Obesity

[Ologhai Jones]

I was interested to note that obesity is referred to as a 'disorder' in a news article on the BBC website about 'rewiring' appetite in the brain.

I'm not saying it is or isn't a disorder, but the word certainly jumped out at me.

[200p]

We're in a new age of reclassification.

If I become a mass murderer, it wasn't my fault, I developed a disorder.

[Save me from the madness!]

I was interested to note that obesity is referred to as a 'disorder' in a news article on the BBC website about 'rewiring' appetite in the brain.

I'm not saying it is or isn't a disorder, but the word certainly jumped out at me.

I'd class obesity as a consequence of not doing enough exercise for the amount of calories you eat over a prolonged period of time. There may be some rare biological disorders that cause people to gain weight, but these will have their own medical name and are nowhere near as prevalent as severely overweight people are today (it's interesting how many of them claim to have the 'fat' gene without ever having had an extensive DNA analysis done).

My personal belief is that obesity is a choice that person has made, either conscious or sub-conscious (e.g. their are people at my work who take high flier jobs and spend lots of time in hotels, restaurants and bars due to work and so leave themselves very little time to exercise and have become obese, so they have chosen money and carer over a healthy weight range at least for a period of their life.

[Bloo Loo]

I'd class obesity as a consequence of not doing enough exercise for the amount of calories you eat over a prolonged period of time. There may be some rare biological disorders that cause people to gain weight, but these will have their own medical name and are nowhere near as prevalent as severely overweight people are today (it's interesting how many of them claim to have the 'fat' gene without ever having had an extensive DNA analysis done).

My personal belief is that obesity is a choice that person has made, either conscious or sub-conscious (e.g. their are people at my work who take high flier jobs and spend lots of time in hotels, restaurants and bars due to work and so leave themselves very little time to exercise and have become obese, so they have chosen money and carer over a healthy weight range at least for a period of their life.

surely obesity is the "condition" the patient presents, the "disorder" is the means the condition was acheived.

[porca misèria]

A condition can be passed to you by your parents without being genetic.

In the case of obesity, the non-genetic non-lifestyle seeds are sown during your mother's pregnancy and the first two years of life. The best-known and best-documented determinant is whether you're breast-fed or bottle-fed, but it appears not to be the only such influence.

[The Masked Tulip]

We're in a new age of reclassification.

If I become a mass murderer, it wasn't my fault, I developed a disorder.

Yep, everything is a disorder now. It is a politically correct no backbone way of telling people they are nuts or obese without hurting their feelings.

"I have a disorder" is so much better than "I am a greedy fat so and so who can't stop eating junk food" or "I am a nut-job who wants to stick a pick-axe in your head".

The thing is that it does not help people. It allows them to carry on regardless.

It is all to do with just this bl**dy huge NHS civil service of middle managers creating jobs and work for themselves to justify their positions. It is pointless - and such a waste of their fecking lives.

[pyracantha]

It's just another way for people to avoid personal responsibility.

Everything is someone else's fault.

[The Masked Tulip]

It's just another way for people to avoid personal responsibility.

Everything is someone else's fault.

Personal responsibility avoidance disorder?

[pyracantha]

Personal responsibility avoidance disorder?

You're not a part-time out-reach community-based mental-health awareness officer are you?

[cashinmattress]

I was interested to note that obesity is referred to as a 'disorder' in a news article on the BBC website about 'rewiring' appetite in the brain.

I'm not saying it is or isn't a disorder, but the word certainly jumped out at me.

Its a shocker. When I was in grade school we had perhaps one fatty in the class, and by fat, I mean only slightly overweight and unable to do all of the gymnastics and sports.

Today's classrooms have so many kids with spare tires. Disgusting.

Read: Pure, White And Deadly: How sugar is killing us and what we can do to stop it

[crashmonitor]

I'd class obesity as a consequence of not doing enough exercise for the amount of calories you eat over a prolonged period of time. There may be some rare biological disorders that cause people to gain weight, but these will have their own medical name and are nowhere near as prevalent as severely overweight people are today (it's interesting how many of them claim to have the 'fat' gene without ever having had an extensive DNA analysis done).

