I’ll admit it, I’ve been reading the Atlantic blogs the past few days. What’s the deal with this never-ending discussion of obesity among McArdle, Ambinder, David Frum, and some of Sully’s readers? I don’t have the energy to sort through it, so could somebody describe it in 30 words or less?
Obesity
by DougJ| 180 Comments
This post is in: Media
Jon H
Fat people are the cause of all healthcare cost problems?
(As opposed to, say, weekend athletic injuries, etc.)
C Nelson Reilly
Libs are fat
DougJ
Fat people are the cause of all healthcare cost problems?
Is that a statistic or a hypothetical?
Sloth
Oh no you don’t. I’ve fallen in to that trap before, I’m not reading McArdle, no I am not.
Leelee for Obama
Michael Moore and Al Gore are fat. That’s is all they know, and all they need to know. Obviously, it’s the end of the world as we know it.
and that’s where this country is headed, also.
Comrade Darkness
We are small minded people with no lives so we must feel superior to everyone at every opportunity. And teh fats == teh sinz. Except for Rush Limbaugh who is teh shits.
I’m just taking a stab here. It’s my blanket explanation for why the right is fighting against cervical cancer vacs for girls too.
Deborah
Megan talked to some law professor about how it’s hard to lose weight, and thus obesity isn’t really correlated with Type 2 diabetes and a bunch of other health issues.
I had to contract “is not,” but 30 words.
Dave
“Fat people ruin our A #1 Super-Awesome Health Care System.”
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
“[C]ould somebody describe it in 30 words or less?”
Fat people (excepting Rush Limbaugh) are disgusting pigs who choose to be fat pigs and deserve to die for it. I shouldn’t have to pay for their personal irresponsibility.
Fuck you, Jack, I’ve got mine.
Jamey
They’re all assholes.
There, and with twenty-seven words to spare.
LarryB
It’s another crypto racist dogwhistle: When you here the Right making moralistic noises about fat people and the cost of their health problems you need to hear “fat person == black welfare queen”.
Snark Based Reality
Michael Moore is fat and has a movie coming out soon.
Jude
Being fat is a moral failing. Sinners don’t get healthcare.
It’s insane, but that’s pretty much what it boils down to.
Alternatively:
We need a scapegoat. We can all agree that fat people are icky. Now let’s make some shit up about them costing more. Ta-da.
Xecky Gilchrist
There was someone over there claiming that people had to lose weight and look all hawt to be career-ladder climbers, so fat people are not only a big drag on health care, they’re lazy welfare bums.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
In the words of the incredibly underrated Mel Brooks classic, History of the World, Part I,
“Fuck the poor!”
Sloth
Getting thin won’t cut healthcare costs – obesity is not an actual problem. Obama should not make war on the obese. Government bad.
(Although I think you could probably sum up the vast opus of McArdle’s work in just the last two words.)
Bridget
DON’T READ McARDLE. Ever. Period.
BFR
Fat people are the cause of all healthcare cost problems?
Obesity is considered to be self-inflicted and therefore sufferers should not be entitled to receiving government assistance for health care. This notion allows you to support continuation of Medicare & programs like SCHIP while opposing reform to working age people.
Morbo
Death panels are bad! Keep Grandma away from the death panels.
.
.
.
OK, can we get some death panels for all these fat people?
shecky
Sully is on his circumcision kick again.
I guess it could be worse. He used to lose his mind whenever talking about Chomsky.
Beauzeaux
They all got together before 4th period (social studies…yuck!) and decided they were going to really, REALLY embarrass those heavyset girls who sit at the end table in the school cafeteria.
ellaesther
Ok, Imma blog pimp up in herrre.
I’ve been thinking (and thus writing) a lot lately about the fucked up ways that we talk about our bodies, our weight, and food in this country, and I would be very happy indeed if any of you felt like clicking through to read some of it (why, you may even see a familiar face or two in the comments!). http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/category/body/
Short answer to John’s question? Because the way we think about our bodies, our weight, and food in this country is fucked up. And that gets reflected in our blogosphere.
licensed to kill time
@shecky:
That top picture on his page is shrivel-inducing.
Roger Moore
Your money shouldn’t be subsidizing health care for fat people who don’t take care of themselves. Another dumb GOP talking point, but it’s the best they have.
Comrade Jake
Ambers is pretty heavy, McArdle is anorexic, and Sully is gay. You need more explanation?
John Harrold
Obesity is linked to many health care challenges of the future. Understanding the underlying causes of obesity is key when determining which policies to enact to deal with those challenges.
There you go: 30 words.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Let the poor get really fat, then cut off their food and make them turn to cannibalism to survive. Execute the survivors for murder. Solve several problems at once.
cleek
fatties eat too much health care because they’re lazy and horrible and if we could just force them (libertarianly, of course) to be thin, our own health care would cost less.
linda
michael moore has a new film coming out — ‘capitalism, a love story’; so i’m guessing they’re just practicing…. ;-)
Zifnab
Fat People = Personal Responsibility + Fuck the Poor + I’m Too Pretty To Die + N*gga N*gga Lazy Mexican’t
It’s a beautiful conflux of ignorance, class warfare, ego, and the lightest touch of racism.
geg6
Everybody here has it, Doug. Fat people are the cause of all of our country’s domestic problems. Fatness is correlated with laziness and the high cost of medicine and medical insurance. If we just got rid of all the fat people, all our problems would be gone!
Of course, no one seems to have noticed that the vast majority of fat people seem to be either the most pious of Christianists and/or concentrated in Red States. I’ll bet if you rounded up the BMI of the nation’s atheists/agnostics and that of the Religious Right/Bible Belt, they’d declare war on thinness and exercise because I know that, anecdotally at least, the fattest people I know are all regular and enthusiastic churchgoing wingnuts.
