Island Life: The Prime Minister will see you now
324 Responses
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Ben, you keep using that word "duplicitous" as if it did not carry huge moral freight. I am beginning to wonder if you think it means something other than "deliberately deceptive".
The second can only be answered by the individual.
Really? Why is this any different from any other health issue - for example, smoking? Are decisions about how and what you eat uniquely immune to influence from external factors? I don't think so.
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Stephen (of 'Nails it Again' fame), snap! I was just about to use 'deliberately deceptive' to explain what I think when I read 'duplicitous'. But you've done it for me. :)
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I see the infomercial now. 'The Matthews Cucumber Diet: eat as many cups of cucumber as you can stand per day and watch the pounds drop off!'
You could make millions, Kyle.
I think you'll find in order to lose weight, you'll need to drop down to under 100 cups of cucumber.
On this basis, I can't see it working, who's going to make that sacrifice for longer life and improved health?
I'm going to not respond to Ben again because... ugh. It seems pointless at this stage.
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by Len Kravitz, Ph.D
Are you going to go my way?
Wait... different guy? Damn.
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by Len Kravitz, Ph.D
Are you going to go my way?
Wait... different guy? Damn.No, no, you're thinking of that apprentice guy Duddy Kravitz in Mordecai Richler's novel... oh, hang on...
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'Nails it Again'
It is a sobriquet to which I aspire, except there are all the times when I whack my thumb instead.
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Well, at the risk of hectoring you, you're wrong, still wrong when you insist you're right, and you're no less wrong by labouring your mistaken point.
This made me snorfle.
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Jackie lets the nonadipose, and formerly adipose, fight it out amongst themselves, because she is adipose and refuses to engage. Oh, and by the way, Ben? I find the amount of words you have used to simply state one thing - ie I used to be fat, now I'm not, yay for me, everyone else should be like me - a bit overwhelming, really. Well, I would, if it weren't immediately apparent in the first post you made pertaining to fat people (tm) that you were a former fattie. It's a bit like reformed smokers, innit? Oh yes, I'm not only fat, I'm a smoker. Long life? I spit on the concept.
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Long life? I spit on the concept.
You'll probably outlive us all because you're not worrying about this shit. :)
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Dyan, I've addressed everything you have to say already. If you think that physics does not come to bear, you are as wrong about that as if you thought your mental state would stop physics smashing you into the ground if you jumped off a tall building.
You are right that I don't understand the physiology of obesity, but you don't seem to grasp that despite understanding it slightly better than I do, you don't have any answers which are any different to mine. You just have a much longer way of saying it.
Well, at the risk of hectoring you, you're wrong, still wrong when you insist you're right, and you're no less wrong by labouring your mistaken point.
Aha, excellent, so you have discovered how to make energy from nothing then? I take it all you need is healthy gums and the right mental state?
Ben, you keep using that word "duplicitous" as if it did not carry huge moral freight. I am beginning to wonder if you think it means something other than "deliberately deceptive".
No, it was a mistake. Used once, and picked up on as my entire point. Which I think says a lot more about the picker uppers than it does about me. I clarified in my last post what I meant by it. Or you can say retracted if it makes you feel better.
Really? Why is this any different from any other health issue - for example, smoking? Are decisions about how and what you eat uniquely immune to influence from external factors? I don't think so.
In my opinion, in the majority of cases, no, there is no difference. Quitting is as simple as stopping smoking. Anything less is not quitting.
Oh, and by the way, Ben? I find the amount of words you have used to simply state one thing - ie I used to be fat, now I'm not, yay for me, everyone else should be like me - a bit overwhelming, really.
Well, sometimes you have to say things that are simple over and over and over. Especially when people ask you to. It's like somehow the point isn't getting through.
No, it's not like that, it IS that. The point is not getting through. This is a futile argument, at cross-purposes, as all discussions about fatness tend to be. A few people have got my point, and everyone else claims that it's either false, or trivial, or a veiled insult.
Trivial is the only criticism that I can accept there. It is a trivial point that seemed to need no clarification, but strangely, clarification kept getting asked for continually. Which is all just a sophisticated way of totally missing the point.
As for the falseness claim, which Dyan seems determined to follow, I'm waiting for the thunderous refutation of a long standing law of physics by which the world can solve any energy crisis for all time.
