Fat People Cause Global Warming, Higher Food Prices

Stating the obvious: "Two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat. 'Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,' write the authors, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the evocatively named London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine."

Mixed Causes

[bhiestand]

Although it was quite funny, it's a straw man and the study itself has some serious flaws. Some people really do have serious glandular problems or diseases causing obesity. My cousin was a beautiful young woman until she developed lupus... she went from somewhere around 120 pounds to, well, I'm not going to speculate. I'm not sure what exactly caused the obesity, it could have been anything from hormonal changes to medications she had to take, but I know her house isn't exactly filled with twinkies. I feel terrible walking around with her in public. Not because I'm embarrassed to be with an obese woman, but because I get so upset at the looks people give us. People look at her like she just killed and ate their favorite pet, then they look at me with a slightly different look of disgust.

In addition, I feel that while this may be accurate, we'd be pushing the environmentalism too far to cite it as a reason for people to lose weight. Even if it would save some energy, fuel, and materials, all of the savings are overshadowed by the significant social and medical advantages. If we could waste just a little more food and fuel to ensure a longer life expectancy, we would.

Of course, this study isn't really very good. While the global demand for food would likely drop, you'd have a significant jump in energy and oil prices. All of the formerly obese Americans, spending hundreds less on food every month, would be ready to hit the beaches, ski slopes, etc. with their extra money and less embarrassing bodies.

Finally, BMI is a shoddy system that I'm sick of seeing. BMI was developed at a time when leeching was an accepted medical practice, and hasn't changed significantly since then. BMI can not differentiate between lean mass and lard. This means that a society of body builders would have the same average BMI as a society of, well, lazy Americans.

Getting back to serious topics, it's very important to note that global food shortages (and corresponding rises in prices) are not caused by increased demand. They're caused by reduced supply, which has been, in part, caused by food aid programs [inthesetimes.com]. When people become dependent on food aid programs, a small series of events can raise food prices enough that food aid programs can't afford to send food [cnn.com]. You can imagine how well this works out for impoverished areas that have lost their indigenous food production capability.

Re:Mixed Causes

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people really do have serious glandular problems or diseases causing obesity

...and some people just like pies.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[Anonymous Coward]

But when it comes to global warming then it isn't a case of "if you don't like 'em dont join 'em", it's a case of you're killing us all you fat bastards. At least partly. Stop acting like what you do doesn't affect anyone else. The entire point of the study is to disprove such bullshit.

Not normal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food

Experience and the Central Limit Theorem tell me that they are distributed normally.

Not all fat people eat more.

[porcupine8]

A skinny person with a really high metabolism can eat far more in a day than a fat person with a slow one. Plus, you only need to eat a lot to *get* fat - maintaining your weight doesn't require eating extra. Not to mention tall people, teenaged boys, people with very physical jobs, and many others who would all eat more than an average person.

I'm not all pro-obesity or anything, but it's just silly to think that ALL obese people eat more than ALL average-weight people.

Fat People Are Breeding

[stuntmanmike]

Fat people are disproportionately unlikely to get laid, and therefore don't contribute to overpopulation.

Nope.

There will always be skinny guys who like to fuck fat chicks, fat guys who are rich enough that skinny girls will fuck them, and fat guys who eventually give up on their dreams of banging supermodels and settle for a fat chick.

Ah the new religion

[DarkOx]

Ah the new religion,
Now combining the sudo sceince of global warming with a little good old fashion scapegoating.

Speaking as a 5'8" guy weighing in at around 135 pounds, this sounds alful facist to me. Nobody would call me fat but replace global warmin with economic struggles and fat people with jew and our intelectual elite sound pretty much like Hitler did in the the late 1920s.

Can we get back to real science before we completely destroy the world pretty please?

Re:Not all fat people eat more.

[Animats]

A skinny person with a really high metabolism can eat far more in a day than a fat person with a slow one

Yes. On rare occasions you meet such people. I've known an ex-New York City Ballet dancer like that. She's slim, hard-muscled, radiates heat, and has to eat almost constantly to keep her weight up. I know an endurance rider who's 6' tall, all leg, runs seven miles a day, and eats twice what I do when we have dinner together. She thinks 58F is a good indoor temperature.

Such people are unusual. On the other hand, I've probably seen over fifty oinkers today, waddling around. And it's early yet.

On the Flip Side

[bill_mcgonigle]

But back to the story, seems like a logical corolation to me, very few obese people are fat and not eating much food.

Yeah, but think about all the resources they're not:

• Not buying new clothing every year to stay in fashion?
  
• Not hotrodding on a Jet Ski at the lake?
  
• Taking up and paying for two seats on the plane but only getting one skimpy rubbery meal?
  
• Keeping the heat at 60 in the winter?
  
• Not burning fuel to go to the movies because HBO is so much more comfortable?
  
• Not flying in grapes from Chile to feed a winter-time vegetarian ethos when fried wheat do just fine?