Crashman06
@licensed to kill time: Eww. Just saw it. Nasty! I don’t understand why he gets so obsessed with this issue. How is it such a big deal?
Shell
“Fat people are the cause of all healthcare cost problems”
Yup, that’s the Right’s healthcare reform plan. If all the fatties would just get thin again then everything would be hunky-dory. Oh, and tort reform and more tax cuts for the rich.
There ya go!
Zifnab
@cleek: Of course, these are the same folks that went absolutely fruit loops (per SOP) when New York outlawed transfats in restaurants.
Something about “First they came for the Krispee Kreams, and I said nothing…”
FormerSwingVoter
I’m going to assume it somehow comes from the current underlying philosophy of American conservatism:
RAAAAAAGE!!! GRAAAH! RAAAAAGE!!! WHY AM I NOT GETTING MY WAY I WANT TO GET MY WAY OTHER PEOPLE DON’T COUNT MY OWN FAILURES DON’T COUNT I DESERVE TO GET MY WAY ALL THE TIME NO MATTER WHAT BECAUSE I WANT TO!!! RAAAAAAAAGE!!!!11
LarryB
@Zifnab: bingo
chopper
well, i for one would like to know the body fat percentage of all of those people.
long-form, of course.
until then i’m just going to assume they’re all morbidly obese.
Loneoak
Fat people cause high healthcare costs, but it would make Ayn Rand cry to coerce them to get on a scale at the gubmint doctor office. Therefore, no healthcare for anyone.
Shell
Don’t forget to vote.
Just visited Little Bitsy’s page and he’s almost at the 500 mark!
Hawes
Obesity is a choice, like being unemployed or going to a failing school system. Because people choose to be fat, poor and uneducated, it just goes to show that we shouldn’t interfere with the perfect market place by expanding health care, fixing the economy or improving schools.
Brick Oven Bill
The ideal body mass index for a female is 25.
Leelee for Obama
Loneoak
Hey, look at the fatties! Ignore the systemic failures in health care and food production!
licensed to kill time
@Crashman06:
Oh, there’s a whole movement behind it. Genital mutilation, loss of sensation, “I wuz robbed!”, etc. But to answer why certain people take up particular causes would involve years of therapy and delving into childhood memories and it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
And that’s exactly where our country is headed (or balded, as the case may be).
Keith
For Sully, all I can fathom is that out-of-control obesity can cause the belly to hide the foreskin, making it akin to circumcision and thus evil and sadistic.
jl
I think that other commenters have summarized it: our health care system sucks because of too many in the US are fat.
Notice that this startling discovery occurred just as these people were confronted with data showing that by most measures, such as life-expectancy, infant morality, maternal mortality, the US sucks both in levels and growth rates compared to between 75% and 100%of other advanced industrial countries (depending on the statistical measure).
Notice also that economists and docs and epidemiologists have estimated that the TOTAL cost of obesity in the US is about 6% to 7% of total health care cost, not the roughly 40% that would be needed to make up the difference between the next most expensive countries (Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg).
Do a scholar.google search on author Eric Finkelstein to get some review articles on cost of obesity, if you want.
Note also that other Anglo nations like Australia and New Zealand are getting fat too, but so far have not seen the dramatic cost increases the US has.
Notice also that until the dire threat of obesity was note by, the glibertarians in their sudden need to counter very reliable and basic national vital statistics showing that the US sucked, the whole ‘obesity problem’ thing was a hoax and a fraud designed by evil social engineers in their never ending quest to increase their totalitarian power and increase human misery.
Also notice, that these people do not know what they are talking about.
cmorenc
Geez, do fat people ever get defensive about being morbidly obese. Someone better do a statistical study on e.g. researchers on Type II diabetes – I’ll betcha the median is hugely skewed toward skinny health-nuts, so whaddya know, their research is hugely…biased. OK, so “hugely” makes a bit of a bad pun here. But back to the main point, I’ll betcha if you did a statistical study on cardiovascular illness researchers – I’ll betcha you’ll find the same thing – the folks doing the research are, by body type, HUGE, no, HEAVILY…um, no..um…substantially…(better, but I give up trying to avoid bad puns)…biased toward skinny yogurt-eating marathon-running types.
Can’t trust biased researchers, can ya?
jl
Bartilomo has adopted the fat-US theory too.
jl
@cmorenc: I know some of these people, or at least have seen them speak, and believe me, they are not all skinny health nuts on average. Good old US-style overweight slobs, many of them.
GregB
Foreskin and twenty years ago.
-G
Mike G
Is this the new right wing meme? Because I can’t wait to hear from Rush Limbaugh, Jon Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, Newt Gingrinch, Kathryn Jean Lopez and Michael Savage on the evils of obesity.
Leelee for Obama
@jl: Cause Michael Milkin is behind the meme, and he is teh awesome for little miss Maria. Bleech!
Paul L.
Like Climate Change/Global Warming, Obesity give the progressive control freaks an excuse to meddle in people’s lives
Obesity like smoking is/will strain Government provided healthcare services and the Government must step in to control future costs..
That and upper class liberal elites find most fat people disgusting.
Leelee for Obama
@Mike G: They will go with the do as I say, not as I do, approach, just like Daddy is supposed to.
BombIranForChrist
Man, I don’t know. I must miss all the obesity articles due to Sully’s obsession with religious issues and Palin’s babies.
Lyle4
Only black people are obese. Whitey just gets a bit hefty around the middle, you see.
stevie314159
Obesity? I thought they were still talking about circumcisions and foreskins there.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Leelee for Obama:
and that’s where this country is headed, also.
It’s aliiiiivve….!
