Do people have an ethical obligation to be healthy?

[Tetus]

2 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

Sorry, but 600lbs of weight, is a full loss of control. 

 

Very few have glandular issues causing such growth. It more than not, is due to overeating. A choice.

 

Morbid obesity is not for the most part, a disability. It's a lifestyle choice.

Citation needed.

 

Seriously, the number of people who are 600lbs or over is low. You almost certainly have not met enough of them to make any kind of relevant personal judgement. To just claim flatly that they are all making the choice to be that overweight is far more indicative of your desire for this to be a moral issue than of the reality of the situation.

 

Your post makes it clear - you think fat people are gross and bad. That's fine as far as it goes, but leave it at that. Don't dress it up by pretending you know anything about their lives or choices. Just say "I hate fat people and like to shame them at every opportunity." It still won't be a GOOD thing to say, but it does at least have the virtue of being honest.

 

1 hour ago, E said:

You know, there's a lot of people here talking about crap diets that contribute to weight gain, and that's partially true. But it isn't at the same time. I went from being overweight admittedly probably to underweight for my size, and I'm a north americaner like all the others who have access to crap food. And live in the north, where shipments of healthy stuff are an earnest pain to get in the winter.

 

I eat an entire pizza at least one day of the week. I live off canned soups and rationings of bread, which are both bad for you because of their salt levels, preservatives, flour and other grains, and carbs. I mix that up with whatever veggies I can find and throw in leaner meats when I can. This is admittedly probably a shit diet. It's showing in my vitamin deficiencies. But the saving grace mainly is two things I'd bet. I consume extremely low levels of sugar. Proccessed and refined cane sugar is the source of so many problems for health and weight gain.

 

The biggest factor though is movement. I constantly move and work and I spread what I eat throughout the day so that I don't just dump calories into my system into one shot. The portions that I dump into my system are all burned off because I move so much. That's the other big killer in north america. When you combine more sedentry lifestyles with sugar and crap foods, weight gain is pretty much inevitable.

 

But it's hardly impossible to avoid, even if what's available is crap food. 

Hi. This is a common fallacy, not restricted to being fat, which plagues our society. The basic form is this:

 

1. People claim that X can cause problem Y for people who are sufferers of Y.

2. I have experienced X, and I don't suffer from Y.

3. Therefore, the claim in 1 is true.

4. Therefore, no one has a good reason for suffering from Y.

 

Being fat and being poor are both common targets of this kind of argument. I, too, am not morbidly obese, and don't have an exceptionally great diet. I'm 6' and my weight usually fluctuates from around 180-190. This has been true for the last 18 years of my life, despite very little active exercise. What I do have is a wild metabolism based probably on two things - first, I experience enough anxiety that I'm tense all the time, and second, I probably have a weird set of gut flora that doesn't process most of the food I eat too well. Not everyone has those things, and while I wouldn't describe either issue as an unabashed positive, it does make it a lot harder for me to put on weight,and a lot easier for me if I were to want to lose it.

 

For the most part, people don't particularly enjoy being fat. Fat shaming is incredibly prevalent in our culture, to the point where there is absolutely no question in anyone's mind what we as a group think of fatness. Fat people know all this, mostly because of all the laughing and pointing at fat people.

 

Let me put another argument down here. I call it, the "argument from I'm not an asshole":

 

1. I find fat people gross and enjoy laughing at them.

2. Finding a group of people gross and laughing at them based solely on their physical appearance sounds like something a shallow asshole would do.

3. I'm not a shallow asshole.

4. Therefore, I must not be finding fat people gross and laughing at them based solely on their physical appearance.

5. Therefore, there must be something immoral or irresponsible about being fat.

[Epitaph]

@Epic Tetus

 

Quote

Hi. This is a common fallacy, not restricted to being fat, which plagues our society. The basic form is this:

 

1. People claim that X can cause problem Y for people who are sufferers of Y.

2. I have experienced X, and I don't suffer from Y.

3. Therefore, the claim in 1 is true.

4. Therefore, no one has a good reason for suffering from Y.

 

I'd question how it could be a complete fallacy if it can be a factor. Before we get going, yeah, I can see how it can be a partial fallacy if people don't stop to examine all the angles.

