Reply #25: Well, what I feel strongly about is... [View All]

[TreasonousBastard]

jumping on a report of a study claiming it justifies one's shaky position. I know we all do that, but it just confuses the issue and adds more hot air without coming to reasonable conclusions.

The denigration of the overweight seems to be a modern phenomenon. Past cultures, even ours, have celebrated heft as being signs of wealth and good nutrition. Even today there are parents in some ethnicities around here who force food on their small children to fatten them up, thinking a thin kid is an unhealthy one.

"Yonder Crassus is a thin man. I trust him not."

I suspect that now the ability to afford "healthy" foods and a gym membership are the signs of wealth. Bony movie stars and models as ideals doesn't help. Nor do the fitness gurus all over the place pointing fingers at those who didn't get the message and adding to the guilt and recriminations.

Anyway, the science is still trying to sort out the carts and horses. My own, highly unscientific, observations of many overweight people, and my own ups and downs in belt size, is partly the volume of food and calories, but also the type of foods. A number of overweight diabetics I know had a diet consisting largely of mountains of pasta or rice and weren't at all shy about the dessert trays. Things like the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup everywhere, which has different effects on blood sugar, triglycerides and such than cane sugar have been talked about, but not fully explored.

On the other hand, the diabetes class at the hospital was over half thin men. No women in that class, though, so no observations there.