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I used to be one of those perpetually skinny ones but I never talked about it. But it didn’t stop everyone else commenting on it all the time. It used to be “oooh Shrek you’re so small you need to eat more oooh Shrek”
Same. I used to be the one who got fed all the leftovers at family events. Still not gotten fat (kind of on the pudgy side though), but that is because I now eat far less than I did as a teen seeing as my uncles were the same as kids and turned out pretty fat so I decided to take pre-emtive action.
I’m poor as fuck and it’s really hard to keep weight on. Being underweight is a problem that gets overlooked and/or dismissed as being “lucky”.
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be dismissive, there is definitely truth to what you’re saying and there are definitely privileged people that brag about it but it’s something I struggle with so I thought I’d add my perspective. I got banned from the vegan comm right after saying I agree with veganism on principle but that I take whatever free food I can get from the hot bar at work when it’s going to be thrown away despite being raised vegan.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Body fat is not simply a matter of calories eaten vs calories burnt. Other factors have an impact on how much energy the body stores as fat. People doesn’t become obese overnight, it is a slow process where the excess fat they acquire only represents an amount of energy equal to about a teaspoon of sugar each day.
If you really apply yourself and expend a lot of willpower it is possible to eat less calories than you burn and lose weight that way. All experience shows this method to be as inefficient as it is strenuous, most people will gain the weight again. At the other end of the spectrum studies has been made where non-obese people forced themselves to overeat for a period. They gained some weight but they lost it again once the study was over and they just ate like they used to do.
Body fat is a survival mechanism that evolved to help the body endure periods of hunger. Today in the imperial core hunger is no longer a real risk for most people but the mechanism is still there. Obesity has less to do with fat people being too lazy to do exercise and too weak-willed to leave the cookies on the shelf and more to do with triggering the fat storage mechanism.
Several factors are at play in triggering the storage of body fat. One important factor is genetics. Another one can be various medical conditions that impact the storage of fat. There is also a connection to mental health. The ability to store every as fat evolved to deal with threats to survival so when an individual feels threatened, insecure or lonely the body can respond by increasing efforts to build supplies. So, in a way by alienating us and making us fearful of the future, capitalism is making us fat.
And although the individual can do something to eat better and do exercise those things are also inevitably tied to capitalist class society. The poor and downtrodden have no mental energy left to go jogging after a hard day’s work whereas the bourgeoisie spends all day surrounded by people who tells them how special and amazing they are, and if they don’t feel good enough about themselves they can afford to hire personal trainers to motivate them.
Assigning blame and moral judgement on the individual for being fat is a form of liberalist fetichation of personal responsibility. It will not be effective. An effective effort to minimise obesity needs to be collective. We need drugs developed to regulate fat storage, not body-shaming. We need free public exercise facilities that are inclusive and creates a social community around physical activity, not talk about being lazy. We need a safer, more caring society where people feel secure and included.
We need drugs developed to regulate fat storage, not body-shaming. We need free public exercise facilities that are inclusive and creates a social community around physical activity, not talk about being lazy. We need a safer, more caring society where people feel secure and included.
Diet is much more important than exercise in controlling weight. I agree that the focus should be more on collective rather than personal responsibility, but the focus of that should fire and foremost be on enabling and encouraging healthy eating habits.
Changing people’s diets and their knowledge/access to cook is way more important than fat drugs. North America is fat as hell because no one cooks anymore. It’s pretty rare to see the massively obese people who are also home cooking for themselves all the time. There are chubby people who cook for themselves, but that’s a separate issue from the social issue of obesity which is almost entirely caused by bad food subsidies, advertisements, fast food restaurants, unhealthy food production/preservation in general, and the current family situation of fewer people living in houses together with more people working concurrently.
I share your disdain for fat-shaming but your understanding of metabolic science is simply incorrect.
There is no mechanism for the body to discard chemical energy that it has absorbed into the bloodstream except to store it as fat. There are no hormones or genes affecting the rate that absorbed nutrients are stored as fat, because there is no other metabolic pathway for those nutrients to take.
There will never be a drug which regulates fat storage, because that would involve messing with your body’s ability to lower its blood glucose levels and kill you by hyperglycemia. Something affecting nutrient absorption might be possible but I don’t know.
Body fat is not simply a matter of calories eaten vs calories burnt.
There are several ways your body burns energy (not just exercise), but otherwise it really is that simple. But that’s not to minimize the difficulty that people have maintaining their weight.
There are genetic, hormonal, health, and environmental factors which affect things like hunger, cravings, and satiety. The reason that people have a hard time keeping large amounts of weight off, aside from the inherent difficulty of significant lifestyle changes, is that their bodies are placed into an altered hormonal state for many months or even years as a result of their weight loss, which includes elevated levels of appetite hormones like leptin.
Historically obesity have not been a huge problem as food was scarce. If there isn’t enough food around to cover your energy needs you will lose weight, no matter what your genetic dispositions are. Today however there is an abundance of food in the imperial core and no periods of hunger to use the energy stored as body fat.
Obesity is a problem in all core countries but there are significant differences. Some of them can be ascribed to the kind of food you have in different places but I don’t think the difference in obesity between for instance the US and France exists solely because French food is better than American.
I have a pet theory that part of the reason the US has so high levels of obesity is that it is a very unsafe country compared to those in western Europe. There is no healthcare, no social safety net, there’s guns everywhere, the police is more violent etc. etc.
Another explanation for the difference lies in what kind of activities society encourages and enables. For instance a place with walkable cities, lots of bike infrastructure and a culture that teaches children to walk and bike from an early age is going to have a healthier and less obese population than a car-centered place.
People able to maintain a lower body weight due to “fast metabolism” is mostly myth.
Because if someone is eating more calories than they are expending, they will gain weight. Speed of their metabolism notwithstanding.
Plenty of factors, cultural and genetic, at play.
Metabolism speed isnt junk science but in actuality it’s a rounding error compared to the 3600kcals necessary to create one lb of body fat.
i mean its kinda a piss off. i had to eat 5000+ calories a day or id lose weight. my stomach would swell up so bad and id be in great pain. but what was even worse was the feinting, migraines, and muscle weakness. i was so rail thin that i was disgusted with myself. i could see the individual bones in my hands… my metabolism has gotten less insane as ive gotten older but i legit was near 70 pounds at 5’0 at my worst… no bueno
i had to take pills for it, it isnt an exaggeration. i was admitted to a hospital early puberty because of it. even had brain and internal organ scans done. luckily as i got older i didnt need the pills as much
also the trick to keeping up with calorie intake that high is shakes.
Have you been tested for genetic disorders? Specifically, cystic fibrosis?
also my bf is a bodybuilder and he said he eats 4k calories easily each day, and hes not even a pro or anything
and its only 10 big macs, though i wouldnt recommend big macs for calories anyways, theres more effective and healthier stuff that take up less room in your belly
