Dude, I have actually had less passive-aggressive crap from people I have seen naked. Could you, perhaps, save this sort of thing for people *you* have seen naked?

Totally missed this thread, so glad I reviewed it and found this – goddam that's funny.

or

They remake a movie, perhaps some historical epic like Troy or Braveheart, starring kiwifruit...whole armies of kwifruit. no CGI.

or

remarket them as biodegradeable hand squeeze stress relievers.

Very simple and completely insane.

Insane. Capitalism does produce some stupid things sometimes.

I work with someone very experienced with this field, and often tells me I am a bit fatalisticish but an underlying wish to understand and "do the right thing" I know is what drives her and she is brilliant

I think it's quite inspiring to find people who combine excellence…

Thanks Sofie

Why WH you are mostest welcome. I was actually trying to agree with everyone without sounding ignorant because I know it is many things, and there you were lurking for I don't know how many pages but all in all what you wrote was beautifully put. I work…

Where's our host? – get that Josh a reward of some sort.

Josh, there is a Burger King voucher for you at reception. Just show them your B Card

Last one out turn off the lights!

I think I've got the hang of this – can I play, too?

No. You can only play if you are conversant with at least the basics of endocrinology, biochemistry, clinical chemistry, histology, physiology, cardiology and epidemiology. ;)

"The sky is blue!"
"Yeah, but grass is green!"
"No, the SKY is BLUE!"
"God damn it, GRASS IS GREEN!!"
"BLUE! BLUE, I TELL YOU!"
"GREEN! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!"

I think I've got the hang of this – can I play, too?

LOL

I think I've got the hang of this – can I play, too?

(You know, before someone tries to set Ben on fire.)

According to Keith, burning things at Earth Hour is a bad idea anyway.

I've taken to sitting on my hands.

I've just barely resisted wading in myself. Actually, having started typing I'm so sorely tempted to do so, but ... gah. That was close.

I'll admit to being the Voice of Compulsive Argument. Except today, because I have a cold, so I'm the Hoarse Whisper of Contention.

But doing one's apprenticeship on Usenet in the old days certainly helps.

Round and round and round..

I've taken to sitting on my hands.

I've just had to put up with a lot of attitude from you all day, that's pretty much where I got that conclusion. Because you took it personally. Conjecture. Could be wrong. Maybe you like stirring shit too.…

anyway, the feedback to BenWilson's almost-wholly…

Um, OK. I'll try not to take being called 'bitter to my very core' by someone who doesn't know me at all personally.

I've just had to put up with a lot of attitude from you all day, that's pretty much where I got that conclusion. Because you took it…

Danielle, I've got simpler advice for you: Don't take it personally.

Um, OK. I'll try not to take being called 'bitter to my very core' by someone who doesn't know me at all personally. I'm just a playah-hatah, I know, I know.

If you're talking about this discussion, I have…

Dyan, I never said people couldn't get fat from eating very little. But somewhere between whatever you mean by very little, and nothing, they will lose fat.

As for the identical people with identical diets blah, blah fucking blah,…

Eg, if you swap out 400kJ of energy from legumes and vegetables, and replace it with white sugar, you will get fatter. Same energy intake, same activity levels, different hormonal response. I am sure that is what Dyan is talking about.

Yes, thank you Stephen, exactly . Also consume white…

Danielle, you were going to get bitter no matter what. Face it. ... Seems to me you're bitter to your very core about the entire position I hold. I'm a very bad man for not just doing as I'm told...

Oh lawdy. The whining. Dude, just a nugget of advice…

To appeal to MY personal experience for a moment, weight loss is vastly easier if you regulate the proportions of different foods as well as count calories. Eg, calories from alcohol are special, I can tell you. I've never…

BenWilson, good to see you can admit to being wrong! I have respect for anyone who can do that.

Heh, I'm wrong hundreds of times every day. So far as I'm concerned, it's the only way to move forward. Insisting on being right before acting leads to paralysis, and knowledge…

Apropos convincing people – well, I think if you want to change behaviour, work with human nature by creating an environment that makes change easy. Merely informing them is unlikely to work.

Merely informing them is, however, a vital step. Misinforming them could be a step backwards.

But yup, I…

Meds, paticularly for mental illnesses, are very much implicated in weight gain (and, ironically, some appetite suppressants can contribute to mental illness...)

(Why isn't advertising simply a matter of informing you about quality and price? Why do supermarkets put confectionery…

O no they wont!