 

If I'm able to maintain relative decent physical health even with my incredibly slow metabalism, then there's a chance that my circumstances can be slotted into a percentage of results that ring true for a certain number of people. What I'm saying therefore can't be a fallacy, but only if I acknowledge other factors present in that the human body varies quite a bit. As you raised the point, our metabolism and gut health also attribute to how and why we gain weight. Stress, hormone levels, sickness, even environment. Since I'm a northerner, whether I like it or not my body automatically puts on weight for the approaching winters.

 

I know more than anything there's never really a one size fits all kind of answer. Whenever we deal with the subject of people, every single angle has to be broken down on a case by case basis of the individual. And yet practices of generalizing still remain. Medical fields have average generalized standards for a reason. They prove a percentage effective. Fifty people get administered drugs based off their weight ratio. Let's say five come back because the drugs aren't effective despite guidelines.

 

We can't really claim that the other fourty five people belong to a fallacy argument that the drugs work. But we can't write off the other five people either and say "well if it worked for the others, it should work for you, k thanks bye." Unfortunately, even in medical fields that seems to happen, when the solution would be to look closer at the individual. 

 

Quote

5. Therefore, there must be something immoral or irresponsible about being fat.

 

There's only one issue with this. I wouldn't inherently say there's immorality involved in being overweight. But I don't think you can deny that situations exist where irresponsiblity and immorality apply.

 

What about parents who don't take adequate care of their kids and just feed them utter garbage until they get type two diabetus and heart disease by their late teens? There's no way to put that. That's irresponsible. And more often than not, the parents who do that are parents who also lack the ability or want to maintain their health. Of course, that's not saying that the parents are immoral strictly because they're overweight. But because they are overweight, which is either the function of lack of discipline or inability to get their weight under control, they'll pass that torch onto their kids through either habit, or neglect.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

Seriously, the number of people who are 600lbs or over is low.

As an example, you are correct. However  the amount of morbidly obese in the US, is quite high. 

 

The higher odds this will cause heart disease, diabetes along with other debilitating health ailments is also quite higher.

 

2 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

you think fat people

Are highly unhealthy. Highly costly to tax payers. 

 

2 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

2. Finding a group of people gross and laughing at them based solely on their physical appearance sounds like something a shallow asshole would do

Correct. Something I pointed out regarding stating it is wrong to laugh at them. It is however a lie to disregard the impact certain levels of obesity will have on the health.

[Homer]

I don't know why any ethical obligation would even need to factor in here. Keeping a decent shape is beneficial for myself before everything else so if anything, I owe it to myself and that's all I really need.

[Guest]

IMO ethics only comes into it as far as it impacts other people. There is an ethical obligation to do whatever you can to keep your children healthy, for sure.

 

Personal health is more of a grey area, but you can't deny that your personal health does in fact affect others, when it gets to the point of needing health care. This is especially true in a country with a nationalised health care system, but is also true even with privatised healthcare, as there is always a certain limit to resources. A person who is allowing themselves to become extremely unhealthy, knowing that as a result they will be using resources that could go to another if not for their bad choices, might be considered to be making an unethical decision. However I don't think that there ethically obligated to be healthy. People make unethical choices all the time. Eating meat, driving when you could walk or use public transport, passively not taking action that could help others etc. are all unethical, but society does not obligate people to to be the height of ethical purity. No one is completely ethical in everything they do, and as far an day-to-day unethical behaviour goes I think letting yourself become obese or smoking (away from other people) are pretty minor.

[vmdraco]

5 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

8 hours ago, vmdraco said:

Food like that is literally addictive

Its also a choice. To deny the choice is denying anyone has any control to drive over to a McDonald's, to order a meal.

 

The car didn't drive itself.

How many times do I have to say that that choice can be determined by the economic status of a person, which for the vast majority of people is out of their control?  Life is expensive.  Eating healthy is expensive.  Having a gym membership is expensive.  Being alive in general is expensive.  Someone who lives comfortably and goes to McDonald's and overeats versus someone who goes to McDonald's and orders a lot of food for their family so their kids don't go hungry because its cheaper and more cost effective than preparing food with whole foods (which have a time limit before they rot) are entirely different matters.  One overeats even when they have access to better food and choose not to (which is their right), and the other uses the availability of fast food chains to get by; and because fast food is fattening, they get fat because what is in that food is stored as fat by the body that recognizes it as an access.  Neither one of these situations, when they are strangers to you, should impact your ability to judge them just because they may look overweight or obese. 