Hey, I'm not advocating it, but let's have a full accounting here. Oh, right, that's really hard and there's less opportunity to be priggish. Sort of like me not reading TFA.

Gut Bacteria

[bill_mcgonigle]

A skinny person with a really high metabolism

There's current thinking that different varieties of gut bacteria play a huge role here. Apparently some types can metabolize more types of food than others. The trick is the higher caloric content generated doesn't properly feed back into the hunger satiety mechanism, so the average person with highly efficient bacteria will tend to gain weight.

So, either fill up skinny people with more efficient bacteria and figure out how to deal with the hunger problem, or fill up fat people with the less efficient bacteria, but have to produce more food. Hey, there's a novel approach for anti-global-warming funding!

Re:OK, I'm going to weigh in here

[jlarocco]

That's definitely true. But, if you cut your weight in half, you would get even better gas milage than you already do. When you take that effect and multiply it by all the "overweight" people in the world, it adds up.

Is dieting the best way to save fuel? Probably not. But being over weight does impact on fuel usage.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[davester666]

"In conclusion, we should not be trying to eliminate obesity. Rather, we should establish "fat farms" where we can increase their numbers for our future needs."

Welcome to America. What would you like to eat?

Re:Mixed Causes

[puck01]

corticosteroids (such as those used for asthma) cause weight gain by increasing the appetite and thus increasing the amount of calories a person consumes. They do no decrease metabolism and they do not break the laws of thermodynamics.

Thus your friends with steroid dependent asthma may be gaining weight, but they are not eating 1/4 the calories you are.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[timmarhy]

unlikely, due to their shape skinny people stack better therefore we can farm them at a higher density and store them better. our vegan buddies will also tire faster and become easy pickings since they avoid high energy foods.

One word: Ethanol

[MacDork]

It's truly frightening that you could write five paragraphs and still overlook the reason for the recent food shortages.

Comfort Food

[mosb1000]

In most cases, obesity results from emotional distress. People who are poorly adjusted sometimes turn to food as a coping mechanism. Almost all obese people use food to meet their emotional needs in this way.

If we want to end obesity, we need to educate parents about the link between associating food with nurturing behavior and obesity. This way people will learn to cope with their stress in healthier ways, such as feigning illness, attempting suicide or picking fights to get attention.

Re:Mixed Causes

[puck01]

Some people really do have serious glandular problems or diseases causing obesity

...and some people just like pies.

...and most people just like pies

BMI should be a cubic function...

[Joce640k]

I don't know who invented BMI but math wasn't his best subject. Humans are three dimensional so there should be a power of three in the BMI equation somewhere. There isn't, what we have is a quadric curve where the middle bit happens to fit middle size people.

If you go outside the "medium" range it all falls apart, tall people come out as obese and short people come out as underweight.

We need to scrap it an try again.

Re:Mixed Causes

[crossmr]

This means that a society of body builders would have the same average BMI as a society of, well, lazy Americans.

While true, its a bit of a misleading argument.
It takes the focus off the lazy americans. Just because it can't distinguish between a competitive body builder and a fat guy, doesn't make the fat guy any more healthy, or any less fat. It doesn't take a genius to look at someone with a BMI of 35 and say "You're fat." If they can't tell the difference they need their eyes examined.

Re:Or, maybe, they should worry about themselves

[OMNIpotusCOM]

*sigh* Why does it always have to be me...? Alright, sentence by sentence, yet again

Have some respect.

Oh, respect? Is that the thing that they used to talk about when they didn't blame the world's problems on one class of people, and instead funded research into ways to fix actual problems instead of imaginary ones?

The Rockefeller Foundation isn't some arm of big oil intent on encouraging petroleum use.

Nobody said they were except for you. Remember when Ford put Schindler's List on NBC without commercials out of the goodness of their heart. I'm sure that was really a donation for the good of humanity instead of being because Henry Ford wrote Nazi literature. The Rockefeller Group, like Ford, is/was just being charitable.

They tend to support the social and medical sciences in addition to crop development for expanding agricultural production worldwide.

I tend to support things that actually make a difference instead of trying to tell the world that fat people cause more carbon pollution than cow farts, volcanoes, and getting on the internet spouting useless factoids.

From the summary: 'Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food.'

I wonder how many carbon points we're accumulating while we fly rice into Myanmar, a country whose chief export (aside from opium) is rice. How about the food we ship to Africa, the medical supplies, the "war" in Iraq... I mean, I could go on and on. If you think making people less fat is an actual way to fix a problem in the world, I don't think it's my Slashdot UIN that needs turned in (it's too high anyway, they won't take it back) or that it's me who needs random memes parroted back at me.

Way to bandwagon onto the groupthink though, it's impressive. Well... maybe not since you don't realize that biotech work is just bringing us one step closer to having an entire food source wiped out by one virus or bug, and that high corn prices are more a result of ethanol and other biofuels, and that if we somehow got rid of the fat people that food prices would actually RISE because of decreased production.

