Nothing wrong with striving and achieving, but we apparently created a culture were not making it often leads to depression. #performance society

Like I said, not the fault of any individual. But, to say that its not a thing and fat, dumb, weak... whatever people should just stfu and go to the gym, library, get a better job or whatever is certainly not the solution (just as is cancel culture/turning a blind eye).

Eating disorder for example is heavily linked to psychology. The system of advertisments and the likes is rigged against a healthy lifestyle. Sugared food is much, much cheaper than non-sugared etc.

Im not sure what your point is. But, as long as our youth feels severly pressured by society to achieve, be good enough, look good enough, be smart enough... issues such as obesity will remain.

Indtroducing a sugar-tax for example would certainly help. But those that became obese before for other reason but sugar-addiction, i.e. psychological issues will only end up seeking other means to cope such as drugs, violence or domestic abuse.

Almost every woman in that ad you posted would be considered thin by today's US standards. Certainly on the thin end of the bell curve. So while it celebrates "real bodies", most real bodies in the US don't look like that. But the overall societal message, that any body is OK and we need to accept ourselves as we are, I think does give people license to give in to laziness, eating for non-hunger reasons, etc. And it does nothing to address a major health concern.

Imagine an ad campaign that said people should stop being so focused on their heart health or blood pressure, how it's unrealistic and we should accept our blood pressure whatever number it is.

I saw Reese Witherspoon being lauded on social media for posting this on Instagram:

“Here are my tips on how to have the perfect summer body: 1. Have a body. That’s it. That’s the tip.”

I can see why this strikes a chord with women, as trying to look like some genetically gifted celebrity with a personal trainer and nutritionist is unattainable for most. However there is a difference between trying to look like an uber-fit celebrity as peddled by some magazines, and normalizing obesity.

The 'gene' thing has always made sense to me.

Evolution would obviously favour a gene mutation that would allow people to easily gain and hold weight if you lived in a region where food insecurity was significant and times of famine happened somewhat regular.

That more efficient your body could be at hording (fat) calories eaten and using them as efficiently as possible (minimal weight loss) would be the ones that would allow the most people to survive.

That to me has always been an obvious contributor as to why African American's have such a propensity for weight gain.

My point is the exact same dynamic (the pursuit of excellence with role models) exists in education.

The exact same dynamic exists in sport.

The exact same dynamic exists in the arts.

With regards to obesity there is a societal attempt being driven by a very loud portion of society saying 'because those who do not want this or failed trying may get depressed/suicidal, we should/must purge society of any and all positive association to what would be considered success imagery or messaging and instead replace that with something where even someone at the most unhealthy ends of the extremes of obesity will feel normalized and comfortable and ok.

My point is that horribly wrong and dangerous.

The key to what you are saying is "by today's standards".

This quoted below is absolutely tragic and should be a 3 Alarm fire alarm for society.

"AVERAGE" at age 20 is insane. Just as many above 170lbs as below is insane. And dangerous.

Society understood that post child birth, and especially after more than one child many and maybe most women would put on a substantial amount of weight they would not ever lose. Most people, i think were understanding of that.

It speaks to the vast majority of these women never building the disciplines and habits to take care of their health. And if you do not build those things when young it is multiples harder to suddenly develop them and stick to the later in life.

But at age 20, before the first child is insane. This speaks to us FAILING our children.

And messaging is a huge part of that no matter how much some try to deny or spin that. Young people/kids need constant re-enforcement, constant reminder, and to be constantly pushed towards better outcomes whether it be for their mental health, educational outcomes or physical health. And this attempt to purge society of such re-enforcements re obesity and label them wrong to engage in is, IMO, a very direct and significant contributor to the scourge of childhood obesity.

Average 20 year old woman being 170 lbs is insane.

And yet saying that would get you viscously attacked in many quarters.

Simply saying 'society has a role in pushing for better outcomes than that' and 'there is NEED to address this and arrest and reverse this trend', will be attacked in an attempt to stop such 'pressure' and keep such comments from the ears of the people who may fail in trying or simply do not care to change.

This is the crux of my issue with rationalization responses to serious issues around the idea that if it might offend or stress or cause issues for some, it should not be said or done.

Society is treading into very troubled waters by people who are well meaning but dangerously naïve.

"The road to hell..." is very apt here.

As with most of the other problems we have in society, it starts young. How many of you know people with children under the age of 7 who have cell phones?

Fat parents are raising fat children, and nothing about modern life is conducive to changing that. I roamed the neighborhood with my friends like a lot of the other boomers on this forum probably did. My parents would tell me to turn off the Nintendo and go outside. Don't come back until dark.

I didn't get fat until after high school. Realistically, what hope do all the fat kids have for making the right choice to follow the objectively more difficult path to healthy living after they're out from under their parents' roof?

Instead we're just widening all the chairs out in the world and promoting bullshit pseudo-science about being healthy at any size.

The key difference between the parallels you are drawing and this subject is that weight is something that is visually obvious. Nobody is going to look at someone and think "that person could have been a much better musician if they had more self control and worked harder". This makes dealing with "failure" to meet the societal expectations completely different and means the comparisons aren't very useful.