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=26559#comment-1359775
aimai
Do not, repeat, do Not approach McCardle’s blog directly. If you must read her posts, do so using very long tongs, protective glasses, and maybe a full body shield or through the medium of Susan of Texas’s Hunting of the Snark. http://agonyin8fits.blogspot.com/
Direct contact with McCardle’s thinking can be fatal!
aimai
satby
Anne Laurie covered this a week or so ago, BTW.
But I’m not even trying the linky vodoo.
Joe Bleau
Obesity is one of the big windmills at which the idiot liberals and their Socialist schemes will inevitably tilt. Status Quo/Invisible Hand knows what windmills are good for – providing energy for the deserving.
Corey
Because it’s a major public health issue? Seriously, I’m a little confused by the question.
I think Ambinder’s writing a book about obesity or something, too.
Tuffy
Circumcision is actually really awful so I don’t understand the mockery.
Sully has AIDS. Let’s make fun of him for that.
Like, “You hear Sully has AIDS? Yeah, Anally Injected Death Sentence!”
Dreggas
Fat people are the new scapegoats. Forget the fact that in our workaholic society there’s little time for exercise and eating healthy is not cheap. It’s not a debate just on the right, it’s the same on the left. I’ve seen several diaries on the GOS about how obesity is the number one cause of x y and z.
Is it a problem? Yeah it can be, but i also know several overweight people who are in better shape than some of the skinnier ones i know. I actually agreed with Penn and Teller on this one and call bullshit.
Brick Oven Bill
One thing that really pisses me off is when some morbidly obese grotesque person drives around the grocery store on one of those motorized sit-down carts with a basket full of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, hamburger, and sugar soda. These people are without exception rude and drive recklessly.
Check this one out. In the military, this is known as a ‘Bremelo’. This is why the female BMI should be limited to around 25.
SpotWeld
Also, there’s the “logic” that is it impossible for someone to be “poor” (the GOP definition of poor, which means it’s to give them charity), and fat. Therefore all the poor people who would benefit from better health care, who are also fat must be pulling one over the good and loyal taxpayers (who are all really conservitive, despite what the liberal media tells you and what the thuggist unions make them do).
Cat
Fat people are ignorant, because they choose to increase their health risks. Ignorant people are ruining America. Fat people are ruining American.
Bill E Pilgrim
so could somebody describe it in 30 words or less?
30 is way too many. 20 is healthier.
Eric U.
@geg6: P.J. O’Rourke had a line about the people at Heritage USA, Jim and Tammy Bakker’s failed Christian resort, something along the lines of “they have little heads to think with and big behinds to sit on.” Other than that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a recognition that Republicans have a weight issue. O’Rourke was always a glibertarian, although who knows what crazy political philosophy he’s up to now, I thought he pretty much went full wingnut after 9/11.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike G:
Ah, but That’s Different, you see. Fat and well-paid isn’t a problem, because if they damage themselves, they also take care of themselves. Fat and less-well-paid, that they cannot abide, for if _they_ damage themselves, they cannot take care of themselves, and We The Taxpayers must. Moreover, Tree of Liberty! This is SPARTA! Wolverines! Also!
Jon H
@DougJ:
“Is that a statistic or a hypothetical?”
Suggested answer to the question: “Why is a glibertarian talking about obesity”: because they think fat people are the reason healthcare costs are rising.
Ash Can
So what do you all suppose the BMI of Brick Shithouse Bill’s ass is?
gex
Conservatives want to blame people for moral failures that lead to obesity. Liberals don’t exactly disagree with personal habits being part of the problem, but that the larger problem is our food industry, our subsidization of unhealthy foods over healthy foods, and the wage problems that prevent people from being able to live healthier lifestyles.
As with everything, the conservatives desire a black and white issue where they can call out others for being bad people who through their uselessness take “real Americans” tax money.
I can’t wait until Rush Lardbutt chimes in.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Brick Oven Bill:
“One thing that really pisses me off is when some morbidly obese grotesque person drives around the grocery store on one of those motorized sit-down carts with a basket full of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, hamburger, and sugar soda. These people are without exception rude and drive recklessly.”
No wonder you stalk them at Whole Foods.
licensed to kill time
@Tuffy:
I actually think it’s better not to cut pieces of skin off of babies and I am not mocking Sully’s anti-circumcision beliefs, but I think it kind of begins and ends with having it done to your children. Making a cause celebre out of it is a little bizarre. Sort of like abortion, if you don’t like the idea, do your best to never have one and teach your children about contraception and safe sex. But standing on a street corner waving signs of bloody fetuses or posting graphic photos of a circumcision on your website……well, it’s psychologically interesting.
jl
And. Also. researchers do not hate on fat people. In fact there is research on how to counsel morbidly obese kids in a way that does not hurt their feelings or self esteem, which usually leads to more eating and more obesity.
People usually want to be the best at something, and if you are a morbidly obese kid, you have a head start on being the bestest most impressive morbidly obese kid on the block. That is better than failing at being more like the other kids and feeling like you have just failed at one more thing you tried.
OK, now I am ready for the next ignorant glibertarian to make a snotty comment.
gnomedad
Rush was fat until he realized that obesity is caused by insufficient consumption of cigars and steak.
IndyLib
@ellaesther:
Thanks for sharing that.
Deb T
Fat people die sooner. Doesn’t that save money?
bellatrys
What Comrade Darkness & Jude said: in their minds, fat = gluttony + sloth= SIN SIN SIN! plus sins that said neo-Puritans don’t themselves suffer from (at least not visibly) so they feel safe about pluming themselves on their freedom from it.
They’re healthier because they’re more virtuous.
Thus it follows (in their minds) that TEH MASSES are unworthy of healthcare, because if they weren’t Lazy Gluttonous Sinners, they wouldn’t be sick! QED &c &c.
