Cure for Obesity editorial in Tme

[John Adams]

The Best Cure for Obesity? Personal Responsibility

 

Regardless of whether it's now a disease, there are currently no medical cures for obesity that improve on willpower

 

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/26/the-best-cure-for-obesity-personal-responsibility/#ixzz2XVKYIeKs

 

The opinion is harshly delivered but the bottom line is hard to argue. Obesity continues to be a problem that plagues the US. Not sure if her tough love is better than the accept everyone approach.

[Keukasmallies]

Fat chance....

[ExiledInIllinois]

I wonder where shift work (even shift work disorder) fits into all of this? Sometimes it is hard to have "will power" when one is so darn tired. Very easy to make poor choices. One is basically eating the sleeping. A deadly combo!

[John Adams]

I wonder where shift work (even shift work disorder) fits into all of this? Sometimes it is hard to have "will power" when one is so darn tired. Very easy to make poor choices. One is basically eating the sleeping. A deadly combo!

 

Willpower is always hard. Ice cream never tastes bad, tired or not.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Willpower is always hard. Ice cream never tastes bad, tired or not.

 

True. I have been up since 4 pm yesterday (nothing to eat or drink since)... I am gonna go home in 45 minutes have dinner and hit the hay. I don't take in that many calories... But sleep pattern is all screwed. Every week I work a different shift. One week I am on days, next on evenings, and then midnights. Even on a sensible diet, easy to gain weight. One has to starve themselves. It isn't about taste. Sometimes you find yourself eating while almost asleep... Like sleep walking but sleep eating! Pretty effed up!

Edited June 28, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois

[ExiledInIllinois]

Best tactic I find is to have NO food in the house.

[KD in CA]

Best tactic I find is to have NO food in the house.

 

Of course. If you don't buy ice cream at the store, it's not in your freezer. If you order a salad for lunch instead of a Big Mac and fries, you'll weigh less. It's not that complicated.

 

Willpower may be hard for some people, but I sure as !@#$ don't want your lack of willpower to be my problem.

[Hazed and Amuzed]

Cure for obesity? Exercise and eat right. The end.

[Gugny]

Unless one has a medical condition that contributes to his/her obesity, It really is all about willpower. It's really that simple.

 

Willpower and smart/healthy choices. If one employs those two things, one will avoid (or reverse) obesity.

[John Adams]

Hara hachi bu or translated into English, "Eat until you're 80% full." That's a Japanese saying.

 

Another that I just read confirming the pronunciation of that saying is "eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor."

 

Reading the comments on that article is eye opening. A lot of people are furious at the author.

Edited June 28, 2013 by John Adams

[Hazed and Amuzed]

Unless one has a medical condition that contributes to his/her obesity, It really is all about willpower. It's really that simple.

 

Willpower and smart/healthy choices. If one employs those two things, one will avoid (or reverse) obesity.

Completely agree, it's about choices. If you CHOSE to eat fast food and sweets and CHOSE to not exercise than you have no one to blame but yourself. And it's okay to indulge from time to time, in fact its good for your metabolism to eat like a pig every once in awhile but when it becomes the norm and not the exception then you have to do something about it.

 

Also using the excuse "I don't have the time" to eat healthy or exercise is BS. It literally takes 10 min worth of work to throw a couple of lbs of chicken breasts in the oven and seal it in plastic bags when its done. You can find microwavable brown minute rice, buy pre-cut fruit or a jar of peanuts.

[Just Jack]

Hara hachi bu or translated into English, "Eat until you're 80% full." That's a Japanese saying.

 

Another that I just read confirming the pronunciation of that saying is "eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor."

 

Reading the comments on that article is eye opening. A lot of people are really angry at the author.

 

When I was in China, the tour guide told us they "eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper". The idea of course being as the day progresses, you're eating less because you won't/don't need as much energy later in the day.

 

I have yet to follow this advice though.

[KD in CA]

When I was in China, the tour guide told us they "eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper". The idea of course being as the day progresses, you're eating less because you won't/don't need as much energy later in the day.

 

I have yet to follow this advice though.

 

Yup, the American method of eating the huge meal late in the day (typcially followed by slothing on the couch for a few hours before going to bed) is not conducive to good health. The Euro method of having the big meal mid-day and a small supper makes a lot more sense.

 

And of course, people skipping breakfast (or getting it at Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds) is a further problem.

[eball]

Hara hachi bu or translated into English, "Eat until you're 80% full." That's a Japanese saying.

 

Another that I just read confirming the pronunciation of that saying is "eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor."

 

Reading the comments on that article is eye opening. A lot of people are furious at the author.

 

Love that saying. With respect to the article comments (I haven't looked), I'd bet you dollars to donuts the posters are obese.

 

There is certainly a dearth of personal responsibility and accountability in this country. We are a nation of "victims" and I hate it.