There is nothing wrong with aspirational messaging but the "beach body ready" advert in particular has the fairly obvious implication that you need to look like this to feel good about going to the beach/wearing a bikini. It is pretty much an archetypical body shaming advert.

Fwiw I also don't think it's a great idea to portray excessively overweight people as healthy either, but that is a very different type of problem. As much as we talk about obesity being normalized, there are always going to be pressures towards being thin. Despite what some sensationalist news might say, most doctors will talk to patients about weight issues and unless society changes drastically weight will still be a significant factor in attractiveness.

P.s. This is a bit pedantic but the sort of thing that annoys me - while the average weight for a 20 y.o. woman being 170lbs is definitely crazy that doesn't mean there are as many women over 170 as below. In fact there is almost certainly a fairly large majority under 170 because of the nature of weight distributions (overweight people will generally be further away from the median than underweight people will be and that drags the mean up).

Totally disagree.

Hand waving away the serious consequences many young people deal with when they fail at those other areas is just not right, especially when they do lead to suicide and other issues with those kids in those areas too.

To casually say 'oh it is not visible thus not the same' or 'worth the same consideration' is something we will have to adamantly agree to disagree over.

Each one has DIFFERENT areas of 'pressure', 'expectations' and other but the failure in what they perceive society expects of them or their own expectations for themselves is very similar in the way it plays out in consequences for all of those mentioned.

If showing a super fit body in an ad targeting a segment of people who do want to achieve that goal and are motivated by it is so wrong, because it may not be applicable to others (or all) then so to is every aspirational campaign (Be like Mike) where the chances of being the next Michael Jordan are even worse than getting into shape like that gal is. So to are the educational campaigns that use Einstein and other such figures as aspirational.

Childhood obesity is one of the biggest failures of society and parents imo.





IMO a clear case of the 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' type failure. A failure that happens on both the left and right but is far more prevalent and dangerous in leftist type rationalizations imo.

If society does not get the focus and spine to deal with childhood obesity the adults they grow in to will have almost no chance. The disciplines of getting and staying in shape are much harder to adopt later in life if you spend your younger life obese.

This truly makes me sad above.

Obesity is the number one health problem is America. It is both sad and easily preventable.

Sad, yes,

Easily preventable, not so much.

i genuinely feel that the 'Self Esteem Movement' that is at the heart of much of liberalism is a toxic cancer that is impacting this area and so many others.

A well meaning movement that almost always leads to the "...road to hell" imo.

As we have moved from 5% childhood obesity in my youth, to the near 50% now, it has been behind a liberal push to take the pressures and any perceived stigma of failed expectations out of the equation and instead focus on finding positives in any body size and norming it.

I absolutely believe the liberals are well intentioned and do not want any in that prior 5% obese children who tried and failed under the pressure and perceived stigma to suffer depression and perhaps commit suicide. So their 'intentions' are good.

But as we go from 5% to 50% obese the failure becomes clear. The answer is not to norm the situation for the 50% so they won't feel bad, commit suicide, etc. It is to improve outcomes.

And while poverty, nutrition, cheap chemical laced foods, are all contributors to the problem the one thing that is consistent is that if kids are raised with discipline all of those factors will be over come outside the very rare few with true health issues that are driving their obesity.

Child obesity should be an unnacceptable as child drinking. Conflating it with perfectly reasonably adult choices is not a good plan.

The stuff about well-intentioned is patronising and wrong imo. You can easily garner liberal support for child welfare. Helps if you dont confuse it with telling us we have to be like you as adults for some reason.

I don't have an issue with 'adult individualized choices'. I am perfectly fine with the equation you have accepted for yourself in terms of potential shorter life and the other challenges of obesity versus what you feel is a greater enjoyment of life of indulgence, albeit a shorter one. I hope I have a long life and you an even longer one, while enjoying every minute of it, truly.

My issue with adults is when they say as 'society' we should stay out of this public health discussion and not be pushing standards for education and using societal peer pressure to attempt to get better results overall from society in arresting the rapidly rising adult obesity curve and hopefully turning it downwards.

Chez the individual making his choice = fine and good.

Society overall should not accept that (obesity rates soaring) for society as a whole and do need to combat it with all the tools possible and not back off because shaming tactics will be used to try and silence it by those trying to normalize the 'fat acceptance movement'.

The 'Fat acceptance Movement' is imo the perfect illustration of 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

In recognizing the prior 5% obese, do have some who struggle with the failures and attempts to be more fit and it can lead to suicide and other negative outcomes for them there is a movement (mostly crafted in the left) to instead try to make it feel more normal and ok to be obese. The thought being it will help some in that 5% cope better as they remain obese and that may be true.

But on the other hand, that norming is arguably one of the biggest contributors of society then soaring to a near 50% obesity rate as the role of societal pressure and expectations are removed from young people and instead they feel applauded for being obese.

But the left has much love for the now 50% too. We just 'Norm' that 50% as also normal and expected to make sure the 50% don't feel pressured. And it all does come from a desire to be nice IN THE MOMENT.

