Morbidly Obese Mutants

NMyTree

farfromglorified wrote:

I keep seeing these kinds of statements in these obesity threads and they fascinate me. Why do you say it's "not OK" to be obese? Why all these "shoulds"???

Obesity wreaks havoc on one's health and lifespan.

farfromglorified

NMyTree wrote:

Obesity wreaks havoc on one's health and lifespan.

So?

farfromglorified

Uncle Leo wrote:

For the same reason you should not smoke.
(not in a "big brother" way, but a personal health way)

Ok, I get that. But what if that person doesn't care?

Scubascott

Fat people use more soap.

3inputchick

why do they still stink??

Scubascott wrote:

Fat people use more soap.

Ahnimus

How did this turn into an obese-people hate thread?

This is what happens when a person tries to bring causality and understanding to a topic like this. I guess you have to walk a mile in a person's shoes to truely understand them, but even they don't know what's wrong with them. Leptin and PPAR-Delta are just two factors that contribute to obesity and laziness. The majority of obese people do not want to be obese. Occasionally it is a preferred lifestyle, historically obesity was a symbol of wealth and power. None of us are in a position to disrespect their lifestyle.

angelica

NMyTree wrote:

You know, in this day and age everything is a psychological or physiological disorder.

No, it's just that those who seek to understand believe there is a valid cause to each effect--a cause that goes beyond blaming and personal judgments and uninformed opinions.

Compulsions are attributed to psychological or physiological disorders or conditions.

It's not difficult to understand that just about anything and everything can be a compulsion or addiction.

Specifically compulsive behaviour is considered compulsive. This means exactly behaviour that one cannot control. That there are a ton of compulsions around show that our society is missing out on solving the underlying cause.

Seems to me human beings can get addicted to and develope compulsions to anything and everything.

Yes, if the underlying conditions are there--and yes these conditions are rampant in the current state of our society.

Seems logical that self-control and discipline are the keys that keep most of us in balance.

You hit the nail on the head: those who do not have such compulsions are able to live by logical discernment, and make and live by logical decisions. Compulsions, by definition, are uncontrollable using logic alone. As a matter of fact, using logic and self-control without addressing the real underlying issues fuels them. Therefore those with compulsive behaviours have a real challenge in resolving their compulsion problems. Most people don't have the slightest idea how this works, and exascerbate the problem--your lack of knowledge exascerbates it, so why would you expect an obese person to know better? They have the same life problems and lack of awareness most of us have, excepting they are wired in a way that they manifest issues with body weight. You might smoke cigarettes or have a caffeine addiction. (theoretically speaking)

Don't think I don't sympathize or empathize with people who have obesity problems and disorders. I do. But not to the point where I let them off the hook for their own reckless and self-hurting behavior.

Even if you were to let them off the hook, life keeps them on the hook for unhealthy behaviours--they accept and live the consequences in each day. My hope is that people don't add ignorant, uninformed, unknowlegeable opinions to an already very difficult problem.

Which brings us back to self-control and self-discipline.

100% wrong if you are talking about compulsive behaviour. To use "willpower" one actually increases the resistance and backlash. Insight, knowledge, awareness and support are the keys. And the ignorant judgments of society DEFINITELY fuels the problem.

Which brings us back to responsibility and accountability.

Whose idea of accountability? Yours or mine?

Ahnimus

I wanted to comment on the compulsion thing.

Fact: Emotions are addictive.

Even emotional states are addictive and often compulsive. There is a whole bunch of science to support this. My personal belief is that all behavior is attributable to complex biological systems and experience. Personal choice literally doesn't exist without knowledge, therefor experience is the key element in decision making. People make bad choices because of lack of information. The information they receive may be constricted or supported by their ecological system. However, new information is typically less attributable than old information. Information that has solid bonds in the neuro system.

This view is backed by the Information-processing and ecological-systems viewpoints, as well as Hebbian theory and many other biology, neuroscience and behavioral studies.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

I wanted to comment on the compulsion thing.

Fact: Emotions are addictive.

Even emotional states are addictive and often compulsive. There is a whole bunch of science to support this. My personal belief is that all behavior is attributable to complex biological systems and experience. Personal choice literally doesn't exist without knowledge, therefor experience is the key element in decision making. People make bad choices because of lack of information. The information they receive may be constricted or supported by their ecological system. However, new information is typically less attributable than old information. Information that has solid bonds in the neuro system.