 

You seem to imply that I am ignoring the health consequences of being obese when the point I'm making is based on the nuances of someone who may end up this way, which isn't linear.  I'm not denying or excusing that obesity has a lot of health consequences and it can be devastating for people, because it certainly does.  At this point I've given up having to explain this again because you're not addressing it and think I'm just making excuses for people when this effects real families, especially the 40% of Americans who can't afford a 400 dollar emergency.  You cannot address this economic inequality and state people "should have been more responsible with what they eat" as if it only takes someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to get out of food insecurity, which is becoming more and more common in the modern world.

 

6 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

I don't agree with the mockery, but also don't agree with telling a woman who is 350lbs, modeling while stuffing her face, that what she is doing is perfectly fine.

 

Its not. She is destroying her body.

 

Sure it's her choice, but to deny the destruction would be lying to her.

 

Her choice comes with consequences, including a society's judgment that she's a slob, lazy and overeats.

Sure.  Judgement is inevitable, I'm not denying that.  It's a fair point to make.  I'd say is also a choice to look at someone and find them egregious, and make disgust-based reactions to them rather than reexamine why that is and to work towards being kinder to those around you (general you, not specifically you).  By stating this, I'm not trying to deny that humans do this regardless.

 

It's interesting you use that specific example of a model stuffing her face and being 350 lbs, which is typically found in BBW circles, which is fetish based and by definition, sex work.  This is... exaggerated shit, dude If that's your general idea of what a fat person is then it's not representative of the average person.

 

6 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

9 hours ago, vmdraco said:

shouldn't discount them from being judged for their appearance

That's not how humans work.

 

If I am 7 foot 11, people will stare. 600lbs. People will stare.

 

If I can't fit on an aircraft seat. People will stare. Some will even laugh.

 

Most will have the same mindset. Judging them on a highly unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle.

You forgot to include the part of the quote when I said, "when you don't know their health records".  Obviously it's a human gut reaction to respond to something foreign with fear and disgust, but that doesn't make it okay or appropriate.  Is this unreasonable to state?  

 

What I'm trying to explain is that it's important to be introspective, because your own biases can impact how you treat another person when you meet them, and input false narratives.  I think this plays into OP's points about ethical and moral dilemmas about health and how we judge people for it.  I'm not enabling someone's obesity when I have no right to police their body, especially when they don't ask for advice to lose weight or if I don't know them as a person or their daily habits.  I know I would find it condescending and patronizing if I looked overweight, having tried everything to lose weight or have even always ate very well, and someone who was never fat would shake their head and be like, "Should have eaten more veggies, then!  Try cardio in the mornings", as if that works for everyone.  I happen to know people growing up and in the present who grew up looking "fat", but played sports and ate a well balanced diet; some of those people are also vegan, yet look like someone who is overweight through no fault of their own.  This is also why I emphasize the importance of introspection, because you wouldn't know those things based on first impressions.

[Snao Cone]

It's nice to get an idea of how many people have a disdain for my existence, since no matter how infrequently I seek medical care, I am always a ticking time bomb of taxpayer burden based on my disability and size. Cool. 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Economics have no place in the value of lives, this is the real ethics that has made itself clear in this conversation.

[Tetus]

2 hours ago, E said:

I'd question how it could be a complete fallacy if it can be a factor. Before we get going, yeah, I can see how it can be a partial fallacy if people don't stop to examine all the angles.

 

If I'm able to maintain relative decent physical health even with my incredibly slow metabalism, then there's a chance that my circumstances can be slotted into a percentage of results that ring true for a certain number of people. What I'm saying therefore can't be a fallacy, but only if I acknowledge other factors present in that the human body varies quite a bit. As you raised the point, our metabolism and gut health also attribute to how and why we gain weight. Stress, hormone levels, sickness, even environment. Since I'm a northerner, whether I like it or not my body automatically puts on weight for the approaching winters.

