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1

Time to light up and jump on a treadmill.

Posted by Amelia | October 17, 2007 10:03 AM
2

As a smoker, it seriously chaps my ass every time I have some fatass talk down to me about how much I'm ruining my health...

yes, yes, I know I'm killing myself, but coming from them its pure hypocrisy.

Posted by Black Kettle | October 17, 2007 10:10 AM
3

We need government subsidies for dogs. They're like little, furry exercise machines.

Posted by Gitai | October 17, 2007 10:16 AM
4

Dan- who's saying it's a myth? You= preacher, us= choir. Again.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 10:31 AM
5

What Big Sven said.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 10:34 AM
6

But ice cream tastes so much better than cigarettes!!!
Damn!

Posted by subwlf | October 17, 2007 10:38 AM
7

Black Kettle- fuck you, addict. It seriously chaps my ass every time I have some white trash douchebag yell "fatass" at my as I'm riding my bike down the street.

I work out 3-4 times/week, count calories every day, have seen a nutritionist, regularly see a psychotherapist about my obesity, and still I am 75 lb overweight.

Have you ever seen the stats on weight loss programs? LESS THAN 5% OF THE OBESE PEOPLE WHO LOSE WEIGHT KEEP IT OFF LONG TERM. That's not because 95% don't really want to lose the weight. It's because once you put the weight on, it's *almost* impossible to take it off. About the only solutions that work are the surgically invasive ones, and at 37 I've decided that (for now) the risks associated with the surgery outweigh the benefits.

I *love* efforts to try to keep people from becoming obese, but ignorant ad hominem attacks like yours are 100% pure bullshit.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 10:39 AM
8

@7

Here's an idea. Why don't you just stop putting food in your mouth???

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | October 17, 2007 10:44 AM
9

Fat people should have their fat mined as a source of fuel for America....

God knows they are not doing anything else.... LOL!!! (That was funny!!)

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 10:44 AM
10

@7,

Of course, it can also be very difficult to quit smoking. But, I know what you mean.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 17, 2007 10:44 AM
11

It isn't difficult to quit smoking. I do it all the time.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 10:48 AM
12

@8 Yeah dude, that's the answer...how about starvation? Such a tool...

Posted by JessB | October 17, 2007 10:48 AM
13

I starve my pussy once a month.

Posted by niggas im serious | October 17, 2007 10:54 AM
14

For all you Fat Asses out there. Obesity is a RECENT development primarily in America. Bottom line, it is fat people's fault (well 90% of it) VERY VERY little has anything to do with genetics. Genetics is a TENDACY towards being heavier, NOT the cause. It you have the tendancy the EAT LESS.

I know we have bred common sence and personal responsibility out of the species at this point but if you are fat, look in the mirror and blame the double/triple chin monster looking back at you.

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 10:56 AM
15

@12

Okay, let me rephrase that: “Here's an idea. Why don't you just stop putting too much unhealthy food in your mouth???”

It’s false to argue that the only choices are feast and famine. There are such things as reasonable moderation, self control and personal responsibility.

(You ignorant jackass.)

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | October 17, 2007 11:05 AM
16

I'm not exactly the most PC guy on the face of the planet...in fact I'm the exact opposite. But still, Just Me, you are being a liiiiittle judgemental here, and I'm not hearing any jest in your tone. That makes you mean.

Fact: Fat people are cooler than mean people.

And you pulled that 90% statistic right out of your ass.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 11:05 AM
17

Of course, a person is responsible for whatever they choose to put in their mouth, and in what quantity.

But in the last 50 years, our food choices have changed a lot. It's much harder to find nutritious, non-fatty food than it used to be. To eat REALLY well takes a lot of research and searching.

For a lot of folks, eating healthy just isn't worth the effort.

Posted by mattymatt | October 17, 2007 11:06 AM
18

Study after study shows that limiting ones food consumption and regular excercise WILL keep you at a proper weight. It's scientific certainty.

