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.
We're not responsible for being obese?
Options
Replies
-
The article is right and wrong. We are responsible for our weight and what we eat. However, many corporations put sugar into everything they make, even if they claim its sugar free because it’s addicting. They aren’t always required to tell you that by the FDA, either. They even do it to oils like Olive oil. Most of the time, olive oil isn’t the only ingredient in ‘olive oil’ but it won’t tell you what else is in there, either. So it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out what they can and cannot eat when corporations are not honest about what’s really in the food.
But we all know that baked chicken breast with herb vegetables is better than a cheeseburger and large fry at McDonald’s, so at the end of the day, we are responsible for doing our research and controlling what we put in our bodies. Corporations just make it harder but they haven’t made it impossible.21 -
richardgavel wrote: »http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/27/opinions/life-expectancy-corporations-opinion-sachs/index.html
Just read this article on CNN and it really infuriated me. I think the line that was the toughest to stomach was "While the obesity and opioid epidemics are sometimes written off as "bad life choices," these epidemics are largely the handiworks of an irresponsible corporate sector." More and more, we're being told that we're not responsible for our own actions, that our lives, our own destinies, are the result of the actions of others and not ourselves. You're overweight? Blame the soda/fast food vendors? Trump won the election? Blame Russia.
</rant>
So there's a large correlation, which cannot be ignored.
Corporations do lobby the crap out of congress, to the point that Pizza sauce is an acceptable serving of vegetables. Coca-Cola can change from Corn Syrup to "real sugar" and call itself Healthy. Eggs, Bacon and Butter are heart healthy.
You get the gist.
We're here daily and we're paying attention and even we get stuck on some weird habits.
Imagine the mother of 3, walking down the isle, looking at stamp of the American Heart Association on a pot of Reduced Fat Margarine.
The internet is a mess. You google "healthy weight loss meals" and you get everything from Dukan, to paleo to keto, to raw frugivorous veganism. Everyone is trying to sell you a fix.
"The easy way".
Now... To my point, I believe that there must be a change in the way things are run.
Lobbying must be forbidden, Citizen's United must erased from our history and the government should go back to taking care of the people's best interest.
Food needs to be properly labelled.
Nutrition needs to be brought back to schools. School meals cannot be Pizza and Soda any longer.
Subsidies need to be taken away from cattle feeding grain and put into vegetable production.
Investments need to shift from filling up people to nourishing people.
And that includes, personal responsibility.
By now, everyone knows that fast food, sodas, sugary drinks, sugary cereals, cookies etc are bad for you. If you still eat and drink them, it's your fault.
12 -
allie_oopsiesTK wrote: »The article is right and wrong. We are responsible for our weight and what we eat. However, many corporations put sugar into everything they make, even if they claim its sugar free because it’s addicting. They aren’t always required to tell you that by the FDA, either. They even do it to oils like Olive oil. Most of the time, olive oil isn’t the only ingredient in ‘olive oil’ but it won’t tell you what else is in there, either. So it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out what they can and cannot eat when corporations are not honest about what’s really in the food.
But we all know that baked chicken breast with herb vegetables is better than a cheeseburger and large fry at McDonald’s, so at the end of the day, we are responsible for doing our research and controlling what we put in our bodies. Corporations just make it harder but they haven’t made it impossible.
What specific foods have been found to have added sugar that isn't on the ingredients list?10 -
janejellyroll wrote: »allie_oopsiesTK wrote: »The article is right and wrong. We are responsible for our weight and what we eat. However, many corporations put sugar into everything they make, even if they claim its sugar free because it’s addicting. They aren’t always required to tell you that by the FDA, either. They even do it to oils like Olive oil. Most of the time, olive oil isn’t the only ingredient in ‘olive oil’ but it won’t tell you what else is in there, either. So it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out what they can and cannot eat when corporations are not honest about what’s really in the food.