My personal belief is that obesity is a choice that person has made, either conscious or sub-conscious (e.g. their are people at my work who take high flier jobs and spend lots of time in hotels, restaurants and bars due to work and so leave themselves very little time to exercise and have become obese, so they have chosen money and carer over a healthy weight range at least for a period of their life.

A problem overweight people have, I believe, is being unable to asssess how much they are eating. They under-estimate how much they are eating and over-estimate how much to put on a dinner plate. Snacking especially seems to be a point of denial and amnesia.

We have a friend who has a serious weight problem and never eats anything apparently including the king size bountys she buys at the pound shop.

[The Masked Tulip]

You're not a part-time out-reach community-based mental-health awareness officer are you?

No, but I am a part-time out-reach community-based LGBT & gender neutral mental-health awareness officer (fatties sub-section).

[pyracantha]

No, but I am a part-time out-reach community-based LGBT & gender neutral mental-health awareness officer (fatties sub-section).

You'd fit right in with Glasgow city council recruitment policies then...

[Nuggets Mahoney]

I'd class obesity as a consequence of not doing enough exercise for the amount of calories you eat over a prolonged period of time. There may be some rare biological disorders that cause people to gain weight, but these will have their own medical name and are nowhere near as prevalent as severely overweight people are today (it's interesting how many of them claim to have the 'fat' gene without ever having had an extensive DNA analysis done).

I think the human body is a complicated biological mechanism which is, when functioning properly, capable of regulating its calorie usage.

A kilo of fat contains roughly 9,000 calories. In the simplistic thermodynamic model some people imagine applies to human beings, only 50 calories (half a slice of bread) of consumption over the odds every day for 20 years would have someone putting on 40kg of additional mass.

An extra Mars Bar a day at 280 calories for 20 years would increase a person's weight by 227kg

Two Mars Bars 554kg.

It's not as simple as a question of raw calories.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

So what is a disorder? Something abnormal or different to the norm? I suppose When obesity is the result of abnormal eating patterns or abnormal lack of exercise this train of thought is logical.

I think it's the result of the culture we live in, we have this absurd idea that there is a sane, sound 'norm' that people would tend towards in the absence of any 'abnormalities' physical or mental. Nobody matches this norm in every way, so everyone suffers from a disorder of some type but we still have the concept of a healthy, sane 'non-disordered' person.

If being lardy was good enough for Buddha, why isn't it good enough for anyone else?

P

Some people are chunky because that's the way they are built

Some people are chunky because they are sedentary and they eat a lot

Some people, I suspect a lot of people, are chunky because they eat processed carp which ****s up their body chemistry

Some people like taking complex, multi-variable issues and pretending that they are simple, single variable issues.

I'm not sure which I find most disconcerting; those who would label any variation from the 'norm' as being a 'disorder' or those who would use that variation as a justification to vilify others. If fat people are uniformly 'bad' presumably that means thin people are uniformly 'bad' as well? Or maybe they are 'good'?

[winkie]

You can look it up.....but it is all to do with the proportion of brown and white fat cells you have.

[Ologhai Jones]

I'd class obesity as a consequence of not doing enough exercise for the amount of calories you eat over a prolonged period of time. There may be some rare biological disorders that cause people to gain weight, but these will have their own medical name and are nowhere near as prevalent as severely overweight people are today (it's interesting how many of them claim to have the 'fat' gene without ever having had an extensive DNA analysis done).

I imagine it makes people feel better (makes them feel that they're off the hook) if they can attribute their excess weight to a 'gene'. After all, you can't do anything about your genes, right? But isn't every aspect of a person's body chemistry, parental upbringing, brain wiring, etc.--in short, all their tendencies, tolerances and preferences--beyond a person's control in just the same way as genetics is?

If I have a tendency to avoid eating things that would make me overweight[1], can I really take credit for that tendency, any more than a person who finds they tend not be able to resist such foods most of the time can take the blame for that piece of brain wiring (or whatever it is)?

(Still not saying obesity is or isn't a disorder; just thinking out loud.)

[1] And, if I have, I might immodestly call it willpower.

[porca misèria]

[1] And, if I have, I might immodestly call it willpower.

I've heard it said that very willpower is a core ingredient of anorexia. The anorexic starves herself[1] as an act of willpower, to show she's in control of her body.