Next time you want to prove your ignorance, have someone hold your drool cup for you, because I'd hate to see your keyboard get ruined while you typed.

Re:Mixed Causes

[Sentry21]

I was at Dairy Queen the other day with my (underweight if anything) girlfriend, and we happened to see another family enjoying some sundaes. I'm no good at speculation, but two of them seemed to be in their mid-twenties or so, and probably weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds or so, by our estimation. The mother and father of the family were probably more than that, maybe three hundred and three fifty.

They also had a little girl who looked a little on the chubby side, and were feeding her a giant sundae, as they all were eating.

Maybe this family has some kind of genetic disorder, and they may as well eat ice cream because they're going to be that large anyway. Maybe this was the first time in a year that they've gone to Dairy Queen (it was for me, and it was the first REALLY nice day of the year).

Still, I can't help but notice so many surprisingly large people out there on the streets, in the malls, at the food courts, and so on, and inevitably they're eating pizza, drinking coke, choking down a giant tub of popcorn with butter, and so on, and I can't help but think... these people either need self control, or need to realize that they have a problem.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[puck01]

Erectile dysfunction from obesity and the other co-morbidities that go along with it such as diabetes and hypertention generally doesn't show itself until the late 30's or 40s at the earliest. Most people aren't reproducing by that age historically or in the present so I'd argue that obesity has very little direct effect on the ability to procreate early on in men. Not to mention Viagra and the likes usually fixes ED.

In women obesity can be associated with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) which can cause irregular cycles in women and limit their ability to get preganant, but most of the obese women I've seen do not have PCOS and even those with PCOS will still get pregnant.

Thus, I'm not sure how much obesity would effect the obese populations ability to procreate in general. I'm sure there is some effect but I doubt would be large.

Re:Mixed Causes

[puck01]

Obesity runs in families usually because obese kids grow up with obese parents and adopt the same activity habits and eating habits of their parents. More often than not, its environmental factors, not genetic.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

> Oh, so you don't really understand Darwinism. Unless you get heart disease or have a stroke before you hit sexual maturity, this is irrelevant. No, I think you don't understand. What matters is not how many offspring there are, but whether they survive to sexual maturity. You might not have noticed this feature of homo sapiens but (1) parents rear kids (2) grandparents are involved in the rearing of their grandchildren, and this is true all the way across human culture. In other words, diseases of old age (or at least older age) *do* matter.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[MidnightBrewer]

The world *was* built for you, it's your culture of no exercise and bad diet that's to blame. Leave the United States and discover that almost everywhere else you go you will *never* see anybody as fat as they are in the United States, and what few fat people you find are more of the pleasantly plump variety, rather than the extremely obese.

Solution? Home-cooking and exercise. Having lived in Germany for two years and Japan for six, I now find that when I go home I can see the drastic difference between the two, both in portions and quality. Not to mention that the diets and lifestyles of both countries will naturally cause you to lose weight, because they're simply healthier. I lost 20 pounds coming to Japan alone (and no, I actually *do* like the food here). ;) Something about having to commute almost two miles to work by bicycle every day, I suspect.

When you cook at home, you know what's going into the food, and you're only going to cook for yourself. Make the effort to go out and ride a bicycle for thirty minutes every other day (no coasting!) and you'll see a definite change over, say, a month.

Stop blaming everybody for discriminating against you and take control of your own life. Heaven forbid people should encourage you to improve your health, attractiveness, and lengthen your lifespan using exactly that body which god gave you, and without prescribing to some stupid standard of beauty. Do it for yourself and your family at the very least. No pills, just self-control and common sense. Even if your best still comes in at plump, good for you.

Re:Mixed Causes

[Fulcrum of Evil]

No, it's a case of poor political structure in the places where people are starving; we can send grain to africa, and the local thugs will just use it as leverage to get the starving people to do what they want. Or kill them, either way. Want to fix starvation? get africa stabilized somehow.

Ohio and Michigan...

[Amigori]

Visit one of the Great Lakes states and you will see that they over contribute to the population. Fat people breeding with fat people. This is how you end up with 4'6" 5th graders weighing more than me, granted I'm on the skinny side, 27y, 5'11" 165lbs. I think they just realize that if they want to get laid, their standards...change. And I mean the truely fat people, not the husky ones.

For an annecdotal study, simply visit a non-upper class mall in your neighborhood and sit in the food court for 30min. Grotesquely obese will rapidly become average, shifting your bell curve a good 50+ lbs to the right, and skinny becoming the left-side outliers.

I'm sure that if you removed the (qualified) medical reasons, the generally husky/bigger, but not fat, people, merely the margin of error would change. Americans are overweight with many just plain old FAT!

