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.

“Large” Restaurant Customers need special accommodation?

1235789

Replies

  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.

    You've actually been shot at???? Wow!. This is horrifying. You cant even run while minding your own business without getting shot at.

    Yes, plus there have been multiple murders at gunpoint close by. It makes wanting to go for a Sunday stroll a bit of a decision at times lol.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,498 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    If most people found shame an effective motivator to make positive changes, the majority of people would already be slim. Barring a small minority, people generally didn't aspire to be overweight or obese, and they're definitely not proud of their bodies the way they are. This includes most of the fat-positive bloggers, in my opinion.

    And yet, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that, for 2015-2016 in the U.S., 71.6% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight or obese and according to a WHO study in 2014, 62% of adults in England were classified as overweight or obese.

    Clearly making people feel ashamed hasn't worked yet, and it's not going to suddenly start working. I think it might be time to try a new strategy.

    Stats taken from wikipedia
    Regarding the bold - without (hopefully) taking the discussion into prohibited territory per forum rules....what if, say...a country had an absolutely awesome, incredible first lady who developed and implemented a program to teach school children about the importance of proper nutrition in an effort to combat obesity, and everyone loved it except the next admin to take power...who cancelled it? No one here ought to miss that reference :|

    The tenuous point I'm trying to make is that we're strategy limited apparently, at the governmental level, and motivationally limited at the personal level...what's next for a strategy?

    I do agree with you by the way, strongly. I just see slippery slopes in one direction and steep cliffs in the other. Real change motivators usually need to come from within, or from a source that carries strong enough promise to gain traction.

    Actually we had a president go much further the Ms Obama did (IMO) to encourage heath and fitness in the US over 50 years ago. Through several administrations, both political parties things really haven't gotten any better IMO (actually probably worse).

    https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/physical-fitness




  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.

    You've actually been shot at???? Wow!. This is horrifying. You cant even run while minding your own business without getting shot at.

    Yep, afraid so. I’m in Memphis, BTW, and not a particularly bad neighborhood, just a declining one. Lots of zip codes here are much worse. I’m more than usually aware of the crime level here at the moment since I happened to hear the shots fired which hit the two people the other night. Which would make the fourth time I’ve been a “witness,” on some level, to a shooting, including a gas station robbery when I literally watched a guy get shot. My mom and I were discussing this just yesterday trying to count the number of people we have a connection to who have been murdered, since her house cleaner called to say she could not come in since her son was shot and killed outside a bar. It definitely has an impact on the way I live my life, knowing that these things happen regularly here. For example, the park where I run has signs instructing people not to run without a buddy for safety reasons, and the local runner’s club rates trails by safety. It has to have some impact on the fitness levels of the population, when the first thing said to me whenever I say I’m a runner is, wow, you run alone here?

    @Phirrgus Where are you, if you don’t mind me asking?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,620 Member
    amyepdx wrote: »
    OP here - it’s been interesting reading everyone’s comments.
    Can I throw out one more question?
    If the woman in the story is going to all the trouble to create an app to find rstiarants with seating large enough for her, is she also accepting/acknowledging/resigning herself that (at only 30) she will always be obese?

    In addition to possible reasons others have mentioned:

    There are fairly numerous obese people, a situation likely to persist for quite some time into the future.

    Creating widely-used apps, even for a niche audience, has a potential to provide financial profit (often through advertising). This is an interest group with several categories of marketers who might like to reach them, including the accommodating restaurants.

    She may've recognized a need, and is creating the app for profit, alongside "nobler" motivations. Profit accrues to thin people, as well as obese ones.
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
    amyepdx wrote: »
    OP here - it’s been interesting reading everyone’s comments.
    Can I throw out one more question?
    If the woman in the story is going to all the trouble to create an app to find rstiarants with seating large enough for her, is she also accepting/acknowledging/resigning herself that (at only 30) she will always be obese?

    I think that's something that you'd have to ask her to get an accurate answer for. That said, I personally think you can create an app or solution for a problem that you hope you won't face in the future and as well as for a problem that you know that you personally won't always face but know others will continue to face.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,097 Member
    amyepdx wrote: »
    OP here - it’s been interesting reading everyone’s comments.
    Can I throw out one more question?
    If the woman in the story is going to all the trouble to create an app to find rstiarants with seating large enough for her, is she also accepting/acknowledging/resigning herself that (at only 30) she will always be obese?