Although poster 8 was crass, it is the truth. Stop eating more food than necessary and you will lose weight. If you want to lose it quicker, exercise.
If you can't stop stuffing your pie-hole, then exercise more.

I've lost 35lbs and kept all but 5-10lbs off for over 10 years. The only reason I gained weight back was because I started eating too much and stopped exercise. Very simple.

Also, will people please stop fetishising living to 80 years old. I mean c'mon, the mythical life span crap has got to stop. If I eat, drink, smoke, and live to 70 instead of 80 I'll take that over wringing my hands over what to eat for dinner.

Do you want to live forever, or just live life fully?

Posted by Medina | October 17, 2007 11:06 AM
19

Just Me- absolutely, positively, I ate my way into this problem. But what I'm saying is that losing and keeping weight off has been SHOWN to be harder than quitting smoking or heroin, so perhaps this reflexive venom skinny people have towards fat people is less than compassionate.

Put another way- do you blame the homeless guy for being homeless? He can just get a job, can't he? How about the battered wife- she can just go out and start a new life, right? Only with obesity do so many of you healthy people feel such a glee in mocking and belittling the person with a problem.

So by all means PREVENT people from becoming obese, but show some fucking SYMPATHY for people who are already so.

ps- while I totally ate my way into this problem, there is a progressive argument at McDonalds, Lay's, Hershey's, etc. have an economic stake in keeping people fat. I'm not a fan of sin taxes, but it's not like the system isn't built around feeding whatever you want whenever you want it into your gullet.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 11:11 AM
20

If losing weight is harder than quitting heroin, why not take heroin, lose weight, and then quit heroin?

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 11:13 AM
21

I have to pay a hefty tax on every pack of cigs I buy. This is to pay for the "extra" medical costs we smokers generate by getting sick from all our smoking. When obese people have to pay a tax on fast food, soda, candy, pastries, etc. to pay for the special equipment hospitals need to accomodate their size when *they* get sick, I'll stop bitching about this issue. And @7, you won't have to pay the tax because you don't buy these things. See, everyone wins.

Posted by winterwoman | October 17, 2007 11:16 AM
22

I definitely blame homeless people for being homeless. I mean, I used to look around for another scapegoat, but usually it's just the guy and his forty, and am i really gonna blame an inanimate object for taking down a human being?

Posted by eloise | October 17, 2007 11:18 AM
23

Medina- first of all, congrats on keeping the weight off. Awesome.

For most people, however, there is a huge difference between TAKING the weight off and KEEPING it off. For some fucked up reason, people can't seem to keep the weight off.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/wgtloss.html

"An estimated 50 million Americans will go on diets this year. And while some will succeed in taking the weight off, very few--perhaps 5 percent--will manage to keep all of it off in the long run."

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 11:21 AM
24

winterwoman-

"When obese people have to pay a tax on fast food, soda, candy, pastries, etc. to pay for the special equipment hospitals need to accomodate their size..."

Hospital equipment goes up to 350lb. I know because I have a buddy who's 6'10" and 390lb. So among all the concern out there for us fat people and our costs to you healthy folks, please rest assured that specialized hospital equipment is a miniscule contributor.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 11:29 AM
25

Mr. Poe-

I've always resisted trying heroin because people say it's better than sex, and I would like sex to continue to be the ne plus ultra of my existence.

But I will run your plan by my health care provider, and see what he says.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 11:32 AM
26

My family stock is of the short, round, farm-people kind. Mercifully I was able to break that by, wait for it, eating less and exercising more. I lost 80lbs almost 15 years ago and have kept it off. Looking at my family, one might think it was genetic. Perhaps part of it is. I recognize also, though, that I am able to make better food choices than my parents were as poor folks in rural Indiana.

Posted by Michigan Matt | October 17, 2007 11:50 AM
27

Big Sven,

You do not need to talk to your "Health Care providers". They don't know know what they're talking about. That's why you're still trying to lose weight.

