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Thoughts on the “glamourizing/normalizing” obesity vs body positivity conversations
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »siberiantarragon wrote: »@nooshi713
I was watching World News Tonight last night and they claimed that many of the deaths in Los Angeles were occurring among "younger people with no pre-existing conditions." I thought of this discussion and how the news was probably exempting obesity and undiagnosed conditions from that list.mariamsmb1 wrote: »Diabetes is the biggest health crisis in our country right now, IMO.
Diabetes is a big reason why I'm trying to eat healthier and exercise more. I've never been overweight, but I have PCOS which increases the risk of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes runs in my family. One of my older close relatives is pre-diabetic despite not being overweight and generally eating healthy and exercising regularly. Another close relative got it despite having a very physically demanding job for most of their life. So the people who can reverse their diabetes just by losing weight or changing their diet are lucky, in a sense.
While you're probably generally correct, I'd caution against assuming someone young and healthy must've been obese if they died. I know of many healthy weight people under 60 who have gotten a bad case of covid and required an inhaler and/or medication to bring down fever. If those folks hadn't had access to medical care or were too stubborn to go, or got sick during a spike and were turned away at first because they are younger, they mightve ended up in an ER too late to save, or died at home without being in a hospital.
I've seen tons of articles and news reports that list obesity as a risk factor for a worse case of covid. I'm sure there's a disconnect where some obese people don't acknowledge they're obese or think being "obese but otherwise healthy" means they can ignore it. But a doctor being hesitant to discuss obesity with a patient doesn't necessarily lead to doctors not reporting a patient's obesity on the record.
I would add that someone being described as heavy, or looking fat in a photo, doesn't mean they are obese. Obese is a specifically defined term, and you can't look at an undated picture of someone and determine whether they were obese. I have no doubt that the large percentage of the population that are obese leads to higher death rates, but I'd caution at making sweeping generalizations when there is still so much we are learning about how the virus works.
Indeed.
The fact that Covid pretty much swept through the US women's national rowing team - the Olympic level athletes - early on, making some of them sicker than they'd ever been before in life, IMO pretty much demolishes the idea that this disease would be NBD in the US if so many of us were not obese. (It doesn't get much healthier than those rowers, and they're young.)
I shared this in another thread, but this was written by one I know, who has been listed as among the top handful of female competitive rowers in the world: https://medium.com/classroom-champions/my-covid-experience-dae2cade00c3
There's been news coverage about what appears to be permanent heart-tissue damage among high-level college football players, from Covid. Some of those guys may be over normal BMI, but in most cases, they're not obese in terms of being so fat it creates health risk. This is still a poorly-understood disease, but there are strong indications that it's deeply serious, and yes, some people die. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/college-athletes-experienced-heart-damage-after-covid-19-study-67929
Still, I'd support stronger messaging around Covid and obesity if I had the slightest inclination to believe it would move the needle on either obesity or Covid. Other messaging has not. Messaging about Covid and obesity wouldn't, either. It would be a waste of money.
The information is out there, for people whose heads are not in the sand. There have been people joining MFP saying that reducing Covid risk is among their reasons for finally deciding to lose weight. The implication is that people who are reachable with this message are getting the message. If others aren't, there's an element of willfulness, denial, or simple inattention. Spreading more information, more pointedly, is very unlikely to change that.
The rowers had contracted the virus and were sick but per this article none luckily required hospitalization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/sports/olympics/coronavirus-us-rowing-olympics.html
Probably not the case if they were all obese smokers.
Sure. The point is, even young, healthy people get very sick. The starting proposition here seemed to be that if the US didn't have so many obese people, there wouldn't be so many deaths, and if there weren't so many deaths, the country wouldn't have had activity restrictions/shutdowns.
My point was that this is a very serious disease, with pretty awful experiences and consequences even among the young and very healthy. I believe we would have (need) activity restrictions/shutdowns even if we had fewer obese people, and a lower death rate. Our infection rate is absurd, for a developed country. That's not because of the number of obese people. It has more to do with bad governmental responses, and careless or science-denying people in the public who spread the disease unnecessarily. (Messaging aimed at the latter isn't very likely to be effective either, or I'd support more of that.)
We had people in the US having "Covid parties" supposedly to get it over with or create herd immunity (I guess), and some of those people (and others they had contact with) died. Personally, I feel more anger toward people like that (or the kids here in Michigan in the local superspreader event, like the the one who hosted a bonfire party for all his friends while symptomatic), than toward people who're obese, have gotten Covid, and died.9 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »siberiantarragon wrote: »@nooshi713
I was watching World News Tonight last night and they claimed that many of the deaths in Los Angeles were occurring among "younger people with no pre-existing conditions." I thought of this discussion and how the news was probably exempting obesity and undiagnosed conditions from that list.mariamsmb1 wrote: »Diabetes is the biggest health crisis in our country right now, IMO.