This view is backed by the Information-processing and ecological-systems viewpoints, as well as Hebbian theory and many other biology, neuroscience and behavioral studies.

and...YES!!!!! It is the emotional aspect that we are trained to stifle and cripple in our society that builds or manifests a genetic potential for compulsion. There is a grouping of criteria that those with eating disorders have that others do not: for one, they are naturally emotionally gifted/sensitive. Secondly, they have experienced trauma in the past that is not dealt with. Thirdly, they are "harmavoid" personalities, which means they are loathe to harm others. Our society teaches everyone to repress our natural emotional intelligence. Those who are wired to be more emotional than logical suffer when they've been trained to stifle their predominant forms of intelligence. They keep "stuffing down" their emotions. (it does not work to cripple your natural intelligences, even if society conditions you to do so. Life will create a backlash for you, indicating a problem in the system.)

And yes when we get information, we can uncover and unravel these patterns, heal them, and SOLVE the true problem rather than perpetuate silly ideas about these people "just not accepting their accountability". I've learned, due to my numerous "genetic predispostions" that predispositions can remain latent but since most of us are raised dysfunctionally, they don't. But, they can GO BACK to being latent if we learn to resolve the deep web of issues in our lives. This is a life's work, not some thing we do by "getting the willpower" to go on a diet. and Hello! Who is not in the know here? Who is not up on the knowledge that diets don't work, but instead perpetuate the problems?

Ahnimus

Emotion is good in the sense that our minds attach emotion to experience. When we receive a stimulus we don't have to retrace all of our knowledge and experiences individually and identify the correlates to the stimulus, although that may be a better approach. Emotion gives us a synopsis of our experiences and knowledge.

I argue it's not always a good synopsis. Sometimes an experience like sexual abuse can be tied to many emotional states and ultimately effect a persons decision making negatively. However, emotion does serve as a good balancing factor in most aspects of life, as well as a good reflex.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

Emotion is good in the sense that our minds attach emotion to experience. When we receive a stimulus we don't have to retrace all of our knowledge and experiences individually and identify the correlates to the stimulus, although that may be a better approach. Emotion gives us a synopsis of our experiences and knowledge.

I argue it's not always a good synopsis. Sometimes an experience like sexual abuse can be tied to many emotional states and ultimately effect a persons decision making negatively. However, emotion does serve as a good balancing factor in most aspects of life, as well as a good reflex.

Effective eating disorder treatment is firmly established. Unfortunately some people can barely get up in the mornings and make it through the day, much less summon the energy needed to learn, heal and grow.

Frozen, crippled, denied emotions is what cripples the thinking of just about each person I've ever met in my life! Healthy emotions--experienced by a tiny percentage of the population--increase our awareness and understanding of how our environment affects us, so we can make empowered decisions. The only way to heal frozen crippling emotions is by experiencing, feeling and releasing them. Denying, dodging or merely intellectualizing about our emotions is ineffective in resolving them and in finding our full potential of invigorated health.

Ahnimus

angelica wrote:

Effective eating disorder treatment is firmly established. Unfortunately some people can barely get up in the mornings and make it through the day, much less summon the energy needed to learn, heal and grow.

Frozen, crippled, denied emotions is what cripples the thinking of just about each person I've ever met in my life! Healthy emotions--experienced by a tiny percentage of the population--increase our awareness and understanding of how our environment affects us, so we can make empowered decisions. The only way to heal frozen crippling emotions is by experiencing, feeling and releasing them. Denying, dodging or merely intellectualizing about our emotions is ineffective in resolving them and in finding our full potential of invigorated health.

I think I understand. You are referring to fine-tuned emotions, removing the link between bad experience and good emotion. So a person who has had their trust violated by a fiance or a spouse doesn't hate love. I agree, if a person manages their emotions then they can be very solid components of personality and decision-making. There does need to be a balance between emotion and logic though.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

I think I understand. You are referring to fine-tuned emotions, removing the link between bad experience and good emotion. So a person who has had their trust violated by a fiance or a spouse doesn't hate love. I agree, if a person manages their emotions then they can be very solid components of personality and decision-making. There does need to be a balance between emotion and logic though.