You've identified the problem here accurately. People are complicated, both mentally and physically, and we don't actually have a great understanding of how either of those aspects of being a human being work.

 

When you identify one particular variable and say "see, I deal with this too, but I don't have the same outcomes, therefore these two things are unrelated", you are vastly oversimplifying people's lives. The fallacy is thinking that this kind of argument has anything interesting to say. It just doesn't. The fact that you overcame some obstacle or achieved some thing is a story and piece of information about you. It is not a piece of information about other people.

 

2 hours ago, E said:

I know more than anything there's never really a one size fits all kind of answer. Whenever we deal with the subject of people, every single angle has to be broken down on a case by case basis of the individual. And yet practices of generalizing still remain. Medical fields have average generalized standards for a reason. They prove a percentage effective. Fifty people get administered drugs based off their weight ratio. Let's say five come back because the drugs aren't effective despite guidelines.

 

We can't really claim that the other fourty five people belong to a fallacy argument that the drugs work. But we can't write off the other five people either and say "well if it worked for the others, it should work for you, k thanks bye." Unfortunately, even in medical fields that seems to happen, when the solution would be to look closer at the individual. 

In medicine, for instance, there is a good to be achieved in generalization. If there are way too many people for doctors to have an intimate understanding of each person's life, and people are too complicated to make 100% accurate diagnoses/prescriptions to anyway, then a generalization that works for 90% of people is a really useful and laudable tool. You can provide general guidelines that will work for most people, and help them be healthy. Great. The other 10% aren't as well served, but by reducing the problems of the 90%, we can maybe spare more attention to focus on the individual challenges those people fact.

 

Morally though, there's no good to be achieved in generalization. You're not OBLIGATED to pass judgement over other people's lives. Moreover, even if there are cases where it would be appropriate for you to pass such a judgment, there's not really a need for you to apply it to everyone. You can judge individual people on their own merits and circumstances. There's not an economy of moral judgement that you have to meet a quota for. If you don't have enough knowledge about someone's situation, you can just say "I don't know enough" and leave it at that.

 

2 hours ago, E said:

There's only one issue with this. I wouldn't inherently say there's immorality involved in being overweight. But I don't think you can deny that situations exist where irresponsiblity and immorality apply.

 

What about parents who don't take adequate care of their kids and just feed them utter garbage until they get type two diabetus and heart disease by their late teens? There's no way to put that. That's irresponsible. And more often than not, the parents who do that are parents who also lack the ability or want to maintain their health. Of course, that's not saying that the parents are immoral strictly because they're overweight. But because they are overweight, which is either the function of lack of discipline or inability to get their weight under control, they'll pass that torch onto their kids through either habit, or neglect.

Can you think of any other reason that families might have similar sizes or shapes?

 

Seriously, though, no one anywhere is advocating teaching kids to have a bad relationship with food. I agree, there are probably some negligent parents out there who are actively harming their kids through their neglect, and some of those harms have have a relationship to the kids' weight, but that's not actually a problem with weight, it's a problem with neglect.

 

Neglect and abuse are bad in their own right, regardless of what the child's weight ends up being. A neglected kid that is underweight and a neglected kid that is overweight are both being harmed, right? The solution is to address the neglect, not to weirdly fixate on ascribing moral significance to weight or body shape.

---

A quick coda: if you find that you often have to invoke weirdly specific cases to defend your broad generalization, that doesn't automatically make your opinion wrong, but it should make you think about why that is the case.

[Howard]

I read the forum sideways I must admit. One's health and ethics were both to be pursued since antiquity. Obviously, there are health limitations, like disableds. I saw food being brought up. There are other things people go that goes against like smoking, drinking.  

[superblonde]

From my personal experience, being an athlete my whole life, during which I could never get fit enough or thin enough to satisfying myself, through which I dieted obsessively, to the point of realizing the limits of my body, I have concluded genes mean so much more than people want to think. There are limits, and people's limits vary wildly.

 

No matter how hard I tried, I could never lose the little pocket of fat that appeared on my stomach at twelve years old. I concluded the only way was liposuction, which I considered seriously before deciding that I don't want to care about this anymore, it's petty and just not who I want to be.