Diabetes is a big reason why I'm trying to eat healthier and exercise more. I've never been overweight, but I have PCOS which increases the risk of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes runs in my family. One of my older close relatives is pre-diabetic despite not being overweight and generally eating healthy and exercising regularly. Another close relative got it despite having a very physically demanding job for most of their life. So the people who can reverse their diabetes just by losing weight or changing their diet are lucky, in a sense.
While you're probably generally correct, I'd caution against assuming someone young and healthy must've been obese if they died. I know of many healthy weight people under 60 who have gotten a bad case of covid and required an inhaler and/or medication to bring down fever. If those folks hadn't had access to medical care or were too stubborn to go, or got sick during a spike and were turned away at first because they are younger, they mightve ended up in an ER too late to save, or died at home without being in a hospital.
I've seen tons of articles and news reports that list obesity as a risk factor for a worse case of covid. I'm sure there's a disconnect where some obese people don't acknowledge they're obese or think being "obese but otherwise healthy" means they can ignore it. But a doctor being hesitant to discuss obesity with a patient doesn't necessarily lead to doctors not reporting a patient's obesity on the record.
I would add that someone being described as heavy, or looking fat in a photo, doesn't mean they are obese. Obese is a specifically defined term, and you can't look at an undated picture of someone and determine whether they were obese. I have no doubt that the large percentage of the population that are obese leads to higher death rates, but I'd caution at making sweeping generalizations when there is still so much we are learning about how the virus works.
Indeed.
The fact that Covid pretty much swept through the US women's national rowing team - the Olympic level athletes - early on, making some of them sicker than they'd ever been before in life, IMO pretty much demolishes the idea that this disease would be NBD in the US if so many of us were not obese. (It doesn't get much healthier than those rowers, and they're young.)
I shared this in another thread, but this was written by one I know, who has been listed as among the top handful of female competitive rowers in the world: https://medium.com/classroom-champions/my-covid-experience-dae2cade00c3
There's been news coverage about what appears to be permanent heart-tissue damage among high-level college football players, from Covid. Some of those guys may be over normal BMI, but in most cases, they're not obese in terms of being so fat it creates health risk. This is still a poorly-understood disease, but there are strong indications that it's deeply serious, and yes, some people die. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/college-athletes-experienced-heart-damage-after-covid-19-study-67929
Still, I'd support stronger messaging around Covid and obesity if I had the slightest inclination to believe it would move the needle on either obesity or Covid. Other messaging has not. Messaging about Covid and obesity wouldn't, either. It would be a waste of money.
The information is out there, for people whose heads are not in the sand. There have been people joining MFP saying that reducing Covid risk is among their reasons for finally deciding to lose weight. The implication is that people who are reachable with this message are getting the message. If others aren't, there's an element of willfulness, denial, or simple inattention. Spreading more information, more pointedly, is very unlikely to change that.
The rowers had contracted the virus and were sick but per this article none luckily required hospitalization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/sports/olympics/coronavirus-us-rowing-olympics.html
Probably not the case if they were all obese smokers.
Sure. The point is, even young, healthy people get very sick. The starting proposition here seemed to be that if the US didn't have so many obese people, there wouldn't be so many deaths, and if there weren't so many deaths, the country wouldn't have had activity restrictions/shutdowns.
My point was that this is a very serious disease, with pretty awful experiences and consequences even among the young and very healthy. I believe we would have (need) activity restrictions/shutdowns even if we had fewer obese people, and a lower death rate. Our infection rate is absurd, for a developed country. That's not because of the number of obese people. It has more to do with bad governmental responses, and careless or science-denying people in the public who spread the disease unnecessarily. (Messaging aimed at the latter isn't very likely to be effective either, or I'd support more of that.)
We had people in the US having "Covid parties" supposedly to get it over with or create herd immunity (I guess), and some of those people (and others they had contact with) died. Personally, I feel more anger toward people like that (or the kids here in Michigan in the local superspreader event, like the the one who hosted a bonfire party for all his friends while symptomatic), than toward people who're obese, have gotten Covid, and died.
I'd have no problem with the hosts of "Covid Parties" being sentenced with community service work moving bodies of Covid victims around in a morgue, some of lowest of the low in society IMO.
