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RobertCloud -> RE: Overweight Americans: Masters of Rationalization (2/15/2007 6:54:56 PM)
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Rationalization over an addiction...
Yet there is a problem... Overweight people may rationalize their obesity by saying it is not their fault. In some cases it truly is not their fault, and to try to lump all overweight people into one category is as prejudiced as saying all people of one color, or one creed, or one sex do something alike. This is simply not true and is sterotyping based on an appearance characteristic.
There are many medical reasons that do increase weight besides lack of exercise or overeating.
Thyroid issues, steroid medications for pain, other medications for one issue or another, accidents that prevent the normal functions of life and the list goes on. You cannot make the bold statement lumping all into one category.
I also am completely offended by the idea that overweight people all blame others or are ignorant. Many overweight people are highly intelligent and have been seen as some of the most intelligent and wise people of all time. Someone even mentioned Buddha, a man whose wisdom shaped an entire race of people and their beliefs. Kings of nations, masters of arts and industry, leaders of business and finance, so do not place overweight people at the center of ignorance. Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, W.C. Fields, Henry VIII, along with Kings of almost every nation in Europe and Asia have been overweight, in fact more have been overweight than have been slender for weight was considered a sign of wealth at one time.
In the Renaissance an overweight woman was considered far more beautiful than a slender woman. Just look at the artwork from the time period. Our vision of the thin, svelte woman as being beautiful has led to more deaths from anorexia and bulemia because of models trying to reach that size zero than any other issue in history. The use of corsets to make women thinner because thin became vogue has killed more women that will ever be reported. There are many journals of medicine than claim that 10% body fat is the preferred percentage of body fat on a woman, and yet our visions of slender women have women trying to get to 5% or less. Jackie Joyner Kersie (sp) died because of this, there was not enough body fat in her system to keep her heart functioning properly.
Admittedly, you are not talking about the woman that is only 10% bodyfat, you are talking the one that weighs 300, when she should weigh 130. Perhaps it is her lifestyle, and perhaps it is her fault and she is blaming someone else. Or perhaps it is the fact that we are bombarded with commercial after commercial of food products and that most of these food products are designed to be high in carbs and fat. Fastfood, the marvel of modern America, is also the downfall. Even the healthy fastfood has more calories in one meal than most people should eat in their entire day. Yet we eat that and then we eat two other meals and snacks as well.
Then the diet industry produces a diet additive that reduces the calories to zero but what does it do. It bonds to the fat cells of your body and prevents you from burning them as fast as you normally would. So you only burn what you are taking in, you don't lose weight, and it you eat too many fat calories you gain and have even more problems losing.
Many of the medications that are out now are in fact designed to counteract the bad side effects of the additives in our food. You say we are not being poisoned. Find out how many of the additives that are in American food that are prohibited in other nations' foods and find out why and then say we are not being poisoned. The worse part is the FDA knows we are and they are not doing anything about it because they are being paid off.
Then we get the people that complain about fat people and what are they... They are addicts of another kind. To cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, or something else. To me that is hypocrisy of the worst kind and is the pot calling the kettle black.
Someone mentioned Jesus, well Jesus also said "Don't judge others until you have first removed the mote from your own eye."
Until you are sin free, which no one ever will be, you have no business trying to judge anyone else over their appearance, for that is not even a sin, but especially when you are addicted to something else that is just as disgusting and foul and makes your mouth taste and smell like an ashtray.
[For your information. I used to weigh 475 pounds. I got to that point due to the fact that after an auto accident in 1985 I have suffered from a non-stop headache. It has been constant, every day, 24 hours a day, and any form of exercise or major exertion increases the headache to the point that I had to be taken to ER several times to receive shots. When I hit 475 I said enough was enough. My sedentary lifestyle, the work I did was AutoCAD drafting, at a computer all day, and at home I rested to get my head to stop hurting.
I created my own diet plan. In six months I lost 100 pounds before the doctor ordered me to stop the diet because I had caused my blood sugar to go into a massive state of flux. My body had no idea what to do. One day my blood test would say I was hypoglycemic and a week later doing the same test would show me as diabetic. So I stopped the diet but watched what I ate. Over the next three years I regained 20 pounds and got back to 395. I refused to go over 400 so I decided a different diet, again of my own design and I got back down to my current weight of 347.
My long term goal is 225. That will still be about 40 pounds more than the charts say I should weigh, once I get to 225 I will decide if I want to go the rest of the way, but it is that last 40 pounds that is the hardest and that is why I set my goal there.
I have been heavy most of my life, but I maintained my weight at about 290 until the auto accident. I never blamed anyone, and even at 290 I was stronger than most men my size, I could lift my body weight and more, and I could leg press in the gym 1200 pounds like it was nothing. That was the max the machine went to. My best friend and I would do curl competitions using 50 pounds, 10 reps, 15 sets, as fast as we could, 4 times a week. This was nothing. Now with my right arm I cannot even lift a gallon of milk without intense pain.
I can still lift and carry 100 pounds over my left shoulder like it was nothing, but I will pay for it with a severe headache, and my right shoulder screaming for several days.
So do not tell me that all overweight people are to blame, yes, I was to blame for my weight up to 290, beyond that, when it skyrocketed, that I was not to blame, I even watched and cut down what I was eating, it still kept climbing. I got down to where I was eating less than what is suggested for a woman per day and I was still gaining. I only broke the cycle when I began fasting, and I fasted sometimes for as much as 4 days at a time. I cannot do that now, I am diabetic and I would go into a coma. Yet, I am losing an average of 2.5 pounds a week.]
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