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United States4126 Posts
On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote:
There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems.
Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity.
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On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing.
I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight.
When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently.
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On June 21 2013 03:56 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:52 Stress wrote:
To me a disease is something that is out of your control, such as huntington's or parkinson's, and in the case of being obese if you have a glandular disorder. The vast majority of obese people have no glandular disorder, they are obese because of lifestyle choices. This is just watering down the subject since every year it seems more and more people are becoming overweight due to a lack of care and self-control. I'm going to have to agree here. It's a mental condition if anything. I had experience with this, and it really is nothing more than that. You know you shouldn't eat that food. You know it's bad for you. You know if you don't eat it you'll be under your caloric intake for that day and you'll be on the right track but your brain just fucking forces you man. It's honestly a terrible experience, and a lot of physically fit people who've never had to deal with being obese/overweight will never understand that. It takes an incredible amount of mental fortitude to lose weight because for the first couple of weeks it genuinely feels like you are starving yourself even if you're still taking in 3000 calories per day and your body becomes so accustomed to it you start to freaking break down at times.I don't know how they got to the conclusion that this is a disease, but anything to provide more awareness is good in my book as far as I'm concerned though.
Basically everyone who's ever dieted or changed the way they eat (a lifestyle change, not necessarily a diet) has experienced the part of your post that I bolded. Maybe not to the point that obese people do (hard to say), but the point I'm trying to make is, almost everyone has experienced that feeling at one point in time or another, and that perhaps a lot of physically fit people have the most willpower of all because they manage to stay fit. Just food for thought.
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obesity will be cure after the first 2 weeks of the zombie apocolypse
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On June 21 2013 03:59 Kinky wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote:
There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems. Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity.
Everyone can control their obesity. It's simply a matter of caloric intake.
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On June 21 2013 03:59 Kinky wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote:
There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems. Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity.
That's a good way of putting it. Essentially what this decision is doing is confusing a CAUSE with a SYMPTOM. I usually think of diseases as CAUSING symptoms. A cold (an illness) CAUSES a stuffy nose, and some medical conditions might CAUSE obesity. In this case, obesity is a SYMPTOM, just the way a runny nose is a SYMPTOM of a cold.
Classifying obesity as a disease is therefore, imo, tantamount to classifying a runny nose as a DISEASE.
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On June 21 2013 04:02 codonbyte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing. I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight. When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently.
Being fat reveals a lot of character flaws.
I bet if you stopped showering people would also treat you differently.
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On June 21 2013 03:52 Stress wrote:
To me a disease is something that is out of your control, such as huntington's or parkinson's, and in the case of being obese if you have a glandular disorder. The vast majority of obese people have no glandular disorder, they are obese because of lifestyle choices. This is just watering down the subject since every year it seems more and more people are becoming overweight due to a lack of care and self-control.
Your logic kind of breaks down when you get to sexually transmitted diseases. Aside from rape, a person who contracts an STD did so due to their own carelessness or complacency, but STD's are still very real diseases.
It really comes down to how you define the word disease, and whether or not victims act like victims or act like survivors. People are right in that too many people use "I'm sick! Alcoholism/Obesity/Drug Addiction is a disease!" as an excuse to be apathetic in their recovery, like it's out of their control. That's wrong, and the AMA would do well to clarify and say that just because obesity is a disease, it does not mean you have an excuse to stay obese.
But if you look at the condition medically, I have a hard time calling it a "disease." Alcoholism has very specific, well-researched effects on the mind and body, especially when the person is deprived of alcohol. In that way you can suffer from the disease of alcoholism. It doesn't mean that person should be pitied or excuses should be made for them because of their condition, it just is what it is.
If this designation of obesity as a disease puts more money into the hands of people that can actually reduce the percentage of Americans who are obese, I have no qualms with the promotion. If all this does is cause more people to be excessively overweight, stressing out our medical infrastructure and explaining away their self-abuse by saying they have a disease, then we have a problem.