However IMO that doesn't preclude the need for messaging to improve general health (just like the need for masks, social distancing and hand washing) which would include improved diet, better sleep, quitting smoking, and reducing obesity as a way to help minimize the impact if one gets Covid.6 -
While you're probably generally correct, I'd caution against assuming someone young and healthy must've been obese if they died.
There are cases of young, healthy, non-overweight people dying of COVID, but they're not the majority. Obesity is the biggest risk factor after age for dying of COVID, and 90+% of hospitalized patients have diagnosed underlying conditions (most of the underlying risk factors are obesity-related illnesses).
https://www.newsweek.com/obesity-covid-19-risk-coronavirus-hospitalization-1497791I would add that someone being described as heavy, or looking fat in a photo, doesn't mean they are obese. Obese is a specifically defined term, and you can't look at an undated picture of someone and determine whether they were obese. I have no doubt that the large percentage of the population that are obese leads to higher death rates, but I'd caution at making sweeping generalizations when there is still so much we are learning about how the virus works.
One doesn't need to calculate the exact BMI of the people in those photos to be able to tell that they were obese, and in some cases morbidly obese. Even if they lost enough weight between when the photo was taken and now to not be obese anymore (which is very unlikely since their families likely would have submitted a newer photo to the news), being obese has long-term effects on health even after the weight is lost.Theoldguy1 wrote: »And not to mention the impact of obesity has on heath outcomes in "normal" times. The high obesity rate in the US raises the need for medical resources which is made worse by the pandemic.
That's one of the reasons why I think all this virtue signaling about "if it saves just one life!" is dishonest. Millions of people die every year from preventable lifestyle-related diseases and yet those deaths are somehow less important than COVID deaths.
It's also weird that there aren't many studies on how much weight the average person gained during the pandemic even though this is a huge public health concern which will lead to preventable deaths.Sure. The point is, even young, healthy people get very sick. The starting proposition here seemed to be that if the US didn't have so many obese people, there wouldn't be so many deaths, and if there weren't so many deaths, the country wouldn't have had activity restrictions/shutdowns.
My point was that this is a very serious disease, with pretty awful experiences and consequences even among the young and very healthy. I believe we would have (need) activity restrictions/shutdowns even if we had fewer obese people, and a lower death rate.
I find it very curious that it's hard for me to find information on what percentage of COVID deaths could have been avoided with weight loss. We know that over 90% of people who died had pre-existing conditions, most of which are linked to obesity, but the nature of those pre-existing conditions likely varies by age. For example, a lot of the people who died were nursing home patients, who are probably less likely to be overweight since most overweight people don't survive into their 70s, 80s, 90s, etc. and appetite also generally reduces with age. But of the people who were younger, what percentage were overweight or obese? That's something I'm having a hard time finding data on and I find that to be strange.8 -
siberiantarragon wrote: »@nooshi713
I was watching World News Tonight last night and they claimed that many of the deaths in Los Angeles were occurring among "younger people with no pre-existing conditions." I thought of this discussion and how the news was probably exempting obesity and undiagnosed conditions from that list.mariamsmb1 wrote: »Diabetes is the biggest health crisis in our country right now, IMO.
Diabetes is a big reason why I'm trying to eat healthier and exercise more. I've never been overweight, but I have PCOS which increases the risk of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes runs in my family. One of my older close relatives is pre-diabetic despite not being overweight and generally eating healthy and exercising regularly. Another close relative got it despite having a very physically demanding job for most of their life. So the people who can reverse their diabetes just by losing weight or changing their diet are lucky, in a sense.
To those who have type 1 diabetes that can’t be controlled with lifestyle, I really sympathize.2 -
My view on body positivity is that everybody has the right to feel comfortable in their own skin regardless of their size. Likewise, everybody should keep snarky, rude and insulting remarks to themselves. That includes those shaming people for being overweight and also those shaming people for NOT being overweight ('skinny b*tch'/'they need a cheeseburger' etc.)10
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Another "normalizing obesity" COVID example: "She’s young, has no serious health conditions — and hasn’t left isolation since March" (woman in the photo is obese). It's also a testament to the normalization of obesity that this woman is so concerned about her health that she hasn't gone outside in 265 days for fear of catching COVID, yet doesn't mention anything about losing weight to reduce her risk of dying (from COVID and other causes).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-coronavirus-quarantine-lockdown-isolation/2020/12/30/3997dc10-3971-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html7 -
siberiantarragon wrote: »Another "normalizing obesity" COVID example: "She’s young, has no serious health conditions — and hasn’t left isolation since March" (woman in the photo is obese). It's also a testament to the normalization of obesity that this woman is so concerned about her health that she hasn't gone outside in 265 days for fear of catching COVID, yet doesn't mention anything about losing weight to reduce her risk of dying (from COVID and other causes).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-coronavirus-quarantine-lockdown-isolation/2020/12/30/3997dc10-3971-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html
You cannot tell from that picture that she is obese.