Which is *almost* as important to them, as fluffing themselves up over how great their moral superiority is…
jl
@Deb T: NO it does not.
Morbo
BOB has unwittingly hit the nail on the head.
gypsy howell
“Fat people who smoke and drink are the cause of our healthcare problems in this country. It’s your own fault if you need health care and I’m certainly not going to pay for it. It has nothing to do with insurance companies. ”
OK, it’s a little over 30 words.
And the depressing thing is, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this just in the last week or so, from even my normally liberal friends.
That, and the “we do too many tests” meme.
I’m beginning to think we just don’t deserve good health care in the country. We’re too fucking stupid to live.
Graeme
Marc Ambinder is fat, and that has jacked up the health care premiums The Atlantic has to pass on to the staff. They’re just giving him some tough love.
In fairness, Sully doesn’t seem to be reflexively against health care reform. I expected a lot worse.
Just about everyone I know who is against reform has a rich daddy, so McMegan isn’t exactly an outlier, if my experience matches the national profile…
gypsy howell
…the larger problem is our food industry, our subsidization of unhealthy foods over healthy foods, and the wage problems that prevent people from being able to live healthier lifestyles.
Funny how we never seem to make the leap to that part of the problem.
Polish the Guillotines
Fat + Seat on Utilities Committee = Eye-patch panties.
liberal
@shecky:
(a) How many establishment-vetted pundits don’t lose their mind when talking about Chomsky?
(b) Why would he spend much time talking about Chomsky, instead of just ignoring him per the usual course?
gex
@DougJ: Despite all the current pop science, the linkage between weight and health problems is not as strong as our culture currently believes it is. A recent study found that skinny legs had a higher correlation to heart problems than weight for instance. Other studies have shown active overweight people are healthier the sedentary thin people. And of course, no one normalizes for genetics anyhow.
It’s just a lot of people acting very certain about things they don’t really know about so they can point the finger and blame other people for taking their money.
HumboldtBlue
You read the fucking Atlantic, which is to journalism what Palin is to policy wonking. You read dumbfucks like Sullivan, McCardle and Frum and you’re the stupider for it. Is that less than 30 words?
Nora Carrington
Coates is the only Atlantic blogger worth reading.
Nora Carrington
oh, and James Fallows, too :-)
gex
@geg6: There have been studies that support your anecdote. Apparently the church potluck is to blame. That doesn’t surprise me. I reformed my eating habits in 2006 and have lost a bunch of weight as a result. But the first thing I noticed is that social activities were the hardest because food is such a common element at social gatherings. And not usually healthy food.
Ian
@ 11 LarryB
It’s another crypto racist dogwhistle: When you here the Right making moralistic noises about fat people and the cost of their health problems you need to hear “fat person == black welfare queen”.
Correct. But 32 words.
ruemara
A lot of these guys are self-hating. QED.
ellaesther
@IndyLib: My pleasure! As you could see, it’s been on my mind a smidge bit lately….
vacuumslayer
I wasn’t aware that David Frum was Slim Goodbody.
MH
I’ll bite…
licensed to kill time
I second that emotion.
Zach
McArdle’s an idiot who loves idiotic contrarianism. Ergo she’s signed on with the idiotic pro-fat movement that believes, among other things, that fat people are statistically less healthy than normal people only because of problems stemming from low self esteem related to standards of beauty (for example, that problems are from weight vacillation rather than just being overweight). Also, the BMI is a poor indicator of obesity because it means George Clooney is fat and he’s hot (of course, the BMI is the only thing we can track on a broad scale b/c height and weight are the only universal measurements across all groups). And calling BMI = 30 overweight is arbitrary because someone with BMI 30 isn’t necessarily going to die before someone with BMI 29. Nevermind that someone who goes from BMI 30 to BMI 29 is almost certainly going to become more healthy because of it, even after a small change.
Basically, she’s latched onto a movement that’s completely wrong and puts her fingers into her ears every time obesity mongers or whatever tell her how stupid it is.
As for everyone else at the Atlantic, for some reason they treat it like a legitimate argument.
Brick Oven Bill
Has anybody heard from Punchy?
The Moar You Know
Negroes are fat.
All done with 27 words left to use, should I choose.
But seriously, that’s what this is about. Dog-whistle city.
Moe Gamble
Look, obesity is associated with cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, which are the chronic conditions responsible for health care costs in the U.S. being out of control.
Where the glibertarians get it wrong is that most obese people are not obese because of a lack of self control. They’re obese because of malnutrition. They’re malnourished because of the deplorable state of nutrition education in this country. Virtually everything you hear in the mainstream about nutrition and weight loss is wrong.
Obesity and bad health basically come down to refined carbs and terrible fatty acid ratios. Whole grains are bad for you as well unless they’re sprouted, because they’re mineral antagonists.
Heavy whole grain eaters wind up with serious magnesium deficiencies and things like chronic fatigue syndrome, tumors, and neuralgia. Heavy refined grain eaters wind up with big a lot of fat on their abdomens and a range of inflammation-related horrors, including diabetes and heart disease.
Eat sprouted whole grains, raw milk and butter from grassfed animals, olive oil, and meat from either grassfed animals or wild fish that aren’t filled with mercury, supplement with organic fruit and veggies (to escape the estrogenic effects of pesticides), and you will be slim and healthy and young to your final days.
Trinity
@Nora Carrington: Absolutely.
gex
@gypsy howell: And I forgot to mention city planning that eliminates the ability to walk anywhere but your mailbox.
vacuumslayer
@Ash Can: Who knows? I often find it’s the fat and ugly guys who are bitter cuz they can’t attract the women they think they “deserve.”
tamied
@Moe Gamble: You will be slim and healthy and young to your final days.