I'm referring to the fact that most people in our society generally repress their emotions. Therefore their emotional capacity is stunted. This is why no matter how logical or intelligent people are, they weave childish ignorance, actions and bias into large parts of their lives--without even realizing it. They can see it in the "other guy", but by denying their own emotions, they completely overlook their own childishness. The inner child runs rampant with all kinds of things people can't control about their lives. That's how you know you've got an unruly "inner child" or emotional self--if you are out of control of aspects of your life.

If someone is predominantly logical and emotion is not one of their key preferences, the person will learn in ways that are right for them. Ultimately, if this person is somewhat reasonably healthy, by middle age, they will have had enough problems with unprocessed emotions, bias, denial etc., and will have accumulated enough insights regarding unprocessed emotions that they will become motivated to make the necessary changes in order to balance logic and emotion. (it also works backwards: a reasonably healthy predominantly emotional person will balance out and become more logical.) By middle age, when people are reasonably okay, personality types DO balance out--due to evolutionary necessity (according to the Myers Briggs personality typing system). For those who are so far behind with a back-up of imbalanced behaviour, if they don't find relief around middle age, or sooner, they will increasingly experience the fallout, sometimes tragically.

soulsinging

angelica wrote:

It looks like the dynamics involved in eating disorders are not acknowledged much less understood by many. If anyone out there is a workaholic, has substance abuse issues (with drink/smoke/other), including sugar or caffeine addictions, is a rageaholic, shopaholic, and so on (detailing all manner of "acceptable" disorders in our society) I'd be wary of casting stones.

It also looks like the environmental contributing factors to eating disorders are also not being taken into consideration a whole lot in the main of things.

This doesn't surprise me.

What nauseates me is the "justified" social bias and ignorant judgments that are accepted in this day and age against those with eating disorders.

there is a difference between laziness and eating disorders. both exist in this country. if you think everyone out there (over 2/3 of our population) is obese becos they had a hard knock life of being overfed, you're crazy. nobody here is discounting real problems, but that number is a small fraction at best.

soulsinging

farfromglorified wrote:

I'm interested why any of you care about this issue, other than if you are personally affected as an obese person or someone close to you is affected. Why does it matter if your neighbor is morbidly obese???

ever sit next to a 400 pound dude on an airplane?

3inputchick

soulsinging wrote:

ever sit next to a 400 pound dude on an airplane?

oh yes I have......

as he walked down the aisle I prayed... please god not here... I'll do anything god.. just not here...

God was busy because his fat ass sat down ight next to me!
Needless to say he snored like a MOFO!

Ahnimus

angelica wrote:

I'm referring to the fact that most people in our society generally repress their emotions. Therefore their emotional capacity is stunted. This is why no matter how logical or intelligent people are, they weave childish ignorance, actions and bias into large parts of their lives--without even realizing it. They can see it in the "other guy", but by denying their own emotions, they completely overlook their own childishness. The inner child runs rampant with all kinds of things people can't control about their lives. That's how you know you've got an unruly "inner child" or emotional self--if you are out of control of aspects of your life.

If someone is predominantly logical and emotion is not one of their key preferences, the person will learn in ways that are right for them. Ultimately, if this person is somewhat reasonably healthy, by middle age, they will have had enough problems with unprocessed emotions, bias, denial etc., and will have accumulated enough insights regarding unprocessed emotions that they will become motivated to make the necessary changes in order to balance logic and emotion. (it also works backwards: a reasonably healthy predominantly emotional person will balance out and become more logical.) By middle age, when people are reasonably okay, personality types DO balance out--due to evolutionary necessity (according to the Myers Briggs personality typing system). For those who are so far behind with a back-up of imbalanced behaviour, if they don't find relief around middle age, or sooner, they will increasingly experience the fallout, sometimes tragically.

I understand, that first part was basically the fundamental attribution error. When people observe others mistakes they tend to attribute it to the individual, but when they experience their own mistakes it's external causes.

Sort of like: "You are fat because you eat too much, I smoke because it's addictive."

Really it should be: "You and I both have addictions which we fail to overcome."