You are far more sure of the risk factors and their roles than researchers actually working on Covid are. Covid 19 is a novel virus. It will take years for experts to provide the kind of detailed data you are asking for in your posts.
I have no doubt being obese makes it harder for your body to survive the virus, but you are talking about this stuff like everyone knows how this works and that we all know all we need to do is convince anyone who looks overweight to lose weight and crisis averted. I just don't see any evidence it's that cut and dried.7 -
You cannot tell from that picture that she is obese.
Really? Like...really?
You are far more sure of the risk factors and their roles than researchers actually working on Covid are. Covid 19 is a novel virus. It will take years for experts to provide the kind of detailed data you are asking for in your posts.
I already posted an article where researchers stated obesity is the biggest risk factor for hospitalizations/deaths after age, and there's plenty of similar articles out there. So clearly a lot of people are studying this and must have studied population samples by age and so on. The problem is most of the original texts of these scientific articles with the data are behind paywalls, so we have to rely on mass media to report it, and they only give an overview if they report on it at all.I have no doubt being obese makes it harder for your body to survive the virus, but you are talking about this stuff like everyone knows how this works and that we all know all we need to do is convince anyone who looks overweight to lose weight and crisis averted. I just don't see any evidence it's that cut and dried.
I never said that. You're putting words in my mouth. All I said is that I think it's unfair that some people are expected to sacrifice indefinitely (and in some cases die, become homeless, etc.) because of lockdowns to protect total strangers from COVID, and yet most people who have preventable risk factors for COVID aren't doing anything to mitigate their own risk, thereby making the problem of COVID and lockdowns worse than it otherwise would be. If it's now my responsibility to sacrifice my own health to protect everyone else's health, then I think the least they can do is minimize their burden on the healthcare system by taking care of themselves. And I now judge the normalization of obesity a lot more than I used to, because it's contributing to the COVID problem and yet hardly anyone is acknowledging it because it's "politically incorrect" (and probably also because it would cut into food industry profits).
Masks don't eliminate the risk of dying from COVID, but they reduce it. Avoiding social interaction doesn't eliminate the risk of dying from COVID, but it reduces it. Similarly, getting to a healthy weight doesn't eliminate the risk of dying, but it reduces it. It's been considered acceptable all year to judge and shame others for socializing, which is vital for human survival.10 -
We have an obesity problem in Australia too but the corona virus is no where near as out of control as it is in the US I think mainly because of the way our government handled it8
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My view on body positivity is that everybody has the right to feel comfortable in their own skin regardless of their size. Likewise, everybody should keep snarky, rude and insulting remarks to themselves. That includes those shaming people for being overweight and also those shaming people for NOT being overweight ('skinny b*tch'/'they need a cheeseburger' etc.)
Of course nobody should be shamed for their body, but with the obesity rate in the US over 40% (as well as eating disorders on the other end of the spectrum) it doesn't do anyone any good to stick our collective heads in the sand, say it's fine in the name of body positivity, and not address it;7 -
Mazintrov13 wrote: »We have an obesity problem in Australia too but the corona virus is no where near as out of control as it is in the US I think mainly because of the way our government handled it
The point about obesity relates to comorbidities/outcomes if one catches the virus, not the spread.
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siberiantarragon wrote: »I'm usually a "live and let live" kind of person. But what's really annoyed me this year is that obesity now negatively affects everyone, even if they are not obese. By which I mean, COVID-19 is a disease which disproportionately harms obese people. Most of the people who are hospitalized or die from it are obese, especially the non-elderly people. Countries with very low obesity rates, such as Japan and South Korea, have much lower death and hospitalization rates than other economically-similar countries, despite a high proportion of elderly people. (And this doesn't get discussed in the US -- people just say Japan and South Korea "handled the pandemic better"...as if the fact they have a 4% obesity rate and we have a 42% obesity rate plays no role.)
All year we've been in lockdowns and told that we're killing people if we go outside. Some people have lost everything to lockdowns -- their jobs, businesses, homes, mental health, physical health, education, etc. I have a health condition that is made worse by the lockdowns, and nobody cared about that. Yet I don't see many people who are obese and worried about COVID-19 doing anything to lose weight. In fact, studies indicate that most people gained weight during the lockdowns. We're all expected to blow up our lives indefinitely to reduce other peoples' risk, yet they won't even do the slightest thing to reduce their own risk. That is so selfish and unfair and yet nobody calls it out.