And the veiled insult point is the stupidest of all. I'm not even going to go there because it involves speculation about the motivations to even suggest that. All I can say is that if every discussion about fatness which leads to the well known conclusion, about what is required to lose weight, is to be considered a veiled insult, then the 'obesity problem' really will not be solved. It will be made considerably worse. I've sat here being quite careful not to insult fat people when really that kind of care is actually a total waste of time. They will be insulted no matter what I have to say on the subject. And you know what? I don't care. Anyone who is determined to be insulted by obvious advice will never be able to follow obvious advice and will obviously reach the obvious conclusion of their failure to understand the obvious.
Notice that I usually put 'obesity problem' in commas? I do this because I don't think it's a problem for society. I have no moral judgment of fat people, something that I seem to need to repeat over and over and over. I take Jackie's word for it that she doesn't care if she's eating and smoking herself to death. I don't care either, if it makes her happy, then she should do exactly that.
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I take Jackie's word for it that she doesn't care if she's eating and smoking herself to death
Honey, we're all dying. I just don't buy into all the malarkey about how chocolate is bad for you, and 10 ciggies a day makes you a walking corpse. Look, are you reading back what you're writing?
This is a futile argument, at cross-purposes, as all discussions about fatness tend to be.
And why would that be, Ben? Hmm? Could it be because for each person, it's a deeply personal thing?
if every discussion t about fatness which leads to the well known conclusion, about what is required to lose weight, is to be considered a veiled insult, then the 'obesity problem' really will not be solved.
Well, you see, I don't think that, in fact, discussions about fatness, are always about what is required to lose weight. I think that when people talk about fatness, there is subtext. When you talk about fatness, for some reason, nerves are hit. Now why would that be? IMHO, it's because all around us the message is: fat is bad, fat is gross, fat is unattractive etc. Whilst most people don't question that message, others internalise it, and women, in particular, spend years of their very short lives, attempting to fit into moulds that really, are unrealistic - because of hormones, and genetics, largely. And in the effort to lose weight, their metabolisms slow down, and their bodies hold onto fat cells, and guess what? They go on more diets to lose weight, and end up gaining more weight, which BTW is enormously straining on the heart. Why, you might ask, when all that is required is a bit less food in the mouth, and a bit more exercise? Because Ben, that's not how our bodies work, by and large. If we expend more energy than we consume, then logically, yes, we lose fat cells. But you see, it's never as simple as that. Does any of this make any sense to you? I just want you to understand that not all fatties are lazy, that not all adipose people are desperate to lose weight, and that, above all, as I think you may have discovered, like it or not, fat is a feminist issue (tm).
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In my opinion, in the majority of cases, no, there is no difference. Quitting is as simple as stopping smoking. Anything less is not quitting
Agreed, but people's decision to stop (or to start) smoking is influenced by such diverse external factors as the price of tobacco, how easily they can purchase it, the amount of advertising they are exposed to, the attitude of their peers, the inconvenience of going outside to smoke (really!) and whatever public health messages they have internalised. Yeah, they decide, and no one else decides for them, but there are factors in the world around them that influence the decision and make acting on it harder or easier.
So if we think the health effects of obesity are a matter of public concern (and I accept that's a matter for debate in itself), then we can and should look at factors that influence decisions about how and what we eat and exercise. Some of these can be changed through policy. And then people will continue to make their own decisions, but some people will make different ones because the input into their personal calculus has changed.
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If you think that physics does not come to bear, you are as wrong about that as if you thought your mental state would stop physics smashing you into the ground if you jumped off a tall building.
Ben, I'm not saying physics are not relevant, what I'm saying is that your simplistic application of Newtonion physics is not really relevant when talking about endocrine function; not in the way you believe it to be, anyway.
you don't have any answers which are any different to mine. You just have a much longer way of saying it.
No, my answers are very different answers to yours. In fact, some of my answers are the opposite of what you are saying. I'm contradicting you. Which is another way of saying you're wrong, unable to accept you're wrong, and it can be easily demonstrated how you are wrong. You're just unable to admit that you're wrong. Or perhaps unable to grasp how you're wrong. Which still adds up to you being not right .
And yes, state of mind (for instance the HPA axis that is so widely touted these days) will influence weight gain. State of mind will influence where the weight is gained, how much is gained and how detrimental that weight gain is. All these things are very dependent on the emotional state and social status of the individual. State of mind will influence whether a person has a stroke, a coronary, or even whether they will heal properly from surgery.