Re:Global Warming is the Witch Hunt of our Day

[Lije Baley]

Saving the planet is only a priority for those who can afford it. The best barometer of Western economies is the number of people engaged in planet saving. When things actually get bad, people go back to worrying about saving themselves.

Massive Idiocy.

[pyxl]

Tall people cause global warming and higher food prices.

Highly physically fit people cause global warming and higher food prices.

Healthy people who move around cause global warming and higher food prices.

People who aren't starving at the edge of metabolic functioning cause global warming and higher food prices.

Men (who are larger than women...) cause global warming and higher food prices.

Yes. People who eat more food than other people who don't eat as much as them...eat more food than other people who don't eat as much as them. Yes, they are a larger part of the demand set...than people who are a smaller part of the demand set.

I'm glad that this study has been released right now so as to get this jackass notion fixed in people's minds right now, so that we don't have to waste time considering it in the future with any seriousness at all.

Why?

Because if humanity EVER gets to the point where the food consumption habits ALONE of a portion of the population actually substantially impact the global environment and/or global economics to a serious degree (which, still, right now, it's not) then we have much bigger problems than "some fat people need to eat less". The problems are more like "serious percentages of the human race are starving to death because the food DOESN'T EXIST to feed them"...which is absolutely not the problem right now, and hopefully will NEVER be a problem. Right now, food problems are a simple matter of price, NOT actual global availability.

Ugh, and duh.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[Anonymous Coward]

In many ways, Darwin's natural selection stops becoming dominant for human anymore. Darwin's theory states that the strongest or the most capable of adapting to their environment survive and pass on their genes while the weak or the least capable get "naturally selected" off the planet. However, humans are social animals and we develop thoughts like compassion and stuff. We try to protect the stupid, the weak, the invalid and so on. We feel bad when people suffer disasters and try to help. We pass laws to make manufacturers place warning labels like "Do not touch the bottom of this clothes iron when plugged in", "Do not drink this cleaning solvent", etc. By doing so, the notion that only the ones adapting to the environment survive no longer applies.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[Sancho]

Which has everything to do with the survival of the species, but nothing to do with Darwinism. Darwinism cares about genetic differences within the species enabling individuals within that speces to reach maturity and reproduce, thus passing those traits on. Having grandparents (or anyone else, for that matter, such as doctors) help you along the way is not an example of Darwinism. Having genetic traits which help get you to adulthood is.

Darwinism is a fairly narrow portion of the greater concept of species perpetuation.

More fat-bashing

[Orion Blastar]

It is not enough that fat people get discriminated against in every aspect of life, but now they are being blamed for global warming and food prices.

Some people are fat not because they eat too much food, but because they have a slow metabolism that doesn't burn as much food as a skinny person with a fast metabolism. There are a lot of "Jughead Jones" people out there that are skinny as a rail, but eat more food than obese people are accused of eating, but burn it off really fast.

Meanwhile a 275 pound person with a slow metabolism eats salads and lower portions of food, and also exercises but cannot seem to burn off enough fat not to be obese anymore. Their bodies think that they are starving, so it slows down metabolism even more as part of a survival mechanism.

Sure ignore the obvious that the price of oil and gas are causing more people to burn more fuel and also raise up the price of food that is transported using oil and gas, as a cause for global warming and high food prices. When people panic like the oil and gas might run out soon due to higher prices, they end up using it more in a panic mode. Truckers are starting to go on strike in protest of high gas prices, but no, blame the fat people for higher food prices, not the people in SUVs burning gas and oil, and not OPEC and oil companies for raising oil and gas prices, and the higher oil and gas prices causing higher food prices as the cost to transport than food is passed on to consumers.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[egburr]

Something about having to commute almost two miles to work by bicycle every day, I suspect.

I wish my commute was only two miles; I'd be happy to ride a bike, then. Well, if here was a safe path to do so, because I'd be scared to ride it on the roads around here. And sidewalks are practically non-existent except near retail stores.

However, my commute is 15 miles each way; even with optimum conditions I figure that would take me 2 hours (lots of hills) which would have me leaving home absurdly early in the morning and returning home about the time the kids go to bed.

I would love to live closer to work, but I can't afford the houses there. We looked hard for something closer before settling for the house we're in now. I love the area we're in, but there's just no good (safe) place to ride bikes except up and down the 1/2 mile dead-end road we live on. It's better than a stationary bike, but it would be even better if we could actually go somewhere without having to pile into the car. The road we connect onto, I have crossed on foot twice, with a crosswalk and signals, and will never do so again short of an emergency (a red light does mean "stop" doesn't it? I always thought so).

So, to sum up my confused rambling, sometimes you just don't have a reasonable alternative to using the car, even to go just a mile down the road.

Re:Comfort Food

[NeuroManson]

Well, technically a lot of people are essentially brainwashed into overeating during childhood. Especially by first and second generation "old world" immigrant parents, you know, from the very same European countries who now like to blast away willy nilly at the US for every conceivable reason.