 

I also watched my mother stay big my entire childhood though she ate less than anyone in the family. I've watched people close to me put on weight for no reason while I never gained a pound no matter what I did, though no matter how much weight I lost, the little pocket of fat wouldn't go away. I'm sorry, but the "science" doesn't add up.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, vmdraco said:

Eating healthy is expensive.  Having a gym membership is expensive.

There are tons of cheap, and healthy foods.

 

McDonald's is a choice. I choose to go to McDonald's. I do so daily, and get super size me'd (in that all my internal organs start to fail), then this isn't because of McDonald's. Its because of my poor choices. Making McDonald's the scapegoat, is making the gun the scapegoat in a culture of violence. Essentially, where one is likelier to choose to resolve conflicts with one.

 

Gyms are very expensive. Walking is free. Walking is probably one of the best workouts you can get, that is of very low stress to your body.

 

Honestly. When I got depressed due to the loss of my mother, I kept making excuses for my poor eating habits. I guess I'm lucky. I had a wake up call. A mild stroke.

 

My choices put me in that position. My depression made me feel the way that I did, but my choices made me eat the way that I did. I'm surprised I don't have diabetes, cholesterol or anything of that nature, as I literally was eating nothing but McDonald's all day. I just didn't want to cook anymore.

 

I just don't understand how me pointing this out, is fat shaming anyone.

 

7 hours ago, vmdraco said:

I'd say is also a choice to look at someone and find them egregious, and make disgust-based reactions to them rather than reexamine why that is and to work towards being kinder to those around you

I see someone 600lbs and think to myself "wow". How is this unkind, since I'm not staring nor do they know my reaction? Asking myself how they got that big will typically be narrowed to two sections. Medical problem, or compulsive eater. Me asking them for clarification, would be beyond rude and make their situation worse.

 

7 hours ago, vmdraco said:

I'm not enabling someone's obesity when I have no right to police their body

Correct, but you have the right to reserve judgment based on their choices. You choosing to or not, is also your right. However, to insult them and justify it based on their appearance, then becomes even less ethical and or morally sound than anything being discussed in this thread.

 

Chris Brown beat Rhianna--nobody exclaimed about the abusive childhood that he had, and that he needed help. They (initially) demonized him. That's their right. He made a major mistake, and had to pay for it.

 

Not taking care of your body, is your right. Someone trying to blame others than their own choices, is where I draw the line.

 

7 hours ago, vmdraco said:

and someone who was never fat would shake their head and be like, "Should have eaten more veggies, then!

I told a significant other who had put on a lot of weight, that we should take "more nature walks together" "Its beautiful outside, and I get to spend more time with you".

I was trying to get into better shape, and wanted her to join.

 

Being concerned for someone's health, isn't necessarily fat shaming them or wrong.

 

[Epitaph]

@Epic Tetus I agree a hundred percent with ya on just about everything that was said. At that rate we're more or less echo chambering our sentiments through different vocabulary and points. There's one thing I'd like to point out though.

 

Quote

You're not OBLIGATED to pass judgement over other people's lives.

There's this narrative floating around that it's bad to judge people, when like it or not we do it automatically. It's so fast that most people won't actively pay attention to it or see it. This assumption that it's bad to judge comes from a well meaning stance, but the end result isn't effective as it doesn't go into depth about things. 

 

I've walked down crap parts of cities and had people pass me by who looked and acted exactly like people who'd attempted to mug me in the past. Same style of clothing, same moves and body language. My guard was up automatically. At the same time I realized that unless I see a knife coming out or specific moves that they're tracking me, I've no proof of who they are. That's the most important thing that's not talked about, I think.

 

Yes, we're not obligated to judge. But evolutionarily we're hardwired to do it because of threat recognition. Our opinions and active imaginations filter in afterwards on secondary factors that aren't really important. A person's not an ass for the initial snap judgement that they make. But they're an ass if they let that snap judgement determine their actions or thoughts towards that person afterwards.

 

Quote

but it should make you think about why that is the case.

