fat is the new Satan

[undergroundpanther]

for some people in this country.It's a great ego stroking distraction for thin people lacking self esteem or compassion. Fatness,was in the past seen as a moral issue by the 'church. It was the sin of of "gluttony". .Like always back than like nowadays,you can bash the fat and poor,all you want if you want to feel superior and distract yourself from your own pain,..but never could you bash a fat corpulent king or rich noble,no thier fat was a sign of thier entitlement ..It was for the weathy a right of being rich to be above classist criticism.And that is how it still is today..Fat is tied to class bigotry and a kind of kick the dog mentality in frustated poor bullies to are too chickenshit to kick the rich pigs opressing them..Poor fat people get fat for alot reasons other than sheer gluttony alone .People eat to soothe emotions,stress, or to get nutrients they can't get in food alone anymore..Skinny rich people who eat fine organic foods can afford to go to personal trainers,get"cupped" and go to a Spiritual adviser for 3 hours a week and a spa to 'relax',they are the thinnest class,all well dressed in 400 dollar pants,the new kind of debutantes,they don't show their indulgences on their body flesh like old fat king louis and gout ridden nobility of old..they have their little perfect lifestyles at the expense of hundreds of ill paid stressed out,fattened up worker bees,fueled by cheap food running out the door to not be late for the company they owe thier soul to, and the stupid republican fucks who toil for the likes of these pretty rich fuckers, who think the rich are role models for humanity are sadly mistaken..and they drag humanity down with thier misplaced social darwinist claptrap.


I'll tell you this, the way Joe Q public ignores and tacitly encourages(by lack of demand and resistance to overweening demand from bosses)corporate greed is what makes the rich able to dodge most of the health concerns, nutritional pitfalls and industrial toxins the poor,the working poor and middle classes have to face everyday without becoming fat rich people. Cheap food that poor and working poor are forced to eat to survive is a travesty,And I do mean forced to eat as in cocerced by the scarcity of money,..( is it the heat,car insurance(to get to work) or mom's heart medicine,or veggies this month? which to choose? Look, when all are needed,and one must go to survive,things get pushed to bottom of the hierachy of needs this is coercion,by scaricyt which in ameriocas is manufactured deliberately by corporate greed to ensure cheap labor and obedient workers who will not demand to be compensated for thier work fairly. This INEQUALITY causes STRESS and Stress over time can make you FAT and SICK..)

Food for the most part in America is processed, slathered with chemicals and pesticides of questionable safety or has lost most of it's nutritional value.
The veggies you eat even have less nutrition,because they come from depleted topsoil kept functioning with petroleum based fertilizers(all dead animals go to rending plants,Animal poo is turned into nitrates and other chemicals for industry some becomes fertilizers others go into industries like explosives ect..).Processed pesticide is sprayed to be able to even raise foods that are taken from such nutrient leached soil.Bad food fucks with your body and makes the weight issue and and messes with your ability to even be able to sense hunger properly worse..

When you eat the food pyramid way which is expensive as shit,and impossible for most budgets you STILL do not get the nutrients required to be healthy.Vitamins sell very well and are not truly a replacement for good food and will NEVER be.
Also factoris things like the in mercury in OUR fish,PCB's,Various industrial toxins,chemicals(500 or so new chemicals are introduced into our living space every year and 500 new chemicals are on the market,and this has been happening already for years it is piling up people we are seeing the effects of chemical burdens of years of industrialization corporate pigs gone crazy,on our bodies.)The pesticides and whatnot everywhere putting a load on our bodies that is quite unnatural and some of it is fucking with our hormones, mutating our dna...Shit some of this is CAUSED by the crap we have allowed corporations to put in our food,medicine,products, air water and soil in America that is doing damage.Why do you think Bush is all flustered over trial lawyers and"frivolous lawsuits" NOW?Could it be the same old,he's protecting his buddies? Just like he distrupts Kyoto to save his buddies? We have industial toxins in America that is not allowed to be sold in Europe etc because their governments found it to be harmful to public health.
Yet in 'Murca it's OK to poison millions of people slowly and charge them out the wazoo to patch thier symptoms,pooh pooh the causes, and LIE about it to make mo'money at the expense of million of lives. Sociopathy is the American way!!!

