Flagged to this thread.
It's an interesting discussion and I don't want to close it.
But for those who don't know our longstanding rules:
This is one of the few places online where it's not OK to fat-bash.
That includes claiming that obesity is a "choice."
I have been big my whole life. Trust me, it ain't a choice. Will stack my consumption up against 50 slender people any day.
And frankly, I'd probably be smaller today if not for the fact that every time, goaded by a world that ridiculed me for being big, I tried dramatically reducing consumption/overexercising, I'd lose 10 pounds ... and when attempting to no longer starve myself to the point I couldn't work or study, returned at some point to something resembling a more normal intake, the 10 would come back with 10 friends.
Finally I gave up trying to "lose" weight more than a decade ago, and funny, my size has been stable ever since.
And I continue to be healthy as hell. Thank God.
And pissed off that the government is allowed to propagandize that fat is bad, ergo I'm bad, and every big person you see walking down the street.
Size in terms of weight is no more a choice than:
size in terms of height
size in terms of bones, feet, whatever
gender
race
skin color
natural hair color
sexual orientation
And that is where WSB rules stand.
Again, because this hasn't veered into the usual variety of fat-bashing - ridiculing people for their size - I'm not currently planning to delete anything. But I'm putting up the big red flag.
Smoking, you can quit. I smoked for six years long ago and quit - tough as it was - a human being can live without ever smoking a cigarette.
Drinking and drugging, you can quit. Wish my dad, dead of a shredded liver at 44, had. Wish my mom, dead of a cancerous pancreas at 62 (thanks to smoking and drinking), had. A human being can live just fine without taking a sip of alcohol, a toke of a joint etc. etc.
If you have found a documented case of anyone who can live without ever putting another bite of food into their mouth, I'll be fascinated to hear it. Meantime, I eat when I absolutely have to because I am starving and have been working for 12 hours without leaving the keyboard, or the field ... and yet even if I only find time for one small meal a day, my body has decided it's big and that's that. I made peace with it long ago and wish that everyone else with a large body would be able to do the same. (And whatever body size you have, I wish you the same peace.)
Body size is not a choice. And not up for debate. There are a million other websites in the world that will let you declare obesity to be bad, wrong, unhealthy, a choice because somebody eats too much. Not this one. Whatever size you are, you can be healthy and I hope you are. I sure am.
Back to the discussion. Minus obesity, please.
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