[The Big Cat]

Tough to tell which side of stupidity this particular commenter is on:

 

 

Lionel Shriver is an ignorant jerk. You try getting raped daily and abused as a child and not pick up an eating disorder you stupid punk. Overeating is what humans do when they try to compensate for things that are missing in our lives. If you don't get enough sleep you will eat to stay up late. If you don't get exercise you won't have enough endorphines and you will overeat. If you go to restaurants who serve food in portions that are big enough to justify the prices they pay because they have to make rent your concept of portion size will be destroyed. and when you have parents who work 12 hours a day, have children and stressed about money, the quick and easy fix is to take a little solace in food. We have become a society of human doings, not human beings and we are all pressed beyond our limits with respect to our time, energy and emotional resources. There are a lot of good reasons why our nation is becoming obese but willpower has little to nothing to do with it! BOYCOTT TIME MAGAZINE FOR PROMOTING SUCH STUPIDITY!

 

Honestly, it really bothers me that people so passionately refute the author's way of thinking.

 

If you can justify the unhealthy lifestyle that leads to obesity, then those acknowledging said obesity and subsequent lack of health are likewise justified, right? I mean, that's totally !@#$ing sane, right?

 

If you're going to give a million !@#$ing excuses as to why you're fat, you can't denigrate the people calling you fat!

[John Adams]

Love that saying. With respect to the article comments (I haven't looked), I'd bet you dollars to donuts the posters are obese.

 

There is certainly a dearth of personal responsibility and accountability in this country. We are a nation of "victims" and I hate it.

 

From the article

 

But there is no perfect cure, and the one enduringly effective therapy out there is the exercise of personal responsibility. (No, I will not buy potato chips.) Medicalizing the condition actually undermines personal responsibility by turning something you get rid of into something you chronically have. And even then, the overweight cannot embrace the alcoholic’s total abstinence. We all have to eat, and so, barring removing part of your stomach, we all have to make choices about what and how much.

 

One Comment

 

I am very disappointed in Time for publishing this bigoted, victim-shaming essay. It's very easy to armchair quarterback another person's life, but to live it and know all the things that make up that life is impossible.This was written by a novelist, not a nutritionist, doctor, or other medical specialist. What a judgmental article.

 

Another

 

Assuming you actually lost a ton of weight, which I highly doubt, then you're one of the lucky few who can lose weight and maintain in long term. Good for you. Study after study demonstrates this is abnormal. Pat yourself on the back all you want for having good genetics, or whatever unknown factor it is that allows you to be part of that 5%.

I speak for the 95% of people who cannot maintain long term weight loss. It has nothing to do with how "hard" we try or "personal responsibility."

Do you SERIOUSLY believe that people would WILLINGLY subject themselves to the opinions, hatred and unabashed bigotry of "people" like you if they had a CHOICE? Really?

And for the record, I happen to be sick. I know how it is to live day after day in chronic pain. So I know exactly what I wished on you, but I honestly don't know how else people like you can be reached other than to have to live the life you so rashly and harshly criticize. While I HAVE known a handful of former fat people who hated themselves to the extent required to perpetuate the hatred you've expressed on others who are like they were once, more likely you're full of it. Either way, I don't see any way you'd learn other than being fat and NOT being able to successfully lose weight, regardless of what you attempt to do to your body.

 

Those are not the angriest. I just wonder how to both acknowledge that it's a willpower issue while also helping people keep their will up and not being harsh.

Edited June 28, 2013 by John Adams

[eball]

I just posted a comment to the article, for chits and grins. Wonder how many hateful responses I'll get.

[The Big Cat]

I gained a bunch of weight from 2010-2011. From 2011-2012 it was impossible for me to lose weight. Literally, impossible.

 

So, during my annual physical, I asked my doctor to do blood work. Turns out my thyroid levels were off the charts. "High" TSH levels would be like 10, mine were 282...my doctor was shocked and I'm something of a legend in the endocrine lab.

 

Now I take a synthroid, every morning. I will for the rest of my life. It's cheap, but it keeps my body functioning (at 282, weight gain wasn't my only symptom, believe you me.)

 

And you know what? Even though it's easier to exercise now, even though I have lost weight, and will continue to do so, it's still just a little bit harder for me than for someone with an endocrine system in ship-shape. Because of that, I work a little harder, eat a little less. Is that fair? Probably not. Is that life? You're !@#$ing-a right it is.

 

But I didn't just quit on it and except a life being overweight. I consulted my doctor, got fixed and now work a little harder. These comments piss me off because people can point to all these conditions that make them fat, but rather than change them, they just lean on them, like crutches.

 

They end up making the author's point for him!

[Dorkington]

Willpower is fine and all, but really should do something about all the sugar and salt that gets into our foods in the US. But I know that many people don't like regulations, so I doubt that would be popular. Oh, also if there was some sort of social encouragement for restaurants to serve smaller portions, and if we didn't feel the need to clean our plates even when full. There's a lot of things that can be done that can pick away at the obesity problem, there's no real magic pill, but it will take the work of not only the individual, but also the community.

[The Big Cat]

Willpower is fine and all, but really should do something about all the sugar and salt that gets into our foods in the US. But I know that many people don't like regulations, so I doubt that would be popular. Oh, also if there was some sort of social encouragement for restaurants to serve smaller portions, and if we didn't feel the need to clean our plates even when full. There's a lot of things that can be done that can pick away at the obesity problem, there's no real magic pill, but it will take the work of not only the individual, but also the community.

 

Restaurants don't mandate you clean your plate (a). I rarely do because (b): LEFTOVERS.

 

Again, will power.