Add in another fat making factor, think of the outrageous levels of stress and emotional pain in Americans,(1 in 4 people have a diagnosable mental illness(not including addictions)So it looks like Ameica is losing it.. In America More People are working more hours for less than any other "free" country. How did we manage to become such SLAVES? Too many people are terrorized of the idea of becoming poor, they are unable to see corporate greed unchecked buy ORGANIZED LABOR i.e. UNIONS makes people BECOME POOR for real.. We suffer so companies can get our labor on the cheap. We have no sane system for health care and we SUFFER for it,the thin rich debutates Ceos and politicians who parasite off of societies mass suffering and deprivation don't have to worry about healthcare...If they did we would have a totally different system.


Cortisol a stress hormone causes weight gain. This "fat" issue isn't JUST a few people's "moral failings" and scapegoating fat people like medieval inquisitor about gluttony is just total verbally abusive skinny body elitist bullshit, If Americans would FORCE corporations to Clean up the fuckking environment do something to replenish OUR topsoil,and make the goddamn corporations pay workers decent wages,allow them REST,time off, and get nationalized health care like Those civilized countries have,We might reduce enough stress by making the rich pay something back to the people who made their wealth happen, and teach people how to reduce stress and give them TIME and enough MONEY to eat decently,in a living sane environment than weight will go down.This is the other side of fat epidemic Nobody mentions really. And until America gets honest and can get over that social darwinist mindset that is just anti life, enough to consider discussing how the wealthy abuse the masses for profit we will not solve this weight epidemic.

[Phillycat]

1. Did you write this?

[hackwriter]

2. Don't tell me you're hawking Corti-Slim...

I don't want to hear it.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. I think we need to define "fat" better anyway...

What many people consider "fat" would have been considered a respectable healthy weight a couple of decades back.

The stick-figure with tits ideal that permeates our society is partly to blame for this. That's not healthy for all or even most people in my opinion.

[sui generis]

4. and it should be

all these anti-smokers talking about second hand smoke and the "cost to society" of self-destructive habits driving down the road in their hummers chewing on a deep fried turkey leg.

Granted, not all "fat" is self-induced, but regardless of rationale (or perception), eating right and treating your body well has to be a goal. Time, money, poverty, gluttony, there will be excuses to self-destruct as long as there are humans to make them. Not trying is like a crack addict saying he's an addict so that he won't feel bad about smoking crack.

There IS a cost to society, especially in our hyperconsumer economy that thinks that healthcare is a privilege of the wealthy. It's not elitism - that's just another sad sack excuse.

[Droopy]

5. See if you can get this moved to GD, ugp

You will get a lot more views.

Some people are just naturally fat, and nothing short of starvation will make them thin. I know this because I am such a person. I eat one meal a day and a snack and that's all I seem to need. I weigh 250 lbs.

I think what is sick is many people's desire to be thin at all costs. If we could get over this superficial desire then we would be better off and probably more healthy.

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. Two things to remove from your diet immediately

1) Bleached flour - easy enough at home, just buy whole grain bread. Tougher if you are in the fast food world, but then you knew that stuff was crap anyway.

2) High fructose corn syrup - It is absolutely NO coincidence that the timing of the obesity "epidemic" in this country matches up exactly with the time that HFCS replaced cane sugar as the main sweetener in everything from soft drinks to cough drops. The increase in cases of adult diabetes in the last two decades also coincides with this fact.

Bad news here is that the alternates to HFCS are as bad or worse. Nutra-Sweet, the most common currently, has been linked from everything to headaches and depression to symptoms resembling multiple sclerosis and even Gulf War syndrome. And considering that none other than Donald fucking Rumsfeld signed the patent for this shit, none of it would surprise me. So far they haven't found anything wrong with Splenda, at least that I know of, and it's being used more often in juice beverages, some brands of diet soda, etc.