I think the media and government play a role in this because they haven't been really talking much about the role obesity plays in COVID-19. The UK is the only country I saw that really discussed it in any official capacity, but even then they kind of forgot about it. Meanwhile I've seen countless articles where the media talks about a "perfectly healthy young person" who died of COVID-19 and then when you see the picture, the person is 300 or 400 pounds. That just shows how sick our culture is, that being morbidly obese is now considered "perfectly healthy," because people are too afraid of offending someone to tell the truth. And that attitude is contributing to peoples' deaths, from COVID-19 and from the many other complications of obesity. Sometimes I wonder where we would be if the public health messaging this year had focused more on weight loss, instead of officials doing things like banning outdoor exercise and closing parks.
So yeah, I'm way more judgmental about "fat positivity" culture now than I used to be, because it's a big reason why we're in this mess now.
I agree. I work in the ER in Los Angeles and see Covid patients every day. We are NOT seeing young healthy in shape people die. Most of the younger people with complications are either very obese or diabetic and uncontrolled. Some people told me they have no medical problems but then their blood sugar is 500. They did not know they were diabetic apparently or someone told them they were years ago and they ignored it.
Obesity is a huge problem when it comes to Covid. We need to focus on this instead of ignoring it.
I think the difference is that I'm not thinking that these people are selfish and subjecting ME to something, I'm thinking it's unfortunate that they're at higher risk.
Let's be real -- the average obese person probably isn't engaging in a "fat politic" or making points about "fat positivity." It's less a deliberate decision than genuine confusion about how to maintain a healthy weight or emotional issues that are preventing them from losing weight.
This isn't an issue of overweight people making the rest of us go through something. It's the result of a culture that is profoundly messed up about food and weight and obese people are currently experiencing some of the severe consequences of it.
When I was overweight, it wasn't because I wanted to be or because I'd somehow decided that being fat was really cool. It was literal confusion about what I needed to do combined with some "all or nothing" thinking about how punishing myself was the only way to be a normal weight.9 -
siberiantarragon wrote: »While you're probably generally correct, I'd caution against assuming someone young and healthy must've been obese if they died.
There are cases of young, healthy, non-overweight people dying of COVID, but they're not the majority. Obesity is the biggest risk factor after age for dying of COVID, and 90+% of hospitalized patients have diagnosed underlying conditions (most of the underlying risk factors are obesity-related illnesses).
https://www.newsweek.com/obesity-covid-19-risk-coronavirus-hospitalization-1497791I would add that someone being described as heavy, or looking fat in a photo, doesn't mean they are obese. Obese is a specifically defined term, and you can't look at an undated picture of someone and determine whether they were obese. I have no doubt that the large percentage of the population that are obese leads to higher death rates, but I'd caution at making sweeping generalizations when there is still so much we are learning about how the virus works.
One doesn't need to calculate the exact BMI of the people in those photos to be able to tell that they were obese, and in some cases morbidly obese. Even if they lost enough weight between when the photo was taken and now to not be obese anymore (which is very unlikely since their families likely would have submitted a newer photo to the news), being obese has long-term effects on health even after the weight is lost.Theoldguy1 wrote: »And not to mention the impact of obesity has on heath outcomes in "normal" times. The high obesity rate in the US raises the need for medical resources which is made worse by the pandemic.
That's one of the reasons why I think all this virtue signaling about "if it saves just one life!" is dishonest. Millions of people die every year from preventable lifestyle-related diseases and yet those deaths are somehow less important than COVID deaths.
It's also weird that there aren't many studies on how much weight the average person gained during the pandemic even though this is a huge public health concern which will lead to preventable deaths.Sure. The point is, even young, healthy people get very sick. The starting proposition here seemed to be that if the US didn't have so many obese people, there wouldn't be so many deaths, and if there weren't so many deaths, the country wouldn't have had activity restrictions/shutdowns.
My point was that this is a very serious disease, with pretty awful experiences and consequences even among the young and very healthy. I believe we would have (need) activity restrictions/shutdowns even if we had fewer obese people, and a lower death rate.
I find it very curious that it's hard for me to find information on what percentage of COVID deaths could have been avoided with weight loss. We know that over 90% of people who died had pre-existing conditions, most of which are linked to obesity, but the nature of those pre-existing conditions likely varies by age. For example, a lot of the people who died were nursing home patients, who are probably less likely to be overweight since most overweight people don't survive into their 70s, 80s, 90s, etc. and appetite also generally reduces with age. But of the people who were younger, what percentage were overweight or obese? That's something I'm having a hard time finding data on and I find that to be strange.
