The Obesity Thing

[Trilby]

I underestimated how much the interviewer was manipulating them...

...I also don't compare them to anyone who is fighting the good fight - this family seems to have just thrown in the collective towel, given up, won't try...etc. etc.

you're right - we all have our "thing" whether it's smoking or working or buggering bunnies, our cross to bear. I don't begrudge that, but, aren't you supposed to at least try?


eta - or at least LIE about trying to try- that would be the most common way.

[Pie]

Originally Posted by Brianna

or buggering bunnies, our cross to bear.

I'm guessing it's mostly the bunny's cross to bear.
Somebody call PETA!

[monster]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Most everyone has some bad habit that it should be logical to kick, but don't.

Any of those mocking, smokers?
Or don't exercise 30+ minutes a day?
Or don't eat 5-a-day fruit & veg (or the American equivalent)?

Yes, they are an extreme.
But they are just silly people. People being the operative word.
Use the same terms about smoking as you do obesity and see how many Dwellars smack you down.

Yes I write this because I am fat.
And I'm not saying it in a proud way.
I am intelligent. Which should make it worse.
But somehow their lack of intelligence makes them a target.

I hate that people can be lambasted in the street for being fat, but not for smoking/ drinking/ littering/ all the rest.

we're not mocking their fatness, we're mocking their attitudes.

[DanaC]

Interviewers are very good at getting the responses they want. I deal with local news reporters on a semi-regular basis and they can still trip me up. Once or twice it really is only the fact that I have a good working relationship with the reporter that's saved me looking bad on the page.

It's a little like when you see these talent contest 'reality tv' shows. There are always a few there for freak appeal. They come on full of bravado and self-belief and we all laugh at how deluded they are. How can they believe they're good? We ask ourselves. They sound like a bag of cats being slaughtered, who could be so blind to their own lack of talent?

We watch them bigging themselves up and telling the judges and us how a singing career is their dream. And again we wonder at their lack of any grasp on reality. And then they get torn apart by the judges and are angry and cocky, or tearful and disbelieving. And again, we wonder at how they managed to maintain the dellusion, against all the evidence.

What we dont see is the behind the scenes machine. With the production team nurturing them into just the right intensity of self-belief, building up their confidence and expectation. Firing them up to 'not take it' and 'give some back' if the judges dont recognise their obvious talent. They're a star in the making.

The media is very good at taking ordinary people and shining a light into all their faults. Magnifying them and separating them from their anchoring contexts, until we end up with a caricature. We have no idea the length of the interview that got cut into what we see. We have no idea what questions were asked of them to illicit specific responses.

The reporter didnt go to interview those people with mind as open as notepad, the agenda, the purpose and desired result of the interview was preset.

Yeah. They said those things. They no doubt feel some sense of aggrievement (probably bolstered by the interviewer) and that may be unwarranted. Amongst their faults might well be a tendency to blame others for their failures or to feel that the world owes them something. There are worse faults. There are worse people.

I guarantee you, if a reporter decided to shine an unkindly light on my life they could easily make me look bad. I'm not 100% sure I'd spot the agenda any faster than they did. And I'm pretty sure I can be caricatured as easily as them.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Brianna

I underestimated how much the interviewer was manipulating them...

...I also don't compare them to anyone who is fighting the good fight - this family seems to have just thrown in the collective towel, given up, won't try...etc. etc.

you're right - we all have our "thing" whether it's smoking or working or buggering bunnies, our cross to bear. I don't begrudge that, but, aren't you supposed to at least try?


eta - or at least LIE about trying to try- that would be the most common way.

You thought that was just an expression, didn't you?

Originally Posted by Pie

I'm guessing it's mostly the bunny's cross to bear.
Somebody call PETA!

You though she was kidding, didn't you?

A New Zealand man has been refused bail on charges of animal cruelty and bestiality after the deaths of 17 rabbits and a guinea pig at a central Sydney office building. Finance industry worker Brendan Francis McMahon, 36, of North Sydney, made a brief court appearance in Aug 12 after being arrested in a vacant office adjacent to his workplace in central Sydney.

The investigation began after skinned and partially skinned dead and dying rabbits began to appear in a lane off York Street, near Circular Quay, late last month. Police also found a dead guinea pig.

The lane adjoined a building in which McMahon allegedly occupied a first-floor office, from which he ran a financial planning and mortgage brokerage, Meares-McMahon Capital with Jason Meares, the brother of Jodhi Packer. The company was formerly known as Transpacific Securities.

During their investigations, police from The Rocks phoned city pet stores to find who had been buying rabbits and found a number of purchases from a credit card in McMahon's name.

They also seized a security video of one purchase.

McMahon was charged with 18 counts of committing acts of aggravated cruelty on 18 rabbits between July 20 and August 11.

He was also charged with committing an act of bestiality with a rabbit on August 1 between 3am and 4am.
He was also charged with two counts of possession of cannabis.

Widely corroborated by many sources and the newspapers during 2005.

Either he's hung like a hamster, or he just misunderstood the whole playboy bunny business.

[classicman]

It was the eeeevil weed that made him do it.

[ZenGum]

Yeah, them carrots are Bad Shit.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

But somehow their lack of intelligence makes them a target.

Exactly. It's their want of intelligence. The cadmium rods are too damn far into their reactors.

[monster]

seems the family changed their tune. Now they are victims of cyberbullying. And they do eat healthily -just salads really. And they don't want more money after all.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7970491.stm

[classicman]

Sue Steel, national manager of the Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA), described the online abuse of the Chawners as "unacceptable".

