Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?

15859616364239

Replies

  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    but tummy ridges and veins popping out is just nasty to me

    well, yeah, this actually . . . it's more an aesthetic opinion than a 'health' one, but yeah. segmented bellies are for arthropods. i never see one but it makes me think of crabs and scorpions.

    feel like i'm going to win the 'unpopular' race: i know mfp is a niche-interest community, and sure i've turned into a kind of homegrown physio/exercise nerd. but that's entirely confined to my own life. and it's entirely because for some perverse reason i'm enjoying it all. i can't even imagine a day where i'd ever come within a million miles of giving one quadrillionth of a single *kitten* about the kinds of broad topics that appear to dominate the entire lives of many people in there [yeah, i know it probably doesn't really. but still - ? i just can't understand why it's a topic at all].

    *feeling brave because i've got a fruit gum supplier lined up*

    Wait, am I the supplier?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited June 2017

    - I think enforced PE at school is TOTALLY pointless - half-hearted basketball for 50 minutes accomplishes nothing, and no, I don't think it's "better than nothing". Kids can eat back those calories in a breaktime snack.

    That is (IMHO) a really god point that you rarely see expressed. I'm very into health and fitness and use the gym regularly as well as many physical activities and pastimes (reluctant to call them sports) outside the gym - But as a child and early teen I hated PE at school, which for a British boy in the late 70s/early 80s consisted of Football, Rugby, Cricket, and Athletics. All, of which I was pretty hopeless at.

    Luckily, I was into cycling (as a form of transport and freedom) and martial arts (as a sport and self defence) and so they were my activities.


    I hated it as a kid, when we'd go play some team thing. In junior high there was the nightmare of the changing room and showers, but we'd go from activity to activity, so for some I enjoyed it (running or gymnastics or tennis) and others I hated (anything involving a ball other than tennis). We also had some academic stuff we had to learn that I barely recall -- I wish that had been incorporated more and I'd had a better understanding. (I was active outside of school, so it made no difference to physical fitness, but I do think we were exposed to a decent amount of different things. I still mostly hated it -- I was not confident and having people mad at me because I was bad and screwed up in a sport I hated was a torture.)

    In high school we had to do PE for 2 years, but could choose a specific activity. I did swimming mostly (the pain of having to fix my hair after was offset by loving to swim). My sister tried weights and loved it (she was the only girl, this was the '80s), and I wish I'd not been intimidated or just had thought of it, which I don't think I did.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Heck I was a gymnast but high school PE was not my thing at all. Very often it was outside in the freezing cold playing hockey or athletics. I just wasn't fussed. Add onto that I wasn't one of the cool kids and I would also get picked last.

    So there are a lot of people who think they hate exercise and sport because of horrible school experiences.
  • This content has been removed.
  • littlewolf3785
    littlewolf3785 Posts: 2,592 Member
    The easy way out on fad diets will get you no where! Eating less food under 1200 calories will do harm. And thinking you can be lazy and not get any form of exercise won't help your health. In other words, change your lifestyle! The easy fix won't get you where you want to be. It is only temporary fix and will do more harm than better.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    edited June 2017

    - I think if people take a weigh-in class (Slimming World, whatever), I don't think they should take food in and eat it after weighing in - food isn't something to withhold and then pig out on once you see a number on the scale for that week. If you are doing this, you have learned nothing about how to eat.


    But, if their weight is dropping at something resembling a regular healthy rate (via trend, not necessarily each and every week), it's obviously working. It's no different (at least, not really/necessarily) than one that weighs in the morning after using the bathroom - then eats breakfast.

    That said, if the weight isn't moving, then no.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    I might know someone, ahem, who smuggled Kinder Surprises into the States earlier this year. Ahem.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    I might know someone, ahem, who smuggled Kinder Surprises into the States earlier this year. Ahem.

    Apparently a way has been discovered to legally and overtly import them for commercial sale. I saw an article on the subject earlier this year.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    Heck I was a gymnast but high school PE was not my thing at all. Very often it was outside in the freezing cold playing hockey or athletics. I just wasn't fussed. Add onto that I wasn't one of the cool kids and I would also get picked last.

    So there are a lot of people who think they hate exercise and sport because of horrible school experiences.

    Me, too, except I was an equestrian. I was apparently very lucky. My sophomore and senior year of high school I was allowed to get credit for the hours I spent training instead of PE (or marching band which also counted as PE credit and was what I'd been doing the previous two years).

    And yes, I pretty much hated PE - though looking back I am glad that I got to try a bunch of different sports and games. And we did have days I enjoyed. What I hated was that if you were not good at something (and that'd be most sports for me), there was no effort to get better and no time to do it anyway. No coaching helps you improve much at an activity you only do for a couple of days at a stretch.

    I liked PE in college much better. Pick a sport that seems interesting, take a semester to learn it and figure out if it's something you can learn to do, change to something else next semester if it's not for you.
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Dazzler21 wrote: »
    Big is beautiful...(when said about obese people)

    No it's not... It's heart disease, liver disease and many other illnesses breeding inside you because you can't control your cravings.