It all comes from the preconception that we have, for whatever reason, that a person who suffers from a disease should be pitied, no matter the disease or circumstances behind it. A child with Leukemia or a young woman with breast cancer should be pitied. The 60-year old chain smoker with lung cancer and the 350 lb man who needs a quadruple bypass should not. But they all have diseases that require treatment, whether we like it or not.
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Fat people are disgusting, stop eating so much you slobs.
User was warned for this post
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On June 21 2013 04:03 iamahydralisk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:56 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:52 Stress wrote:
To me a disease is something that is out of your control, such as huntington's or parkinson's, and in the case of being obese if you have a glandular disorder. The vast majority of obese people have no glandular disorder, they are obese because of lifestyle choices. This is just watering down the subject since every year it seems more and more people are becoming overweight due to a lack of care and self-control. I'm going to have to agree here. It's a mental condition if anything. I had experience with this, and it really is nothing more than that. You know you shouldn't eat that food. You know it's bad for you. You know if you don't eat it you'll be under your caloric intake for that day and you'll be on the right track but your brain just fucking forces you man. It's honestly a terrible experience, and a lot of physically fit people who've never had to deal with being obese/overweight will never understand that. It takes an incredible amount of mental fortitude to lose weight because for the first couple of weeks it genuinely feels like you are starving yourself even if you're still taking in 3000 calories per day and your body becomes so accustomed to it you start to freaking break down at times.I don't know how they got to the conclusion that this is a disease, but anything to provide more awareness is good in my book as far as I'm concerned though. Basically everyone who's ever dieted or changed the way they eat (a lifestyle change, not necessarily a diet) has experienced the part of your post that I bolded. Maybe not to the point that obese people do (hard to say), but the point I'm trying to make is, almost everyone has experienced that feeling at one point in time or another, and that perhaps a lot of physically fit people have the most willpower of all because they manage to stay fit. Just food for thought.
Oh I understand this. My brother started on the opposite side of the spectrum from me. He was skinny as fuck and worked his way up to getting pretty damn fit. I can tell you this much having been on both a cut and a bulk plenty of times, eating more and working out is much, MUCH easier than eating less and working out. They're both difficult and mentally excruciating but man.
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On June 21 2013 04:04 Zaqwe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:59 Kinky wrote:On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote:
There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems. Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity. Everyone can control their obesity. It's simply a matter of caloric intake.
I wouldn't go that far. Some people (very few, probably less than 10%) have very legitimate issues that cause them to gain weight rapidly or have trouble losing it.
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On June 21 2013 04:05 codonbyte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:59 Kinky wrote:On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote:
There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems. Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity. That's a good way of putting it. Essentially what this decision is doing is confusing a CAUSE with a SYMPTOM. I usually think of diseases as CAUSING symptoms. A cold (an illness) CAUSES a stuffy nose, and some medical conditions might CAUSE obesity. In this case, obesity is a SYMPTOM, just the way a runny nose is a SYMPTOM of a cold. Classifying obesity as a disease is therefore, imo, tantamount to classifying a runny nose as a DISEASE.
There are many diseases that are symptoms and there are many symptoms that are diseases. This is not a new phenomena. Symptoms are actually defined as the subjective descriptor of an individuals experience of a particular health phenomena, and signs are their objective counterpart. This [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symptom]wiki[/url ]is fairly helpful.
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Better go to the gym before I get sick!
