Post: #26

(06-22-2015 01:06 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 12:53 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  There are other factors here too, but criminalizing what parents feed to kids is like trying to cure the symptom while ignoring the disease. The government created this mess through bad policy and a misguided obsession with "equality in the workplace." The people shouldn't be penalized.

Nowhere in the Gold's post did I see a call for criminalizing what parents feed kids, but parents who turn their kids obese. There is a big difference. The occasional snack or fast food isn't a huge deal, as he noted.

It is illegal to turn your kid into a drunk or a smoker. It should be illegal to turn them obese.

The very title is "Parents who feed their children shit should be charged with child abuse." Child abuse is a criminal charge. You get entangled with the state regarding that and I wish you luck.

Post: #27

(06-22-2015 12:53 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  We don't need to give the state more power to criminalize yet more behavior. Parents are responsible for their children, not the state. It needs to stay that way.

Believe me, you will scarcely find a person who is as strong an adherent to classical liberalism as I am, however, I disagree with you, to a degree.

This is a very tricky situation to deal with, and were I a politician (Mayor, Governor, Congressman) , I would find a prosecutor to bring up such a case to test the idea in court.

In those areas where government's discharge of authority is within its proper province (Constitutionally enumerated, for example), the government ought to have considerable power. In this case, there is a real and legitimate use of governmental authority. One important application of government is the defense of the innocent, and our judicial and criminal systems are designed precisely for that purpose. This is why I believe it is prudent that government prohibit abortion, for there are few things so innocent as an unborn child.

In the case of social services, while it is sad when a child is separated from its parents, is it not in that child's best interest to be placed in a better environment than an abusive and unhealthy one? While obesity is not an abuse equitable with rape or physical violence, it is nonetheless detrimental. It is a very tricky circumstance to punish parents for subjecting their children to obesity, and it must be dealt with very carefully. In my opinion, their should be incentives for parents to reverse obesity in their children, rather than punitive application of justice.

Post: #28

(06-22-2015 01:13 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 01:06 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 12:53 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  There are other factors here too, but criminalizing what parents feed to kids is like trying to cure the symptom while ignoring the disease. The government created this mess through bad policy and a misguided obsession with "equality in the workplace." The people shouldn't be penalized.

Nowhere in the Gold's post did I see a call for criminalizing what parents feed kids, but parents who turn their kids obese. There is a big difference. The occasional snack or fast food isn't a huge deal, as he noted.

It is illegal to turn your kid into a drunk or a smoker. It should be illegal to turn them obese.

The very title is "Parents who feed their children shit should be charged with child abuse." Child abuse is a criminal charge. You get entangled with the state regarding that and I wish you luck.

I can see how that could be objectionable by itself, but I believe it becomes more clear what he means when you read his entire post. I'll let him do the explaining but I didn't interpret his post as a call for food authoritarianism.

Post: #29

(06-22-2015 12:53 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  I strongly disagree with this post.

We don't need to give the state more power to criminalize yet more behavior. Parents are responsible for their children, not the state. It needs to stay that way.
...

There are other factors here too, but criminalizing what parents feed to kids is like trying to cure the symptom while ignoring the disease. The government created this mess through bad policy and a misguided obsession with "equality in the workplace." The people shouldn't be penalized.

I don't like looking at fat families either. But I don't like families having to answer to government workers about every little thing even worse.

Exactly - what you don't want to do is to give the government more power to meddle in your fucking family affairs. Usually they would resort to taxing anything that THEY CONSIDER healthy. Trust me - you don't want to have the FDA-pharma-agricultural-food complex deciding what should have a fine of 200% on it or whether this or that couple is going to be taxed. If you cannot pay your fat taxes then those families would be SWATed and imprisoned, right?

In a corrupt government you can only expect more corruption as a result.

By the way - what you are proposing is already in discussion by the policy makers. More power to them and Sieg Heil to the 1984-style-food-Nazis - first eliminating healthy food, subsidizing crap, subsidizing big Agro and big Pharma, putting crap as food substitute, allowing toxic ingredients, fattening the Americans and then taxing those Americans for eating the crap that they have created.

The solution is similar to punishing a cow for eating GMO corn and getting sick - for not having gone to some green pasture and eaten grass.

Post: #30

What Days of Broken Arrows said is very true, and I completely agree with it. Giving the state more power over family affairs is wrong and causes more problems than it solves, and everyone should know that.

What Wastelander was saying to back me up is basically what I was going for in this post.