Notice that I usually put 'obesity problem' in commas? I do this because I don't think it's a problem for society.
Ben, what you think does not stack up against
that which has been can be tested and observed. What the scientists call "proof". You may not think obesity is a problem for society, but every clinical institution and health agency on earth would tell you you're wrong. -
Honey, we're all dying. I just don't buy into all the malarkey about how chocolate is bad for you, and 10 ciggies a day makes you a walking corpse.
I tend to agree. I've got my own poisons. They may kill me. I don't really care. I LIKE them ;-)
Look, are you reading back what you're writing?
Of course.
Could it be because for each person, it's a deeply personal thing?
Probably.
Well, you see, I don't think that, in fact, discussions about fatness, are always about what is required to lose weight.
This discussion was about that. I said time and again that there was no moral judgment at all. But it seems that many people wanted to have a completely different argument with me.
Why, you might ask, when all that is required is a bit less food in the mouth, and a bit more exercise? Because Ben, that's not how our bodies work, by and large. If we expend more energy than we consume, then logically, yes, we lose fat cells. But you see, it's never as simple as that. Does any of this make any sense to you?
It made sense right up until you said 'It's never as simple as that'. Because I can think of many a time when it was as simple as that. Our bodies do work exactly like that. What doesn't work like that is our minds. Some of our minds anyway. And that is the level I'm appealing at, incidentally. I don't hold out much hope since everyone following my advice cares not one whit for this debate, and everyone who refuses to follow it has heard it a thousand times. But you never know when a straw might break a camel's back until you hear the crack.
I just want you to understand that not all fatties are lazy, that not all adipose people are desperate to lose weight, and that, above all, as I think you may have discovered, like it or not, fat is a feminist issue (tm).
Cool, straw men all done then?
-Fatties are not lazy: Having spent untold hours in the gym with fat mates, I know this. Hence my point that the exercise doesn't help that much (although it's still a good thing to do if you like being fit and strong).
-Not all fat people are desperate to lose weight: Good for them.
-Fat is a feminist issue(tm): Fat isn't an issue at all. Unless you want it to be. So maybe you are right. -
Stephen, I'm not against a debate on how it is that you can convince people to stop smoking or lose weight. But I can tell you exactly what them doing that will look like. For the smokers, it will be them not smoking, and for the overweight, it will be them eating less. Anything else is crazy talk.
Which brings me to:
Dyan, you are missing the point, and I don't think you will ever get it. You're so caught up in your endocrinology you can't see that no matter what your endocrines are secreting, they aren't creating fat from nothing. That is a physical impossibility. OK, get it? It can't happen. If it did happen it would be a revolutionary event. Whoever discovered the means by which it could happen would get an instant Nobel prize. You seem to think that fat comes from air or light or something because I don't get where the hell else it comes from than the food we put in our mouths. I guess it could come from other methods of insertion into the body, but I'm going with the theory you're not advocating that.
What the hell are you advocating, actually? You're so determined to tell me that Newtonian physics doesn't apply to the heavenly fat molecules in our bodies, that you haven't shown one single thing about your vision for the end of fat in one single person. I actually do have a vision, an old vision, an obvious vision, a vision that has worked countless times. What have you got?
You may not think obesity is a problem for society, but every clinical institution and health agency on earth would tell you you're wrong.
And every person who's ever lost weight will tell me I'm right - that they did it THEMSELVES.
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Look. Here is something I find annoying: the 'you're just imagining what I said was insulting' argument. Ben, you said 'duplicitous' was taken out of context and was a mistake. Please, do let me recontextualise it for you: when you used it, you illustrated that word with a story of a fat man secretly eating chips in the middle of the night. You said 'They are very duplicitous about how much they are eating, both to others and to themselves.'
Now you've done some vague retraction by redefining what 'duplicitous' means to the extent that it doesn't, in fact, mean duplicitous any more. But I did not 'add a moral tone to it which was never there', and it's totally fucking disingenuous to say otherwise.
(I was about to say that I'm not normally this petty, but I think it's fairly conclusively proven that I am *exactly* this petty. Heh.)
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And every person who's ever lost weight will tell me I'm right - that they did it THEMSELVES.
I'm willing to bet the house that there aren't too many people who practice stomach reduction surgery on themselves.
