response 261 of 378:

Mar 9 22:03 UTC 2006

see I'll accept that I *might* have misread or misinterpreted that post.  Not
sure I did, but unlike JEP, I accept my own fallability.  JEP is always right,
about everything.  I admit I am not.

response 263 of 378:

Mar 9 22:07 UTC 2006

Ok, well this isn't the item where you and John act out some gay
porn/political fantasy, ok?  This is the item where we talk about how society
handles obesity - good, bad, whatever.

response 265 of 378:

Mar 9 22:42 UTC 2006

I am happy that you quit smoking, slynne and todd.  My new upstairs neighbor
is trying to quit.  Something changed recently and the smoke is getting into
my apartment.  I thought we had sealed off all access to my apartment and we
are not using the heating ducts.  Today while she was running the furnace we
were airing out my apartment all afternoon.  Luckily it was in the 50s and
the doors wide open were sort of nice.  I could live with an overweight
upstairs neighbor even though the floor creaks, unless she fell through the
floor or the stairs.  

response 267 of 378:

Mar 9 22:53 UTC 2006

sometimes you can live the perfect life and it still doesn't matter.  Dana
Reeve, Christopher Reeve's wife, died this week at age 47.  Of lung cancer.
She had never smoked in her entire life and stayed in great shape.  It didn't
matter.  A person who has surgery and loses 200lbs can still get hit by a bus
outside the hospital.  slynne could diet her whole life and still not live
a day longer than had she never dieted.  You shouldn't spend your whole life
trying to make things perfect, when things can never BE perfect.  There is
not a perfect weight, height or hair color.  All you can do is enjoy your
existence in the moment, and BE in that moment, as opposed to constantly
thinking about the next moment.

response 269 of 378:

Mar 9 23:02 UTC 2006

its not borderline christian, its borderline buddhist.  or existentialist.
consider if a guy saves all his life for retirement, and the day before he
retires, he drops dead.  instead of being in the moment, he spent all his life
preparing for a moment that never came.  Life is too random and too short to
NOT live in the moment.

response 271 of 378:

Mar 9 23:04 UTC 2006

So the way to really live is to shorten life intentionally?

response 273 of 378:

Mar 9 23:39 UTC 2006

She had each hip replaced, yea.  She's long since passed away.

response 275 of 378:

Mar 10 00:52 UTC 2006

re #271 no rcurl, I didn't say anything about intentionally shortening 
one's life.  What I'm saying is that life isn't a race and there is no 
finish line and, unless you believe in an afterlife which I do not, 
there is no glory at the end.  The only glory as I see it is simply 
BEING in the game.  If you can't win and you can't lose, and you are 
going to die at the end anyway, you may as well just enjoy the 
moments.  Because those moments are all you have.

Slynne is choosing not to live her life dieting and pursuing some goal 
or end that may never come, and won't matter in the long run even if 
it does come.  She is choosing to BE in her moment and enjoy being in 
that moment in and of and for itself.

response 277 of 378:

Mar 10 04:01 UTC 2006

resp:266 Ok, what are the risks? Like in a group of a 100 people who are
morbidly obese, how many of them will be dead by the time they are say
70 compared to a similar group of people of what you consider to be a
healthy weight. This seems to be a difficult statistic to find but it
seems kind of essential to me. I appreciate your good intentions though.

resp:275 Yes, we are all going to die in the end. Which reminds me of a
stat someone once threw at me (with nothing to back it up of course).
They said, "You are fat and fat people have a 50% greater chance of
dying" I couldnt help myself and I said, "So? I have a 150% chance of
dying?" which got a blank stare. 

resp:276 I dont think it hurts to take moderate action to extend the
enjoyment of one's life. But I dont think that the kind of weight loss
diet that would be required for me to stay thin is moderate. I also have
not seen any evidence that it would have any effect on the length of my
life. In fact, considering how stressed out I get when I try to lose
weight and considering the known health risks of stress, it might
actually be healthier for me to stay fat. 

response 279 of 378:

Mar 10 06:33 UTC 2006

"Obesity, when measured by relative weight (actual weight as a percentage of
average or desirable weight for a given height/age/sex group) has an adverse
effect on longevity. Convincing evidence of this has been evaluated in four
very large insurance studies (1903 to 1979), the Framingham 30-Year Followup
Study, the American Cancer Society Study, and other smaller cohort studies."

from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat4.section.1107

response 281 of 378:

Mar 10 14:28 UTC 2006

Lynne, I didn't think Brooke was belittling you.  I think her 
suggestion that you seem to me rationalizing your choices was natural 
and not all that personal.