You know, the old "Eat every bite.", "You don't get to go to play or bed until that plate is clean.", and that old chestnut, "Don't you know there's children starving in (insert country here)?".

Even worst are the OLD old world descendants who have a policy of beating the shit out of their kids if there's so much as a pea remaining on their plate. I grew up with one of those in the 70s, and that can be awfully scarring.

Thanks Europe! Maybe you should pay more attention to your own problems, instead of blaming fat people.

Re:Corn

[MightyYar]

Well, today I had:

Wheat and oat "bakes" for breakfast with sausage and eggs, ingredients include ground up animal parts, chicken eggs, whole wheat flour, buttermilk, butter, baking powder, and cheese.

Lunch was egg salad sandwiches, fusilli pasta with tomatoes and carrots, and a piece of cake.

Dinner was at a Malaysian restaurant and consisted of Randeng beef, red snapper, some roti with a coconut sauce, and coconut rice.

It is perfectly possible to go through an entire day without any corn or corn byproducts. If you rely on processed food for your calories, whether or not they use corn is the least of your problems.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[timmarhy]

I can eat my cheese burger in the same room as you and it won't have the slightest impact on you. the same can't be said for your smoking. Not everyone gets addicted to cheese burgers, but everyone who smokes ends up addicted. I can eat a cheese burger now and then and it does me no harm, where there's no such thing as a harmless smoke

3 very good reasons it's being cracked down on.

Re:Corn

[VolciMaster]

You ate corn's products, then: the sausage came from a pig most likely fed corn, and the chickens were fed corn to get your eggs, and the cows were fed corn to get the butter, buttermilk, and cheese.

I'm not saying it's good or bad - just a fact.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[sleigher]

I think his point about smoking was that a building owner cannot decide whether or not to cater to smokers. Why can't the business owner decide if they want to allow smoking and then if smoking bothers you don't go there. Instead it has to be banned and taxed. A business owner should be allowed to have a business that caters to smokers. For the record I do not smoke. I used to though.

Re:Mixed Causes

[rainer_d]

You clearly have no idea of anything in this area.
The reason most of Africa is in constant need of aid is that a lot of the stuff that gets "sent" there in turn destroys what little of a functioning economy is still left there (take for example shipments of chicken-meat, subsidized by EU, destroying the business of local chicken farmers).
In addition, the various financial donations allow most of Africa's dictators to spend most of their cash on weapons and enriching themselves and their cousins - instead of building a school-system, a health- and social security system.
That's what NGOs, foreign governments, Red Cross and who else not does for them.
I'm really sick of people like you who think it's a question of dumping enough food there - it's clearly not.

The best way to "heal" Africa would really be to leave it alone.
And don't ship any weapons there anymore, first of all.

Fat VS Number of Children

[Anonymous Coward]

I chose to weigh 260 and only have two children. The skinny couple next door has 8 kids.

The planet loves me.

There's a big freaking hole in their hypothesis...

[zullnero]

It has nothing to do with girth and body fat, and everything to do with actual dietary consumption and metabolism. A high energy person with a higher metabolism will eat a whole lot more food than one with a lower metabolism. Just because a person is overweight doesn't necessarily mean that the person eats more than one meal a day...they simply tend to store fat more efficiently than someone who burns through it inefficiently.

You also have to take into account the effects of the actual diet...if a person is overweight from a diet of mostly bread products, vs. a person overweight from eating a lot of pizza, bacon, etc., the latter person's diet would contribute greater to global warming as a result of the length of the food chain and resulting pollution it takes to produce meat vs. wheat products, etc. And a skinny person with a high metabolism, they'd be the absolute worst of all. They'd eat and eat, and wastefully lose their calories instead of carrying them around and prolonging the next meal.

Re:Corn

[Scarletdown]

I see High Fructose Corn Syrup EVERYWHERE.

Yeah. Disgusting stuff. I was mildly surprise last time I bought a bag of sugar. I looked at the ingredients, and it didn't list high fructose corn syrup anywhere.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[NIckGorton]

Why can't the business owner decide if they want to allow smoking and then if smoking bothers you don't go there. Instead it has to be banned and taxed. A business owner should be allowed to have a business that caters to smokers.

Because a business should be accessible to everyone, including people with asthma like me. If a smoker doesn't smoke at a restaurant, store or bar we can both still use that place. If he does, he eliminates me from being able to. Its like saying that a store owner should not be mandated to have wheelchair ramps because then businesses that cater to people in wheelchairs will 'spring up'. It doesn't work that way. In the time before smoking bans in restaurants and bars, it was unusual to see a restaurant or bar that was completely smoke free. Owners want the most customers possible, so they don't ban smoking knowing that non-smokers will often choose to suffer the bad smell to get what they otherwise want.

Its also a worker safety issue. We don't allow employers to have other toxic substances wafting through workplaces, why should we allow that with tobacco smoke? Just because its customer generated?