But we all know that baked chicken breast with herb vegetables is better than a cheeseburger and large fry at McDonald’s, so at the end of the day, we are responsible for doing our research and controlling what we put in our bodies. Corporations just make it harder but they haven’t made it impossible.
What specific foods have been found to have added sugar that isn't on the ingredients list?
Good luck getting an answer. I just love when people make these wild claims with absolutely no evidence to back it up. It's good to know that food manufacturers are sneaking sugar into my olive oil so I can quit adding it myself.12 -
janejellyroll wrote: »allie_oopsiesTK wrote: »The article is right and wrong. We are responsible for our weight and what we eat. However, many corporations put sugar into everything they make, even if they claim its sugar free because it’s addicting. They aren’t always required to tell you that by the FDA, either. They even do it to oils like Olive oil. Most of the time, olive oil isn’t the only ingredient in ‘olive oil’ but it won’t tell you what else is in there, either. So it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out what they can and cannot eat when corporations are not honest about what’s really in the food.
But we all know that baked chicken breast with herb vegetables is better than a cheeseburger and large fry at McDonald’s, so at the end of the day, we are responsible for doing our research and controlling what we put in our bodies. Corporations just make it harder but they haven’t made it impossible.
What specific foods have been found to have added sugar that isn't on the ingredients list?
I've heard it about skim milk more than once here, with the "proof" being that a cup of skim milk has more sugar grams than a cup of whole milk.
Clearly, there's been a giant plot by evil food corporations to make us all bad at applied math, and they've co-opted cows as nefarious allies.
(eye roll)
What I love are the articles about "hidden sugars in your food" that consist of a list of things that - duh - list sugar on the ingredients label. (Case in point: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/11/hidden-sugar-in-food-_n_7020234.html). Evidently the evil food corporations are plotting to make us bad at reading, too.
9 -
russelljam08 wrote: »So you're a competition level male physique competitor? and you chose that as your profile pic. Amazing. Oh and all the healthiest, leanest, and longest living populations are high carb low fat traditional cultures. No cultures are keto, not even the eskimos.
What someone has for their profile pic is their own business. Not ALL of the healthiest populations fit your description. France has low heart disease and diabetes rates, and ranks 19th in the world for longevity but they eat very fatty, decadant foods. Disclaimer, I am not keto but just pointing out that it isn't as black and white as high carb low fat.5 -
I could (with extreme hubris) sum up the Alcoholics Anonymous message as 1) Addiction is an illness and not your fault, and 2) you have full responsibility for your recovery activities. It is paradoxical, and it works.
Recognizing that sugar hype and potentially plastics that affect metabolism and fat storage contribute to obesity simply means you can stop thinking of yourself as bad and lazy and shameful. Beating myself up doesn't help me stay on track; guilt and shame are more likely to derail me. Knowing these outside influences helps me recognize the subtle manipulations in the ads, and I've stopped keeping my refrigerated water in plastic.
It's kind of like walking against the wind. Knowing there's a wind means I push on without wondering why it's so much work.12 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Why does it matter who other people blame for their troubles? People who are ready to take responsibility will.
Because when people blame others, they usually want others to pay. I really don't want to pay for the bad choices of others. Just as I don't expect others to pay for my bad choices.
Sadly, there are many who make their living by getting others to pick up the tab.
4 -
I agree with this as an explanation of the mechanism of addiction - but humans can also think rationally about their choices - it's bad choices that got the addict to a bad place in his/her life, and it's replacing them with good choices that will get him/her to get help and break the bonds of addiction. My abuse of alcohol was my own choice, as was my choice not to seek help until my life was falling apart. Ditto with my being overweight for years without doing anything about it.
I did snip a bit out, as it's not salient to what I'm answering, but wanted to fully disclose.
I agree ADULTS can think rationally. However, there is the issue of kids and the ability to think.
I have no problem with an adult recreationally using weed, as long as they don't drive, or whatever while under the influence.