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On June 21 2013 03:57 codonbyte wrote:To be honest I don't see this having any real effect on how much treatment patients get for obesity. Doctors already know that being obese is unhealthy, and I'm pretty sure most people who are fat already know it's unhealthy but are unable to lose weight for one reason or another (self-discipline, succumbing to temptation, slower metabolism, etc.). I don't see how classifying obesity as a disease is going to deal with any of those issues. Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:45 Lycaeus wrote:
"It's not my fault I'm fat, I have a DISEASE" Yes, I know we all love to call out fat people for their often-times poor eating habits and lack of self-discipline. However, I don't think that's really all that fair. Sure, having a lack of self discipline may be what ultimately causes obesity many times, however genetics determines how much any individual person is punished for a lack of self-discipline. I'll use myself as an example. I was blessed with a ridonkulously fast metabolism. I have never had to worry about my weight, no matter how poor my eating habits. I'll often eat an entire box of oreos or 2 (big) bags of jelly beans after a long day of work. Last night I ate an entire gallon of ice cream. Yet I am never punished for these poor eating habits in the slightest, simply because of my genes, while some other person with poor eating habits may be getting obese, even if their eating habits are better than mine (not great, but still better than mine). I suspect that a lot of skinny people are thin for the same reason that I am: genetics. And therefore it's never quite sat right with me to go around labeling fat people as being lazy and having no self-control.
How old are you? When I was 17 I could eat an entire pizza and a chipotle burrito bowl for lunch and not gain a pound. That's not genetics, that's just puberty. I can't do that anymore 
And also, I am probably going to reiterate this in most of my posts in the thread, just because it's a disease doesn't absolve the patient of responsibility. If you want to cure any disease you're responsible for taking your medicine or changing your habits. Doctors will recommend diet and exercise and it is the patient's responsibility to follow through. Even appetite suppressants require dieting and discipline, they're just supplements to an existing change in behavior. Classifying obesity as a disease doesn't give fat people a free pass to just keep being fat.
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On June 21 2013 04:06 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 04:03 iamahydralisk wrote:On June 21 2013 03:56 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:52 Stress wrote:
To me a disease is something that is out of your control, such as huntington's or parkinson's, and in the case of being obese if you have a glandular disorder. The vast majority of obese people have no glandular disorder, they are obese because of lifestyle choices. This is just watering down the subject since every year it seems more and more people are becoming overweight due to a lack of care and self-control. I'm going to have to agree here. It's a mental condition if anything. I had experience with this, and it really is nothing more than that. You know you shouldn't eat that food. You know it's bad for you. You know if you don't eat it you'll be under your caloric intake for that day and you'll be on the right track but your brain just fucking forces you man. It's honestly a terrible experience, and a lot of physically fit people who've never had to deal with being obese/overweight will never understand that. It takes an incredible amount of mental fortitude to lose weight because for the first couple of weeks it genuinely feels like you are starving yourself even if you're still taking in 3000 calories per day and your body becomes so accustomed to it you start to freaking break down at times.I don't know how they got to the conclusion that this is a disease, but anything to provide more awareness is good in my book as far as I'm concerned though. Basically everyone who's ever dieted or changed the way they eat (a lifestyle change, not necessarily a diet) has experienced the part of your post that I bolded. Maybe not to the point that obese people do (hard to say), but the point I'm trying to make is, almost everyone has experienced that feeling at one point in time or another, and that perhaps a lot of physically fit people have the most willpower of all because they manage to stay fit. Just food for thought. Oh I understand this. My brother started on the opposite side of the spectrum from me. He was skinny as fuck and worked his way up to getting pretty damn fit. I can tell you this much having been on both a cut and a bulk plenty of times, eating more and working out is much, MUCH easier than eating less and working out. They're both difficult and mentally excruciating but man.
I don't believe that putting the cake down is harder than shoving it down your throat when you're not hungry, day after day.
Ive had to force myself to gain weight while working out and its one of the hardest things in the world, fat people are just lazy and will make anything seem hard.
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On June 21 2013 04:02 codonbyte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing. I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight. When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently.
And that's completely understandable. Being obese doesn't inherently make you incompetent at your job, assuming it's not physical labor, but if I'm interviewing two individuals who look the same on paper but one is obese and one isn't, I can infer that the obese individual doesn't take care of his body and may have health issues. I'm making a long-term investment in this employee, why would I go with him over the other guy? It shouldn't be the sole factor in a hiring decision, that would be silly, but people would be lying if they told you it wasn't a factor like everything else you notice about the person, i.e. hygiene, dress, eye contact, level of comfort, vocabulary, eloquence, etc.
