Interesting paper on our world-wide obesity problem.

[NWmomma]

"Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Weight Watchers magazine, Woody Allen melded the two experiences into a single essay. ‘I am fat,’ it began. ‘I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?).’ It was 1968, when most of the world’s people were more or less ‘height-weight proportional’ and millions of the rest were starving. Weight Watchers was a new organisation for an exotic new problem. The notion that being fat could spur Russian-novel anguish was good for a laugh.

That, as we used to say during my Californian adolescence, was then. Now, 1968’s joke has become 2013’s truism. For the first time in human history, overweight people outnumber the underfed, and obesity is widespread in wealthy and poor nations alike. The diseases that obesity makes more likely — diabetes, heart ailments, strokes, kidney failure — are rising fast across the world, and the World Health Organisation predicts that they will be the leading causes of death in all countries, even the poorest, within a couple of years. What's more, the long-term illnesses of the overweight are far more expensive to treat than the infections and accidents for which modern health systems were designed. Obesity threatens individuals with long twilight years of sickness, and health-care systems with bankruptcy."

"More importantly, ‘things that alter the body’s fat metabolism’ is a much wider category than food. Sleeplessness and stress, for instance, have been linked to disturbances in the effects of leptin, the hormone that tells the brain that the body has had enough to eat. What other factors might be at work? Viruses, bacteria and industrial chemicals have all entered the sights of obesity research. So have such aspects of modern life as electric light, heat and air conditioning. All of these have been proposed, with some evidence, as direct causes of weight gain: the line of reasoning is not that stress causes you to eat more, but rather that it causes you to gain weight by directly altering the activities of your cells. If some or all of these factors are indeed contributing to the worldwide fattening trend, then the thermodynamic model is wrong."


http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/?fb_action_ids=10151681418364568&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

[duffyduff]

1. There is no "obesity" problem

The problem is an attitude problem by bigots who have gone so far as to make body size a "disease."

Well, it helps the pharmaceutical industry, the diet industry, and the fashion industry, so it is okay.

Ever notice almost all of the hatred of "fat" people is aimed at women?

[galileoreloaded]

2. seriously? this sounds like a rationalization

carbohydrates kill.

[freshwest]

3. I've dealt with people on psychotrophic RX. Each RX change adds 30 pounds to a person who is already

Last edited Sun Jun 30, 2013, 02:48 PM - Edit history (1)

confused, depressed and unable to cope, unable to organize their lives, including their diet and exercise.

When I've questioned them, their doctors admit the drugs put on weight and the 30 pounds of weight is their figure. And they have to order frequent laboratory blood draws to monitor the increase of liver and kidney disease these drugs cause.

Not may cause, will cause. The liver and kidneys are the most essential organs along with the gut in controlling weight. A grossly distended abdomen is a sure result even if the rest of the body is within normal size, or even thin. Fatty liver is not always caused by fat food and is a serious condition.

When the problem is noted to be in the range of such body changes as the link describes, another drug is sought out. Then another 30 pounds is added ot the previous. I have complained to the doctors and they admit it is from the medications. An RX strong enough to cause what the doctor has determined to do, goes through the liver and kidneys and affects them.

Although I am speaking of a population that is generally considered incapable of managing their lives in an independent manner to begin with. Those who care for them accept that what is happening to them is not the result of gluttony or sloth, but a medical condition. And a deadly one.

The thermodynamic model is not their problem, but it works excellently for others and should not be discarded.

They are not given access to fattening foods and are not allowed to lay about. Often the RX makes them sleepy or even dizzy and unbalanced. With strong supervision and people who strive to make them drug free, help them be more active and with careful dieting, they can keep from becoming morbidly obese.

But the damage is not the food they eat, the quantity or lack of exercise. It's from altered internal chemistry. (That part of the article I agree with. Although I do not agree with all, as some is going into woo territory.)

It's what's happened to their metabolism, through the altering of their livers. I've seen people whose body structure has changed dramatically, going from a more graceful, normal appearance to a more bovine like linebackers, thick necks and facial changes. The difference in body appearance can be shocking after only a few months.

One can only do so much when so many people are involved in caring for these folks, and some had genetic body and metabolic problems to begin with. Some never digested their food right since birth. There is no quick fix or easy solution.

Anyone who has not come across these people can rest assured their prejudices are justified, leading to callous and judgmental comments on people who were already afflicted before they became obese. Their ignorance is indeed bliss.

Those who have witnessed this in persons they know or care about, and believe that they are human beings and not refuse who deserve equal and humane care, have not enjoyed the luxury of such ignorance.