I have a (cousin circle) family member who was morbidly obese. She was also clinically depressed, and some of her meds added to the weight problem. Over a period…

But wait! Is the win messing up my endocrine system? I am concerned.

(I was about to say that I'm not normally this petty, but I think it's fairly conclusively proven that I am *exactly* this petty. Heh.)

Not to mention made of win, which should be of interest to science in a variety of ways.

And every person who's ever lost weight will tell me I'm right – that they did it THEMSELVES.

I'm willing to bet the house that there aren't too many people who practice stomach reduction surgery on themselves.

Honey, we're all dying. I just don't buy into all the malarkey about how chocolate is bad for you, and 10 ciggies a day makes you a walking corpse.

I tend to agree. I've got my own poisons. They may kill me. I don't really care. I LIKE them ;-)…

If you think that physics does not come to bear, you are as wrong about that as if you thought your mental state would stop physics smashing you into the ground if you jumped off a tall building.

Ben, I'm not saying physics are not relevant, what I'm saying is…

In my opinion, in the majority of cases, no, there is no difference. Quitting is as simple as stopping smoking. Anything less is not quitting

Agreed, but people's decision to stop (or to start) smoking is influenced by such diverse external factors as the price of tobacco, how easily they…

You are right…

Long life? I spit on the concept.

You'll probably outlive us all because you're not worrying about this shit. :)

Well, at the risk of hectoring you, you're wrong, still wrong when you insist you're right, and you're no less wrong by labouring your mistaken point.

This made me snorfle.

'Nails it Again'

It is a sobriquet to which I aspire, except there are all the times when I whack my thumb instead.

by Len Kravitz, Ph.D
Are you going to go my way?
Wait... different guy? Damn.

No, no, you're thinking of that apprentice guy Duddy Kravitz in Mordecai Richler's novel... oh, hang on...

by Len Kravitz, Ph.D

Are you going to go my way?

Wait... different guy? Damn.

I see the infomercial now. 'The Matthews Cucumber Diet: eat as many cups of cucumber as you can stand per day and watch the pounds drop off!'

You could make millions, Kyle.

I think you'll find in order to lose weight, you'll need to drop down to under 100 cups…

The second can only be answered by the individual.

Really? Why is this any different from any other health…

And so it goes, all the medical diagnoses that all fail to explain how people are beating the 3rd law of thermodynamics, and creating stored energy (fat) out of nothing.

Ben, Newtonion physics are meant to describe discrete physical objects, not biochemical processes within physiological systems – systems that can…

For some people who output almost no energy at all and have incredibly efficient fat storage, that might be a tiny amount of food.

Ben, I'm thrilled that you've come around on your 'fatties are duplicitous and eat too much crap' position. I'm willing to let everything else (and believe…

Um, so one solution *doesn't* fit everyone? Didn't you just change your mind about what your argument is again?

No, I think you've just seen your own straw man. Nothing about my argument is changing.

And yes, anyone who is fat will need to find their break even point to…

You could make millions, Kyle.

You know, call me crazy, but I don't think that's going to work out so well for either group.

I'm a member of the second group, so I think I win over the first. But I try not to mock, and I like my bon-bons as god intended.

If they're eating too much then I stand by that point.

Let me introduce you to the cucumber. 13 calories per cup.

If my diet consisted entirely of cucumbers, I would need to eat over 100 cups of cucumber in order to get my calorie count close to normal. If I…

I don't make any claims about how many calories that is, because there is a massive range of efficiency (clearly it's unbounded at the inefficient end), different for every person.

Um, so one solution *doesn't* fit everyone? Didn't you just change your mind about what your argument is again?

Anyway.…

Which I'll again point out wasn't at all what you said in the first place, which was along the lines of "recession would be good because people might eat less and that would be good for them (because they'd be less fat).

If they're eating too much then I…

But... no one here has ever argued that.

I'll let that one slide. Since it was all I said, right from the start, and you flamed me, I got the impression that you were disagreeing. But perhaps you were disagreeing with a position that is not mine. I think that's…

It's still going to be that we should "eat a balanced diet in appropriate quantities, and exercise".

Which I'll again point out wasn't at all what you said in the first place, which was along the lines of "recession would be good because people might eat less and that would…

What's impossible is the converse (you got it right), that you can eat nothing at all, and yet still maintain weight (and continue to live and move).

But... no one here has ever argued that.

I find it mega-weird that you're all 'sure, that's totally happening' about my thin friend…

For sure, some people burn energy faster than others, or…

Kyle, I thoroughly understand that you can make it a lot more complicated than that. For sure, that makes for a better argument than the straw man position that medical science has discovered…

It will have been cutting the intake through the standard orifice for the ingestion of food, and perhaps also improving the nature of it, and adding some exercise into the routine.

If you're going to take up what I (and others) said on my side of the argument (fat is…

I'm not trying to 'treat obesity'. I'm just saying what, at the most basic level, is causing it.

I agree with you there Ben.Also hormone imbalance can and do come into play, and medications can create havoc there but yes, personally when the meds stopped (after tests for PCOS…

The words not only 'shape/'react''/make context'/'couch'-they *are* all these things...

You're a novelist, yes, thank you. If I wrote that, somebody would shout "postmodern! unclean!" and I'd never hear the end of it.

our tongues are so imperfect: written down, they are lost ten times over

Beautiful.

our tongues are so imperfect: written down, they are lost ten times over-

Well, not at someone like Giovanni's level of meta. ;)

You called?

Last thing you'd ask a scientist about, frankly.

Woah there, Sacha. What's relativity – from Galileo onwards – if not a reflection on context? Bacon himself was pretty aware that the language in which an experiment is couched…

Estrogen means something beyond clinical and scientific considerations? How on earth can it?

With you 100% there, Dyan. When people write scientific papers that mention estrogen, they don't mean "the value-laden post-modern meaning of estrogen", they mean bloody estrogen.

Dyan, I think you might be Mr Spock. ;)

Er, well I did do awfully well in my philosophy courses on logic.

From cultural studies or feminist angles, the word "estrogen" means something beyond clinical or scientific considerations. The folks here bring depths of expertise in many different fields. The…

"I'll make a very healthy corpse some day", it's how he used to respond.

:) and my dad often quotes someone's thought(dunno who)
Keep fit, eat well, die anyway.

I personally don't, and that has helped me.

Again: just because you lost 20 pounds one time, that doesn't solve obesity or health problems for everyone.

Some problems do have simple solutions for everyone who is willing to take them, and everyone else is fucked and that's all there is…

High school science taught me that fat doesn't come from eating food, and isn't that simple at all.

Fat is stored energy. Which comes from eating food.

I think I lost you right there.

"Eat less food" goes against every instinct for most people.

Yup, fat people particularly.

Which is…

Stephen Nails It Again

Heh! True.
The Scientific Facts are no doubt correct, but as always they're a work in progress, rather than holy writ delivered from on high. And the scolding tone doesn't help. Academia is part of the solution to the problem, it doesn't own it.

Also, if…

Which is why solutions to an "obesity problem" require…

The simple fact is that fat comes from eating food. Period. It really is that simple. And yes, denying that is lying.

High school science taught me that fat doesn't come from eating food, and isn't that simple at all.

Fat is stored energy. Which comes from eating food. Fat…

But I prefer Bruce Lee – The Art of dieting without dieting. Why you eat my Master's Lunch??? Why?....Whywhywhy!!!

Did anyone else get the Austin Powers accent that time?

I'm getting more of a Mr T vibe from Ben in this thread. 'I don't have no time for scientific jibber-jabber! I pity the fool who can't lose weight!' Heh.

Cut back, baby

Did anyone else get the Austin Powers accent that time? (I swear there's audio creeping into PAS these days)

1. You don't know or care what the academic literature says about environment, heredity, processed…

By the most simple advice that can be given.

That's kind of Marion Nestle's point: the food industry has been trying to fudge that advice, complicate what is essentially a very simple message that ought to work for most people. (And again, I'm speaking strictly of averages, not individuals. On…

Cretinously obvious.

Yeah, most people can control their own body weight within a 10-20 pound range. That's certainly true. When it comes to obesity and things like type two diabetes or PCOS, however, you're just pulling your 'cretinously obvious' information completely out of your ass. You want references?

I'm not…

Danielle, if you think my having an opinion on fatness based on observations of both myself and other people around me is insulting, judgmental and anecdotal, then all I can say is: Too bad. They're still based on…

Of course, although climate change deniers often make appeals to healthy scepticism and wanting to question the received wisdom of science too.

Dude! I am not a denier about Teh Fat! I just question the current batch of shitty 'solutions'.

This isn't meant to be insulting, but either you are conversant with the relevant fields and your opinion is informed, or you are ignorant of the field and your opinion is not relevant.