You need to listen to my advice. I know everything.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 11:52 AM
28

You're all making me so hungry...

Posted by I'm skinny, bitch! | October 17, 2007 11:55 AM
29

@27- Your taxes don't even begin to cover teh expense you add to society. Currently you pay about 2.50 dollars per pack, to cover the average cost you would have to pay an additional $5.00 MINIMUM per pack. So I guess that means you can take your own advice and shut it.

What I don't understand is how there is more animus toward obese people than there are toward smokers. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Posted by Johnny | October 17, 2007 11:56 AM
30

For most people, however, there is a huge difference between TAKING the weight off and KEEPING it off. For some fucked up reason, people can't seem to keep the weight off.

Instead of permanently changing their lifestyles to exercise more and eat less, people usually go on drastic weight-loss plans that are unsustainable in the long-term and when they inevitably fall off the wagon, they return to their old habits and the weight comes back. Is there anything really mysterious or shocking about that? Your link even spells it out.

If you expend more energy than you take in, you will lose weight. Genetics don't suspend the 2nd law.

Posted by Aexia | October 17, 2007 12:03 PM
31

Or keep telling us that anyone who criticizes obesity is just fat-phobic or whatever else.

Being black, gay or being disabled doesn't kill you. Being morbidly overweight does.

Posted by Gomez | October 17, 2007 12:07 PM
32

I'm sorry, Big Sven, I was being snide and sarcastic. You see, smokers pay the tax whether they get sick or not. I could be snider by speculating that of course all the money collected on the cig tax is "only" used on smoking ills. My point is that while both smokers and overweight people get ostracized, smokers are taxed an obscene amount of money for each pack of cigs they buy (in Oregon) and overweight people are not taxed at all.

Posted by winterwoman | October 17, 2007 12:11 PM
33

@29

Where are you getting your cigarette tax figures...? Please explain. Last time I checked, we don't have Universal Healthcare, and I've not once heard anything about ciggy taxes going to insurance companies to offset the cost to non-smoking individuals.

So then, what the hell are those taxes for exactly? (Besides filling budget holes, of course)

Posted by Black Kettle | October 17, 2007 12:14 PM
34

I used to be over 200 pounds years ago and now am a nice 6 foot tall frame wieghing 165 pounds. How you ask? I FUCKING EAT LESS AND WORKING OUT AND RUNNING.

Am I judgemental? HELL YEAH I AM!!! MY insurance rates are going sky rocketing in part BECAUSE of FAT PEOPLE!! So it is hitting my pocket book. So YES, I am going to be judgemental IN YOUR FACE!!

Fat people choose to be fat. They can chose to be skinny. I should know and BTW my entire fucking homophobic family are a bunch of lard-asses. So the genetic tendency can be overcome.

GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! (BTW, fat people owe us skinny people reparations for out of control insurance costs. PAY UP!!)

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 12:28 PM
35

I think the obesiety/overweight issues is the combination of so many factors, not just one. It's not just genetics. Our foods we eat now are more processed, coloric and others ways being less nutritional. The cheaper costing foods are usually less healthy for us. Portion sizes given to us in restaurants are above normal meal sizes. Our bodies are build to slow down eating ("feeling full") when all we eat is one food type. That served our ancestors well, but we have so many food types to eat now - the "buffet".

Also I gotta say as a good diet was my use of amphentamines. I took it to combat ADD - it did little to effect this and so I stopped the medication. Nonetheless I lost 30 pounds while on the medication (side effect) without changing exercise routines. I made some positive changes in my diet alongside this medication (it really changed my eating desires- I really did not want chocolate for example) and hope to keep it going forward.