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On June 21 2013 04:05 Zaqwe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 04:02 codonbyte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing. I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight. When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently. Being fat reveals a lot of character flaws. I bet if you stopped showering people would also treat you differently.
Yes, but it's unfair because it is far easier for some people to remain skinny than for others, due to genetics. I'm not saying being fat is CAUSED by genetics, but genetics do set the "self discipline" requirement that you have to reach to remain skinny. As I said in another post, I was lucky enough to receive genetics that set my "self discipline" requirement to basically zero: I have the worst eating habits ever and I never ever seem to gain any weight. So why is it fair that I'm able to have poor self-discipline and not get judged on it, while some other guy with a similar amount of self-discipline (or lack thereof) gets judged and discriminated against for it?
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On June 21 2013 04:12 codonbyte wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 04:05 Zaqwe wrote:On June 21 2013 04:02 codonbyte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing. I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight. When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently. Being fat reveals a lot of character flaws. I bet if you stopped showering people would also treat you differently. Yes, but it's unfair because it is far easier for some people to remain skinny than for others, due to genetics. I'm not saying being fat is CAUSED by genetics, but genetics do set the "self discipline" requirement that you have to reach to remain skinny. As I said in another post, I was lucky enough to receive genetics that set my "self discipline" requirement to basically zero: I have the worst eating habits ever and I never ever seem to gain any weight. So why is it fair that I'm able to have poor self-discipline and not get judged on it, while some other guy with a similar amount of self-discipline (or lack thereof) gets judged and discriminated against for it?
Being fat and not doing anything about it is a sign you don't have any respect for yourself, if you don't respect yourself why should others?
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This is just weird to me.. I mean obesity is such a person to person thing I don't see how to distinguish the disease from being jsut being lazy and eating entirely too much food all the damn time.
Lots of people are fat purely from genetics, but equally lots of people are fat because they are legit lazy as fuck and eat like 3 big macs a day, and on the opposite side they are people who are skinny from pure genetics. I don't like labelling it a disease because it gives people who just want to eat and be lazy fucks an excuse, I know that's unfair to the people who are actual obese to due genetics a little but if I were to give an estimate I'd say only 1 out of every 5 obese people are obese due to genes.
Also afaik obesity isn't a disease anyway it would be genetics no? I mean it's not like a virus or bacteria or anything that makes you fat it's your genetics? I'm not an expert or anything so I'm more asking about this!
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On June 21 2013 04:11 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2013 04:02 codonbyte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:50 Fruscainte wrote:On June 21 2013 03:46 farvacola wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of worms insofar as discriminatory hiring practices and obesity are concerned. I'm curious where overweight people are being discriminated against in the workforce? Not trying to be condescending, I've honestly never heard of this being a thing. I can confirm this. I have an uncle who became obese over a period of about a year, and then went on a big diet and managed to lose all the weight. When he became lean again, he said it was remarkable how differently people treat you when you're overweight. He's had the same job through all of it so he didn't experience hiring practices during the ordeal, but he did experience how society in general treats fat people differently. And that's completely understandable. Being obese doesn't inherently make you incompetent at your job, assuming it's not physical labor, but if I'm interviewing two individuals who look the same on paper but one is obese and one isn't, I can infer that the obese individual doesn't take care of his body and may have health issues. I'm making a long-term investment in this employee, why would I go with him over the other guy? It shouldn't be the sole factor in a hiring decision, that would be silly, but people would be lying if they told you it wasn't a factor like everything else you notice about the person, i.e. hygiene, dress, eye contact, level of comfort, vocabulary, eloquence, etc.
Or maybe the skinny person just has a metabolism that burns up absolutely everything they eat at lightning speed, while the fat person has an inferior metabolism that actually punishes them for their poor lifestyle choices.
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EPT
