Why Are People So Fat?

I remember reading an article in the April 1995 edition of OMNI magazine titled “Portly`s Complaint: finding room in America for the not-so-average physique”

It was surprisingly very lighthearted and to be politically correct he refers to his own kind as “Horizontally challenged” He understands why people don’t want to sit next to him on the train for fear of suffocation, and there’s a widely held belief (although inaccurate) that fat people smell. It was good article and you could really empathize with him no matter what size you are.


Hotwater

 

Starvation (I’m being sarcastic of course) lol



Hotwater

 

I never said that it was the same, but if what you're saying is true, it would be impossible for a person to lose fat while losing muscle at the same time, yet people do it all the time when they crash diet.

Muscle helps to burn fat, yes. The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn as it increases the metabolic rate. Muscle alone is not what burns calories. Just being alive burns calories (think your heart, brain and lungs), and when your body burns more calories than it has consumed, the body turns to fat and muscle (in the absence of adequate protein) for energy.

Not sure exactly what you're saying here.

 

Notice how many people have their heads stuck in the phones nowadays, it is a bit zombie-esque

 

By having them do exercises they have the range of motion to perform.

The best way to have people with handicaps do anything, is always to focus on what they can do and not what they can't.

There is plenty of room for discussion, and there is still much to be learned about the human body and fitness. But it really is as simple as calories in vs calories out. Calories out are determined by metabolic processes, and the nutritional quality of the calories in can vary. But in terms of weight gain/loss, if you want to reduce your weight, make syre you have less calories in than out, and vice versa. It's probably not practical to actually count the calories, but the principle works fine.

To answer the OP, people are so fat because of the desire of corporations to increase their profit margins. Unhealthy food is cheap, addictive and everywhere, especially in the US.

 

It obviously is both.

 

It is said here in the netherlands 'we used to work and eat like boat workers, now we work on the computer but we still eat like boat workers' anyway, eating a lot of good old butter and other oldfashioned fatty stuff and not moving enough will make you fat, i don't think Rat is arguing that. It is just that a lot of those classic fats (saturated or not) seem not as dangerous for an average person as eating the same amount of processed 'transfats'.

 

I'm in the category of people who can eat and eat and never put on weight. Obviously its a metabolic thing. Genetically different, I wouldn't say 'superior'. Being thin can bring problems too.

I'm still careful with my diet, as even being thin one can still get high blood cholesterol from too much of the wrong sorts of fats and other dietary based problems. I try to eat foods which will help me get a full compliment of micronutrients, and to choose fresh foods wherever possible.

Exercise is also important for thin people, not just those seeking to loose weight.

 

study Asian and French diets

 

Yoga is the first thing that popped into my head. It is great for joint mobility and is fat burning and muscle strengthening, plus it is self paced and very gentle. It would also help lend mental clarity to anyone struggling with the mental roadblocks which may accompany a disability.

 

That does sound like a great way to go, Meli.

 

That is a good suggestion and also possibly looking into hot yoga with an instructor that has training in hatha as well. The heat could be beneficial.

I would also suggest the use of a physiotherapist so that further damage is not done to the joints. Many are receptive to yoga and the two could be combined.

 

I'm pretty much in that same boat. I have a high metabolism and I use my diet to keep it high. I can eat anything I want without gaining weight but I don't. I actually have a fairly strict diet (most people would think so anyway but it doesn't bother me at all). If I ate something crappy like McDonald's, I would feel the physical effects of it in probably less than 20 minutes.

 

But there are some people I see. They metabolisms work quite fast. They eat much and they don't run or do things like that. They don't even walk but they are skinny. I don't understand that. Not everybody's metabolism works the same fast. Some have to take less carlories than other some to be at the same weight. My BMI was 30 about 3 months ago. I used to drink lots of beers. I gave up alcohol and I started running and I have lost 15 kilograms. Now my BMI is 25 but I must go on losing weight. When I lose 3 kilograms now, My BMI will become 24. I believe that will be enough. Now, when I put on clothes, my belly can very hardly be noticed. When my BMI was 30, My belly was so fucking big. It was so disgusting but I look so much better now. I also got rid of that fat face. My face also used to look very bad. Now I have a normal face instead of a fat face.

 

low diversity diets. the body keeps trying to tell us we need different things then what we've eaten, but culturally, in the u.s. primarily, this signal is misinterpreted as more of the same hunger, so people keep eating more of the same things without end, thus over eating, without ever turning off the signal that's trying to tell them they're not getting something they need.

 

People eat more and move around less.

 

It's not? JK! It has been explained in this very thread

 

I think there's a mindset that we need to eat more proportions than actually nessessary with the limited exercise a lot of people endure in their lives.

 

I don't think people are even mindful of how much they're eating. It's easy to go to a restaurant and order a meal that is 2,000+ calories without even realizing it.