    "all the trouble" of creating an app? what makes you think that's so difficult for her?
  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.

    You've actually been shot at???? Wow!. This is horrifying. You cant even run while minding your own business without getting shot at.

    Yep, afraid so. I’m in Memphis, BTW, and not a particularly bad neighborhood, just a declining one. Lots of zip codes here are much worse. I’m more than usually aware of the crime level here at the moment since I happened to hear the shots fired which hit the two people the other night. Which would make the fourth time I’ve been a “witness,” on some level, to a shooting, including a gas station robbery when I literally watched a guy get shot. My mom and I were discussing this just yesterday trying to count the number of people we have a connection to who have been murdered, since her house cleaner called to say she could not come in since her son was shot and killed outside a bar. It definitely has an impact on the way I live my life, knowing that these things happen regularly here. For example, the park where I run has signs instructing people not to run without a buddy for safety reasons, and the local runner’s club rates trails by safety. It has to have some impact on the fitness levels of the population, when the first thing said to me whenever I say I’m a runner is, wow, you run alone here?

    @Phirrgus Where are you, if you don’t mind me asking?

    @rheddmobile We're just south of Boston. When you spoke initially about the risks in your area it just sounded so much like home...Dear Lord that is sad 😂

    We keep hoping though. It's a good neighborhood,, our neighbors are fantastic and we may actually be seeing a decline in crime over the past year or so. We love to walk, but she won't go alone which I'm good with as I don't even like her being out front alone. Not long ago 4 guys in a car attacked a couple of teenagers out front. They were grabbing the girl...no way to know if it was a robbery or kidnapping attempt, or both. I got to her first and they panicked and fled thank God. My best half is a real braveheart type 💪lol, but I refuse to take chances. So we drive to Cape Cod or New Hampshire lol.
  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    If most people found shame an effective motivator to make positive changes, the majority of people would already be slim. Barring a small minority, people generally didn't aspire to be overweight or obese, and they're definitely not proud of their bodies the way they are. This includes most of the fat-positive bloggers, in my opinion.

    And yet, the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that, for 2015-2016 in the U.S., 71.6% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight or obese and according to a WHO study in 2014, 62% of adults in England were classified as overweight or obese.

    Clearly making people feel ashamed hasn't worked yet, and it's not going to suddenly start working. I think it might be time to try a new strategy.

    Stats taken from wikipedia
    Regarding the bold - without (hopefully) taking the discussion into prohibited territory per forum rules....what if, say...a country had an absolutely awesome, incredible first lady who developed and implemented a program to teach school children about the importance of proper nutrition in an effort to combat obesity, and everyone loved it except the next admin to take power...who cancelled it? No one here ought to miss that reference :|

    The tenuous point I'm trying to make is that we're strategy limited apparently, at the governmental level, and motivationally limited at the personal level...what's next for a strategy?

    I do agree with you by the way, strongly. I just see slippery slopes in one direction and steep cliffs in the other. Real change motivators usually need to come from within, or from a source that carries strong enough promise to gain traction.

    Actually we had a president go much further the Ms Obama did (IMO) to encourage heath and fitness in the US over 50 years ago. Through several administrations, both political parties things really haven't gotten any better IMO (actually probably worse).

    https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/physical-fitness




    @Theoldguy1 Apologies I completely missed your post yesterday. I completely agree and personally don't have an issue with that type of initiative. My take is that if it's benefiting the people, who cares what the motive is behind it. Something like Mr. Kennedy's would probably be quite welcome these days, but, regarding your last sentence...let's just say I agree.
  • fishgutzy
    fishgutzy Posts: 2,807 Member
    At any restaurant, ove people buy a lot more food than healthy slim people.
    From a purely business stand point, wide load seating makes sense.
    Bars make most of their profits from the small percentage that are alcoholic and alcohol abusers.

    Of course, if wise load swimming was seen as accommodating or promoting those with health threatening eating disorders the time of the article would be quite different.

    I didn't get obese by having a healthy "relationship with food."
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
    fishgutzy wrote: »
    At any restaurant, ove people buy a lot more food than healthy slim people.
    From a purely business stand point, wide load seating makes sense.
    Bars make most of their profits from the small percentage that are alcoholic and alcohol abusers.

