June 13, 2007
And More on That Fat Issue . . .
I dunno,
Jane/Megan.
I believe in almost all of it: I believe that most of us are programmed to eat, and being surrounded by plentiful food—some of it quite calorie-dense—has made us fatter.
I believe that for a lot of people carbs are the drug of choice.
I believe that some people like to act out around food.
I believe that some people gain weight so they can "check out" of the romance game.
I believe that some people have so many fat cells that for them a "normal" weight requires the sensation of starving.
I believe that for some people food is the prude's alternative to sex.
I believe that some people have medical conditions that make them look fat, and we don't know by looking at them which ones are in that predicament.
I believe that some of the fattest people I know are some of the brightest.
I believe that I'd prefer that my vices be slightly private, and I'd rather not carry them on my belly, if I can avoid it.
I believe that people like me (most dudes and some chicks) who gain weight on their tummies run more risks when they gain weight than the hips-and-thighs people.
So I think—all things being equal—I'd rather not get fat. But there are worse things, and there is no way that one can tell what caused the appearance of fatness. I like to give any individual the benefit of a doubt.
But it's truly a fascinating discussion. Personally, I can't imagine eating a bunch of ice cream in one sitting. But I could probably eat two chocolate croissants in a sitting—and do that twice a day. So I could fall over that precipice in a heartbeat, if I lived in a French bakery or something.
So, no "set weight" theory for me: that's the one thing I don't believe. But individual situations vary wildly—as with everything. And people who are hungry and angry can generally put a lot away, if they put their minds to it.
Via Glenn.
Posted by: Attila Girl at
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Fat?I think a little fat is cute and more strong.....really!
My boyfriend is a little fat,and i just like his fat and soft kyteXD
Posted by: wow powerleveling at June 13, 2007 01:24 PM (4SWFm)
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"I believe that some of the fattest people I know are some of the brightest"
These are the same people who are constantly complaining about how they simply cannot lose weight, and no amount of diet and exercise can help them. You would think that a bright person would figure out how to lose weight, or at least stop complaining about it and accept his/her fatness.
June is a good month to go jogging or swimming, just do it. Or not!
Posted by: Azmat Hussain at June 13, 2007 03:07 PM (mdszq)
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Swimming, sure. Jogging? I dunno. It's kind of hot out there.
I only knew one person who complained about how she had a hard time losing weight, and she wasn't really fat: she just resented me for being smaller than she was.
Of course, a lot of the chicks who envy me forget that I'm a freaking dwarf, and roll their eyes when I mention my weight--they don't account for the height difference at all, and just say/think "I'd LOVE to weigh that."
To which I always want to respond, "do the fucking division, bimbo." Fortunately, I never have.
Posted by: Attila Girl at June 13, 2007 07:37 PM (VgDLl)
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I couldn't eat like that either.
Thanks for pointing out that not all fat people have a food control problem.
Posted by: Caltechgirl at June 13, 2007 07:44 PM (VgDLl)
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What men are really looking for is a woman who is happy.
Try working on that for a while.
Posted by: John Ryan at June 19, 2007 09:49 AM (TcoRJ)
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December 13, 2006
Satan, Soy, and Sexuality.
CalTech Girl's found one of those hilarious fringe beliefs regarding
Scary Tofu.
This one ties the extremist religious right with skepticism about soy products, but I've seen similar thoughts (minus the homophobia) on the science-challenged leftist edges.
Personally, I live on rice milk and pure grain alcohol . . .
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I caught this earlier in the day and had to reply. This man does not cite a SINGLE source...not even a moonbat source...for any of his "findings". Does he work for the AP, perhaps? Someone, somewhere, reads and believes this stuff. Please tell me this is a cruel joke or some sort of psychological experiment...
Posted by: RightWingConspirator at December 14, 2006 05:55 PM (0l6Fg)
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Not so fast. Forgetting the part about sexual orientation and its timing or onset, there is a legitimate scientific issue and interest here, one that hasn't been answered with sufficient long-term research and data. This is being addressed by the mainstream scientific community. I'm not going to give you a comprehensive summary here without seeing some $$$ first. Showering LMA with Christmas gifts would do nicely, also. Let me just say we are experimenting on ourselves and our offspring in ways never imagined. The Asian anecdotal evidence doesn't support American usage, dosage, and consumption levels--for adults, let alone babies. And there MAY be consequences to such actions. With soy, the common assumption is that in neonates, the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis is more active than in older children and adults, which compensates for the estrogenic effects of the high intake of isoflavones. Do you want your little "bundle-of-joy" being the test case? See "Potential Health Impacts Of Excessive Flavonoid Intake," Skibola and Smith, http://ehscenter.berkeley.edu/publications/00_skibola_1.pdf
And..."The Endocrine and Reproductive System: Adverse Effects of Hormonally Active Substances?" Greim, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/4/S1/1070
For now, I would stick with milk from the intended source--its mother's breasts. For supplementation, I would go with organic cow's milk (no hormones used, and antibiotics used only as medically required and administered by a vet). Soy can be used sparingly, if necessary.