I don't mean to belittle you, either.  I am just as fat as you are.  
(I'm right about where I was the last time I saw you, when you gave me 
that mattress several years ago.)  I am doing nothing whatsoever about 
it.  I can excuse my choice in any number of ways.

I am perfectly happy with my weight -- and that's all that should 
matter to anyone.  If you're happy, then there's no need to apologize 
to anyone or to explain yourself.  That's my opinion.  I can walk for a 
day at the zoo, I can make it up the stairs at night, I can do all of 
the things I need to do.  I wish I were thinner about 1-2 times per 
year because of something I can't do.

I've been following the discussion, and found it interesting.

One thing I thought you could have commented on, but didn't.  I think 
society hates fat *women*.  I don't think there's nearly as much 
disdain for fat men.  I go swimming with my kid in the summer, and/or 
in indoor pools.  No one has ever made a comment to me about "look at 
the tubby man".  No one looks at me like it'd be better for everyone if 
I'd go away.

Now, no teenaged girls swoon with lust as I walk by, either, as they 
might if I were 80 pounds lighter and tan and muscular.  But they don't 
make vomiting sounds.  They just stare at the teenaged boys.  It is 
doubtless better that way for everyone around.

Overweight women get much, *much* different treatment.

response 283 of 378:

Mar 10 16:24 UTC 2006

I managed to view Rane's URL with links (needed javascript).
I think it is saying that if you weight 65-75% of average weight you are 5%
more likely to die within a given period.  If you weigh 75-95% of average you
are 93% as likely to die, implying that average people weigh more than is
health for them (in this group of people anyway, in the US).  If you weight
145-155% of average (50% above average, average being somewhat heavier than
is health) you are 211% as likely to die (about twice as many people will die
if they should have weighed 150 lb to be average and they weight 225 lb, or
75 lb overweight).  If you should have weighed 150 lb but weigh 155-165% of
that, call it 160%, and therefore weigh 240 instead (90 lb overweight), you
are more than twice as likely to die as someone average.  This was for men
ages 15-39.  This was if they kept track of people for only 5 years.

If they followed them up for 15-22 years, people who were 10% or so above the
average weight, and had 10% higher chance of dying within 5 years, had 69%
higher chance of dying within 15-22 years, meaning that if the average weight
for you is 150 lbs, a healthier weight (80%) would be 120 lb (that is probably
me at 5'5"), and if I weighed 10% extra (165 lb) I would be 69% more likely
to die than someone who weighed 150 lb, within 15-20 years, and somewhat less
likely if I weighed 120 lb (and were a man currently aged 15-29, of course).

I think this implies that moderate overweight causes a moderate increase in
chance of dying young (which is low to start with so even doubling does not
make much difference), but as you get into your fifties and sixties, the
cumulative effects of being even 10% above average (which is already
overweight) cause people to die with twice the frequency of people who are
not overweight.  This can be from increased frequency of cancer due to poor
diet (colon cancer, breast cancer), from circulatory problems, diabetes. 
Even if you don't die, you are more likely to have joint problems (knee
replacements, bad back), sleep apnea due to fat interfering with air intake.

I agree with slynne that people should not ridicule someone with a health
problem, and that it is sometimes genetic/metabolic, and losing weight is not
easy, but I don't agree that people should give up trying.  Counting calories
is not the best way of dieting, unless it serves to educate people about which
types of food are high in calories and should mostly be avoided.   A friend
losing weight successfully with the most recent Weight Watchers' diet says
there are categories of food she can eat in unlimited amounts, such as whole
grains (despite having carbohydrates they digest slowly and make you feel
full) as long as she does not eat until it hurts.  Most vegetables and fruits
are okay.  Things made of flour, even whole-wheat, are not, they digest too
quickly.  Liquids should be non-caloric (drink water).  A neighbor is losing
weight because his doctor told him to stop drinking alcohol. 

Overweight people as a category probably get less exercise, which can skew
the statistics.  I agree that fat people who exercise are in some ways
healthier than lazy thin people who don't exercise.  

Quitting smoking has to be much more effective in improving health than any
kind of diet.  Good luck keeping it up, lynne.