I have a bigger problem with youth use of drugs, because the brain isn't done developing until about 25 years of age. Not to mention, the ability to critically reason is a developed skill and I don't expect the typical 14 year old to have it.
So rather than worry about corporations, worry about parenting. I think many of the addiction patterns are set when people are young. Some parents are good, some are bad. Some people are better at critical reasoning in middle school than others. Some 25 year old still haven't figured it out.
I'm pretty much a free market libertarian, personally conservative, but feel no need to impose my view of the greater good on others. However, I do think some parents are doing their children a disservice by not teaching them to be more judicious in the choices they make.
Shielding young people from the consequences of their choices when they are younger breeds people who take no responsibility for their choices in adulthood. Same for giving children too much freedom when they are not yet prepared to understand the consequences of their choices.
I had to give that choice to my 20 year old daughter. As long as she was smoking pot, I wasn't going to give her a car, pay for college, etc. She had to make a choice. It's not that I'm against smoking pot. However, she wasn't at a place in her life where she would face or maybe even see the potential consequences of her choices. If she was 25+ and established in her career and her brain fully developed, knock yourself out. If you are driving a car with my name on the title and insurance policy, you will be clean and sober.
So she decided to move out, buy a car and fund her own life.
Maybe I'm wrong. But she is learning a great deal, and probably has a lot less time to smoke weed as it's more expensive to live away from home and pay for college than it was to live at home and have me pay her tuition.
8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »allie_oopsiesTK wrote: »The article is right and wrong. We are responsible for our weight and what we eat. However, many corporations put sugar into everything they make, even if they claim its sugar free because it’s addicting. They aren’t always required to tell you that by the FDA, either. They even do it to oils like Olive oil. Most of the time, olive oil isn’t the only ingredient in ‘olive oil’ but it won’t tell you what else is in there, either. So it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out what they can and cannot eat when corporations are not honest about what’s really in the food.
But we all know that baked chicken breast with herb vegetables is better than a cheeseburger and large fry at McDonald’s, so at the end of the day, we are responsible for doing our research and controlling what we put in our bodies. Corporations just make it harder but they haven’t made it impossible.
What specific foods have been found to have added sugar that isn't on the ingredients list?
Good luck getting an answer. I just love when people make these wild claims with absolutely no evidence to back it up. It's good to know that food manufacturers are sneaking sugar into my olive oil so I can quit adding it myself.
So the real problem here is misunderstanding.
"Journalists" don't understand simple math, which makes their reporting a mix bag of crap with incorrect information.
Take milk for example:
Typical composition of Whole, unpasteurized milk is:
Water 87.3%
Milk Fats 3.9%
Non-fat Solids (Protein, Milk Sugar, Immune Factors, etc.) 8.8%
Now. If they were to remove the fat and replace the content with water, you would simple have watered down milk. (Which fat-free milk already tastes like)
Instead, most commercial grade cheeses use that fat and some casein for cheeses, cream cheese, butter etc.
Since the Non-fat Solids are the parts that don't evaporate and sugar is the only part that doesn't degrade with heat, cooling and it is also the only non- perishable, it is perfectly natural that the process of removing the fat would increase the sugar content in fat free milk.
Now, this is where we get to the gray area.
The industry did not say that Fat-free milk was not fattening or even healthier for that matter.
They imply that via industry funded research and they let the morons in the media, especially now in the "new media", make incorrect assumptions about the products.
The main problem is that we don't have real life education.
We're taught how to add and subtract, but not how to think freely and apply those small bits into our daily lives.
Most people never think to connect these simple dots.
1 -
michael1976_ca wrote: »yup blame the corporation they personally fed me all the crap I liked to eat back then. it's there fault I got type 2 diabetes too. i'm sick of hearing people put the blame on others when it's are own fault. I own up to it. I ate like a pig back then. now not so much.
this0 -
fake story1
-
I am going to compare this in a way to the whole smoking cigarettes issue. For literally decades it has been known that smoking cigarettes is not healthy and bad for people. Yet look at the lawsuits, look how much money people have won in lawsuits. Now I can kind of see this from some of the very early lawsuits when big tobacco truly did hide lots of the facts. But for the last 25 years or more it has been out in the open. Yet people whined and got lawyers and class action suits they led me astray I did not think I would get cancer and die a horrible protracted death.