In general, I'd say that it is hard to get reliable data on stuff like this in the midst of a pandemic. People in public health are working on THAT right now and a lot of data is probably still in a raw form to be used later.4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I think the difference is that I'm not thinking that these people are selfish and subjecting ME to something, I'm thinking it's unfortunate that they're at higher risk.
Except in my case, they are subjecting me to something that negatively affects my health. I have pre-existing conditions (OCD and PTSD) which were made worse by the lockdowns, even to the extent of posing a risk to my life at some points. Based on the research I've read on COVID death rates and risk factors, my personal risk of dying from COVID, if I were to get it, is around 1 in 10,000. So the lockdowns aren't for me, they're for other people. And when those people don't do anything to reduce their risk so that we can get out of the lockdowns sooner, when they've been telling me all year "just get over it" when it comes to my own pre-existing conditions...yeah, it pisses me off.Let's be real -- the average obese person probably isn't engaging in a "fat politic" or making points about "fat positivity." It's less a deliberate decision than genuine confusion about how to maintain a healthy weight or emotional issues that are preventing them from losing weight.
This isn't an issue of overweight people making the rest of us go through something. It's the result of a culture that is profoundly messed up about food and weight and obese people are currently experiencing some of the severe consequences of it.
When I was overweight, it wasn't because I wanted to be or because I'd somehow decided that being fat was really cool. It was literal confusion about what I needed to do combined with some "all or nothing" thinking about how punishing myself was the only way to be a normal weight.
I don't really understand how, in 2021, people can still be confused about what they need to do to lose weight. Even if people can't afford to go to a doctor and ask, you can look up any government health-related website or even some place like WebMD and it will tell you what to do. There are even entire TV shows centered around weight loss that make it clear that it's just CICO.
From what I've observed, I think a lot of the problem is indifference and denial, which is enabled by a culture that normalizes obesity. There are people who know they need to lose weight, but they're putting it off because they don't see it as important and are busy with other things. There are people who don't care about their health. There are people who think they're a healthy weight even though they're overweight (and doctors that refuse to tell them they're overweight because of political correctness don't help here) or think "even though I'm overweight, I'm still active and healthy, so it can't be that dangerous." And then there are people who are in denial about how much they're eating because they don't actually stop to measure it out, and think "I eat nothing all day and I still can't lose weight!" When the larger culture is treating obesity as just a normal part of life, instead of treating it with the seriousness of, say, the dangers of smoking, then it's easy for people to just go on like this.
The fact that some lockdowns made outdoor exercise illegal to fight a virus that obese people are at more risk from, really says it all about how low obesity is on the list of public health priorities, and how normalized it is.
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siberiantarragon wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I think the difference is that I'm not thinking that these people are selfish and subjecting ME to something, I'm thinking it's unfortunate that they're at higher risk.
Except in my case, they are subjecting me to something that negatively affects my health. I have pre-existing conditions (OCD and PTSD) which were made worse by the lockdowns, even to the extent of posing a risk to my life at some points. Based on the research I've read on COVID death rates and risk factors, my personal risk of dying from COVID, if I were to get it, is around 1 in 10,000. So the lockdowns aren't for me, they're for other people. And when those people don't do anything to reduce their risk so that we can get out of the lockdowns sooner, when they've been telling me all year "just get over it" when it comes to my own pre-existing conditions...yeah, it pisses me off.Let's be real -- the average obese person probably isn't engaging in a "fat politic" or making points about "fat positivity." It's less a deliberate decision than genuine confusion about how to maintain a healthy weight or emotional issues that are preventing them from losing weight.
This isn't an issue of overweight people making the rest of us go through something. It's the result of a culture that is profoundly messed up about food and weight and obese people are currently experiencing some of the severe consequences of it.
When I was overweight, it wasn't because I wanted to be or because I'd somehow decided that being fat was really cool. It was literal confusion about what I needed to do combined with some "all or nothing" thinking about how punishing myself was the only way to be a normal weight.
I don't really understand how, in 2021, people can still be confused about what they need to do to lose weight. Even if people can't afford to go to a doctor and ask, you can look up any government health-related website or even some place like WebMD and it will tell you what to do. There are even entire TV shows centered around weight loss that make it clear that it's just CICO.
From what I've observed, I think a lot of the problem is indifference and denial, which is enabled by a culture that normalizes obesity. There are people who know they need to lose weight, but they're putting it off because they don't see it as important and are busy with other things. There are people who don't care about their health. There are people who think they're a healthy weight even though they're overweight (and doctors that refuse to tell them they're overweight because of political correctness don't help here) or think "even though I'm overweight, I'm still active and healthy, so it can't be that dangerous." And then there are people who are in denial about how much they're eating because they don't actually stop to measure it out, and think "I eat nothing all day and I still can't lose weight!" When the larger culture is treating obesity as just a normal part of life, instead of treating it with the seriousness of, say, the dangers of smoking, then it's easy for people to just go on like this.
