On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:58:05 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote:

"Concordia" wrote in message
.. .
On the other hand, eating more than the body will burn is almost
always an illogical, non life affirming action.

The problem is that most obese have no way of knowing how much their body
will burn.

Really? Ever heard of a basal metabolism test? In any case, someone
not knowing their precise current metabolism does not prevent them
from eating less and losing weight.

The mecanism that regulates that in normal people is just broken,
for psychological or physical reasons, in obese people.

Before we go any further in this discussion, define these mechanisms.

As a normal person,
you have don't even have to think about losing weight,

You're making an assumption here that I've never been overweight.
This is not the case.

maintaining a proper weight is a natural function of your body.
Just like inflating and deflating your lungs is something you perform
automatically without paying attention.
For various reasons, obese don't have this nice option. It's not like there
is any positive action on your part to remain slim.

For the most part, it is a myth that thin people in general do not
watch what they eat. Metabolism varies, but not to the significant
extent that some people would have you believe. This has been proven
time and time again in peer reviewed studies.

And it is a choice.
Mind you, I'm personally not condemning the individual right to make
the choice to continue to overeat, though I think it's a sad one.

You don't get the point. A huge majority of obese people would rather be
slim. Except they can't.

Sure they can; no one said it was easy. It's matter of choosing to
eat less than the body burns and stick with it. There are no
shortcuts.

(snip)
As a side note, to the extent that injuries result from known high
risk activities such as bungee jumping or skydiving for example,
participants generally and rightfully bear the burden of their
responsibility (financially) for those activities, as most insurance
will not cover treatment. Not sure about the skiing.

That's not the case here. You do get an insurance with some sport licenses,
but healthcare will cover it anyway. But we do have "socialized" health
care.

Okay, our system in the states is somewhat different. I see you are in
France. My point was that these people engaging in the high risk
activities are rightfully bearing the burden of their choice of
activities. Remember, one of your initial premises was that
everything is a risk to some extent, and you attempted to equate the
responsibility of injury from required and productive daily activities
such as walking, crossing the street, etc., to the risks associated
with overeating.

Good point. However, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight,
one must and will assume current and ongoing responsibility for the
problem. Attempts to assign blame after the fact are rather useless
and frequently counterproductive.

Usually, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one just fails and
gains even more weight as a bonus. That's the statistical truth. 85% of the
diets fail within 5 years. Not because 85% of the dieters lack willpower,
but because diets don't work as a long term cure for obesity. Do you blame
people with cancer for their cure not working? I mean, they had their one
chance at a cure, and now, they managed to get cancer *again*, and they want
yet *another* cure!

You are being repetitive here; I've already spoken to this point more
than once. See below where I've mentioned the importance of a proper
eating plan.

A school lunch is only one meal a day. Furthermore, even if the foods
aren't ideal, they are usually portion controlled. More importantly,
what are the kids doing, learning, and eating at home?

The role of the school is to educate the children. Despite the poor
education their parents are giving them if it needs to. Obviously, schools
are failing to educate the youth of your nation properly about their eating
habits.

I wouldn't disagree that schools could certainly do a better job.
However, I think it's rather foolish to hold the schools solely
responsible for the welfare and education of children.

(snip)
Many people do not make themselves obese alone, they do so with the help
of the government and their doctor.

Government and doctors don't shovel food into a person's mouth, people
do.

No, they told them "here is a cure for you", and people believed them.

Please be more specific. What cures are you referring to?

But
the cure happened to be worse than the disease. When this happens with a
drug, it's customary for people to try to sue the hell out of the
manufacturer.

The best way to become a super-obese is
through yo-yo dieting after all. Many people started their way towards
obesity by merely being healthy overweights and starting a diet.

Which is all the more reason to adopt a lifetime eating and exercise
plan, instead of yo-yo dieting. For example, weight training is an
excellent way to build and maintain lean muscle mass.

That's the "lifetime" eating plan that is causing the yo-yo dieting.

Huh? I am clearly advocating a sensible eating plan that can be
followed for life (and finetuned as necessary), not a quickie weight
loss method. This was stated before, read further down in the post
where I had mentioned just that.

You
were thinking I was talking about fad diets?
There is no difference between
fad diets and the so-called balanced diet. Both work rather well at making
people lose weight. Both have a high failure rate at the 5 years mark. And
both trigger a rebound that can result in a net weight gain.

See above.

People do not chose to yo-yo diet. They just chose to diet. They pick a diet
that seems to work for people, that has good advertising (if something is a
fraud, shouldn't it get banned from the medias?), that is FDA approved or
that their doctor told them to follow. And then, like most diets, that diet
eventually fails, and they gain some more weight.

You're being repetitive again. Asked and addressed.

Then, one of the few
options not to yoyo would be to discontinue any diet and live happily at
their current weight. But then, you would call them lazy people who should
pay for their self inflicted condition... So, many obese people go through
yet another diet, that will also fail, and will push them to even higher
extreme. And so on...

Or what about the FDA that has let every traditionnal
food be replaced with a look-alike junk version of it?

Don't eat it.

Even when everyone, including your doctor and the government, tells you to,
because it's healthier for you?

Please list some of the specific foods you are talking about.

Certainly, having access to accurate nutritional information is
helpful, especially with all the food choices available today.
However, people have known for eons that eating more than is burned by
the body will cause weight gain. No one ever needed government or
nutritionists to point out this simple fact.

People have known for eons that being happy is better than being sad, but
this doesn't prevent depressions from happening.

Do you suggest depressive
people should just be happier and stop depending on expensive drugs?
People have known for eons that stress is bad for their health, yet they keep going
to work daily.
People have known for eons that air pollution is becoming our
#1 health risk, yet most still drive their car.

Again, your red herrings won't fly. You've tried it with the broken
bones, the cancer, etc. Either address the points or get off the pot.

The human being is not a
machine. Knowing something and rationnally reacting to it is not something
we do easily.

Well, duh. That in no way negates taking responsibility for our own
wellbeing, instead of trying to place blame elsewhere.

Besides, it might have helped if nutritionists and governemnt had *said*
that simple fact. But they didn't. They blamed obesity on pretty much
everything, except excess calories.

Nonsense. The majority of mainstream nutritionists have always taken
a position that calories matter. So has the government (here).

(snip)
Lack of exercise due to increased modernization, more variety of and
access to convenience foods, unfortunate cultural shift away from
value systems that emphasize the value of personal responsibility and
hard work.

Lack of exercise doesn't make people obese.

In and of itself, it does not. But it certainly helps in weight loss
and maintenance. As I mentioned before, weight training is
particularly beneficial in building and maintaining muscle mass.

Do you understand the role of lean muscle mass in metabolism, or do I
need to spell it out for you?

As you pointed out, it's eating too much that does.
I don't see what hard work and personal responsability has to do with the
deal.

If you've really got your head stuck in the sand that far, and can't
see how people have free will and ultimately make their own choices
about how they treat their bodies, there's not much point of
explaining it to you yet again.

Unless you have spent any significant amount of time fasting in your
life,

Actually, I fast two days a month. I have never done it for an
extended period of time, though.

you have no idea what dieting really means

Sure I do. I've lost weight and kept it off. I've also had the
unfortunate experience of failing at diets. But do go on.

- and it means hard work.

Lol, didn't I just mention hard work above?

Besides, the USA is still the country in the world where "personal
responsability and hard work" is at its highest.

It's not nearly as high as it once was, though. That was my point
"unfortunate cultural shift away from..."

(snip)