I know from personal experience with nicotine, caffeine and marijuana that addictions can over-power both emotion and logical thought, as well as the desire to eat and drink water, smoking also keeps me awake and makes me lazy. I can substitute smoking with eating fatty foods, candy, chips and pop, but it ultimately is a different addiction. Smoking is very emotionally negated for me, within my family several health problems have threatened lives as a result of smoking. The effects of addiction are really hard to describe on an experiential level, it's not equatable to anything else and varies in degrees.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

I understand, that first part was basically the fundamental attribution error. When people observe others mistakes they tend to attribute it to the individual, but when they experience their own mistakes it's external causes.

Sort of like: "You are fat because you eat too much, I smoke because it's addictive."

Really it should be: "You and I both have addictions which we fail to overcome."

Exactly. Transactional analysis says that it's when we are able to be neutral and informed that we show our balance. And when we are looking down on or up to others in any way, we show our lack of balance.

I know from personal experience with nicotine, caffeine and marijuana that addictions can over-power both emotion and logical thought, as well as the desire to eat and drink water, smoking also keeps me awake and makes me lazy. I can substitute smoking with eating fatty foods, candy, chips and pop, but it ultimately is a different addiction. Smoking is very emotionally negated for me, within my family several health problems have threatened lives as a result of smoking. The effects of addiction are really hard to describe on an experiential level, it's not equatable to anything else and varies in degrees.

As I gave up my addictions and disorders, each smaller compulsion then moved up in order of prominance. When I moved beyond mental illness and quit smoking, the eating disorder, which I developed first, moved clearly into the spotlight and has taken a lot of effort to face and overcome. It's the dysfunction that has sustained me the longest. Eventually beyond the eating disorder, I had to acknowledge I was using sugar as a crutch to numb me out when removing my other numbing substances. It's "crazy". But beyond the imbalances is our true field of potential for those who are brave enough to go it alone, go contrary to society, and for those who are willing to put in the immense effort to slay the dragons on the path of getting there.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

I understand, that first part was basically the fundamental attribution error. When people observe others mistakes they tend to attribute it to the individual, but when they experience their own mistakes it's external causes.

Also, when we deny our emotions, we project them on others. For example this board is full of people acting unreasonable and childish. Unfortunately, many times if you call them on their behaviour they will say it's not them who started it, or it's the "other guy" who is childish. They can't see that a dispute takes too people. Unless we have the means to deal with our emotions, we must deny them as a defense mechanism. Doing so helps us like a crutch would (just like bingeing is a crutch for others) but unfortunately, in the big picture, it perpetuates our inability to problem solve. Most of us are operating on safe mode at any one time, without access to our real inner resources. And we take up imbalances and addictions to keep this paralysis in place. We can develop resources that enable us to evolve to the next level. Whether we have the energy or awareness of the need to do so is another story.

edit: another example of denial is when people think they are doing the "right" thing at the expense of others: ie: war. For example when the US government thinks they are in a position to judge what is right for others on the world stage and they ultimately are denying their own gaping flaws in doing so. They are flabbergasted when the world can plainly see the obvious flaws and hypocrisy they are busy denying. They convince themselves their own problems are not a big deal, while they kill, main and control. That's about some serious denial. They are willing to agenda-protect at all costs, pretending what they have to, not realizing that many people can see the big picture. That's why we need to solve these issues inclusively, from the big picture, and beyond small-minded agenda.

angelica

soulsinging wrote:

there is a difference between laziness and eating disorders. both exist in this country. if you think everyone out there (over 2/3 of our population) is obese becos they had a hard knock life of being overfed, you're crazy. nobody here is discounting real problems, but that number is a small fraction at best.

I have said consistently that 95% of our population is considered co-dependent in terms of needing to develop addictions and disorders of all kinds in order to meet stifled emotional needs. Yes, again, that's 95%. Rageaholics, workaholics, those who hide from their problems in religion. Any addiction, compulsion, maybe to porn, video games, coffee/sugar/nicotine addiction. etc..... I will say it again: 95% of the population has been trained to stifle their emotions from childhood and it's reinforced on all levels of our society. Therefore these people act out disordered behaviours in numerous ways. Compulsive eating is one.

I do think 2/3 of the population is showing the underlying cause of emotional neglect in North America quite well. The question is when will the problem solving start to filter down to the people. When will the masses evolve in order to find resolution and understanding, rather than sit in ugly judgment? It seems not for awhile.