Who needs that shit?
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
Hi ellaesther! Thank you for using that quote I pasted here on your blog last week; I saw the posts where you were looking for me the next day. I am not able to hang out here on BJ as much as I would like but I save and read all the posts and comments that I can offline, this is such a great place.
Your new post at your site is well done!
freelancer
OT- Who’s gonna be the first wingnut to attack Obama because the aircraft hijacked in Cancun and flown to Mexico City because the highjackers demand to speak to the Mexican President is a clear cut example of how Obama isn’t serious about keeping Americans safe?
I got a dime on Liz Cheney.
Jame Gumb
Oh wait… Was she a great big fat person?
Jules
@shecky:
Jesus Sully, thanks for penis cutting picture….
And the fat?
Oooo shiny….
JK
Speaking of fat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzznDfa-F9s&feature=PlayList&p=8A8CA8AB05D98FF4&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=56
Megan McArdle is a clueless, useless wankertarian
Jamey
@76: Not fast enough: K Lo, Rush, Bill Bennett, all lived past 30.
ellaesther
@licensed to kill time: Thank you very much, and thank you also for commenting there! I realized early on in my blogging “career” (does it count as a career if it earns you no money? But I digress) that the blog and I would be ill-served by me commenting in my own comments section — that the comments should be for the commenters, and whatever deal they get going — but I felt weird not saying to you “Hey! So glad to see you here!”
So: Hey! So glad to have seen you there!
Come back when you can — comment early and often! (I’m from Chicago. That’s how we vote, and I figure it’s a good general rule in life!)
Shinobi
@gex: Yes.
There is actually a whole movement of people pushing for a bigger focus on health and less of a focus on weight. Weight is not always the arbiter of health.
No one questions those people who eat whatever they want, never work out, and remain thin. But people who behave similarly and are fat are THE OBESE to be feared and hated. And people who work out, diet and yet remain fat are also THE OBESE, not only are they lazy fat slobs, they are just LYING about their diets.
HyperIon
hmm….no blogroll (or crap on the left) unless I click on a post.
then blogroll (and crap on the left).
when did this start?
Deborah
@gex: Other studies have shown active overweight people are healthier the sedentary thin people.
This is completely true–not for all health issues, e.g. I think diabetes just cares about body fat, but for many.
But come on, on average, looking over your family and acquaintances, are the skinny people inactive and overweight ones the folks who take a walk every day and are always up for a family swim or hike? As a broad correlation, people who don’t exercise tend to be heavier than those who do. So arguing “exercise is what really matters” is fine, but not when we pretend that our nation is getting tubbier while exercising more.
This is not to say “ergo no health insurance” but “so far the evidence suggests that this experiment with becoming obese is bad for our national health, and we should just admit that.”
A link to come when I am on another computer.
MikeJ
Sounds like you were just missing the css file. Happily, you got it by just reading a thread, rather than the horrible days of having to post to get it.
CT
@gex: Absolutely true. I currently live in a midwestern college town. Modest size, nice and flat-should be great for walking/biking around. Bike lanes? Zero. OK, how about shoulders wide enough that your left elbow and butt cheek arent in traffic? Sorry. OK, but at least there’s sidewalks everywhere so you can safely walk to the store? Mmmm…maybe. In much of the town (except the older parts), you cannot walk to any of the main shopping areas without spending time walking along a busy road on the 6 inch wide shoulder.
In contrast, I lived in Eugene, OR for 10+ years w/out a car no problem-about 20 pounds lighter than I am now.
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
You’re welcome, and thank you for making me feel welcome. I have been lurking on this site for a year now, and only recently starting putting my two cents in.
You know, I understand your feeling about “commenting in your comments”, but I think it adds to the dialogue – I like it when John or Doug or Ta-Nehisi jump into their comment pool and respond (and yes, I have seen you over there, too!).
Just my two cents :)
IndyLib
@gex:
This is a is a pet peeve of mine. I live in a suburban area on the edge of town in southern Wisconsin. The houses on my street have large yards, lots of old trees, so my kids have an a tree swing, an above ground pool and a trampoline in the back, and a fairly good sized driveway to ride bikes and scooters in, but, we can’t safely leave our own yard on foot or on a bike. We have a new shopping center about a quarter of a mile down the street in one direction and a nice neighborhood park about half a mile in the other direction, yet not a single sidewalk going any direction from my house, and a fairly busy street. My kids are old enough that I would be able to be able to let them ride their bikes or walk to the park by themselves, the area is very safe, except I can’t let them ride or walk along the street. It’s a very narrow 2-lane with a 2 foot dirt shoulder which is next a deep culvert which is full of water half the time. Even if my husband or I ride with them I don’t feel safe. There is just no room for error, if one of them loses concentration for 15 seconds and veers out into the street, they could easily be hit by a car (the speed limit is 45, which means everyone only drives 50, it is Wisconsin). So I find myself loading them up in the car to drive to places I can see from my front yard.
gex
@Deborah: Well, I guess I thought my point was that activity was the key, but since you note that weight and activity are highly correlated let’s just keep using the more inexact indicator. Happy?
Flugelhorn
@gex: I hope you count yourself among them?
Kiril
Anyone who actually read McArdle or Sullivan to comment on this post = FAIL!
DougJ has successfully trolled his own readership. lulz!
Anne Laurie
@geg6:
Do internet people count? ‘Cause if so, I just shot your statistical curve all to hell.
P.S. I warned y’all this was coming, din’t I?
EMY
@ Deborah:
Anecdotal data is not enough to prove who excercises and who doesn’t merely on size alone. I will say that for especially large people, the threat of being humiliated and embarressed in the street is there, name-calling is a reality for very large people and it’s not that unusual for some of them to choose to limit their public activities for those reasonz.