    Of course, if wise load swimming was seen as accommodating or promoting those with health threatening eating disorders the time of the article would be quite different.

    I didn't get obese by having a healthy "relationship with food."
    I'm assuming there were some typos in what i bolded but I'm genuinely curious as to what you're saying in the bolded bit. Addressing the bit where you said, "promoting those with health threatening eating disorders the time of the article would be quite different" (again, without really understanding what you're saying). I think a lot of people would say that eating disorders (and eating disorders are, more or less by definition, health threatening) are very much promoted in various areas. The fashion industry, various sports (horse racing I'm looking at you - but also gymnastics, ballet, lighter weight categories of wrestling, etc), advertising to some extent, and the general lack of resources/understanding for various specific eating disorders and/or eating disorders in specific demographics of people.

    I also wouldn't say that I have ever had an "unhealthy" relationship with food. I became obese (the first class of it) over probably 7 or 8 years, I don't use food to quell or bolster my emotions, and I never ate mindlessly or when I wasn't hungry. I simply ate as if I was exercising as much as I did when I was in high school - except I wasn't doing the same amount of physical activity. That's not an unhealthy relationship, that's simply not paying attention to the quantity and type of food I was eating compared to how much exercise I was doing.
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
    A century ago, people couldn't imagine the average family having so much food that obesity would be common.

    We've always had the obese, but as a smaller percentage of the population.

    Probably couldn't imagine the average Joe or Jane working in an office and having to find ways to exercise if they wanted to.
    Nobody 50 years ago would have ever believed that in the future people would overeat to the extent that we actually need to re-engineer our common areas to physically accommodate them.

  • lleeann2001
    lleeann2001 Posts: 410 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.

    You've actually been shot at???? Wow!. This is horrifying. You cant even run while minding your own business without getting shot at.

    Yep, afraid so. I’m in Memphis, BTW, and not a particularly bad neighborhood, just a declining one. Lots of zip codes here are much worse. I’m more than usually aware of the crime level here at the moment since I happened to hear the shots fired which hit the two people the other night. Which would make the fourth time I’ve been a “witness,” on some level, to a shooting, including a gas station robbery when I literally watched a guy get shot. My mom and I were discussing this just yesterday trying to count the number of people we have a connection to who have been murdered, since her house cleaner called to say she could not come in since her son was shot and killed outside a bar. It definitely has an impact on the way I live my life, knowing that these things happen regularly here. For example, the park where I run has signs instructing people not to run without a buddy for safety reasons, and the local runner’s club rates trails by safety. It has to have some impact on the fitness levels of the population, when the first thing said to me whenever I say I’m a runner is, wow, you run alone here?

    @Phirrgus Where are you, if you don’t mind me asking?

    @rheddmobile We're just south of Boston. When you spoke initially about the risks in your area it just sounded so much like home...Dear Lord that is sad 😂

    We keep hoping though. It's a good neighborhood,, our neighbors are fantastic and we may actually be seeing a decline in crime over the past year or so. We love to walk, but she won't go alone which I'm good with as I don't even like her being out front alone. Not long ago 4 guys in a car attacked a couple of teenagers out front. They were grabbing the girl...no way to know if it was a robbery or kidnapping attempt, or both. I got to her first and they panicked and fled thank God. My best half is a real braveheart type 💪lol, but I refuse to take chances. So we drive to Cape Cod or New Hampshire lol.

    @Phirrgus Where exactly r u ? I mean I dont want to stalk you. I live in Massachusetts as well. Dorchester to be exact. but i can put either boston or Dorchester on my address.
  • neldabg
    neldabg Posts: 1,452 Member
    aokoye wrote: »
    fishgutzy wrote: »
    At any restaurant, ove people buy a lot more food than healthy slim people.
    From a purely business stand point, wide load seating makes sense.
    Bars make most of their profits from the small percentage that are alcoholic and alcohol abusers.

    Of course, if wise load swimming was seen as accommodating or promoting those with health threatening eating disorders the time of the article would be quite different.

    I didn't get obese by having a healthy "relationship with food."
    I'm assuming there were some typos in what i bolded but I'm genuinely curious as to what you're saying in the bolded bit. Addressing the bit where you said, "promoting those with health threatening eating disorders the time of the article would be quite different" (again, without really understanding what you're saying). I think a lot of people would say that eating disorders (and eating disorders are, more or less by definition, health threatening) are very much promoted in various areas. The fashion industry, various sports (horse racing I'm looking at you - but also gymnastics, ballet, lighter weight categories of wrestling, etc), advertising to some extent, and the general lack of resources/understanding for various specific eating disorders and/or eating disorders in specific demographics of people.