(06-22-2015 01:06 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  Nowhere in Gold's post did I see a call for criminalizing what parents feed kids, but instead parents who turn their kids obese. There is a big difference. The occasional snack or fast food isn't a huge deal, as he noted.

It is illegal to turn your kid into a drunk or a smoker. It should be illegal to turn them obese.

Right, only take that with a grain of salt.....

(06-22-2015 01:18 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  I can see how that could be objectionable by itself, but I believe it becomes more clear what he means when you read his entire post. I'll let him do the explaining but I didn't interpret his post as a call for food authoritarianism.

This. Trust me, I understand the multitude of problems that would come with putting strict laws and regulations on this. I was hoping that people would interpret my post mostly how he did - Parents should be held accountable and more responsible for their children's obesity.

Perhaps I should have given this thread a different title, but oh well.

Edit: Now thinking about it, I should have replaced "should be charged with" with "are committing" in the title and the various spots throughout the post to make the purpose a little more clear. Sorry about that.

Post: #31

(06-22-2015 12:18 PM)zombiejimmorrison Wrote:  Great article, a lot of people say we should have a tax on junk food or what's commonly called a sugar tax. Completely missing farm subsidies. The sole reason junk food is cheaper than vegetables in terms of calorie density, is because of wheat and corn subsidies. If they stopped messing with the farming business, healthy food would be cheaper and junk food would cost more.

Even with all that tinkering, healthy food is still competitive enough to buy and is cheaper long term because your health isn't deteriorating. People know vegetables, fruit and good quality meat is the way to go but they just don't care enough to change.

You can beat people over the head with it and it still doesn't make a difference. We all revert back to the debate over the treatment of the symptoms instead focusing on the disease, because that's what we are programmed to do.

There have been quite a few threads on this forum pointing out exactly why obesity is growing at such alarming rates, yet the primary arguments continue to be over what type of statist solution will cure that which ails us, instead of focusing on the policies that got us here in the first place.

Post: #32

Fat parents aren't going to buy their fat kids healthy whole foods because it would increase the budget. The alternative would be for them to also switch to healthy whole foods. That would be insanity!

Post: #33

What sickens me about the topic is the fact that children do not have the knowledge and mental capacity to make the choice for themselves. Their rational is taste based and if the parents do not force a degree of healthyness upon them, their lives and health can be severely comprimised well before they are old enough to drive a car.

That is a parents job, to protect their children from danger until they are old enough and knowledgable enough to do it themselves.

If all the parents buy is crap and porcessed food, the children dont even have the option to be healthy. Quite the opposite, they are being forced to be fat and unhealthy. Its sad seeing severly obese 4 graders with diabetes. Type II diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes, because it was unheard of for any one to have it early in age, back when a high percentage of our diets consisted of low calorie, nutrient dense, high fiber, natural foods.

Dont even get me started on overweight people and their excuses.
-I dont have time to cook/exercise......but i do have time to watch 4 hrs of tv a night.
-When I'm on the road I have to eat fast food.
-People who drink a 240 calorie coke while burning 150 calories on the treadmil.
-People who order a diet pop with a 1,500 calorie Baconator with fries.
-People that tell you they have bad genetics and it is physically immpossible for them to loose weight. The same people who drink 1,000 calories of alcohol or more every single night.
-People who think frozen pizza and french fries count as servings of vegtables.

Post: #34

Spent the day with my grandpa yesterday for fathers day. We started talking about fat people.

My grandpa said:

"There ain't nothing good about fat people."

Post: #35

Agree with your re-thought title for thread,

Or Maybe....

Parents who feed their children shit should be Fat Shamed & Ridiculed at every available opportunity!

Really the link between Multinational Supermarkets & Fast-food orgs has to be dismantled.

CFS (corn fruit sugar) is the main demon followed quickly by the processed trans-fats.

Convenience is that horrible Elephant in the corner tho, if you'll excuse the pun!

Have noticed small increase in organic vegetable allotments & community artisan bakery's popping up in poorer neighbourhoods recently, which is a start & can only be a good thing.

Post: #36

(06-22-2015 05:12 PM)Salty Wrote:  Agree with your re-thought title for thread,

Or Maybe....

Parents who feed their children shit should be Fat Shamed & Ridiculed at every available opportunity!

How about, "People Believe Fat Shaming Doesn't Work Because They Don't Do It Often Enough"?

Post: #37

(06-22-2015 12:40 PM)zombiejimmorrison Wrote:  The amount of veggies it would take to reach even 1000 calories would be enormous. On the other hand your average sneakers bar is 250 calories, fat people can demolish 4 sneakers bars before lunch.