Also, yes some fat people like to walk and move and swim and dance. I know thin people that gate the gym.
My anecdotes are not enough to prove anything.
EMY
@ Deborah:
Anecdotal data is not enough to prove who excercises and who doesn’t merely on size alone. I will say that for especially large people, the threat of being humiliated and embarressed in the street is there, name-calling is a reality for very large people and it’s not that unusual for some of them to choose to limit their public activities for those reasonz.
Also, yes some fat people like to walk and move and swim and dance. I know thin people that hate the gym.
My anecdotes are not enough to prove anything.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Kiril:
Not me. I stopped reading Sullivan a while ago. He’s useless except on a couple of issues that are near and dear to him. And if he weren’t gay, half those issues would be instantly gone.
ellaesther
@licensed to kill time: I think I’ve said this on Balloon Juice before, but: I used to have a boss who would say “there are only 300 people in the world and they all go to the same parties” — I know this to be absolute Fact about the blogosphere! Or, at least: 300 on the right, and 300 on the left. And about 50 trolls who seem to keep very busy all over the place.
We’ll see about me and comments…! I was so nervous about the whole thing, that it really is something of a wonder that I blog at all. For now I think I’ll stay hidden in my secret lair, but I can imagine a time that I might venture out. Maybe. With, you know, my blankie.
Joel
@Jude: That’s basically it. I’ll express it in 8 words:
Why should I pay for that fat person?
EMY
DougJ:
So you’ve been going through the archives huh?
Megan says: obesity is complex, governmend can’t do anything about it.
Others say: obesity is a scourge and government can do something about it
Megan says: obesity crisis is overhyped and for the few people who are extremely fat that are affected by it negatively, the governemnt still can’t do something about it.
Megan also says: …and btw the obese are humiliated and discriminated against at every turn and even with intense social pressure they still don’t get thin, so the government isn’t going to help
Readers: mostly general scorn for fat people with some nuance and complexity throughout. but mostly scorn.
Does that help?
Brendan
@DougJ:
It’s a hypothetical statistic in McMegan Land
scav
“Blame others.”
The Other Steve
As the spokesperson for all fat people everywhere, I just want to say.
I hate you all.
thank you
licensed to kill time
@Joel:
That’s basically the objection to social programs in general, in 8 words – “Why should I pay for that other person?”
gex
@Flugelhorn: Yes, I do. However, I think blaming people who make a point of blaming others always, or being intolerant of intolerance are acceptable exceptions to the idea that finger pointing and intolerance are bad.
KG
of topic, but in case anyone cares, the jackass Assemblyman from this morning has resigned. I’m wondering if I should see about running for office…
KG
@KG: dammit, I can’t run to replace him, I don’t live in that district.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Kiril:
DougJ has successfully trolled his own readership. lulz!
I think the term is being “dick rolled”.
Joel
@licensed to kill time: More or less.
Damn those plebs!
Deborah
Link to e science news.
After adjusting for age, sex, education level and occupation, individuals with more healthy lifestyle factors were less likely to develop chronic diseases….The four factors were associated with a 93 percent reduced risk of diabetes, 81 percent reduced risk of heart attack, 50 percent reduced risk of stroke and 36 percent reduced risk of cancer…The largest reduction in risk was associated with having a BMI lower than 30, followed by never smoking, at least 3.5 hours of physical activity and then adhering to good dietary principles.
Scan through Science News and you find that “supposed healthy lifestyle is in fact healthy” is a really really common headline. “How to stick to a healthy lifestyle” is not. I’d just note here that the bmi cutoff was 30, which is obesity–everyone carrying 20 extra pounds is in the group with the big risk reduction of a bmi below 30.
Again, I’m all for single payer universal health care. But I’m not for pretending that this experiment where the nation as a whole gets much much fatter (and doesn’t exercise) is just a thing that happens and we can’t ask any questions about the consequences or the causes.
Brendan
@aimai:
Not just her blog, but anything she’s involved in.
I sat in on her WaPo health care chat. I had to move away from my computer because I could see waves of teh stoopid emanating out of my screen.
freelancer
@Bill E Pilgrim:
And that’s where we’re headed in this country. We got a bunch of readers who are getting dick rolled sitting down.
I’m a man! I get dick rolled standing up!
Deborah
@KG: Sure, let reality constrain you, be a liberal.
ericblair
I agree with the take that this is the latest wingnut apologics for the US taking the Teh Suck prize in public health. Got all these fat people, yanno.
Of course, about ten seconds of rumination would make you realize that they kind of shot themselves in the foot with this argument. So what really should happen, right, is that people should be able to get regular checkups and counseling to intervene and educate people about diet and nutrition. Since our terrific health care for-lack-of-a-better-word system relies on ignoring people until they’re very sick, and then figuring out some reason why the insurance companies won’t pay for treatment, this would seem to be a systematic fault, right?
Or if you take a political angle, this would seem to be crapping where you eat. Find a map of the US with state-level obesity rates, and verify what you were already sure of. Find a map of the US with state-level political party affiliation, and verify what you were already sure of. Then put them together and marvel at the republican party telling off Americans for being a bunch of fatasses.
arguingwithsignposts
I am curious about mcme-again’s family. Are any of her relatives overweight? If so, perhaps she is concern-trolling her own future self.
She does seem to obsess about this topic quite a bit.
Brendan
@gnomedad:
And oxycontin. And viagra
MikeJ
@freelancer: Remember DougJ’s posts on how the wingnuts all speak in some weird sekret language? Like how much of what they say is literally unintelligible unless you know all the code words?
Yeah, that.