We're gonna go to an interesting place here. You know how we just discussed that morally you don't get anywhere with generalizations? The best counter to any kind of generalization is to show some form of proof or logistical weakpoint against it, even if it's oddball. I forget the terminology, but it's something like the law of outliers.

 

For every statement made about anything at all involving people, there will be outliers in very small percentages that always contradict both statements and mathematical percentages. People will often throw these small percentages under the bus, but I believe that they're relevant in showing that no matter how flawless an idea we have, there's always cracks in it. Find the cracks and you find the complete picture.

 

So, you make a statement that's true enough. I find the oddball arguments that shows that under certain circumstances, your statement isn't neccessarily true. It doesn't detract from the main truth of the statement, but it shows the limitations of what it can apply to. When we understand the limits of something, we're much less prone to being bias or even making the generalized statements we're talking against here in the thread.

 

Under normal circumstances, people straw manning or cherry picking arguments for the sake of countering an argument comes down to confirmation bias and primarily, ego. In debates or discussion, ego is the biggest driver for people to push towards trying to prove that they're right. I'm aware of this at all times. In my discussion, my goal isn't to be right. It's to discuss and find the holes in the logistics. The more I discuss, the more ammunition I have to counter the things that matter in my life.

[Snao Cone]

2 hours ago, Merryman said:

People always say health services are overwhelmed. Maybe they would cope better if governments across the globe funded them properly and stopped wasting taxpayer money on other useless ventures. Or maybe they're perfectly fine and the whole thing is just a fabricated narrative to pass the book. It's not the government's fault your taxes are going up, no it's because the healthcare services need additional funding to cope with all the fat people! /s

This reminds me of a few years ago after a change in provincial government when some peripheral health services were being shut down. My sister had her second child and was the last client of an expert on breastfeeding who helped difficult cases where the baby didn't latch. Some people (most of whom had never breastfed, I'm assuming) thought it was a ridiculous service because all babies know how to breastfeed as it's the most natural instinct we have, and paying someone to provide this service was a waste of taxpayer money. 

 

 

...while in reality, a lot of babies are resistant to breastfeeding, and having a specialist in a birthing ward connect with patients to make sure they're able to feed their newborn prevents future visits to pediatricians if the problem continues. If a healthcare system makes peripheral services unavailable, more people will go to their physicians and that will create backlog and cost more money. 

 

Around the same time a coworker of mine was complaining that a menopause support service was also being closed down. Same issue: if someone going through menopause feels like shit, they will need to seek help; if there's a place where they can talk to a nurse and a group of peers going through the same thing, it will save on doctor visits. Absolutely myopic bullshit. 

[Tetus]

12 hours ago, E said:

There's this narrative floating around that it's bad to judge people, when like it or not we do it automatically. It's so fast that most people won't actively pay attention to it or see it.

 

Yes, we're not obligated to judge. But evolutionarily we're hardwired to do it because of threat recognition. Our opinions and active imaginations filter in afterwards on secondary factors that aren't really important.

I'll start off by apologizing in advance for any extra rancor that spills over here. I'm intensely frustrated in general with certain kinds of rhetoric that seem to thrive in online spaces, and you do actually seem to be attempting to make points in good faith, so this may be a more intense reaction than is really necessary:

 

Personally, I find that pretty much every argument from evolution as regards to human behavior is deeply uninteresting. So uninteresting that I can't possibly stress enough how truly obtuse and boring these kinds of arguments are. I don't even want to actually talk about evolutionary motivations/psychology as a concept, but even if I were to just cede all the underlying principles, these kinds of arguments would STILL be pointless, for reasons you yourself say in just a moment.

 

If you shouldn't do something, you have the urge to do it, and then you remind yourself, "wait, that's not really reasonable," and don't act on it, then congratulations, you're doing the right thing! The fact you had a weird impulse is not morally relevant at all. Your moral character is not determined by fleeting thoughts, but by what you decide to do about them. So if you have a bad thought and do a bad thing, you're acting badly. If you have a bad thought and don't do a bad thing, you're not acting badly. "Having the bad thought" doesn't enter into the calculus at all, so the origin of the bad thought is kind of an academic point at best.