Re:Corn

[cayenne8]

"I read "In Defense of Food" recently; it was very interesting. Since reading that, I see High Fructose Corn Syrup EVERYWHERE. "

I too was shocked when I started reading ingredient lists on foods. HFCS is in damned near everything....even fucking BREAD?!?! I've been reading ingredients....and it is tough, but I try to buy most everything I can that does not have it. I'm starting to find some whole wheat breads that are not done with processed flour AND have either molasses, brown sugar or regular sugar, but, you gotta look hard.

It is amazing everywhere it is. I try to cut back on sugar too, but, every once in awhile I like it...I found some coca cola that had come in from Mexico..with cane sugar...what great treat,b ut, for now...I rarely drink soda any more...

I wish to hell we'd ditch the corn subsidies....and blow away the sugar tariffs....so we could at least get rid of the HFCS demon out of our foods....

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[dave1791]

BMI is a silly measurement for health. A few years ago, I ran a marathon at a BMI of 24. That is just shy of being classified as obese. At the time, you would have been hard pressed to find excess fat on me. I'm one of those "heavily muscled" people that fall under the disclaimer that BMI does not work for eveyone.

On the flip side, BMI IS an excellent predicter of marathon times. (and I've never been anything other than a ploddingly slow runner)

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[cayenne8]

"Because a business should be accessible to everyone, including people with asthma like me. If a smoker doesn't smoke at a restaurant, store or bar we can both still use that place. If he does, he eliminates me from being able to...Its also a worker safety issue. We don't allow employers to have other toxic substances wafting through workplaces, why should we allow that with tobacco smoke? Just because its customer generated?"

Well, no one is holding a gun to your head to make you patronize a place that allows smoking, nor are they forcing anyone to work there. Freedom of choice? Remember that? Personal responsibility? If a person wants to open a smoke free place....they can make the choice on that and people that can't stand 2nd hand smoke can easily patronize that place...vote with your dollars. Until smoking is made illegal, this should be the case.

It SHOULD be a choice for adults to make...much like wearing a helmet on a motorcycle...if you're over 18 and can afford the insurance...you should be able to act like an idiot if you want to. And please..don't give me the the "it raises insurance rates for all". I live in LA, and we went from a no helmet law, back to a helmet law. I challenge anyone to see if the insurance rates decreased due to this?? Same with smoking...smokers pay more for health insurance, and the extra taxes they pay on tobacco...should more than cover the extra 'expenses' you say they have. That's what sin taxes are for arent' they?

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[denton420]

And don't give me that crap about hurting others. That would be true in some place where you had no choice but to go,but now the owner of the building can't even decide for himself if he wants to cater to smokers,WTF?

I do see where you are coming from with the hurting others parts. In many cases people cry about hurting others when it is really not true. I must disagree in this situation however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking [wikipedia.org]

Second hand smoke kills... I am not sure if I can give an equivalent example for second hand obesity however.

And do NOT even begin to bring up the fact that people can just go to other places if they want a non smoking environment. There are way too many variables involved to hold up that argument.

The *average* person will not go 5 extra blocks to get a smoothie just to avoid some passive second hand smoke. Thus being harmed in the process.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market isn't the solution to all of life's problems. Should the free market decide what building standards are safe? Should the free market decide what food additives are non-carcinogenic? Should the free market come up with air quality standards?

All this "free market market solves all our problems" is bollocks thrown out by people who know a couple economic principles and think that covers everything. It's not that simple. For free markets to be beneficial, they need liquidity, perfect information, and competition/alternatives.

FYI I work in quant finance, and I fucking hate smoke

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[cheater512]

In Brisbane the buses are clean.
They use natural gas so they effectively only emit hot air - no crap in the exhaust.

Your smoke floats over to everyone else.
If your walking then its not exactly easy to miss it.

Re:Corn is OVERRATED

[Belial6]

I'm not convinced that portion size is even close the the whole story. I can gorge myself and lose weight, as long as it is all meat and fat. As soon as you throw a little sugar in (which means any carb including bread) I balloon up almost immediately. I can starve myself with tiny portions, and if there is any significant amount of sugar in my diet, I will be fat.

I know you didn't talk about exercise, but that is the other myth that tends to go with "eat less = skinny". For me, I simply will not lose fat from exercise, no matter how much I get. I build muscle like there is no tomorrow, but don't lose any fat. What this means for me is that if I eat small portions, and exercise a lot, I become MORE obese. The only way that I can get myself out of the "obese" range is by eating all protean and fat, while getting little to no exercise. If I go with a carnivorous diet, I will lose the fat, but if I exercise, my muscle mass puts be right back into the "obese" range.