In some ways this whole thing about the sugar being in many foods, the fats in so many foods hiding waiting to get people falls in that type of category. Easier to point fingers and say it was someone elses fault. Than admit it was their own fault for shoveling in all that food, snacks, big sized meals from all the fast food places. While at the same time being less active.
I am obese because I ate too much food, too often of the wrong types. I just need to look in the mirror to see who to blame. And it was not some big evil corporation. They made it easier, but I did it.6 -
maureenkhilde wrote: »I am going to compare this in a way to the whole smoking cigarettes issue. For literally decades it has been known that smoking cigarettes is not healthy and bad for people. Yet look at the lawsuits, look how much money people have won in lawsuits. Now I can kind of see this from some of the very early lawsuits when big tobacco truly did hide lots of the facts. But for the last 25 years or more it has been out in the open. Yet people whined and got lawyers and class action suits they led me astray I did not think I would get cancer and die a horrible protracted death.
In some ways this whole thing about the sugar being in many foods, the fats in so many foods hiding waiting to get people falls in that type of category. Easier to point fingers and say it was someone elses fault. Than admit it was their own fault for shoveling in all that food, snacks, big sized meals from all the fast food places. While at the same time being less active.
I am obese because I ate too much food, too often of the wrong types. I just need to look in the mirror to see who to blame. And it was not some big evil corporation. They made it easier, but I did it.
And the nice thing about admitting that is the next step, which is that you can also be the one to change it.3 -
I got bored of reading the article 3/4 of the way. However i believe that most everything is your own fault if you don't take control, if you yeild, or just plain give up on yourself. If thing turn out the way you don't like because of those types of factors it is indeed YOUR FAULT. Never give up folks!
Just my opinion.6 -
makkimakki2018 wrote: »I got bored of reading the article 3/4 of the way. However i believe that most everything is your own fault if you don't take control, if you yeild, or just plain give up on yourself. If thing turn out the way you don't like because of those types of factors it is indeed YOUR FAULT. Never give up folks!
Just my opinion.
I personally don't believe in "fault" when it comes to dieting (or drugs for that matter). Priorities vary, level of knowledge varies, expectations vary, people are under a lot of pressure biologically, socially, environmentally, financially...etc. One thing leads to another. Fault is a useless concept in this context because guilt and shame are useless emotions for this kind of endeavour.
Not believing in fault doesn't mean in any way that I don't believe in ability and possibility. Recognizing these factors and understanding them empowers the ability to form strategies based on knowledge and information that aren't as fickle as emotions and motivation.
It's not your fault you got fat, but you have the ability to stop being fat or not get fat in the first place.2 -
I get tension headaches, luckily haven't had one for a few years since i lost some weight. (no idea if related but BP went down a lot too) The last time i had a bad one after 2 days i coudn't take it anymore and went to the ER. They gave me a shot of demerol which helped immensely and was fine but they also sent me home with 4 vicodin and a prescription for 18 more. I think i took one of the vicodin the next day when the shot wore off and that was it. never filled the script. I have no idea why they would give me that many pills. I had been once before a few years prior for the same thing and got some iv fluids and the demerol and i was good.1
-
You control your own body. It is not helpful to always blame others for your problems.4
-
Yup... I am absolutely responsible for becoming obese as I did. I binge ate. Did not exercise
.. blah blah blah.... corps are out to make money. I do not blame them for making what sells.3 -
I too hate how people don't take any accountability. I got fat because I chose to. I was weak and lazy. No one else's fault. Now I'm righting those wrongs.5
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 389 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 919 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions