“Will someone please think of the fat children?”
Associated Press – July 12, 2007:
Overweight children are stigmatized by their peers as early as age 3 and even face bias from their parents and teachers, giving them a quality of life comparable to people with cancer, a new analysis concludes.
Youngsters who report teasing, rejection, bullying and other types of abuse because of their weight are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood pressure and eating disorders, researchers said.
#17 – Two posts trying to prove your intelligence? Wow, I really have destroyed you after all.
#19 Now, how did you manage to put people that have iphones and shop at walmart together? That’s no easy feat!
#21, Jamie Hill
#17 – Two posts trying to prove your intelligence? Wow, I really have destroyed you after all.
Comment by James Hill — 7/13/2007 @ 7:22 am
Geeze, it’s hell to be left out of the conversation, isn’t it.
#4, MM,
I understand your point about kids being fat today. I can’t prove it but I have a strong suspicion that today’s obesity epidemic has more to do with our diets then we know. I’m not necessarily talking about that double burger with large fries and diet coke. I do think there might be some ingredient or a combination of ingredients that are causing this epidemic.
I too grew up in the ’50s. The fattest kid in our school would have been normal today. Yet since then:
We have have near universal immunizations.
Corn sweeteners have largely replaced sugar.
Trans fats are used in most prepared foods.
Margarine has largely replaced butter.
Beef and pork are raised with much higher fat content.
Sodium intake is much higher.
Candy and snack consumption has soared.
Artificial preservatives have soared in use for all types of prepared food.
(add your own food change)
And of course TVs, video games, and the like.
If society continues to blame the obese for what might very well be a medical or nutritional problem, the cause, and hence cure, might never be found.
#24 – You are right… The “Kids are fat because mom is a a fat stupid whore” explanation is bullshit and defies clearly understood facts about the nature of industrial food production and what these foods are doing to us.
Want to know why kids are getting fatter and fatter? Just watch all the TV commercials aimed straight at kids that advertise food that is horrible for you.
#25
AND.. Fat moms with shitty fat eating habits pass them onto their kids. If it weren’t for me babysitting my nephew he would have become the usual kid who considers a slice of bread as a vegetable serving.
#24 and 25 – I agree. High fructose corn syrup is known to supress satiety. Processed foods are stripped of nutrients leaving our bodies craving more food. The standard American breakfast (cereal, white toast w/margarine, and OJ) promotes chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity, cancer and heart disease. One thousand new chemicals are added to our “diet” yearly. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients in your food, should you be eating it?
We are also exposed to man-made toxins every day. One hundred thousand man-made chemicals exist in our environment. These chemicals react and wreak havoc on our endocrine system.
#27 – Well… You aren’t wrong…
I grew up in the 70s when it all started to go bad… My mother fed me as she had been taught. She didn’t know the rules had changed.
But we’ve allowed (whether its good or bad is another debate) a society where kids are left to their own devices and where marketing permeates our every minute and where what we buy as food is manufactured more than grown… Not only do parents teach these habits, so do multi-million dollar multi-national conglomerates armed with Harvard grad industrial psychologists leading marketing efforts designed to support the bad teachings of ill-educated parents and to subvert the positive teachings of very knowledgable and proactive parents.
There is a war between people and business, not unlike a conflict between a kitten and Optimus Prime, for our health… and we are very likely gonna loose.
Corporate America: They’re Not In It For Our Health
#28 and al qaeda will be serving you that breakfast. Run, run!
You can tell if a kid is going to be overweight with 75% accuracy at six months of age by looking at his weight and the weight of his parents.
A child being obese probably has more to do with brown versus white fat content than discipline. The more brown fat you have as a kid, the less white fat you need. People forget that the purpose of fat is first to preserve body temperature and second to store energy. Brown fat is much more effecient than white fat in generating heat.
But still, we have the usual moronic comments like, “If your behavior is seen as negative, you are punished. Over eating is a behavior. Most of the time, it’s learned.” You think you can alter behavior in kids, have at it.
Right, brown fat, neuropeptide Y, ghrelin, leptin, endorphins, cortisol, thyroid, progesterone, oxytocin, cholecystokinin, vasopressin, insulin, growth hormone, IGF, ACTH, TRH, TSH, dopamine, and serotonin have nothing to do with obesity. It is purely will power.
And we all “know” that diet and exercise are the keys to weight loss? Well, not me, I read diets don’t work 15 years ago, and there are more studies backing up that claim.This one got some air time. http://tinyurl.com/3acj86.
” “We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. Sustained weight loss was found only in a small minority of participants, while complete weight regain was found in the majority.”
Obesity is 1/3 genetic, 1/3 lifestyle, and 1/3 chemical, and the only ways that have been shown to keep weight off in the long term are chemical. Stomach surgery is chemical in nature (it lowers Ghrelin levels); wiring one’s mouth shut does not affect body chemistry and is not effective. Treating lifestyle has been shown to be more harmful than good.
So if kids want to make fun of others for being fat, have at it. But it is the equivalent of making fun of a kid with a big nose or dark skin, other conditions kids are born with. There is no difference between making fun of a fat kid and calling a black kid “a nigger”.
I liked being a fat kid. When other kids teased me about it, I outweighed them, and beat the crap out of them. So, they ended up being teased by everybody else as ‘the kid that got beat up by fatty’…
#31, pretty good post.
I disagree with your last sentence though. That “nigger” is much more likely to chase your fat white ass down the street and kick it severely. And maybe some other body parts as well.
It’s funny that you say smart kids are picked on. I grew up in Syracuse Ny but “smart” kids wern’t picked on. Dirty kids were. The smart kids made fun of the kids riding the short bus.