Post: #38

There's a large percentage of the population that simply does not possess the requisite future time orientation (an inborn personality trait that strongly correlates with IQ) to regulate their eating in today's overabundant food landscape. The vast majority of these people will inevitably become obese over time, because they are literally incapable of the self-denial necessary to turn down delicious junk food. There's nothing that can be done to fix this problem short of 1) a widespread, long-lasting famine, 2) passing ultra-draconian food laws that outlaw the sale of junk foods or 3) rounding up all fatties and forcing them into work camps until they lose weight. None of these outcomes are desirable in the least (Ok, well, maybe the third ). I suppose it might be possible to alleviate the problem if brutal social fat shaming became a cultural norm, but that seems as unlikely as the other options at this point. I think fatties are here to stay. It's just too easy and tempting to gorge on junk food. It takes extraordinary willpower to turn down a delicious donut or bowl or ice cream, especially when society encourages such consumption. A lot of people simply can't do it. They cave in almost every time and as a result become land whales.

Post: #39

Do not hold just fat parents accountable. Plenty of thin parents raise fat ass kids because they cave to the child's demand for convenient junk food at every opportunity because they try too hard to be the child's friend instead of parents. Career couples are the most likely do this out of what seems to me to be guilt over not being around their children enough. If one parent (the mother ideally) was with the children enough to have happy moments, that parent would be able to enforce some dietary discipline without feeling evil for spending their few moments with the kids being "mean."

Maybe that's just my childhood, but I doubt it.

Post: #40

(06-22-2015 07:51 PM)scorpion Wrote:  There's a large percentage of the population that simply does not possess the requisite future time orientation (an inborn personality trait that strongly correlates with IQ) to regulate their eating in today's overabundant food landscape. The vast majority of these people will inevitably become obese over time, because they are literally incapable of the self-denial necessary to turn down delicious junk food. There's nothing that can be done to fix this problem short of 1) a widespread, long-lasting famine, 2) passing ultra-draconian food laws that outlaw the sale of junk foods or 3) rounding up all fatties and forcing them into work camps until they lose weight. None of these outcomes are desirable in the least (Ok, well, maybe the third ). I suppose it might be possible to alleviate the problem if brutal social fat shaming became a cultural norm, but that seems as unlikely as the other options at this point. I think fatties are here to stay. It's just too easy and tempting to gorge on junk food. It takes extraordinary willpower to turn down a delicious donut or bowl or ice cream, especially when society encourages such consumption. A lot of people simply can't do it. They cave in almost every time and as a result become land whales.

No need to be draconian to effect change, but those proposals could do it:

1. Ban all highly toxic and almost criminally licensed ingredients incl. high fructose syrup in the current form
2. Start at school teaching children what constitutes healthy food, healthy eating habits, right exercise - do it with a strong dose of fat shaming there
3. Fill the media & entertainment with the same message (not with plenty of contrary propaganda and children's movies which teach you to avoid broccoli and love pizza)
4. Stop subsidizing large crappy meat, dairy, staple and GMO producers - start subsidizing small organic farmers instead
5. Enact policies which make home cooked meals and ingredients cheaper than fast food - something that is logical and prevalent in most countries in the world. Salad and fruit should cost much less than pizza and cake.
6. Finance actual short- and long-term studies on food and nutrition free of intervention and bias testing out multiple diets, exercise routines to find out once and for all what the optimal diets for humans are. Currently there are so many opinions and directions that medical science on nutrition is utterly and completely scatter-brained.

Those changes do not even touch upon the freedom to choose unhealthy food. It just corrects the current ills and manipulations.

I am certain that all of this would correct the problem faster than anyone thinks, but of course it's utterly unrealistic in our system.

Post: #41

Society and friends play a big role too. Parents can cook homemade healthy meals all day, but when little Johnny goes over to Charlie's house, Charlie's mom gives him ice cream and candy. Little Johnny doesn't get this at home. The sugar and tasty processed food is like crack for him. Maybe Johnny doesn't get fat when he's living at home, but when he moves out and has his own money, Johnny buys out the candy store and he's not so little anymore.

It's something that needs to be addressed as a society. We have to collectively admit that being fat is unhealthy and enforce proper food choices throughout childhood. You know, that whole it takes a village to raise a child thing. This isn't something that you can legislate away. It will take active participation from the majority of parents. Let kids know that excessive sugar is druglike with its addictive properties, and that in order to live a long, healthy life, should generally be avoided. Considering that fat acceptance seems to be gaining steam, I'm not optimistic about the future. Maybe in 20 years when all these fatties are dying in their 40's and 50's of obesity related diseases.