 

12 hours ago, E said:

We're gonna go to an interesting place here. You know how we just discussed that morally you don't get anywhere with generalizations? The best counter to any kind of generalization is to show some form of proof or logistical weakpoint against it, even if it's oddball. I forget the terminology, but it's something like the law of outliers.

 

For every statement made about anything at all involving people, there will be outliers in very small percentages that always contradict both statements and mathematical percentages. People will often throw these small percentages under the bus, but I believe that they're relevant in showing that no matter how flawless an idea we have, there's always cracks in it. Find the cracks and you find the complete picture.

What is the complete picture you're looking for in this specific case, though? What use is the outlier to us here?

 

Let's say I'm considering whether I should agree with the statement "White people are openly and apologetically racist all the time, so therefore, being white is morally wrong." Someone might say "hey, that seems weird - in fact, it seems like most white people aren't that cool with racism at all!" If I then point to like, David Duke or someone, and am like, "Well, but here we go, an unapologetic super racist exists, and he's white!" What does this accomplish?

 

For fat people, if we start with the idea, "Fat people neglect their health and the health of their children, therefore, being fat is morally wrong." Then when we respond "Actually,  body shape and weight is a lot more complicated than that, and it's weird to assume these people are making a choice or are in a similar situation to you," and you reply "Oh, but see, here is a really lazy fat person", what is that accomplishing?

 

The problem here is that you're conflating existential claims with universal claims:

 

The structure of the above two dialogs is like this:

A: All X's are Y.

B: That is not true, as in the majority of cases, X's are NOT Y.

A: Ah, but here is an example of an X that is Y.

 

See, B here has refuted A's initial claim, because A was claiming a universal. B doesn't claim another universal (that would be like responding to the claim "All whites are racist" with "No whites are racist" or "All fat people are fat because they are lazy" with "No person could ever become fat by being lazy"), but just provides a counterexample to the universal. So when A comes back and uses an outlier, that doesn't actually show that they were originally right - there's no disagreement here. Some white people ARE racist. But B never claimed otherwise, so what is the point of A bringing that up?

 

Since it doesn't advance the dialog at all, the only reason appears to be a relatively cheap rhetorical ploy designed to evoke a sense of disgust. If that's your goal, just post "Fat people are gross" and be done with it. If it's not your goal, then post something substantive that has a point.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Merryman said:

Give me a break.

Obesity is directly linked at dramatically increasing your chances of everything from Alzheimers to heart disease. 

 

We aren't talking a 5 to 10 percent chance of it, either. 

 

Being fat is not pretty should one make it to retirement age.

 

Stating governments overspend anyways and being okay with overburdening them, is like someone being okay with littering because others do it.

 

Obesity is highly unhealthy, and has repercussions as one ages.

 

Mental capacity, to confidence to depression are all linked to it.

 

You're resolving so many social problems, simply by encouraging people to be active. 

 

Honestly. My mother saved her every penny to put me in sports.

 

I turned to pucks and hockey skates, whereas my peers without turned to guns, gangs and crime. 

 

My confidence was high, and my belief in myself was achieved by seeing what I could do putting effort behind it.

 

There is a reason why slums with programs in place to keep kids active, will have far better odds at curbing crime. 

 

Kids with goals are far less dangerous than kids with nothing to lose. 

 

To me, it is dangerous to push a narrative like being obese is healthy. It isn't. 

 

You shouldn't have to feel horrible for being obese, but to pretend like this is okay, is enabling the behavior.

[Epitaph]

@Epic Tetus No apologies needed. Not enough of a person left in me to feel offended over anything. Anyway. You don't think it's not a good idea to discard aspects of evolution or psychology in discussion? Even if they're boring, they open very critical doorways into understanding certain things. Less so on the evolutionary front, but more so on psychological levels. When you look at a problem in regards to humans, you need to look at all the angles, hypothetically at least in these scenarios.

 

Quote

What is the complete picture you're looking for in this specific case, though? What use is the outlier to us here?