[1] or, more rarely, himself.

[The Eagle]

I thought being slim and fit is considered a disorder these days in the UK, while being fat is the new 'normal'...

[Guest TheBlueCat]

Personal responsibility avoidance disorder?

I bet it's in the latest DSM!

[Starla]

A problem overweight people have, I believe, is being unable to asssess how much they are eating. They under-estimate how much they are eating and over-estimate how much to put on a dinner plate. Snacking especially seems to be a point of denial and amnesia.

We have a friend who has a serious weight problem and never eats anything apparently including the king size bountys she buys at the pound shop.

There's a TV series on at the moment called "Secret Eaters" on C4, and they highlight exactly that. They have a different couple each week who start off by saying "We hardly eat anything, we can't understand why we're fatties?!" and then they follow them around, recording their eating habits. Eating hardly anything was around 5,000 cals a day for one bloke last week.

It's pretty simple, if you eat more calories than you expend in a day through daily routine/exercise then you will become fat. I've never understood why this has confused so many people.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

It's pretty simple, if you eat more calories than you expend in a day through daily routine/exercise then you will become fat. I've never understood why this has confused so many people.

Because that's not always the case.

That would presume all people metabolise all different food types in exactly the same way, with 100% efficiency.

Doesn't happen.

Or does anyone actually think that if they over-eat the equivalent of one Mars bar a day they'll weigh a quarter of a tonne in 20 years time?

A while back I switched from high carb to low carb and lost weight whilst increasing my daily calorie intake...

[Nuggets Mahoney]

e.g.

This paper does a good job of laying out what happens with calorie restriction, here are the best bits.....

• There are 3 primary mechanisms how organisms cope with reduced calorie intake, increased digestive efficiency, reduced basal metabolic rate, and third, reduced activity.
  
• There are 2 phases to calorie restriction, first, an adaption phase, where energy parameters are adjusting ( reducing ) to match the new energy availability of the diet. And second, a maintenance phase where the adjustments are now complete and energy balance is established. ( i.e. weight loss has finished, you are now weight stable at a reduced calorie intake, welcome to hypo-metabolism )
  
• Body temperature declines during calorie restriction, shown for both rodents and monkeys.
  
• During calorie restriction, not all weight lost is fat mass, a significant amount is also fat-free mass.
  
• Different things happen depending on the severity of the calorie restriction. For example in rats, 25% reduction allowed only temporary weight loss before compensatory mechanisms adapted and body mass increased again. Meanwhile 50% reduction wasn't able to be compensated for and body mass continued to decline.
  
• In Monkeys, After 30% calorie restriction for 5 years only fat-free mass showed reductions, fat mass was comparable to controls.
  

And lets not forget our 5% calorie restricted mice that straight out gain fat mass. In general it appears mild calorie restriction serves only to increase fat mass... (cont)

[Starla]

Because that's not always the case.

That would presume all people metabolise all different food types in exactly the same way, with 100% efficiency.

Doesn't happen.

Or does anyone actually think that if they over-eat the equivalent of one Mars bar a day they'll weigh a quarter of a tonne in 20 years time?

A while back I switched from high carb to low carb and lost weight whilst increasing my daily calorie intake...

I accept my original statement was a sweeping generalisation, and it's true that you can increase your calorific intake by eating the right foods and lose more weight. I,e. I've just eaten some Vienetta ice cream (how retro) and I would have been much better off eating the equivalent in, let's say, fruit, veg, fish. I have absolutely no clue what my calorific intake is every day, I just know when I need to work out harder in the gym/adjust my diet. I ran 5k's etc yesterday, so today I eat Vienetta with wild abandon if I want to.

[Starla]

I do think it's possible to start eating, and then sort of 'go somewhere else' in your head so that, if you were to check the fridge/ cupboards later you would genuinely be surprised to see how much food you've eaten. Like a blackout, or psychological splitting. It's your brains way of doing whatever it wants to do while still maintaining 'plausible deniability'.

Any vestigial memories can always be 're-remembered', like the black cat moments in The Matrix.

P

A bit like a really bad night out on the town, and the following morning you decide nothing you did really happened at all.