Dyan, I think you might be Mr Spock. ;)

Actually, that bore a striking, pretty much word…

This isn't meant to be insulting, but either you are conversant with the relevant fields and your opinion is informed, or you are ignorant of the field and your opinion is not relevant.

Dyan, I think you might…

Sorry if this sounds like hectoring.

It kind of does, Dyan, even though I accept that's not your intent.

Knowledge is not black or white – except where science is unable to resist making it so. I respect that having a clinically relevant opinion requires certain training – but there…

I am really trying to maintain politeness here, Dyan, but, um, sheez. I even used references. Frankly, I don't think my viewpoints are particularly extreme, I don't think what I'm saying is particularly crazy, and I don't think you're likely to hector me into submission any time soon. Sorry.

My…

You suggest that the use of only men in studies done in the previous century was somehow a sexist or cultural bias held by the medical research community.

I'm afraid, Dyan, that the concept of sexist bias in medical research is not my idea, has nothing whatsoever to do with…

Men are rarely used in studies on the treatment of breast cancer yet men suffer from breast cancer

What? This is hardly fair. Do women get testicular cancer? Who wrote this book anyway? Dammit!

Complex Actions of Sex Steroids in Adipose Tissue, the Cardiovascular System, and Brain: Insights from Basic Science and Clinical Studies.
J. L. Turgeon, M. C. Carr,…

The first study of estrogen as a preventative measure for heart disease was done solely on men. Isn't that nutty?

Danielle, you are not in a position to have any relevant opinion on the value of a study like this unless you are conversant with at least the basics of…

Love to hear a "more market" solution to either of those.

Abolish public healthcare, so that obese poor people die, preferably before breeding.

And yes, she's a critic of the food industry and her surname is Nestle

She sounds sweet.

Yeah, but for some reason we don't talk about that stuff so much. Which is a bummer.

Those are easy targets, though. I think there'd be a…

But since nobody here is blaming anybody for anything (right?), responding with rants makes me wonder whether obesity as a health issue can be talked about at all.

I think Ben's posts about how sneaky and duplicitous The Fatties are with their food intake were pretty insulting and judgemental in…

The more *blame* is taken away from the whole obesity equation, the better. Information, and education – and support- work. Blame doesn'.

Sure. But since nobody here is blaming anybody for anything (right?), responding with rants makes me wonder whether obesity as a health issue can be talked about at…

Christ. I'm using interweb conventions so archaic that people have no idea what they are! I feel old.

You feel old, I feel odd :)

the emphasis does seem to concentrate on the health effects rather than any blame

I think that can quite often depend on the medical professional you're dealing with at the time. There…

*Health* is the problem. Varied healthy diet and exercise should be the issue we're concentrating on, not paranoia about thunder thighs.

Firstly, could someone tell me what those *'s actually mean?
Secondo, I thought Dyan was sayin' why we do need to address obesity and thought she/he did do a…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhF7dQl4Ico

did you actually work on any Y2K projects?

97-99, I was a consultant for an information delivery firm. I had to handle a bit of the paperwork from our customers (mostly banks) who wanted to know a bunch of answers, many of very dubious relevance.
That firm didn't have any…

It's not their fault if then society takes that information and turns it into the shaming of men and women who happen to be overweight.

I'm not sure that it's true that these people exist in some sort of magical Objectivity Vacuum outside society, though, Giovanni. For a long time,…

Nuclear plants and aircraft have rigorous quality processes – it's unlikely that they would ever fail catastrophically. (For one thing,…

The factory example I mentioned is real – do you seriously think they would have done the remedial…

I have to say the successful avoidance of chaos was one of the greatest geek triumphs I've ever witnessed. Years of effort all over the world, no stuff ups and unsurprisingly widespread skepticism afterwards.

I think it wasn't so much that a lot of computers would have problems (as they…

The most relevant markers are: hip to waist ratio, resting pulse rate, blood pressure, and relevant bloods (glucose tolerance, LDL to HDL, serum cholesterol etc).

So health is not mostly about being fat at all? Why are they measuring those little kids' BMIs then?

It's not about size but it's…

The most relevant markers are: hip to waist ratio, resting pulse rate, blood pressure, and relevant bloods (glucose tolerance, LDL to HDL, serum cholesterol etc).

So health is not mostly about being fat at…

"Morbidly obese" – I've always been intrigued by that phrase.

"Morbidly obese" means 50% or more above your medically desired weight.

