roughly 70% diet and 30% exercise, with some allowances for genetic baseline. The numbers of those with genetic conditions constitute a fraction of the obese populace. We all have to work at it, but the obese let things get wildly out of hand. Most of us alive today tend to cycle; we gain weight and lose weight based on stress, exercise, diet and a number of other factors. The biggest one, however, is self-discipline. Why would I be interested in someone who isn't willing to do the work?
The other major issue I have with the obese and my argument in favor of shunning them is that they expect us to pay for them. As a resident of the UK, Rebel's paying for & is a participant in the NHS. For those not in the UK, that's the free socialized medicine service. I'm BIG on choice and consent and as far as I'm concerned, your rights to free choice end when they start affecting other people. The obese affect those around them just as smokers do. I think people should be able to smoke, but I also think I should have the right to breathe air that's not full of carcinogens. Portions of Europe and Asia are far more accepting of smoking, culturally, valuing the rights of the community over the rights of the individual. Here in the US, we SHUN smokers. The rights of the individual triumph over the rights of the many. Some companies won't even hire a smoker because of the effect on their health insurance premiums, absenteeism and productivity. It should be noted that refusing to hire smokers is NOT a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as smoking is a choice.
I believe you should have the right to eat and exercise (or refrain from said exercise) however you see fit, until and unless you start affecting others. Fat spilling over into someone else's seat is such a thing. The passage of Obamacare removed a fair degree of choice from the citizenry, and MADE the US taxpayer responsible for a bill that (to a degree) private corporations were footing until that point. The cost of healthcare is only going up as Obamacare is something on the order of 20K pages and the compliance requirements ALONE substantially add to the cost of the average doctor's visit, which will be passed on to you and I in the form of higher physician bills and higher taxes. Our Beloved Leader very carefully didn't spell out how he was going to pay for it, and while the major insurance companies all had a seat at the table, taxpayers and doctors and hospitals had only minor access while the decision was being made. I think that free healthcare for all is a noble objective. I don't think that passing the most wide-ranging and invasive legislation in years without spelling out how you're going to pay for it is the sort of thing a responsible leader does. Currently, the (Un)Affordable Care Act is being trumpeted as a success -- unless of course you look at what some of the original, unmodified metrics were for success. The numbers of enrollees are good, but the number of those who are actually paying is lower, and only about 25% of those critical 'young & uninsured' that the insurance companies were so eager to get their hands on have actually signed up. Oops. Who do you think is going to be paying for those older, fatter & formerly uninsurable people? Yup, the taxpayer.
Ambulance services are having to purchase larger vehicles. Hospitals are having to purchase larger beds, and more nurses are needed to move a 'chubby' patient than one who is fit. The obese have more medical issues and spend more time in hospital and recovering from injuries than the fit. They cost more, they take up more room on buses and trains and they tend to smell funny. I hope I've convinced you that the overweight and obese SHOULD feel societal pressure to change, as their unhealthy choices are affecting the rest of us, and will affect us more as time marches on. Why should you and I be paying for a 'fluffy' person's poor life choices? We should NOT! / end Controversial Rant
"We all have to work at it" is the whole point. I'm around 193 CM tall and weigh around 220 lbs (I never did get the knack of converting to stone), and I'm told I carry it well. A large part of that is a certain ratio of muscle to fat, and where the fat is distributed. If I was 5 foot 5 and weighed 220 or had a big fat belly, you better believe I'd be in the gym fixing that. Oh wait -- I AM! I had a health crisis and I gained 10" around my middle. I'm currently in the process of returning to my old waist size. I'm working and working hard; I'm rebuilding muscle and redistributing fat because I care how I look and feel and most importantly, how and how long I live. If you're not willing to put in the work to get the results you want, or you're happy with being a 'BBW', that's your call. Ain't gonna say nothin'. I'm polite and believe in freedom of choice. But you and I are not in the same dating pool.
I live in a little place I like to call 'reality'. I don't want someone I love and am building a life with to keel over dead one day from an avoidable health complication. I don't want to watch and support and love someone who is CHOOSING to carry more weight than her muscloskeletal system is designed for suffer with joint pain and arthritis and diabetes and the many, many problems that can be avoided by sticking to a .7 waist-to-hip ratio. I'm a selfish, selfish man and if I love you, I want you to stick AROUND! I want to relish and cherish every moment we have together, and I want there to be more rather than fewer of them. If you're thin with a big ol' pot belly, that's a red flag right there. Same goes for those with more subcutaneous fat all over and a large tummy. Red Flag. If you're proportional and you're close to the magic ratio -- myeh. No biggie. I personally have been attracted to women from around 110 lbs up to about 230ish. Those are ballpark numbers, but it's about how and where the fat is distributed. As the old joke goes: How do you make 5 pounds of fat attractive? Put a nipple on it!
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RE: Why is being into "big girls" still consi... - 
You also belong to the post-post-WWII generation of Mediterranean males. 
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