Posted by Waka-Waka-Waka | October 17, 2007 12:31 PM
36
Posted by johnny | October 17, 2007 12:38 PM
37

@29

All kidding aside, I guarantee you that I pay more taxes than you do. Also, your little tax tangent to my (obvious) joking comment was so ridiculous it actually made me laugh. Thanks. Jackass.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 12:59 PM
38

huh, Dan, seems like that report is based on previous studies that have come under criticism for measuring BMI and associated health risks, but not looking at levels of physical activity, not looking at age, and other variables. It's not saying anything new.

Posted by Fat ass scientist | October 17, 2007 1:15 PM
39

Being fat and smoking are both things that help kill people before they reach Medicare age, after which people die of other things that are no less expensive to treat. So they probably lower our taxes. Moreover, eating a lot and smoking also happen to be things many people enjoy. So I'm in favor of them both.

Posted by CG | October 17, 2007 1:34 PM
40

Fat people have their usefulness in making me feel much better about myself and thankful for my appearance.

Smokers don't have any usefulness to me.


FATTIES PLZ!

Posted by wench | October 17, 2007 2:32 PM
41

@30,

There's a lot of new evidence coming out that shows that, once people have been following a particular lifestyle, it's virtually impossible to change over the long term. It's due to a connection between the digestive system and the brain. When the digestive system doesn't get as much food as it's used to, it sends signals telling the brain to eat more. Additionally, when people exercise, their bodies automatically want more food. More calories burned = body hungry, want cookies.

In fact, one of the reasons why stomach stapling is one of the few truly effective weight loss methods is that it disrupts the digestive system's demands on the brain.

So, in other words, this...

If you expend more energy than you take in, you will lose weight. Genetics don't suspend the 2nd law.

...is a whole lotta bullshit.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 17, 2007 2:43 PM
42

@34,

Am I judgemental? HELL YEAH I AM!!! MY insurance rates are going sky rocketing in part BECAUSE of FAT PEOPLE!! So it is hitting my pocket book. So YES, I am going to be judgemental IN YOUR FACE!!

If you're that fucking upset about it, lobby your representatives/write letters to your insurance company and ask them to increase premiums for fat people. They've done it to smokers, there's no reason they can't do it to people with high BMIs. If the best you can do is to vilify fat people (as if they don't get that shit from everyone everyday), then you're a waste of flesh.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 17, 2007 2:46 PM
43

Keshmeshi's on fire!

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 2:50 PM
44

Well, 90% of these posts just confirm one thing: skinny people are so deprived of calories that they can't get their brains to work. On the other hand, I am fat and my brain, aided by psychotropic medications, works very well, thank you very much. Regurgitating headlines from junk science and basing prejudices on those headlines without checking out the validity of the studies or checking to see if they even controlled for all the variables is dumb. D_U_M_B. If you really think it is okay to a) hate people for not being you and b) bank all of your prejudices on dubious studies, then by all means, go enjoy your life with all of your skinny friends and feel good about being a bigot. You will still be a bigot and I will still be fat. I can't change either of those things.

Posted by Kristin Bell | October 17, 2007 3:02 PM
45

Fat people don't bother me (except maybe spilling over into my airplane seat). But smokers come into work with their clothes and hair smelling like crap, throw butts on the sidewalk and out their car windows, force us to walk through their disgusting smoke when entering and leaving bars and restaurants and, to a large extent, don't seem to give a crap about anybody else.

So yeah, tax them to hell.

Posted by SkinnyNonSmoker | October 17, 2007 3:37 PM
46

Gee, there is a LOT of anger here.