    This isn't a dig it's a fact.

    Those that are on here that are obese I would assume are here to improve themselves and to them I say I salute you.

    To those that choose to continue without change, I am disturbed by you and your lack of love for the only body you'll ever have.

    a.) plenty of fat ppl don't get those issues and plenty of thin people do... you know that. Why oversimplify?
    b.) you can be disturbed all you want but I agree with you that the habits and behaviors that got them/us fat probably have to do with a lack of self love. Ergo, step 1 is finding yourself beautiful and lovable and step 2 is deciding that that means you're worth the work it takes to food prep, the work it takes to say no to excess food, it's all hard work. And if you don't first believe you're worth it... how do you ever love yourself enough to do it??? Sure, some people get stuck on step 1 and that may be a problem for them and possible others... but that doesn't mean it's not an important step.

    Plenty smokers never get lung cancer.

    is that perhaps why you don't see people *kitten* on smokers the way they do on fat people?

    You haven't been around many smokers then. Or haven't seen any cigarette packages in the past years.

    Honestly, as a nonsmoker, I think that there's a fair amount of overreach... and it's one of the reasons I'm so vigorous about resisting the idea that the solution is more labelling.

    The label could say "Hey moron, smoking is bad for you, you could get cancer or emphysema."

    Instead, they now say "If you smoke another cigarette, you'll die tomorrow" or some comparable woo that makes the warning label less than useless.

    It's been a while since I've seen one (quit smoking a long time ago). Did they change them to make them more dramatic? The ones I remember were like "Quitting smoking greatly reduces your health risk" or something like that. And another one about smoking being associated with low birth weight for infants.

    Clearly they made a huge impression on me. :smiley:

    They now tell men their little friend could stop working

    With a droopy cigarette in the image. :D
  • This content has been removed.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.

    I don't know what any of these yummies are. :cry::
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    DamieBird wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    jseams1234 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Macy9336 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    ok I'm ready to weigh in on this (hahaha I crack myself up). Here are my unpopular opinions:

    1. Weighing daily is unhealthy. (not to say it isn't tempting)
    2. Weight loss should not be your objective. It's a side affect of making healthier choices.
    3. Mental health is just as important as physical health (if not more).
    4. If you lose weight bc you hate yourself, you will still hate yourself at your goal weight and you WILL gain it back.

    Sometimes, losing weight (in and of itself) is the best thing a person can do for their health.

    not if they're going to immediately gain it back because they didn't deal with their relationship with food and the emotional baggage that may have caused them to gain the weight.

    Who says they didn't deal with those issues as a means to the goal of losing weight?

    like I said in my original post: my opinion is that weight loss should be a byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to feel better, be more physically able, not eat emotionally, love yourself, etc. Weight is just your relationship with gravity. If you make lifestyle changes, you may lose weight, but it's about the weakest measurement of health.

    Obesity is detrimental to physical health. It's hardly a weak measurement of health. If a person is obese and they have an unhealthy relationship with food, then yes they need to deal with that unhealthy relationship in order to achieve the goal of overcoming obesity because obesity kills.

    What a ridiculous oversimplification. There is a correlation between obesity and some illnesses. And do you remember what was talked about in high school about the dangers of assuming causation vs correlation?

    No, obesity has been proven to CAUSE deaths. In 2015 four MILLION people died worldwide due to excess body weight. You'd really tout a high school lecture on correlation vs. causation as the authority trumping thousands of scientists and doctors worldwide? The science is very clear that obesity kills. You're deluded if you just think "weight is your relationship with gravity" and nothing more.

    you can think my argument is stupid or disagree with me but no scientist is going to say that obesity causes death. Show me that article. They all say it's linked or it can lead to a cause of death. Your weight is the result of over eating and/or a sedentary lifestyle. Overeating and/or a sedentary lifestyle? leads to excess weight. leads to several causes of death. Obesity doesn't literally kill you.

    Any scientist would disagree with you. Being too large for your organs and primary systems to sustain life fulfills all the criteria of a repeatable and provable fact.

    Per NIH obesity and overweight together are the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.

    Where did The National Institute of Health print that? All I can find in a website claiming they said that but no proof.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2016-07-14-obesity-now-a-leading-cause-of-death-especially-in-men/

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12230315

    https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-extreme-obesity-may-shorten-life-expectancy-14-years

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790820/

    1. correlation study
    2. says "linked" not causes death
    3. says "may shorten" and is once again correlation
    4. says it is a "risk factor" not causes death

    You are playing a semantic game to support an unreasonable position. Obesity is not a disease, but a physical state, as such is not singularly tracked. Perhaps you need to further study the semantic use of "linked", "correlation", "causation", and "risk" in these reports.

    This is akin to stating that no one starves to death, but their organs eventually fail and that lack of nutrients poses a higher risk factor to those starving. The end point is still premature death, regardless of your semantics.

    Curious - if so adamant with the notion that being obese is perfectly healthy then why did you join MFP?

    So perhaps what we're learning is that my most unpopular opinion is that words matter.

    I never said that being obese is "perfectly healthy" but I do think that fixation on weight is unhealthy.