Seanly
You got some kinda problem with my breakfast?
MikeJ
Surely there are easier ways to get laid.
Joel
@Deborah: Obesity is a little more complicated than the general public realizes.
For one, it’s an indicator, not a cause.
That is, if you are malnourished with a meat-heavy, unbalanced diet, rich in processed foods, and don’t exercise you’re going to be 1) obese 2) generally unhealthy.
Now lets say you’re obese through a combination of factors, but you eat a balanced diet, sans processed foods, and get a reasonable amount of exercise. You very well may still be 1) obese but chances are the controllable elements of your health are in pretty good shape. This, of course, doesn’t account for genetics.
Universal health care has lots of attendant costs, but so does the current system. I’m not worried about creating incentives for poor health decisions, because cost isn’t a contributing factor to those decisions anyways.
ellaesther
@Deborah: HA!
Bill E Pilgrim
@ericblair: people should be able to get regular checkups and counseling to intervene and educate people about diet and nutrition.
Yeah but you said “counseling”, and anyone knows that’s Kaiser Sosha Lizum.
A person’s health is only between one and ones family and should be part of home schooling, otherwise commies posing as doctors actually “telling” patients things rather than just prescribing and before you know it: death panels.
Deborah
@EMY: Um, yeah, there are some athletic events aimed at the larger. All the hefty (though not usually any morbidly obese) people you see at such, say, mini-triathlons are regular exercisers. They are healthier than a lot of thin people.
But I really, really don’t buy that if you take 200 people at the mall the heftiest will turn out to be the exercisers. Or at a buffet, the people with healthier plates will tend to be thinner than the people with a deep brown plate full of fried food. That’s just regular observation when I’m eating out.
As for your point that some fat people have reasons to be reluctant to exercise: I did not say anything to suggest they didn’t. I said that being very overweight is shown to be, on average, across a population, unhealthy. If an individual is 50 pounds above “moderate” weight and is able to do any reasonable physical activity they want and a physician says “yeah, your heart and lungs are in great shape” then I will certainly grant that they are healthy and shouldn’t worry about their weight. I just don’t grant that that’s secretly true of most overweight people, and somehow all the scientific studies are missing the vast majority of vigorously exercising fat people–Occam’s razor.
EMY
Deborah:
“If an individual is 50 pounds above “moderate” weight and is able to do any reasonable physical activity they want and a physician says “yeah, your heart and lungs are in great shape” then I will certainly grant that they are healthy and shouldn’t worry about their weight. I just don’t grant that that’s secretly true of most overweight people, and somehow all the scientific studies are missing the vast majority of vigorously exercising fat people”
Than I say the point is the excerise and the acitivites that need to be addressed, not the weight in itself per se. If that hypothetical fat person were to excercise and eat healthy and their doctor said you are healthy, yeah I agree, great. O.K. I’ll out myself here: I am a fat person. I eat healthy I excercise. I have a thin friend who doesn’t want to eat kale and prefers burgers and fries. I have a doctor that literally wrote down on a piece of paper in my records “obese and healthy.” I’d say the problem is a lack of excercise for the fat and thin alike, not weight per se. More excercise and eating a healthier diet will more likely determines health rather than body weight on it’s own.
I suppose what i was reacting to, is the knee jerk often sterotypical response that is pervasive in our culture: the fat are automatically healthy and lazy and the thin are automatically phsyically active and healthy. That’s just not true.
DougJ
Does that help?
Yes.
ellaesther
@The Other Steve: Wait! Don’t hate me! I’ve written reasonable things over at my place!
I just don’t feel like taking on the whole world right here, right now….
EMY
Deborah: I think also this is the crux of many of Megan McArdles arguments and even Paul Campos the guy who she interviewed, and a New York Times science writer Gina Kolata who wrote “re-thinking thin” :
this: “I said that being very overweight is shown to be, on average, across a population, unhealthy. ”
the conventional wisdom that fat people are in general, unhealthier than thin people are in general, is false.
It’s important to make a distinction here about what kind of fat we are talking about. If you are talking about the extremely obese, there is some evidence that yes, they will be unhealthier than the thin (although the evidence is overstated). For those that aren’t very obese, it’s just not that big of a deal.
What is far more important are healthy habits, not body size in itself
Anne Laurie
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s very, very difficult to grow up female in modern America and not be continually aware of exactly where one stands on the Fat=Unworthy scale. As I said in an earlier post:
EMY
“Fat acceptance, as you can probably guess from the words “fat” and “acceptance” being right together like that, does not go over so well in some circles. Even in some progressive circles — which are usually known for not hating entire groups of people because of their appearances, not thinking what other people do with their bodies is anybody’s beeswax, and not uncritically accepting whatever moral panic the media tries to whip up, but wev. Fat is different! Don’t you know there’s an obesity epidemic? Don’t you know that fat kills? Haven’t you ever heard of Type 2 diabetes? Don’t you realize how much money this is going to cost society down the line? Won’t someone please think of the children?
So, before I start getting comments like that, I want to lay out ten principles that underlie pretty much everything I write about fat and health….”
http://kateharding.net/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/
(posted here for a good run-down of what “pro-fat” means)
John Cole
@aimai: McCardle seems to have spawned a cottage industry among bloggers correcting her insanity.
Ryan S.
I’d like to share a personal anecdote.
I’ve been overweight all my life but It didn’t start to take off till I hit puberty. My parents who both worked until late at night at the time. Noticed my weight and enrolled me at a after school workshop for overweight kids we did things like counseling and activities and such. I lost most of the weight.
Then the county pulled the plug on the program. Which left me alone at home for about 4 hours every night with a fridge stocked by parents who felt guilty. We lived in the country with no close neighbors or friends, and my weight returned with a vengeance.