What too many (generally on the left) don't have a clue about is tough medicine may not seem nice in the moment, as opposed to just letting the person quit and then complimenting them for a 'good effort', but that tough medicine, that tough love, actually better addresses the one thing they were concerned about at the start, within the 5%. The depression and suicide rates, etc in that 5%.

Ok great you norm it so much that the majority of the 50% now are ok with being obese and that number keeps soaring, but a significant percent are still not and have these negative outcome and that number is higher than were we started in the 5%. The 'good indentations' result in failure.

but many on the left ignore the result and solely focus on what they think is the compassion, blind to its role in that failure.

That's very kind but it's almost impossible. I'd rather know I could end it peacefully whenever I wanted. Note I'm not remotely suicidal but I'm well aware of the risk that there may come a time when life is not something I want to endure any longer.

Ironically knowing I could end it whenever I wanted would make getting old less unattractive. That would make being physically fitter more attractive.

I'm a huge fan of education but I dont think you mean education. An education would include maximising wellbeing which is my approach. Not everyone would land on my answer of course but I dont think you would be remotely happy at how few land on yours.

A cousin of mine just availed herself earlier this year of one of the Canadian provinces assisted suicide programs after almost 30 years of fighting a litany of cancers and being told she had weeks or months only to live, many, many times. She has books written about her and has appeared on countless tv interview shows as an inspiration in her battles. Told in her 20's by the 1st and 2nd doctor they could and would do nothing, she needed to prepare to die, her and her husband went on their own journey (he is rich) for both traditional and untraditional medicines and nutrition and she lived until her mid 50's. The Dr's just started to describe her as 'beyond science' as they had no explanations as to what she did that worked but something did.

When the battle did truly become unwinnable however and only an ugly bodily decline was evident she opted to step out of the game.

I admire her strength to do that and believe I would do the same, with hopefully the same grace, in that spot.


(and so no one thinks I am promoting magic or whackery, what her and her husband had the money to do when the Canadian system gave up on her, was travel to a top US hospital and get top envelop pushing care there, but also then travel across to a referred to hospital in Mexico where some of those same US doctors consulted where the rules for getting certain medicines in trials that looked promising were a little easier finessed.
You were not stuck waiting for compassionate leave.)

Not that long ago smoking was socially acceptable.

Now being obese is socially acceptable.

Humans are fickle herd animals anyway. It shouldn't be too surprising.

What I find shameful is all the people making money telling people they don't have to count calories, all they have to do is a keto diet or fast for 18 hours.

Just selling snake oil as usual. lol

A lot of moderate activity and eating way less than you want is the solution.

And I'm an advocate of fasting fwiw. It's just not a weight loss program unless you actually monitor your intake. Maybe you don't have to 'count' calories per se. But you have to control your portions. It's just physics.....

Things consented to now or in the past because a vocal, aggressive, self-centered minority thinks it is their divine right to impose their weaknesses on everyone else:

Smoking in public places
Dogs pissing and shitting in public places and ruining parks and running around
Fat people

I'm a tolerant guy but I do think we should have nests of machine guns on every street corner to mow down anyone who shows off the chewing gum in their mouth

Plus those who feels the need to share their phone conversation with the world. I assume that goes without saying though.

Even if thin+unvaxxed was superior to obese+fully vaxxed (which it isn't in regards to Covid), it is still much easier for an obese person to get vaccinated, and the protection starts in days. Losing 100 lbs is a lot harder and can take months or may never happen. By the time they are no longer obese they may have already gotten Covid and died.

I think any argument for becoming healthier as a way to fight Covid is kind of silly when there are vaccines which work so well. Sure being healthier is always a good thing but it really has zero to do with the vaccine argument. America is a fat country and our addiction to food has been killing Americans long before Covid.

Because losing 20 pounds is just as easy as getting a shot, excellent point.

that is not even the biggest ethical issue question around obesity here.

It is predictable and fact that the better society gets at managing obesity and allowing more and more people to live longer lives with all sorts of comorbidities as they take a litany of pharma drugs to deal with all the issues obesity causes, the more things like the next covid will be a threat to them.

So if you have a populace 70% over weight and growing who are at serious threat but the 30% not over weight are at very little threat, it will be increasingly demanded of the 30% to take whatever vaccines or medicines are needed to protect the 70%.

There are many people who go to enormous effort to live and eat clean and who focus on health who do everything they can to avoid the medical system for any of the 'self inflicted' reasons people end up in it.

Just as women typically are far more used and comfortable going to doctors and taking meds then men, so too increasingly will the obese.

So now, in increasing frequency, very predictable and foreseeable increasing frequency, society will see this burden shift where you (the otherwise healthy) will be forced to take medications because the other group has chosen to not take care of their health, in most instances.

And while I think it is fine for someone to opt to not pursue health and to accept obesity, I think the shifting obligation is a moral issue that will need to be addressed.

I think however those in the majority (the 70% overweight or obese) will just laugh and mock this as an issue as they think taking meds is no big issue for me (I am used to it) so why do you care so much that you are now required to. Just shut up and take them!!!