The fact that some lockdowns made outdoor exercise illegal to fight a virus that obese people are at more risk from, really says it all about how low obesity is on the list of public health priorities, and how normalized it is.
I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!
I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.
If everyone easily understood the things that you find easy to understand and implement about weight management, there wouldn't be a market for weight loss surgery or detox teas or fad diets or Slim Fast. These are all side effects of people either not understanding how weight loss happens or facing obstacles in implementing it in their own situation. I think this is much more of an issue that people deciding that being fat is rad and deciding to gain weight to spite the rest of us.9 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!
In discussions I've had, I've seen a lot of overlap between the people who tell anyone who is negatively affected by the lockdowns to "get over it," and the people who get offended when you suggest that people should take more personal responsibility for their own health before asking others to sacrifice for them. I'm not implying that anyone who holds these beliefs is obese, or anyone who doesn't hold these beliefs is not obese. (Ironically, I have several friends who are overweight/obese and agree with me about the obesity/COVID/personal responsibility thing.)I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.
I never said that I don't understand how anyone can be overweight. I just gave an entire paragraph of reasons why I think people stay overweight. I just said that I don't think lack of access to information is the reason. 20 or 30 years ago, sure, it was a lot harder to find information back then, maybe that would have been a factor. But today, the information is out there, free and available. If someone doesn't look it up, it's because they don't want to know.
And again, regardless of what the reason is why people keep gaining weight, is it not the government's job to fix this public health crisis? Why are governments and our society in general enabling the obesity crisis instead of trying to fix it? If the answer actually is just lack of knowledge, that would be a pretty easy fix, wouldn't it? Why aren't there huge billboards with this information everywhere, the same way there are billboards everywhere about wearing a mask or social distancing?
9 -
siberiantarragon wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!
In discussions I've had, I've seen a lot of overlap between the people who tell anyone who is negatively affected by the lockdowns to "get over it," and the people who get offended when you suggest that people should take more personal responsibility for their own health before asking others to sacrifice for them. I'm not implying that anyone who holds these beliefs is obese, or anyone who doesn't hold these beliefs is not obese. (Ironically, I have several friends who are overweight/obese and agree with me about the obesity/COVID/personal responsibility thing.)I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.
I never said that I don't understand how anyone can be overweight. I just gave an entire paragraph of reasons why I think people stay overweight. I just said that I don't think lack of access to information is the reason. 20 or 30 years ago, sure, it was a lot harder to find information back then, maybe that would have been a factor. But today, the information is out there, free and available. If someone doesn't look it up, it's because they don't want to know.
And again, regardless of what the reason is why people keep gaining weight, is it not the government's job to fix this public health crisis? Why are governments and our society in general enabling the obesity crisis instead of trying to fix it? If the answer actually is just lack of knowledge, that would be a pretty easy fix, wouldn't it? Why aren't there huge billboards with this information everywhere, the same way there are billboards everywhere about wearing a mask or social distancing?
There's a ton of information on weight loss out there and a lot of it is conflicting.
I think someone can be overweight AND think it's an issue of importance and still not be sure how to proceed. Or maybe they know how to do it, but implementing consistently is an issue. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see this as an us/them issue and I don't think it's a consequence of fat being glamorized.
Daily here, we encounter people who know what to do and aren't quite sure how to do it (given the circumstances of their lives or particular emotional issues). There are also people who know what they want to do, but have inaccurate ideas of how it needs to be done that are either setting them back or causing them to spend energy on controlling irrelevant factors. We're in a society that makes it incredibly easy to consume more energy than our body needs. I can understand how some don't have grace to expend or don't want to expend grace, but I've been there and I think it's more complex than you're making it out to be.8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »siberiantarragon wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!
In discussions I've had, I've seen a lot of overlap between the people who tell anyone who is negatively affected by the lockdowns to "get over it," and the people who get offended when you suggest that people should take more personal responsibility for their own health before asking others to sacrifice for them. I'm not implying that anyone who holds these beliefs is obese, or anyone who doesn't hold these beliefs is not obese. (Ironically, I have several friends who are overweight/obese and agree with me about the obesity/COVID/personal responsibility thing.)I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.
I never said that I don't understand how anyone can be overweight. I just gave an entire paragraph of reasons why I think people stay overweight. I just said that I don't think lack of access to information is the reason. 20 or 30 years ago, sure, it was a lot harder to find information back then, maybe that would have been a factor. But today, the information is out there, free and available. If someone doesn't look it up, it's because they don't want to know.