The biggest problem is that weight has become a religion. It is absurd to think that someone whose ancestors have been eating beef for the last 5000 years would have the same nutritional requirements as someone whose ancestors has been picking fresh fruit from trees for the last 5000 years. Until we can get past the "fat people are evil" mentality, and accept that different people have different nutrition/exercise needs, we won't get anywhere with the problem.

Feed

[WrongMonkey]

I notice that all of your meals have eggs, meat and/or cheese. Those came from some animals. What do you want to bet those animals were raised on corn products?

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[bpkiwi]

On the contrary, it is the environment that has changed. The game remains the same.

Re:Corn is OVERRATED

[TheoMurpse]

The only way that I can get myself out of the "obese" range is by eating all protean and fat, while getting little to no exercise. If I go with a carnivorous diet, I will lose the fat, but if I exercise, my muscle mass puts be right back into the "obese" range.

I assume you're using BMI as a classification for obesity.

#1 - BMI is complete and utter bullshit, as you've discovered. Go with the highly technical "do I look fat in the mirror" test. Or get your body fat measured.

#2 - If you think you might be obese, you probably are. Barring anorexia, if you're not, then you will at least get in better shape.

#3 - It sounds like you're suggesting that if you put on more muscle, you're more obese than if you don't put any on. If I'm reading your comments correctly, then it's pretty obvious you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

I assure you that you're making yourself worse off by not exercising, no matter what your BMI says.

if your BMI is 29 without muscle, but 31 with muscle, it doesn't matter because your body fat mass is the same. Hell, your body fat percentage is higher without muscle.

Jesus Christ, go to a freaking doctor already. Every time I read your comment, I am awestruck by one more ridiculous assertion. Your post just seems to be along the lines of: I look bigger when I put on muscle. Therefore I don't work out because bigger = less healthy. Stop hating fat people, guys. We're all different, and maybe in some ethnicities, being obese is the most healthy way to be. Here, I'll quote you for you:

weight has become a religion. It is absurd to think that someone whose ancestors have been eating beef for the last 5000 years would have the same nutritional requirements as someone whose ancestors has been picking fresh fruit from trees for the last 5000 years.

Until we can get past the "fat people people have different nutrition/exercise needs, we won't get anywhere with the problem.

And until ridiculously unhealthy people are all healthy, I will continue to show concern for my fellow man, and strive to improve humanity by pushing them to improve their health and the well-being of this world.

Disclaimer: some of what I said here could be self-loathing, since I used to be fat and am still working on getting in terrific shape.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[TheoMurpse]

And cat owners with that logic. You most likely can't be near cats or people who have cats or places where cats have been. Possibly dogs too, and then blind people cannot bring their seeing eye dog into the same store as you. Is that fair to the blind person?

No, it's not fair to the blind person. However, we have to balance the rights of the allergic with the rights of the blind. Both have illnesses which cannot be cured.

In the case of smokers' rights versus asthmatics' rights, both have a disease, but one is curable (hint: it's not the asthma). One is also a personal choice (hint: it's not asthma). One is even bad for passersby (hint: it's not asthma).

Re:Corn is OVERRATED

[Belial6]

You miss understand my point. The word "obese" is in quotes because I am quoting others by using it. I would never suggest that having more muscle is bad. My point is that studies that use the term "obese" almost always use BMI, and it is a worthless measurement. If you reread my post understanding that my example is showing why the word "obese" is pointless in this context, you will probably find that you disagree less.

Re:Corn

[CheShACat]

Is HFCS the same as "Modified Corn Starch"? I think maybe in England we don't get so much HFCS because we don't tax cane sugar in the same way as the US, but a lot of products here list MCS as an ingredient.

Re:OK, I'm going to weigh in here

[lysse]

Indeed. Similarly, I'm a fat person (115-120kg, 6') and I don't drive at all; the reason I'm fat is a lack of exercise, and the reason for that is agoraphobia. But I absolutely refuse to believe that my diet has more environmental impact than the car on every thin person's driveway, or the holidays they take on foreign shores to show off their booties, or whatever. And since I'm celibate, I won't be adding to the overpopulation problem (nor feeling the pressure to buy a SUV in a few years purely so that I can take them to a school five minutes' walk away); whilst I might eat more than one thin person, I sure as hell don't eat as much as one and a child!

This is just straightforward body-fascism, dressed in pseudoscientific language, probably because the school needed to raise its profile (and possibly its funding profile) with a controversial headline. Unfortunately, the British government is such that we can expect a "fat tax" any day now...

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[ultranova]

The same applies to waiters. You want to work here, you either are a smoker or you tolerate smoke. Why cannot I require that? Has it become unusual to require some sort of qualification from a worker? Qualifications don't necessarily only include education and skills. What's next, requiring a chimney sweep to hire and keep an employee with vertigo because he has to accept it? You don't smoke, you're not qualified to work as my waiter. Why can't I say that?