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(I was about to say that I'm not normally this petty, but I think it's fairly conclusively proven that I am *exactly* this petty. Heh.)
Not to mention made of win, which should be of interest to science in a variety of ways.
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Awww, thanks. :)
But wait! Is the win messing up my endocrine system? I am concerned.
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"And every person who's ever lost weight will tell me I'm right- that they did it THEMSELVES."
O no they wont!
I have a (cousin circle) family member who was morbidly obese. She was also clinically depressed, and some of her meds added to the weight problem. Over a period of *7 years* - with much help from a pyschiatrist, her GP (finding other antidepressives), all her whanau, and a nutritionist, her weight is now within healthy parameters for her age, ancestry, and limited ability to exercise. She is the first to say, loudly, in hui settings, "I didnt do this by myself. I couldnt've done this
by myself. I needed -and got - a lot of help."BenWilson, I think you have a very interesting problem with accepting you can be wrong. It's fairly boring actually-
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Danielle, you were going to get bitter no matter what. Face it. And that was a true story, and the man himself said he realized he was being duplicitous, which is where the word came from. It's not the only example from my personal experience, which was all I ever claimed to be drawing from.
So yeah, fine. Duplicitous: Bad word in a fat debate. Try the other definitions I gave on, and tell me if you're less offended. Somehow I doubt it. Seems to me you're bitter to your very core about the entire position I hold. I'm a very bad man for not just doing as I'm told and thinking of fat people as sick in the head, rather than what I actually think, that they just need encouragement and support in doing the patently obvious, and even then, only if they actually ask for it.
I'm willing to bet the house that there aren't too many people who practice stomach reduction surgery on themselves.
Heh...touche. OK, people who get surgery for fatness excepted.
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All right then, Islander. I'm wrong. Morbidly obese, clinically depressed people excepted too. What percentage of fat people are we up to now?
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Apropos convincing people - well, I think if you want to change behaviour, work with human nature by creating an environment that makes change easy. Merely informing them is unlikely to work.
(Why isn't advertising simply a matter of informing you about quality and price? Why do supermarkets put confectionery by the till? Because people are not purely rational actors, and are sufficiently predictable in their irrationality that one can exploit this for commercial gain.)
Apropos the immutable laws of physics, you seem very hung up on energy in vs energy out. Do you understand that how much your body consumes, or stores, depends on factors other than the notional energy value of the food? Eg, if you swap out 400kJ of energy from legumes and vegetables, and replace it with white sugar, you will get fatter. Same energy intake, same activity levels, different hormonal response. I am sure that is what Dyan is talking about.
So finally, getting back to the claim that sparked this whole debate, if cheap food has a lot of simple carbs and a lot of fat, poverty is going to make people fat, not just because of energy-density, but because the composition of the food changes metabolism in a way that make one store more fat.
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BenWilson, good to see you can admit to being wrong! I have respect for anyone who can do that.
Meds, paticularly for mental illnesses, are very much implicated in weight gain (and, ironically, some appetite suppressants can contribute to mental illness...)
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Apropos convincing people - well, I think if you want to change behaviour, work with human nature by creating an environment that makes change easy. Merely informing them is unlikely to work.
Merely informing them is, however, a vital step. Misinforming them could be a step backwards.
But yup, I go along with that. It could work. It also might not. Time will tell.
Do you understand that how much your body consumes, or stores, depends on factors other than the notional energy value of the food?
Does it matter if I do? Each person is charged with the job of finding out how much it does store by looking to their fat. If it's increasing, the amount is more than enough. If it's decreasing, it's past the break even point. I'm from the school of thought that horsepower should be measured at the axles, rather than theorized about by taking into account every aspect of the engine, fuel, internal friction etc. One is delivered energy, the other is "Knowing shit that won't tell you what the delivered energy is".
I'm sure it's what Dyan was talking about too, and it's in the league of being as patently obvious as everything I've spoken of. There are many kinds of food. But I'm still not convinced Dyan actually gets it at all, and considers the human body a temple exempt from said immutable laws. He can tell me otherwise.
And finally, yup. I was kidding. I think I said this at least twice already. If the recession helps it won't be through enforced poverty, because that will not cause food shortages anyway. It will help only if it can be used as a time to reevaluate lifestyles, particularly attitudes towards excessive and needless consumption. Or not.
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