From the International Journal of Epidemiology,

what we have seen, in the US, is a relatively modest rightward skewing of average weight on the distribution curve, with people of lower weights gaining little or no weight, and the majority of people weighing ~3–5 kg more than they did a generation ago. [...] Imagine that the average IQ was 100 and that five percent of the population had an IQ of 140 and were considered to be geniuses. Now let’s say that education improves and the average IQ increases to 107 and 10% of the population has an IQ of > 140. You could present the data in two ways. You could say that average IQ is up seven points or you could say that because of improved education the number of geniuses has doubled. The whole obesity debate is equivalent to drawing conclusions about national education programmes by saying that the number of geniuses has doubled.
Source: http://www.soc.ucla.edu/faculty/saguy/IJE.pdf
Posted by JenK | October 17, 2007 5:16 PM
47

yawwwn. Every single time anyone utters the dirty F word a carbon copy of the same comment string appears. "fat people spill into my airplane seat", "I was on a diet where I only sucked oxygen from a can and I STILL weigh 300 pounds!", "Fat people make me want to punch babies!" blah blah blah.

Fellow fatties-eat less, move friggin more. It works. Fattie haters- When you see a fat person working out, or on bike, or heaven forbid in a swimsuit at the lap pool...leave them the hell alone. Your comments about the size of the junk in their trunks will only lead to tears, another pint of chunky monkey, and less room on that bus seat.


Posted by jewritto | October 17, 2007 5:18 PM
48

yawwwn. Every single time anyone utters the dirty F word a carbon copy of the same comment string appears. "fat people spill into my airplane seat", "I was on a diet where I only sucked oxygen from a can and I STILL weigh 300 pounds!", "Fat people make me want to punch babies!" blah blah blah.

Fellow fatties-eat less, move friggin more. It works. Fattie haters- When you see a fat person working out, or on bike, or heaven forbid in a swimsuit at the lap pool...leave them the hell alone. Your comments about the size of the junk in their trunks will only lead to tears, another pint of chunky monkey, and less room on that bus seat you bitch about so much.

Posted by jewritto | October 17, 2007 5:19 PM
49

And as for taxing fat people and making insurance higher for them...okay, then let's categorize everyone according to every illness or possibility of illness that they might foresee-ably become afflicted with. I hear there are tests for some kinds of cancer and other weird diseases, so lets make sure that they all get higher premiums. And if you break your leg while running your triathalon you should get a higher premium, because you are using up resources AND athletes are KNOWN to get lots of expensive injuries which require expensive treatments like surgery and the such. Meanwhile, we should definitely put a high tax on little 12 year old kids that have cancer or MD and other stuff like that. They sure do cost a lot. And if your relatives have had heart troubles or strokes then we should tax you higher too, because you will definitely cause trouble. If you are male you are more likely to die and have problems at a younger age, so we should tax you higher. Let's just tax every little bit of everybody's body and possibility of disease and make sure to penalize people for living longer, because they will take up more resources by NOT dying.

Yah, WHATEVER! Who the fuck do you care about anyway? The fucking bloodsucking insurance companies??? You really are so fucking thick in the head that you don't think that ANYONE ELSE on the planet uses up medical care than a bunch of fat people??? The last time I checked HIV and AIDS tend to make people shrink away like there is no tomorrow...oh yeah and so does cancer...do you think those treatments and medications are FREE? And who cares?!?

The problem isn't the fucking fat people, the problem is the scummy insurance/medical industry. God forbid people should actually utilize modern medicine! Why don't we all just go back to the stone ages and STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ANY AND ALL MEDICAL RESOURCES! By God, then your pitiable little health insurance premiums will be a dollar or two cheaper. Will that make you happier??? Do you want to see people dying from everything that can be treated medically?

Grow the hell up, seriously. Your logic couldn't stand up to a three year old. You make no sense and all that shows through is your bigotry.

And while you are bothering to write to your senators and congressional leaders about how fattie mcfatperson is taking up all of your supposedly limited resources, why don't you try doing SOMETHING WORTHWHILE like telling the people you are going to vote for you won't vote for them unless they do something to make sure that everyone in this place—the wealthiest country in the world—has medical coverage so people don't have to die from being poor and disenfranchised???

GAH! But don't listen to me, because I'm fattie mcfatperson and I can't even follow a simple diet and exercise plan, so I shouldn't be allowed to even talk!

Posted by Kristin Bell | October 17, 2007 8:40 PM

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