Re: [JOSHIDIOCY] Josh's Idiocy

On 05 Aug 2005 18:33:11 GMT, gekko <gekko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>Josh wrote, apropos of nothing, regarding the notion that "wealthy"
>Americans being rarely obese, and "poor" Americans (false dichotomy)
>being obese:
>
>> it isn't a question of wealth. Rather, it seems to be a matter of
>> factors like self-control, knowledge, and the access to or time to
>> prepare good meals.
>
>Sixty percent of Americans qualify as overweight, burgeoning on
>what the surgeon general has deemed constitutes "obesity."
>
>"Wealthy" Americans have no more self-control than any other Americans

Bull***. Self-control is the middle name of the upper middle class.
The hereditary rich don't have to worry as much about it, but they are
nevertheless inculcated with self-control from birth. It is way
cultural.

>and spend very little time preparing good meals. The truly wealthy
>have meals prepared for them, or dine out. What wealthy Americans have
>is genetics -- you don't see wealthy males courting obese females --
>club memberships, peer pressure, and surgery.

ITYMTS "ein, zwei, drei."

The current emphasis on slimness is a modern one, Gekko: as late as
the 19th century, rotundity was considered a sign of prosperity and
health. Yet one doesn't see very many obese aristocrats these days.
Have their genes changed in the last 100 years?

And upper middle class people whose parents were self-made people from
working class backgrounds don't get fat. Did they lose the genes for
obesity in one generation?

And while extreme obesity used to be common among the southern poor,
it apparently wasn't common here up north. That changed. Did the
northern poor get new genes? Were their genes different from those of
their southern cousins?

Yes, we know that genes contribute to obesity. But the huge increase
in obesity seen in the United States and Europe in recent years should
tell the astute observer that obesity isn't the root cause, merely a
factor that makes some of us more susceptible to it than others. What
we have to concern ourselves with are the changes that have occurred
that have caused the obesity epidemic.

>As far as the false notion that the poor cannot afford good meals,
>either preparation-time-wise, or other, that's ***.
>
>It costs *more* money to purchase the Super Size Mickey Meal
>than it does to purchase a Weight Watchers (or Lean Cuisine)
>heat 'n eat. Takes about the time to prep the heat 'n eat as
>to pick up the Mickey D's, too.
>
>There is a myth that the poor -- who apparently don't have money
>to buy vegetables or balanced frozen food choices, but are
>rolling in dough when it comes to fast foods -- don't have
>time to prepare healthy meals.
>
>You've simply bought into the story they and their apologists have
>been feeding everyone.

Yeah, let them eat cake. They're driving limos, I tell ya.

>Food, Fuckass, is not heroin. Even a MickeyBurger is inherently
>healthy, in that it contains substances that are needed by your
>body. The unhealthiness aspect isn't in the food -- it's in the
>quantities consumed, AND the lack of exercise. Heroin is not
>something inherently needed by the body.

Bull***. Our body manufactures and requires natural opiates, just as
it requires food, and we ingest natural opiates in our diet.

The difference is one of concentration and purity. It's damned hard to
get fat on what nature provides us. Only with the advent of
agriculture, which made possible a sedentary lifestyle and the
development and widespread consumption of crops which were much richer
than what nature provides, did obesity become anything but a rarity.
Even then, it was limited to the rich.

To obtain the nutritional equivalent of sugar, our ancestors had to
climb trees and get their noses stung.

There were no pure vegetable oils.

There was no butter.

There were no fruit juices.

Plenty of fat from meats, and hunter-gatherers eat a lot of meat, but
when you have to chase down a mammoth to enjoy a sirloin, you burn a
lot of calories.

No, what one sees again and again, all over the planet, is that when
traditional peoples adopt a modern western diet, they blow up like
balloons. You just can't get fat gathering roots and tubers.

The obesity epidemic is partially a consequence of inactivity. But
it's largely a consequence of diet.

>You can pile the largest plate available to you with nothing but
>lard-laced meat and greasy spuds, as did many a farmer, chow it
>all down, and still be scrawny and healthy. But you also have
>to go out and plow the back forty, milk the cows, and all the
>other physical activities that farmer did.
>
>So it boils down to just *one* thing in your short list, Brownpecker.
>
>Self-control.

I think I saw your sequitur somewhere in Iowa.

>And while that's a tough one, it is not insurmountable, and the average
>person is capable of it.

Yeah, well, violins, but I see lots of human bowling balls waddling
around hereabouts: self-control doesn't seem to be doing them any
good.

>I am surrounded by candy, grease, and sugar, Josh. Surrounded
>by it. I have a jar sitting here full of change. It takes me
>a few steps to go to the vending machine. There are people here
>who shop at Sam's Club and buy junk and stock cabinets with it,
>offering it for sale at Sam's Club prices, so I don't really
>even have to spend the premium.
>
>I am an average human. An average American. Educated in
>public schools, in the average fashion. A little more intelligent
>than the average, but not much more. Better educated than some,
>but not better educated than the average.
>
>Two years ago I was obese. Today, through my own efforts, I have
>a BMI of 21.
>
>Blimpo, who was limping slowly into the building, barely able to
>shift her weight down the sidewalk, can do the same.
>
>It is NOT up to the government to do this for us.

It neither is nor isn't up to the government, Gekko. The government
does what we tell it to.

Now if you can find a miraculous way to give people the knowledge,
self-control, and alternatives they need to refrain from getting fat
at McDonald's, fine. I don't believe in unnecessary government
intervention. But I can hear fat cells multiplying as we speak, and
you'll forgive me if, in the absence of any miracle cure coming from
your direction or of a sudden attack of integrity on the part of fast
food restaurants and junk food makers, I suggest that we consider the
tried-and-true techniques that have been used to discourage the
excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs, e.g., a sin tax.

--
Josh
.