🚀 go-pugleaf

Elmo wrote:

> oldstevens@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
>> angrie_dude@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>> Why are so many people fat?
>>>
>>> 27/06/2006 12:40  - (SA), Marilynn Marchione
>>> http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1958526,00.html 
>>>
>>>
>>> Milwaukee - Scientists have come up with some novel excuses why people
>>> are overweight, including air conditioning, lack of sleep, fewer
>>> smokers, and more sex among obese people, which can produce chubby
>>> kids.
>>>
>>> Desserts are not the only things weighing America down, these
>>> researchers contend in a report published on Tuesday in the
>>> International Journal of Obesity.
>>>
>>> "I think it's very creative," said Dr Robert Kushner, medical director
>>> of the weight management programme at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in
>>> Chicago.
>>>
>>> "We are facing an epidemic with no tipping point in the near future. At
>>> this point, there are no silly ideas."
>>>
>>> However, some critics say the authors' "Top Ten" list of alternative
>>> explanations reads more like material for a late night talk show
>>> routine than a scientific study.
>>>
>>> "I'd put this in the category of 'calorie distracters' - 'Let's just do
>>> anything to get people to stop worrying about having to eat less and
>>> move more,"' said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York
>>> University.
>>>
>>> 'There is more to obesity...'
>>>
>>> David Allison, a University of Alabama biostatistician, invited 19
>>> other scientists in the US, Canada and Italy, to work on the report.
>>>
>>> They looked at more than 100 studies on potential contributors to
>>> obesity besides diet and exercise, and concluded there was at least
>>> some support for 10:
>>>
>>> 1. Inadequate sleep. (Average sleep amounts have fallen, and many
>>> studies tie sleep deprivation to weight gain.)
>>>
>>> 2. Endocrine disruptors, which are substances in some foods that may
>>> alter fats in the body.
>>>
>>> 3. Nice temperatures. (Air conditioning and heating limit calories
>>> burned from sweating and shivering.)
>>>
>>> 4. Fewer people smoking. (Less appetite suppression.)
>>>
>>> 5. Medicines that cause weight gain.
>>>
>>> 6. Population changes in the United States. (More middle-agers and
>>> Hispanics, who have higher obesity rates.)
>>>
>>> 7. Older birth moms. (That correlates with heavier children).
>>>
>>> 8. Genetic influences during pregnancy.
>>>
>>> 9. Darwinian natural selection. (Fat people out survive skinny ones).
>>>
>>> 10. Assortative mating, or "like mating with like", as Allison puts it.
>>> Translation: fat people procreating with others of the same body type,
>>> gradually skewing the population toward the heavy end.
>>>
>>> Not that people necessarily should try to alter these factors, Allison
>>> said. For example, "we would never recommend that people start smoking
>>> to reduce their body weight".
>>>
>>> The same for medications that can lead to weight gain, though doctors
>>> may want to consider alternatives if a patient piles on pounds, said Dr
>>> Louis Aronne.
>>>
>>> Allison said no food or beverage makers funded any part of the report,
>>> though he and some collaborators consult for such companies.
>>>
>>> The point is, there is more to obesity than diet and exercise, he said.
>>> "These are 10 reasonable hypotheses, and as scientists, we should be
>>> open-minded," Allison said.
>>>
>>> On the net:
>>>
>>> www.nature.com
>>> http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1958526,00.html 
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Excuses, excuses. Anybody can maintain their correct body weight by
>> controlling their food intake. America has become a bunch of PC
>> lard-asses. The native Amerians, negros, and hispanics are actually
>> grotesque.
>>
>> Arch
>>
>> p.s. Washington topic; who has the biggest tits, Senator Kennedy or
>> Senator McCain?
>>
> 
> An interesting article in this morning's local birdcage liner/fishwrap
> says that doctors are reluctant to tell patients and especially the
> parents of younger patients that their children are "obese".  Shows
> a picture of a teen age girl who has lost 60 lbs since having her
> stomach sugically "banded" and wouldn't miss twice that amount and
> quotes the lass as saying that it is mean to call people obese.

Look:  http://tinyurl.com/pn3bc

It may be mean to tell that kid to his face that he's a 
fat slob, but his parents ought to be prosecuted for 
child abuse.

When one asks "Why are so many people fat?", one is 
really asking "Why are so many Americans fat?"  You 
don't see people looking like that french-fry-gobbling 
kid in Europe or Asia (notwithstanding sumo wrestlers). 
  That type of obesity is uniquely American.

The reason for it is one of the most pernicious traits 
of national character ever encountered.  The trait can 
be succinctly summed up as the national motto:  Bigger 
and more are always better.  An alternative 
formulation, one I prefer, is:  If a little of 
something is good, a lot must be great.  This belief, 
if not the motto, is THE DEFINING American trait.  Put 
one more way:  Excess.

Thus, SUVs - and I'm not talking about Escapes and 
smaller, I'm talking about Excursions and Suburbans and 
Hummers.  They're gross, and people who drive them are 
gross and have bad character.

We're talking 3500 square foot (and larger) McMansions, 
for people with two children at most, and who 
themselves grew up in the 1950s and 1960s as one of 
three to five children in a 1400 square foot house, and 
consider their youths to have been idyllic.  Multiple 
big-screen TVs (HD cable, of course) scattered 
throughout the McMansion, when they may have had a 17" 
black-and-white with rabbit ears antenna and perhaps 
six broadcast channels available.

Americans have no sense of proportion.  Demonstrating a 
lack of proportion is, perversely, considered virtuous.