Speaking personally, kicking candy was harder than dropping alcohol and weed. I still drink and smoke on occasion, but I can't ever let myself have candy. I know it'll take just one bite and I'll slide back into extremely unhealthy eating habits again.

Post: #42

It's gonna be tough to imprison the majority of American parents.

Post: #43

The government needs to get out of the way and allow social shame to reign these fat fucks in. The government actually exacerbates this stuff through a variety of its measures (welfare, farming subsidies, spreading leftist ideology vs rightist 'personal responsibility' ideas).

Imagine a world where fat people can get fired just because their boss finds them disgusting, or that kids are denied places in school because of their farcical rotundity, or they are denied tenancies, and they find themselves generally alone and excluded. That'd force them to fix themselves, by medical intervention if necessary.

The problem is that in the modern West, being shit is too often applauded rather than vilified.

Post: #44

I appreciate the frustration. But these days I largely (heh) see obesity as a handy visual shortcut for IQ. In the past the peasantry were of normal weight, but stupid and coarse. These days they're stupid, coarse and fat. Either way, they just don't register with me. They may as well not exist.

Of course, a few intelligent people with things to offer may be overweight. But that number is very small.

Post: #45

I've been griping about this topic ever since I learned how to properly train and properly eat and realized just how much time and potential I've wasted in my youth by doing these 2 things improperly and not getting the results I wanted.

I don't know why proper eating and training isn't some kind of subject that kids are REQUIRED to learn in school, but fag marriage being a right or how to use a dildo and how having 2 dads is normal are somehow mandatory topics that every kid should know about. And the funny thing is, it wouldn't even take that long to explain it, but then they'd have acquired this skill FOR LIFE. It's just: calories in=calories out, counting calories, macros, fat is good, carbs are a dump macro, protein is important, bodyfat estimation, water retention, fiber is needed. BOOM, you've basically explained 90% of all there is to know about proper nutrition and it wouldn't even barely take a day to explain it all. Instead of dubious faggy touchy feely assignments like you have to treat a doll as a real baby for a day or something rather make the kids count their calories for a week and then present and compare the results in class. Would blow their mind and teach them a good lesson about how calorie dense some stuff is and how easy it is to eat a lot of calories if you're not consciously thinking about what you're eating

Post: #46

(06-22-2015 07:51 PM)scorpion Wrote:  There's a large percentage of the population that simply does not possess the requisite future time orientation (an inborn personality trait that strongly correlates with IQ) to regulate their eating in today's overabundant food landscape. The vast majority of these people will inevitably become obese over time, because they are literally incapable of the self-denial necessary to turn down delicious junk food. There's nothing that can be done to fix this problem short of 1) a widespread, long-lasting famine, 2) passing ultra-draconian food laws that outlaw the sale of junk foods or 3) rounding up all fatties and forcing them into work camps until they lose weight. None of these outcomes are desirable in the least (Ok, well, maybe the third ). I suppose it might be possible to alleviate the problem if brutal social fat shaming became a cultural norm, but that seems as unlikely as the other options at this point. I think fatties are here to stay. It's just too easy and tempting to gorge on junk food. It takes extraordinary willpower to turn down a delicious donut or bowl or ice cream, especially when society encourages such consumption. A lot of people simply can't do it. They cave in almost every time and as a result become land whales.

So why aren't Euro countries as fat as America?

I think there's a better explanation: food addiction is just a symptom of social fragmentation.

/thread-48508.html

Post: #47

(06-23-2015 04:10 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 07:51 PM)scorpion Wrote:  There's a large percentage of the population that simply does not possess the requisite future time orientation (an inborn personality trait that strongly correlates with IQ) to regulate their eating in today's overabundant food landscape. The vast majority of these people will inevitably become obese over time, because they are literally incapable of the self-denial necessary to turn down delicious junk food. There's nothing that can be done to fix this problem short of 1) a widespread, long-lasting famine, 2) passing ultra-draconian food laws that outlaw the sale of junk foods or 3) rounding up all fatties and forcing them into work camps until they lose weight. None of these outcomes are desirable in the least (Ok, well, maybe the third ). I suppose it might be possible to alleviate the problem if brutal social fat shaming became a cultural norm, but that seems as unlikely as the other options at this point. I think fatties are here to stay. It's just too easy and tempting to gorge on junk food. It takes extraordinary willpower to turn down a delicious donut or bowl or ice cream, especially when society encourages such consumption. A lot of people simply can't do it. They cave in almost every time and as a result become land whales.