    I joined MFP to be more conscientious of what I'm eating to avoid instances of overeating. Because although overeating makes me sick, it is pleasant in the moment and can be a mindless habit. I've decided that I deserve to feel well and want to take steps to do so. As I've stated before, weight loss may end up being a byproduct of making more sensible choices but is not my aim.

    It's great that you've decided to take charge of your own diet/eating and your own health. It's even fine that weight loss is not your goal, just as it's fine that you feel that obesity is not necessarily unhealthy for many people and that people should love themselves, no matter what body they happen to inhabit.

    Just because these ideas support your view of the world and work well for you does not mean that they are indeed based in fact or that they are a good idea for other people. I agree that a fixation on weight isn't optimally healthy, but in previous comments you seemed to imply that anyone who wants to lose weight for the sake of losing weight (in and of itself) is somehow unhealthy. It seems like you make a lot of judgments about others based on what works for you, and that's why you're getting so much push back.

    Do what works for you and in all sincerity, I hope that you have great success with whatever your goals are! Just remember that what works for YOU is not necessarily what anyone else needs/wants.

    Thank you! I am already feeling a lot better and able to learn from past mistakes.

    Saw a pic today from 5 years ago from when I was about (oh lort) 70 lbs thinner and remember feeling so awful and fat and like such a failure. I ate junk, tbh. Very small amounts of it - CICO does work but you might be messed up about it if you do it how I did. And, as previously stated, I had horrible ideas like that bc I had gotten myself fat, I deserved to feel physically and mentally horrible. I thought my life would be better when I got thinner and it wasn't bc my focus was wrong. I would have never been thin enough or attractive enough. I see people in these forums (and irl) make statements that sound a lot how I was feeling back then and it's slightly heartbreaking. Maybe I've seemed like a harpy in here but really I'm a big old softie.

    I share these opinions, in a debate forum, bc I think they are true for many many people who haven't been able to admit it or haven't realized that there's another option. I want someone to read it and maybe be able to miss out on a little bit of the anguish I put myself through.

    It is good that you recognize that these self hating thoughts were horrible ideas. Your mental attitude makes all the difference and any act of improvement is an inherent act of love. Simply put - we don't invest valuable time and energy into things we hate, we avoid those. We certainly invest everything into things we love, hence self improvement is ultimately an act of love. Hate the sin, love the sinner. It all boils down to behavior, no point in personalizing this.

    ...and I think it's wonderful that you have joined and equally wonderful the progress you have made.
  • Unknown
    edited June 2017
    This content has been removed.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.

    I don't know what any of these yummies are. :cry::

    A lion bar is what you would get if you crossed a little debbie peanut wafer bar with a snickers bar... Chocolate, rice crisps, nuts, caramel
  • This content has been removed.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,420 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.

    I don't know what any of these yummies are. :cry::

    A lion bar is what you would get if you crossed a little debbie peanut wafer bar with a snickers bar... Chocolate, rice crisps, nuts, caramel

    oh, man. Those sound dangerous.
  • This content has been removed.
  • anaxmann
    anaxmann Posts: 103 Member
    TR0berts wrote: »
    I don't believe humans were necessarily meant to eat grain nor dairy... Maybe some have adapted but I know many people and myself feel terrible after eating any gluten or dairy.

    Apples give me a stomachache. Therefore people aren't necessarily meant to eat apples?

    Well, what evidence can you provide that we were meant to eat apples?

    Adam and Eve. >:)

    That probably wasn't an apple and they weren't supposed to eat it. Not that I am arguing against eating apples, or any non-poisonous fruit... ;)
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.

    I don't know what any of these yummies are. :cry::

    A lion bar is what you would get if you crossed a little debbie peanut wafer bar with a snickers bar... Chocolate, rice crisps, nuts, caramel

    Also comes in white chocolate....

    Okay, here is my unpopular opinion- I think white chocolate is super gross. I won't eat it. I am not that picky a person about food, I will always try something at least once, but nope, really hate white chocolate. My OH loves it and his chocolate stash is always safe from me. Even Shark Week cravings won't compel me to eat it >.<

    That's not unpopular to me. White chocolate is nasty.

    Moar for me! Yay!

    I dinna care if it is real chocolate or not - it's delicious!
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.

    I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course ;)

    If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.

    American or Canadian $

    Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM

    I apologize....

    OH, and US.

    I don't know what any of these yummies are. :cry::

    A lion bar is what you would get if you crossed a little debbie peanut wafer bar with a snickers bar... Chocolate, rice crisps, nuts, caramel

    Also comes in white chocolate....

    Okay, here is my unpopular opinion- I think white chocolate is super gross. I won't eat it. I am not that picky a person about food, I will always try something at least once, but nope, really hate white chocolate. My OH loves it and his chocolate stash is always safe from me. Even Shark Week cravings won't compel me to eat it >.<

    That's not unpopular to me. White chocolate is nasty.

    Moar for me! Yay!

    I dinna care if it is real chocolate or not - it's delicious!

    You guys are weird. :D
This discussion has been closed.