Posted by: Darrell at December 14, 2006 09:23 PM (SfbAH)
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Actually, what I've heard is that one has to be careful with soy-based formula with female babies, lest one affect sexual development.
But the counter-argument is that premature exposure to cow's milk can incur allergic reactions, so soy is the safer bet.
To be truthful, I was mostly riffing on the gay thing, and fear-of-soy in general. With an infant, though, I'd figure out the most conservative course: one never wants to gamble with a child.
Posted by: Attila Girl at December 14, 2006 11:16 PM (zxOEV)
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Darrell: Point taken. I'm not a nutritionist. But if there is valid research on the subject, all the more reason to cite it. Guess my anger at some recent shoddy research and journalism (Jimmy Carter and AP, to be precise) flared up as I was reading this...
Posted by: RightWingConspirator at December 15, 2006 04:11 PM (0l6Fg)
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"But the counter-argument is that premature exposure to cow's milk can incur allergic reactions, so soy is the safer bet."
So say stealth animal rights groups (like Center For Science in the Public Interest) that want to see the US milk and beef(particularly veal )industries go bye-bye. I love the smell of agenda-driven science in the morning. Since human babies have been consuming cow's milk for some 10,000+ years (9,000-8,000 BC), it's safe to say there is a fair amount of empirical data available. CSPI data only go back as far as the mid-1800s (see Marx--Karl).
I'll stick with my mix--Human mother's milk, organic cows milk, and soy. In that order. Pressure those soy people to remove all those (bioactive) components in baby formulas. Let those go into adult supplements, where they belong. And please use supercritical CO2 extraction or something like that, and forget about solvent-type extraction. It's not worth the few cents.
Posted by: Darrell at December 15, 2006 10:16 PM (+XYge)
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Darrell, you are making my miniature brain hurt.
The allergens thing is confusing. I'm thankful that my allergies are to Things Airborne, but is the rate of food allergy going up, or only the diagnosis thereof?
Posted by: Attila Girl at December 15, 2006 10:52 PM (zxOEV)
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Sorry! The monkeys are getting ambitious. I did supply pain relievers, though. :-)
I think food allergies are being reported and diagnosed more, instead of simply avoiding the offending foods. Lawyers will be suing parents soon.
Posted by: Darrell at December 16, 2006 10:50 AM (glh5n)
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I took a "family portrait" of the pain relievers, but the memory limitations on this machine forbid me from posting images right now. I'll get that fixed soon, but in the meantime I'll send you the pic.
They are almost too cute to consume. Almost.
Posted by: Attila Girl at December 16, 2006 11:21 AM (zxOEV)
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I did know you were practicing some of that sweet talk that you use to down satellites with (reference to that flattery in the previous comment)...
I'll send the pic back in a smaller size, if you wish. Include your arm and hand in another shot and I'll make it look like regular size (O.75 liter) bottles. Now wouldn't THAT make a nice gift! Maybe some day...
Posted by: Darrell at December 16, 2006 02:55 PM (n1Kcr)
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Let's see how our friends in the Northwest treat us . . .
Posted by: Attila Girl at December 17, 2006 12:34 AM (zxOEV)
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November 13, 2006
Whatever Gets You Through the Night . . .
Menu for a Midnight Snack—and Beyond
• 2-3 ounces of red wine;
• Instant Blueberry Oatmeal;
• Butter-lettuce salad with Wishbone Balsamic Breeze spray-on dressing and a kiss of black pepper;
• bottled water, or "Earl of Africa" red tea (naturally decaffeinated);
• Top Ramen (oriental flavor) with a bit of sesame oil added in, and a tiny bit of chili-garlic paste;
• finish with a Prozac capsule for dessert.
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And here we were worried that you weren't taking care of yourself...
Posted by: Darrell at November 13, 2006 10:10 PM (vR2+J)
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Hey! It's a bit unorthodox, but it isn't really unhealthy. There are a few antioxidants in the red wine, and there's fiber and folic acid in the salad. Blueberries also feature antioxidants, and oatmeal is healthy in reasonable quantities.