So why aren't Euro countries as fat as America?

I think there's a better explanation: food addiction is just a symptom of social fragmentation.

/thread-48508.html

I agree with you that the Western society fragments people hard and makes them more neurotic, so they self-medicate with food. But that once a person has learned how calorie counting works and how much calories they need per day, there's literally 0 reasons or excuses they can bring to explain why they're overeating, because when you KNOW that eating that additional snickers bar or pizza is gonna bring you over your daily limit, you can't just go "oh well I'm food addicted because of this sick western society". The choice to go over your daily limit and stuff that additional food item in your mouth is then entirely on you. Maybe that's why some people simply refuse to learn proper food planning, to keep themselves in willful ignorance, because ignorance itself is an excuse for many people

I mean if some forest hiker sees a pretty berry that looks delicious and it eats it, but turns out it's poisonous, well that person can be forgiven because he didn't know better. But if that same person sees that berry again, eats it and gets poisoned again, well then that person really has no excuse and should've known better. Many people want to keep themselves in that first situation so they can be constantly excused

Post: #48

(06-23-2015 04:10 AM)Samseau Wrote:  So why aren't Euro countries as fat as America?

I think there's a better explanation: food addiction is just a symptom of social fragmentation.

/thread-48508.html

A good reason why EU countries are slimmer is because home cooking is by far cheaper. Countries like Norway or Switzerland even make eating out almost prohibitively expensive, so the lower strata of society eats at home. While Kebabs and some fast foods are there, they are used in a much less frequent manner.

Also quite a few ingredients, hormones and toxic pesticides used in the US & Canada are completely banned in the EU or at least they are used in a far restricted manner. Unhealthy CAFOs and their toxic meat is also not known around here.

Those factors alone explain a large portion of the discrepancy. Americans living in France would never grow as large as back home.

Of course there are other points, but we have to keep in mind that both European and Americans in the 1970s looked similar in body type:


1973 California


1973 London UK

Post: #49

(06-22-2015 11:56 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 11:51 AM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

(06-22-2015 11:45 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  I think you've missed perhaps the most important factor.

Complete ignorance.

My ltr is a personal trainer and I work in the fitness industry too...pretty much everyone we come into contact with has absolutely no idea whatsoever what constitutes a balanced, healthy diet.

How is this possible? I'm 29 but I remember being told to eat fruits and vegetables because they were good for me. I also knew that desserts were bad for you. I didn't know much about calories as a kid but just looking at what the fat kids ate made me avoid a lot of those foods.

I don't know why it's possible. But it is certainly true.

I'm talking about otherwise sensible, smart people here too, not just retards.

The thing is, it's as easy to overeat on healthy foods as it is on junk. A lb of body fat per month, let's say, is only 100 or so calories extra per day. Half a Snickers or something. A cappuccino instead of a flat white. Easily done.

That's nearly a stone per year.

I often see fat women out walking in the evenings drinking energy drinks and the such like whilst they're power walking in groups; they have no idea that the drink has more calories than they're burning and then have no idea why they aren't losing weight.

They then give up as their approach isn't working.

It doesn't help that nobody seems to know how to cook anymore.


It's hard to have sympathy for these people, I agree, but I don't think it's as simple to put it down to apathy alone.

You'd be amazed at the calories in small amounts of food:

One Pepperidge Farms Milano cookie = 110 calories
Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar = 210 calories.
20 oz Coke or Pesi = 240 calories.
Butterfinger bar = 270 calories
Dunkin' Donuts Vanilla cream donut = 380 calories.
4 oz bag of trail mix = 490 calories.

There's 1,700 calories from relatively little food.

A WWII G.I. was allotted 2700 calories a day and he often lived on less - a man who is constantly moving, fighting, and carrying about 100 lbs. of gear. I see some of these stationary land whales consume way more than what that WWII soldier ate.

Post: #50

I believe another reason for the explosion of obesity is the type of work now done. Decades ago, the majority of work was in manufacturing, construction, or farming. You burn off a lot of calories working in a hot factory, outside working construction, or working on a farm. People would eat huge breakfasts before work and drink a lot after work, but the calories never accumulated because they were constantly burned-off due to the type of work that was once commonplace. Now, people work sedentary jobs in an office building sitting at a desk, or working in retail, or, worse yet, working in fast food! They're still consuming calories like they're steel workers, construction workers, or farm laborers, but burning off very little of them.