These programs work and, although I know pretty much did it to myself. I can’t help but think what would have happened if maybe they hadn’t pulled the plug on the program.
John Cole
@HyperIon: That was because DougJ left open a div tag on his Jean Schmidt birther post. I fixed it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Anne Laurie:
I do not doubt it. It is a sick, twisted mindset we have as a nation where we have an idealized image of femininity that is so hyper-thin. IIRC, it was not always so in western culture.
EMY
@John Cole:
lol! I agree with Megan about very few things, most blog posts that I read of hers seem off the wall to me. It’s always great reading the good, reasoned, not-so-snarcky smackdowns that she garners a la Klein, Steinglass and Holbo.
cynickal
164 comments and not a single “yo mamma…” joke.
I’m really disapointed.
ellaesther
@Anne Laurie: Oh Annie Laurie, this It’s very, very difficult to grow up female in modern America and not be continually aware of exactly where one stands on the Fat=Unworthy scale is so true.
One of my biggest struggles these days is in just finding a language with which to discuss the whole issue — so I mostly just don’t. When women around me talk about diets or working out or the pants they don’t/do fit into anymore/again, I literally or figuratively walk away. There is too much self-hatred and judgment behind and all throughout the conversation, and it’s just painful.
Theoretically, I know there is room for conversation about individual health and well-being and sense of self in all of this, but I just don’t think we’ve even begun to know how to frame it. So, other than musings on my own blog, the ultimate Safe Space, or in comments to posts like this one, I mainly don’t even try anymore.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Anne Laurie:
Do internet people count? ‘Cause if so, I just shot your statistical curve all to hell.
A lot of data sets have outliers. So you can be safely ignored. Not that I’m saying you’re fat or a wingnut or anything…
Maybe I should shut up from here.
scarshapedstar
The cool new contrarian thing is to claim that there is no obesity epidemic.
Problem is, it’s also been cool for a while to never set foot in a Wal-Mart, so the obesity denialists don’t realize that — as one data point — 75% of the clientele of the world’s biggest retailer are so fucking fat that they can no longer move under their own power. I think Wal-Mart has more customers using electric scooters than regular shopping carts at this point.
ellaesther
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: What, precisely, are you going on about, here?
lawtalkinguy
Michael Moore is fat, so we should not listen to anything he says.
Americans are fat, so we should not provide health care to them.
There is at least some consistency, if not logic, to their arguments.
Jacquelyn
Once upon a time, I was thin. Then I became not thin. As my weight increased, all anyone saw was a fat chick. Little did they know. My very slender acquaintance, whom I hadn’t seen in a loooooooooong time, challenged me to “indian” wrestle (honest, that is what we called it as kids…I have no idea what it really should be called). She looked at me and saw BLOB. I only saw victory. We aligned our feet and grasped our arms. 1….2….3….GO! She pulled and pushed and pulled and pushed. I didn’t move. She accused me of not even trying. So…I threw her across the room, careful to maintain my grasp in order to keep from causing her serious injury.
Did you know that weight lifting can add weight? So can eating. I do both!
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@arguingwithsignposts: IIRC, it was not always so in western culture.
Indeed not – google “Rubenesque”.
Bill Keane
Glibertarian “truth” – If I am wealthier and thinner than you, it is because I am better than you. My individual right to preserve any unfair advantages I have over you are inalienable. Talking about obesity allows me to spout “principles” while reminding myself how great I am. In short, all these people love masturbating while reading their own wikipedia entries.
Bill Keane
Glibertarian “truth” – If I am wealthier and thinner than you, it is because I am better than you. My individual right to preserve any unfair advantages I have over you is inalienable. Talking about obesity allows me to spout “principles” while reminding myself how great I am. In short, all these people love masturbating while reading their own wikipedia entries.
Bill Keane
sorry for the double post – I have keyboard Tourette’s today
jl
@Kiril: a good point. I went off on the new media glibertarian theme that all excess US health care costs were due to fat people, which is not what McArdle has been arguing. Sorry, I got all cranky in general.
I addressed McArdle’s glibertarianism in my second comment. I find it bizarre that people like McArdle and Ramos seem to hate on public health researchers and doctors rather than the media and the US corporate mass excess consumption machine. Seems like the latter has much more to do with both the creation of obesity and its stigmatization.
Docs and epidemiologists know very well that BMI defined obesity is more of a general marker for monitoring trends in the population. I’ve never talked with a doctor who would just look up a patient’s BMI and call them fat.
BMI defined obesity may not be a reliable predictor for what will happen to an individual, but for large populations its increase is associated with more diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory and orthopedic problems. So there is reason to be concerned. Even non-morbid obesity in kids causes serious problems that used to be very rarely seen, like liver and gallbladder disease, and pregnancy complications in pregnant women.
I have heard serious debates among doctors and epidemiologists on whether the 25 and 30 BMI cutpoints are really all that useful for any individual care, and even whether the best BMI for longevity is correctly estimated at 25. Most experts I talk to agree that overweight and obesity are markers, that combined with lack of exercise and poor diet, cause serious health problems. And there are far more overweight and obese people with that combo than there are hefty people who eat right and exercise a lot.
So, I am puzzled by much of McArdle’s posts on this topic.
Mike D.
if you like the obesity debate, you’ll love the circumcision to-do at ordinary-gentlemen.com and elsewhere.
tc125231
@shecky: That’s because Chomsky is demonstrably smarter than he is and doesn’t agree with him.
Notwithstanding that Chomsky can be a pompous git.
jaquestraw
People with food addictions are going to be the next target of out of control taxes like the cigarette tax. The genius of it is they can also soak everyone else in the process all in the name of keeping you from getting fat and by the way chubs rule.