The only dicey thing is the amount of startch--but one wants one's midnight snacks to be a bit carby . . .
Posted by: Attila Girl at November 13, 2006 11:17 PM (LEEsJ)
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April 29, 2005
This Blog is Really Full of Crap
This
entry at the newly resurrected Suburban Blight reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother about a year ago.
Me: By the way, I've always wanted to thank you for not being one of those mothers who apparently obsess about their children's shit.
Mom: You're welcome.
Me: I've heard some weird stuff about parents in the 60s and 70s who had very specific ideas about how often their kids should take a crap, and when. Eek.
Mom: It was even worse in the 30s and 40s—believe me. They used to give kids enemas if they didn't shit at the right intervals.
Me: How did you cope?
Mom: I learned to lie.
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April 26, 2005
In Tech Central Station
. . . Sandy Szwarc writes an intriguing
summary of what we've all seen lately while scanning headlines: the health risks of obesity have been drastically overstated, and it isn't a health crisis after all. Whew.
Beyond that, though, she explains that in most cases being somewhat overweight can actually enhance human health. Up to a certain point, biomass is good. Certainly, the risks of being underweight are much greater than the risks of being overweight.
So eat up. But, you know: I'd still take a walk now and again. It never hurts to hedge your bets.
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January 12, 2005
July 14, 2004
Food Fight!
Michele points out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is
re-thinking the whole Food Pyramid idea, and possibly contemplating some new geometric shape. Read the article, because it's hilarious: it says the Food Pyramid—first published in 1992—can't be working, because Americans are overweight. There are two fallacies at work there: 1) that people are eating the wrong foods in order to get overweight (perhaps they are eating too much in exactly the right proportions), and 2) that if people only
understood what they ought to be eating, they wouldn't choose an unhealthy diet at all. The bureaucratic mindset is on parade here: no one, fully knowing the choices out there, would ever deliberately do anything wrong. This can, of course, apply to genocide as much as to gluttony—and to everything in between.
Michele has her own wickedly hilarious suggestion for a fresh approach to government guidelines, which you must go look at now.
Done? Did you read the comment by Crank? "How about a Food Sphinx, which dispenses only impenetrable riddles and offers no useful guidance?" Nice. He gets a link for that; I laughed out loud. And that certainly seems to be the government's policy; it holds across shapes.
After visiting Michele's place I started wondering whether I could remember the guidelines from when I was a kid, the ones that hung on at least one cafeteria hall in the 60s and 70s: The Basic Four Food Groups.
Meat and Dairy, Grains and Legumes, Fruits and Vegetables . . . what else? Hm. I started Googling to see if I could remember those guidelines, which I believe were developed in the 50s. Interestingly, there is no consensus now on what they were. Now, I might be able to find them somewhere, such as in my pre-1992 edition of The Joy of Cooking, but that would be cheating.
A popular pediatrician gives us this version of the Basic Four: meat, dairy, vegetables, fruits. That sounded wrong to me: I could have sworn that all produce was lumped into one category, which might be why the green beans in the ground beef casserole were all the fruits and veggies we supposedly needed in a given day (thank goodness my mother was a fruit fanatic—and relatively enlightened—or I would have gotten scurvy by the time I was six).
Still Googling on the first page (because I'm far too lazy to go any deeper than that, thank you very much) I find this site, by one Aunt Lynnie—who's clearly just a citizen nutritionist, without the good Doctor's resources. She seems to have it right: meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables, cereals and grain. Her graphic shows what I vaguely recalled, that the meat group encompassed one other protein source. But it was eggs—meat and eggs. Dairy is its own category in the old scheme. That also made sense in those days, as there was tremendous concern about getting enough calcium into children. And I'm old-fashioned enough to think my child (when he/she arrives) should get a little cow's milk every day, despite Dr. Gordon the Food Prude's warnings about its dangers, and his assurance that tofu and broccoli contain ample calcium.
And I'm suddenly seized by nostalgia: I want to eat something "healthy" from the old days. Like macaroni and cheese. Or, you know—beef.
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June 01, 2004
The Land(s) of Milk and Honey
Radly Balko had a piece in
Time magazine that apparently advocated the proposterous notion that there is a behavioral component in obesity, and that this behavior (let's call it "overeating") is generally voluntary--therefore, the responsibility of the person who indulges in same.