    I also wouldn't say that I have ever had an "unhealthy" relationship with food. I became obese (the first class of it) over probably 7 or 8 years, I don't use food to quell or bolster my emotions, and I never ate mindlessly or when I wasn't hungry. I simply ate as if I was exercising as much as I did when I was in high school - except I wasn't doing the same amount of physical activity. That's not an unhealthy relationship, that's simply not paying attention to the quantity and type of food I was eating compared to how much exercise I was doing.

    I second that not every fat person has a troubled relationship with food. My relationship with food is great, I might argue I may be doing better than some people of normal weight. I love food, I don't feel guilty for enjoying it, I don't binge punish myself, I don't restrict it, I'm not afraid of it...etc. One of the reasons I didn't latch onto a fad diet when I first started is that I refuse to use food formulas as punishment for the crime of overeating (which is what many diets are). I like food, I ate it in excess, I gained weight. Simple facts, nothing to feel ashamed of or feel guilty about.

    Some people absolutely do gain weight because of a "bad relationship with food", but it grinds my gears when it's generalized as a rule that every fat person must be this way because of emotional baggage. It's almost meant as an insult in some cases, which devalues the experience of those who actually do get obese because of unresolved emotional baggage, and ignores that there are people who simply like food or have a larger appetite than their activity level - you'd be surprised how small of a surplus you need to go from normal weight to overweight.

    Interesting. I personally interpret the statement of an unhealthy "relationship with food" to include (but not limited to) emotional eating AND overeating enough to be overweight over a period of time, with neither having to be true at the same time.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    Phirrgus wrote: »
    Anyway, on topic. Let's play a game of things that could be done by our more local elected officials (but probably won't be) to make it easier for people to achieve calorie balance without trying. Proposals will reflect our own observations, for obvious reasons, and they won't be universal problems.

    When new suburban residential developments are proposed, the following questions should be asked in planning:
    1) could fit healthy adult residents of the houses typically get to a local school, supermarket and doctors' surgery within less than 20 minutes' walk?
    2) Would typical journeys to any of the above be safely walkable along routes that a sensible responsible adult would be willing to walk down with a young child on a tricycle?

    If the answer to either of these is no, the residents will find it much easier to drive, and we know what a sedentary lifestyle can do for your weight, don't we? It can be fixed by making housing developers obliged to construct these amenities on the housing development they're building. It should not be acceptable for developers to build and sell a couple of thousand family houses, and then build a local school a couple of years later.

    If you haven't guessed, this happened locally. In the meantime, the streets were gridlocked elsewhere in town, because the kids had to go to school somewhere, that definitely wasn't within walking distance. At least, it wasn't walkable if their parents were to have any hope of getting to work on time!

    I often see people posting that you don't need an expensive gym membership to get fit, just a pair of trainers, which brings me to another matter.

    Going jogging is cheap yeah, but if you were a petite woman who wanted to go jogging to get fit, would you feel safe running around your local area in the evening after getting home from work? This one is only partially a planning issue. You need well-lit routes; basically the opposite of a set of deserted alleyways, but we also need to come down hard on boneheads who think it's funny to shout mocking epithets at people out jogging or cycling. If Jane Smith experiences people making intimidating comments to her from their cars, she probably won't be going jogging again.

    Safety is definitely a factor when running where I live. I’m a woman, but I don’t run my neighborhood even with my husband. We’ve been shot at twice and seen guns used several times while running here, and only last week two people were shot by someone firing through the glass door into their apartment, on the street we used to run down. As a result we get into the car and drive fifteen minutes to half an hour, to get to a park where it’s safer to run.

    @rheddmobile you must live near my wife and I. I wish I were joking. We leave the area for long walks and such. And it is absolutely unsafe for any woman to go alone.

    Wow.

    I run around my neighborhood perfectly safely all the time, including in the morning before sunrise -- I love being out running when the sun comes up. I live in Chicago (murder capital of the US, apparently), but the crime in Chicago is generally in specific areas, not where I live.
This discussion has been closed.