And again, regardless of what the reason is why people keep gaining weight, is it not the government's job to fix this public health crisis? Why are governments and our society in general enabling the obesity crisis instead of trying to fix it? If the answer actually is just lack of knowledge, that would be a pretty easy fix, wouldn't it? Why aren't there huge billboards with this information everywhere, the same way there are billboards everywhere about wearing a mask or social distancing?
There's a ton of information on weight loss out there and a lot of it is conflicting.
I think someone can be overweight AND think it's an issue of importance and still not be sure how to proceed. Or maybe they know how to do it, but implementing consistently is an issue. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see this as an us/them issue and I don't think it's a consequence of fat being glamorized.
Daily here, we encounter people who know what to do and aren't quite sure how to do it (given the circumstances of their lives or particular emotional issues). There are also people who know what they want to do, but have inaccurate ideas of how it needs to be done that are either setting them back or causing them to spend energy on controlling irrelevant factors. We're in a society that makes it incredibly easy to consume more energy than our body needs. I can understand how some don't have grace to expend or don't want to expend grace, but I've been there and I think it's more complex than you're making it out to be.
The corollation of obesity and a history of abuse, and of obesity with poverty, is stunning when you dig into it. The number of people in the US who don't have access to a primary care doctor, internet access, or a decent k-12 education as a result of poverty (either urban or rural) is also stunning.
I listened to a podcast comparing access to broadband internet in the US to other industrialized nations and it blew my mind!8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »siberiantarragon wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!
In discussions I've had, I've seen a lot of overlap between the people who tell anyone who is negatively affected by the lockdowns to "get over it," and the people who get offended when you suggest that people should take more personal responsibility for their own health before asking others to sacrifice for them. I'm not implying that anyone who holds these beliefs is obese, or anyone who doesn't hold these beliefs is not obese. (Ironically, I have several friends who are overweight/obese and agree with me about the obesity/COVID/personal responsibility thing.)I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.
I never said that I don't understand how anyone can be overweight. I just gave an entire paragraph of reasons why I think people stay overweight. I just said that I don't think lack of access to information is the reason. 20 or 30 years ago, sure, it was a lot harder to find information back then, maybe that would have been a factor. But today, the information is out there, free and available. If someone doesn't look it up, it's because they don't want to know.
And again, regardless of what the reason is why people keep gaining weight, is it not the government's job to fix this public health crisis? Why are governments and our society in general enabling the obesity crisis instead of trying to fix it? If the answer actually is just lack of knowledge, that would be a pretty easy fix, wouldn't it? Why aren't there huge billboards with this information everywhere, the same way there are billboards everywhere about wearing a mask or social distancing?
There's a ton of information on weight loss out there and a lot of it is conflicting.
I think someone can be overweight AND think it's an issue of importance and still not be sure how to proceed. Or maybe they know how to do it, but implementing consistently is an issue. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see this as an us/them issue and I don't think it's a consequence of fat being glamorized.
Daily here, we encounter people who know what to do and aren't quite sure how to do it (given the circumstances of their lives or particular emotional issues). There are also people who know what they want to do, but have inaccurate ideas of how it needs to be done that are either setting them back or causing them to spend energy on controlling irrelevant factors. We're in a society that makes it incredibly easy to consume more energy than our body needs. I can understand how some don't have grace to expend or don't want to expend grace, but I've been there and I think it's more complex than you're making it out to be.
The corollation of obesity and a history of abuse, and of obesity with poverty, is stunning when you dig into it. The number of people in the US who don't have access to a primary care doctor, internet access, or a decent k-12 education as a result of poverty (either urban or rural) is also stunning.
I listened to a podcast comparing access to broadband internet in the US to other industrialized nations and it blew my mind!
As a consequence, I suspect that overweight/obese people are over-represented in the "essential worker" or "meet the public" workforce, when it comes to those outside strict total-PPE health care settings, especially. That appears to me to be true, based on the people in those jobs that I see around me, but I know that my eyesight's not a statistical sample.
I wonder if something like that could also play a role in over-representation of overweight/obese people among those dying of Covid in the US? There's IMU some evidence that higher viral load (loosely, getting more viral bits on/in you when exposed) relates to more severe cases of Covid. It would be interesting to know if those in essential/public-facing/low-PPE jobs are dying at disproportionate rates from the virus.
As someone mentioned above, I don't expect to see those more refined statistical analyses for quite a while yet, to explore questions like that, there currently being fatter fish right now for epidemiologists and their statistician buddies to be frying.4
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