He got savaged by the nanny-staters, who know better. Their arguments boiled down to "we're wrong, and you're right." What are you going to do with a thing like that?
Via James, whose opinions on this seem to be as strong as my own.
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Balko is, unfortunately, mistaken, and not supported by the scientific research. And it really, honestly, has little or nothing to do with nanny-statism, although certianly the nanny-staters might do bad things with the knowledge.
Moderate overweight is a diet and discipline problem. Obesity, unfortunately, cannot be corrected anywhere near so easily in the vast majority of people suffering from it.
People don't want to believe this. That's a shame.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at June 01, 2004 05:30 AM (BFtUI)
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What you're saying directly contradicts my experience. I have two family members who are obese, and I see them overeat every time I'm with them. I also saw my mother go from obese to only-a-little-round one year back in the 80s, but she started overeating again, and she's obese again. Personally, I think it's a way of keeping men away, but that's my own theory.
I understand that the current treatment is stomach-stapling, which may be a good first step for many.
There is behavior attached to this. And it's killing two people I love. And there's nothing I can do about it but watch.
Posted by: Attila Girl at June 01, 2004 11:36 AM (LcVoH)
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It is certainly the case that overeating can cause obesity. Now mind you, there is substantial evidence that many people can overeat and never become obese, and that many obese people actually eat less than some non-obese people. But certainly, eating is one component. But even then, there's a problem in the presumption that it's a two-way ticket: eat too much, become obese, so eat less, and you become non-obese? This is like saying, "smoking gave me cancer, so if I just stop smoking my cancer will go away." It's not that simple.
Chronically obese people tend to be experts at losing weight and typically have lost a great deal of it. The problem is that barely 1% of them manage to keep it off for good. Weird things happen to their metabolisms, their appetites, and everything else, in a spiraling, vicious cycle.
The problem I have with Balko's argument is that it's very binary--either the nanny staters are right or they're wrong. BUt I believe the truth is somewhere between; yes, there's a behavior component to obesity, and yes, it would be bad if government started deeply meddling in controlling food content, portion sizes, etc. I agree with all of that.
But... oh never mind. We'll be here all day. BUt I'll just repeat: research on the chronically obese shows that most of them don't eat a lot more than non-obese people, some of them eat less, and barely 1% of them can attain and achieve normalweight status through diet and exercise alone, and the more their weight cycles up and down, the worse off they are.
I begin to suspect that within the next 20 years this will all be moot; the new drug therapies and other options are showing more promise all the time.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at June 03, 2004 08:02 PM (LOj+R)
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May 16, 2004
We are Golden
Heather explains that it's possible to
eat at McDonald's without getting fat.
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May 10, 2004
Now I've Got a Bellyful
Dean Esmay gives us word of a new drug that may help prevent and treat obesity. Not a moment too soon.
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April 27, 2004
Live Fast, Die Old
From
Men's Health, 100 tips--some contradictory, some impractical, but all interesting--on
how to keep your heart going as long as possible.
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April 15, 2004
Tall Tales
It takes a certain frame of mind to read
Angelweave while eating something unhealthy, but I was prepared to do it. Unwind a little, get ready for bed, carb out (tonight: rice with a little milk, cinnamon and sugar). You know: I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.
Then Heather hit me with this article from the New Yorker, which discusses the academics who track height differences in large populations over the centuries. In the U.S., ever since early in the last century, heights have remained static as those in Northern Europe and other industrialized nations have increased. And now, though we are still (demographically speaking) richer, they are taller. Since height usually tracks wealth, this is a somewhat anomalous trend.
But of course the main cause is thought to be--implied to be, in the article, though not quite stated flat-out--our national addiction to bad food. After all, one British study showed that modern kids who were fed wartime rations--boiled cabbage and beef--grew taller than those who ate hamburgers and French fries. We just don't get enough vegetables in this country, and this truth has etched itself into our bones for nearly a century. We keep getting richer, but we don't get the micronutrients our bodies need.
We just grow out, not up. It's a sobering thought.
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My breakfast is about 400 calories of Kashi Cinna Raisin Crunch mixed with Post Raisin Bran, added dates, and 1 serving of raspberries and 1 of blackberries.
Mmmm. Carbs.
hln
Posted by: hln at April 15, 2004 01:16 PM (CWwGn)
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Though, as carbs go, those are healthy ones. I'll have to check out that Kashi--of course, I happen to like the original multigrain Kashi (just the plain puffs).
Posted by: Attila Girl at April 16, 2004 01:36 AM (SYwua)
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