Because historically, allowing employers to say such things have led to what amounts to slavery. "If you don't do 16-hour days using machines with no safety devices whatsoever, and be on-call for the reminding 8 hours, and if I happen to find you attractive bend over whenever I want it, you're not qualified to work for me." It was the standard during early phases of Industrial Revolution, and a natural result of a vast oversupply of labor. It was only stopped once the unions got all employees to bargain collectively, since together their power equals that of all employers; individually, any employee is vastly inferior to any employer.

The sad truth is that in an industrialized world, the natural cost of labor approaches zero: the more you automate, the less people are actually needed for production. Since allowing the market forces free reign here would thus lead to an unlivable society for a majority of its members, laws are required to artificially limit the bargaining power of the employer.

As for your strawman about a chimney sweeper suffering from vertigo, if his vertigo doesn't prevent him from sweeping the chimney, what do you care ? And if it does, well, not doing his job is a valid reason to fire him, is it not ?

I've said this before and I'm saying it again: no matter what businessmen might think, society does not exist to help them make profit. It exists to help and protect its members. And that means putting clear limits for the businesses to operate within, so they can't prey on people.

Re:And on the plus side. of plus-size..

[Mr. Slippery]

Tell me again please why I, as a business owner, should not be allowed to choose who I want to do business with and who I do not.

Because occupying land for business use is a privilege, not a right.

You want the cops to come and remove someone from your establishment who you don't want there, you want the government to enforce your control over that little patch of real estate? Part of the deal is that the government gets to set some restrictions on your business.

You want to work here, you either are a smoker or you tolerate smoke. Why cannot I require that?

For the same reason you can't tell a factory worker, "you want to work here, you tolerate the risk of getting your arm ripped off by our unsafe machinery."

What's next, requiring a chimney sweep to hire and keep an employee with vertigo because he has to accept it? You don't smoke, you're not qualified to work as my waiter. Why can't I say that?

Chimney sweeps climb to significant heights. It is the nature of their jobs, if they can't tolerate heights they can't do the job, and there's no reasonable accommodation that could change that.

A waiter delivers food. There is nothing in the nature of a waiter's job that requires him or her to smoke. It's no more permissible to say "only smokers can be waiters here" than "only atheists can be waiters here" or "only members of the Green Party can be waiters here" or "only people who let me have sex with them can be waiters here".

Re:Smoker's arguments always avoid the key issues.

[ArcherB]

-imposing smoke on a non-smoker is not a reversible argument; you may like coming home in the same smell category as a cat's asshole, a furry tongue, loss of taste and smell, and an ever-shortening life span, but I don't.

So the gov't should mandate what I smell like?

-smokers do place a much higher burden on public health costs (in countries modern enough to have them ;) that non-smokers have to absorb. (sure, same argument for alcoholics and fatties, but arguing that is just a diversion from the point)

The the gov't should mandate that only healthy food be eaten? Better yet, let's pass laws that state you MUST perform a physical fitness regiment. Otherwise, you are putting a burden on the health care system that us exercisers have to absorb.

-modern cigs are nothing more than a highly cultivated and refined designer drug that smokers are *addicted* to; the only difference between cigarettes and heroine or cocaine is that it is a legal drug that it is socially acceptable to be addicted to

Uh, I haven't seen any smokers robbing a liquor store to get their next fix.

-modern society is forced to regulate the unintelligent, inconsiderate and unhealthy in cases where people are not willing to regulate themselves. Many laws exist to regulate public behavior, especially when this behavior affects the health or pocketbooks of others. Bike helmets, seatbelts, child safety seats, gun laws, public shagging (sad, but true), public drinking...all these laws are there for a reason: to manage the stupid, selfish, 'I am an island' behavior of self-destructive impulse-driven dickheads.

So I should give up rights for the societal good? Where have I heard that before? Oh, I remember! How about you give up your freedom from search and seizure and let the gov't listen in on your phone calls. It is, after all for the common good, right? That is the test you are applying here. "If it's for the common good, then one man's rights don't matter." That is what you are saying.

There are many more valid arguments for smokers to avoid, but what it comes down to is that smoking is a vile, unhealthy habit that the addicts have no qualms about inflicting upon others.

So? My habits are none of your fucking business.

Guys begging on the street for quarters so they can get their next crack fix are less offensive than riding in an elevator with stinky and his phlegmy cough...never mind having to walk through his cloud of toxic shit whenever I walk out of a building.

While you are free to have your opinion, that doesn't give you the right to tell me what to do. I think non-smokers like yourself are a bunch of whiny bitches. That does not give me the right to tell you what to do.

Stop avoiding the arguments. Comparing smoking to segregation laws or telling non-smokers 'suck on it...I have rights to' proves just how asinine and weak your logic is.

So, you are saying that I have no rights? Are you saying that my rights don't matter? What are you trying to say here? I want you to come out and say that I am less human and have less rights than a "full" human. That is how you feel. If not, then I must have misread you post because you certainly imply that your rights are more important than mine.