Oh, how I wish everyone would regularly read Junk Food Science. Yes, a diet consisting solely of freedom fries and Dr Pepper is bad. But the chunkiness of kiddies…

Dyan:

most parents of obese children do not see their child as overweight, much less obese

Oh, how I wish everyone would regularly read Junk Food Science. Yes, a diet consisting solely of…

You can bet Hamish Carter ate at least as many calories as David Lange, and it's likely that wiry little Sarah Ulmer eats as much as the morbidly obese Dawn French.

I would expect they'd both eat massive amounts more calories. When my brother trained for his karate black belt,…

"Morbidly obese" – I've always been intrigued by that phrase

In Italian "morbido" means "soft" rather than "pathological", so for a very long time I thought it meant "obese to the point of bouncy softness". I think it was Edgar Allan Poe that put me right ("soft acuteness of the…

"Morbidly obese" – I've always been intrigued by that phrase.

Not so, Ben. You don't need to eat a lot of food to become obese. Obesity has a number of different factors, not just eating a lot of food; it's quite a complex medical condition.

Whilst that may be true in some cases, I have to say that every obese…

Plants grow pretty much by themselves.

that was Masanobu Fukuoka's philosophy, in a nutshell.
growing a lot of good food should involve the bare minimum of buggering about with the natural process.

The suffering from that is remarkably brief.

Even briefer if you pick the wrong wild berries.

Start practising your hunting & gathering.

Already have. And agriculture. It's really quite easy. Plants grow pretty much by themselves.

But more importantly, I'm just consuming less. Less bad stuff, and less good stuff. The suffering from that is remarkably brief.

once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reevaluate our entire attitude to the economics of consumption

Start practising your hunting & gathering.

Not so, Ben. You don't need to eat a lot of food to become obese. Obesity has a number of different factors, not just eating a lot of food; it's quite a complex medical condition.

Whilst that may be true in some cases, I have to say that every obese…

I don't get people who say the Y2K bug was a non event because nothing happened

I have to say the successful avoidance of chaos was one of the greatest geek triumphs I've ever witnessed. Years of effort all over the world, no stuff ups and unsurprisingly widespread skepticism afterwards.…

Um, jon, yeah. For starters the blatantly obvious fact that you have to eat a lot of food to get really fat. Without that, it can't be done. Then there's all the countries which actually do have food shortages which sort of corroborate that theory.

Not so, Ben. You don't…

But I don't actually think…

Got any evidence to back-up your theory Ben? Seems to be plenty in support of the poverty-obesity link.

Perhaps in New Zealand or England, but it's not the same everywhere. Historically in the north of Italy for instance,so long as they weren't actually undernourished, peasants used to eat better and…

I don't buy that it's a poverty thing to eat in a way that tends to obesity. It's a cultural thing, and one thing that a depression can do is change culture.

Got any evidence to back-up your theory Ben? Seems to be plenty in support of the poverty-obesity link.…

I don't buy that it's a poverty thing to eat in a way that tends to obesity. It's a cultural thing, and one thing that a depression can do…

no, "Japanese food" (something vaguely resembling non-corrupted traditional cuisine) is probably about 40% of my diet now. i would try to keep eating Japanese food, even though sourcing good ingrdients at a reasonable price in…

I don't know, I think the middle class is certainly doing it. Do you cook at home the same food that your parents used to cook?

Largely, but my parents departed a moderate amount from the standard 3 meat and vege when I was a child – my Dad did…

if only i could! (well, maybe brown rice and roast potatoes on alternate days)

Would you seriously give up Japanese food if you were to return to New Zealand?

Diet is often built up on hundreds/thousands of years of culture

so how would one explain the "American diet"?
(genetic mutation?)

return to a lifetime of roast and potatoes

if only i could! (well, maybe brown rice and roast potatoes on alternate days)

Diet is often built up on hundreds/thousands of years of culture, and I suspect it's a titanic shift to push it along to change much faster than it happens naturally.

I don't know, I think the middle class is certainly doing it. Do you cook at home the same food…

The problem is that dietary habits are difficult to change and at the moment it's a very middle class hobby it seems. But it doesn't have to be.

Are there any instances in modern times of a country making a significant shift in its diet to address health issues?

I…

but there'd have been chaos with our clients' accounts.

The thing about Y2K is that it doesn't seem to have affected anyone, regardless of the preparedness level. The counter-argument of course is that the people who were least rpepared might also have been the people (and countries, especially) that were…