She said: "Bullying in any form is wrong and as a society we need to send out the message that it will not be tolerated.

"People may think cyber-bullying is funny but it can actually be very hurtful."

[DanaC]

These people got caught up in the X-Factor media machine. I feel a little sorry for them. They don't seem terribly bright and have, I suspect, been manipulated into showing a ridiulous side to themselves. They're perfect tabloid fodder. I feel a little sorry for them. Children playing with matches.

[Juniper]

My mom kept a bit of a diary when she was a teenager - really just some papers folded together; they were quite poor. She had a weight problem and was sensitive about it. Because of her weight she felt shy with boys and absolutely certain, in the way that teens are absolutely certain about things, that she'd never have a boyfriend. I remember one line from this diary: "I would like to slim down, but I don't know what to do differently or what to eat."

Granted this was the 1950's, but even then people knew that losing weight = eating less fats and sugar, less in general. Surely she'd heard about that in PE class?

I didn't understand that for a long time. "Duh," I thought. Want to lose weight? Just eat less and take the long way walking home from school. How can anybody be that ignorant? I was thin, after all. Thin people don't understand why it's hard not to be thin. (I do now!)

Yet it's true - poverty makes you fat. I suppose if you were truly starving that wouldn't be the case, but few people in the US & UK are starving. If you look in the most impoverished, economically downtrodden regions--say, Appalachia or the deep South--you'll see almost to a person big rolls of fat, moony faces and little piggy eyes. Including the little kids. And you think: they can't be THAT poor, looks like they're eating fine!

Yep. They're eating eggs, potatoes, bread, cheese, fried meats, and washing it down with sweet tea and Mt. Dew. Cheap foods. Comfort foods. Foods that make you feel full and satisfied. Foods they are familiar with and know how to prepare, almost without thinking about it, certainly without needing a cookbook. So for a while they can delude themselves into thinking they're doing all right, eating things that taste good. The Food Stamps people don't care if you buy a bag of carrots or a chub of ground beef. They also deal with what is called "food anxiety." When your cupboards aren't always full, when you know what it's like to go to bed hungry, you think about food a bit more than an ordinary person would. It probably also alters your metabolism and brain chemistry, making you crave fats and carbs more than an ordinary person; the body's hedge against starvation.

These people in the UK say they're eating "salads." Salads aren't really that healthy, especially when you dump on a bunch of dressing. It's also open to ambiguity. What kind of salads? Potato? Chicken? Pasta? "I eat salads" is the standard reply of the fat person under scrutiny; it's like a default answer. People who are thin because of a chosen lifestyle usually don't eat a lot of salads. They eat a variety of healthy foods.

I have my own theory about how to manage people on government aid, but most people wouldn't like it. It involves education.

[DanaC]

The thing is. I probably eat less healthily than that family. I survive on junk foods, food fads, high-carb comfort eating, feast and famine. Other than walking my dog, I do very little exercise. I am never still...but it's nervous energy, and I can burn off calories sitting in front of the tv. I am a junk eating, sports hating, sun avoiding, couch potato. I know how to eat healthily yet I can still go into a supermarket and get overwhelmed with questions like: "aubergine....yeah, but I have no idea what that goes with?". And sure you can start looking at recipes and checking out the tip cards, but Christ on a bike, there are times I can't make myself brown toast, the reality of cooking from scratch is overfacing, most of the time.

It's easier (and if you're not brilliantly clever with your ingredients, cheaper too) to buy convenience foods. Supernoodles are half a meal, and they're less than .70p a pack. A cheeseburger might have very little actual nutritiona value but it makes you feel full temporarily for very little. And it gives you a boost, a little chemical high in the brain. It actually does make you feel better....a little, just for a few moments.

Thing is, I just happen to be thin. I have a thin person's metabolism and therefore my body goes way out of its way to ensure I stay thin. I over indulge in calories and I get sluggish then edgy and fidgety (probably doesnt help the eczema any :P) My body forces me to respond in a way that burns off those calories. I don't go do a work out at the gym, I just *shrugs* speed up my metabolismm to meet the extra calories (I don't mean *I* do that, my body does that).

I deserve way harsher judgement on my lack of self-control and 'laziness' than most people, fat or thin. But I don't have to walk around with my sins emblazoned on my jacket for all to cast their judgements on me.

There are times I bring my eczema on myself. I go down a self-destructive lazy little path of sweets and overindulgence and the sugar rush or colourings set me off (I know, what am I, like 5?). Thirty seven years old and I still fall off the food wagon and eat stuff I fucking know might set me off. Or drink a really good, oaky Rioja knowing full well that it may exact a cost. People see me with my skin flared they don't generally leap straight to "stupid cow, fancy eating a bunch of stuff you should't. That'll teach you for being greedy and lazy"


Food is the very basic central fact of our survival. Our relationship with it starts in the womb and continues through our whole life. It is subject to strains and stresses, changes and derailments. It's a fucking complicated thing. Trouble is we people want it to be as simple as all the other theoretical constructs into which we fit our world.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Juniper

I have my own theory about how to manage people on government aid, but most people wouldn't like it. It involves education.

ohhh no! We'd probably love it, I know I want to hear it. Please share.

[Clodfobble]

Dana, that was a great post. I will note, however, that while the average passerby may not look at your eczema flare-up and know that it came from irresponsible eating, you know it, and you readily admit to it. You are not insisting that you "just don't know" how to solve the problem, which is what was most galling about the family in the original story.