Why are bleached flour and HFCS so bad for you? Simple chemistry. These are highly refined carbohydrates. So much so that your body doesn't have to break them down at all. So they pass from the stomach immediately into the bloodstream. Short term effect is that this spikes your insulin, and over time, that could lead to diabetes. Long term effect is that this pure carbo is deposited in the cells and stored on the body as "fat".

The reason other countries don't have the obesity problem?

Most of them don't use the two poisons mentioned above, especially High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Processed foods are also notoriously high in sodium, which causes tissues to retain water. I grew up not putting much salt on my food. Never even cared for salty potato chips, so I was amazed to find out how much fucking sodium I was taking in just by opening a can of chili.

Reading nutrition labels can be a real eye opener. No wonder the corporations fought against the labeling.

[Locrian]

8. HFCS and wheat

As a person who has first hand suffered from the effects of diet / stress I wholehartedly agree. HFCS and wheat are two of the WORST things you can do to yourself.

I was stressed by my job 4 years ago. Combined that with a bad diet (and alcohol (another killer) my cortisol / hormones went out of wack and after adding 40 lbs I went down to 140 lbs (my normal weight was 160. I literally thought and felt I was dying. The hormones let to thyroid / intestinal imbalances / food sensitivities etc.

Luckily I found a doctor that knew about what stress can do to your system and we cleaned up my diet, found the food allergies, hormone replacements etc and I feel great.


The food supply in the US combined with doctors who know NOTHING about nutrition /hormones / stess are creating an epidemnic.

[mcscajun]

7. Fat is also the last "acceptable prejudice"

You will never know (unless they are a member of your family or someone you live with) WHY Any particular person is fat, or what struggles they have had (or not had) with their own weight.

Yet people feel free to a) decide why fat people are fat; b) judge what's wrong with them because they are fat; c) verbally abuse them in print and in person; d) remain silent when others do so.

Intelligent, educated fat people know far more about the causes of obesity than the average intelligent, educated skinny person will ever know, believe me. Knowledge is power; but that doesn't mean that because we know what makes us fat, we can always change our lives to be other than what we are.

Just to echo the original post, while there are agribusiness corporations pumping out HFCS and food conglomerates putting it (and trans-fats) in our beverages and foods, the other profit center is the diet industry that a) perpetuates fat prejudice and b) makes a fortune out of creating a need for dieting among those who truly do not need it, while manipulating and exploiting those who desperately want an answer to their real weight problems.

[hfojvt]

10. I am hearing alot of skinny bashing on this thread

So I am not sure about fat being the "last acceptable prejudice". Tell me you know what it is like to be a skinny guy. Other guys - they do not respect you, because they can kick sand in your skinny little face. Women - they do not desire you. They want a studly guy who can protect them from other guys.
Those are simplifications and sterotypes, but I sure have run into an awful lot of them in my life. You think fat people have some kind of monopoly on people making fun of them? - think again.
I have much sympathy for fat people since I spent about 8 years of my life trying to gain weight and could not. So I can understand the difficulties involved in trying to control your weight.
So I do not think the enemy is "skinny people". It is rather the "cute and fuzzy bunnies" of this world in the middle.

[mcscajun]

11. I don't think the enemy is skinny people either.

I only used the word once in my entire post...surely didn't mean it to be bashing anyone.

[hfojvt]

12. True, now I cannot find good examples of bashing

Somehow it was a feeling I got after reading the original post and your follow-up. I am being hyper-sensitive.
But I did try to make the point that there is prejudice against those who fall on either side of the "ideal".

[wildeyed]

9. I am a thin person.

But during my pregnancies, I gained 55 lbs each time, so I have seen how the other half lives. What I discovered, I am (was)arrogant about my weight, even though I was never rude to heavier people and I always tried to be supportive of my heavier girlfriends. Thinness is an alpha trait in our society. When I was heavier, just as many men were attracted to me as before, so it is not sex appeal. Just a sense of being in charge, of always being envied.

I am retraining my eye to appreciate a more womanly form. I was looking at an ad the other day for a perfume called 'Happy'. The models were sickly thin and I though, they should call that perfume 'Hungry', 'cause those women look like they need a sandwich.

People should concentrate on being healthy and happy, not thin. People who make fortunes off the suffering and illness of many are dog shit.