In regards to this discussion? I read through every possible response to see what people think about the situation. I then take a look at them as people and draw up some hypotheticals on where the statements are coming from. Are they founded on logistics, are they emotional responses, what particular prejudice or reflex drives a response. I post my own half-thoughts as I read through the discussions, different angles that I see, and I read through the responses that I get. I can't really sit here and paint you the exact picture of what I'm looking for in this instance. But I'll tell you why I bother to involve myself in the discussion after all is said and done. The use of an outlier, as I said, reminds us that if we make a framework for an argument or just an idea, there's this neat little corner that challenges it. Discount an outlier for long enough and eventually it poses an actual issue because we purposefully made a blind spot that we like to discount because it's so small. 

 

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Since it doesn't advance the dialog at all

You're incorrect on a fifty fifty level. In this forum, in this setting, yes, you're absolutely correct. It doesn't advance dialogue whatsoever because this particular space here is just what I'd call sterile. We're all sitting around discussing various topics, arguing about ideologies and theoreticals, and accomplishing very little movement of any kind. The most that's ever going to happen here is that perhaps from time to time, various individuals will have shifts in their ideas as a result of discussion. Which is a good thing.

 

Dialogue out in the world is different. Dialogue in person is different. Actively dealing with human beings in person is not a sterile environment where we can tailor our responses and think carefully. You have emotions as well as thoughts, and in some cases you have critical seconds to make a response. If you make the response based off your instinct, or if you don't read up into the other person's response based off instinct, I'll plain up say it, you're fucked.

 

In organic dialogue with people of all varying stripes, an outlying point may not actually prove a point. That's never my intent at least. But it will open pathways of discussion since talking to people in person creates something like a tree branch that's constantly extending. You can't really accurately predict how the branch will extend or why. So even statements that appear empty and of no real value create openings for dialogue. And if you want proof of that, look at where our dialogue ended up.

 

I've seen and been through a lot of shit out in the world. So has everybody else, I know. I've been in life or death situations with people where I needed to choose my words quickly and very effectively. I've met people that I've helped in person on my travels. And how I helped them through dialogue wasn't through logical points, A B C. It was dismantling their psychology, their emotions, and making the dialogue that would reach them because they couldn't process A B C as if it were a sterile environment. 

 

This circles back around to what I said earlier about why I involve myself in the discussion, and that I can't really describe the whole picture I'm after. You want my true opinion of overweight people? I don't care what an individual does with their lives. Especially hypothetical ones I don't even know in points of discussion. But I do care when certain individuals fall into my personal circle of life with problems that I try to help with, if I can. I have a little niece to take care of. She's going to grow up and go out into the world, and hear an earful of opinions from a battleground of arguing idiots who succumb to waving their egos and emotional dysfunctions around, and she's going to turn back to me like she does already and ask me, "What do you think, and who do you think is right because I don't know which side is."

 

It is off topic, I know, but there was a quarrel between her and her mum not long ago about the vaccines rolling out, concerning on whether or not she should take them. A lot of moral standpoints involved in the argument and discussion, a lot of emotions and viewpoints. I acted as the mediator to find a solution that worked for both. My entire reason for discussing anything on these forums isn't to prove points because it's a waste of time and useless manifestation of ego. It's to hone how quickly I can dismantle something with my mind, look at every single point and perspective on both sides of the fence, and find the hole that I need to that makes the difference in a statement I'm going to make, because out in the world, your statements have immense weight. Hundred times more than they could ever have here. 

 

One day my niece might come up to me and say "Hey Uncle, I think I'm overweight, what do you think about that?" Because I've looked at every angle, whether it be through opinions of others, or my own thoughts, including the outliers, I'll know exactly what I can say to her. That's all I care about. That would technically make whatever arguments I make here devil's advocate, I think, which most people hate. But I'm not here to be liked. That I can maintain mental flexibility to consider any standpoint in life to make statements with the neccessary impact either to save my own life, or help others in the past like I have is what I'm here for. To learn and be adaptable is my job because people are counting on me.

 

[Beam Anne]

  Enjoyed reading this discussion

 

✨1 Corinthians 10:31✨

 

             Thank You!

[Alaska Native Manitou]

Fat shaming goes at least as far back as ancient Greece.  Any society that wants to control people by dividing them against each other can do it.  Henry the VIII is depicted as a glutton, but in reality he became fat after his horse fell on his legs so he couldn't move much.  Today it's driven by the fitness industry which makes money by convincing you that there's something wrong with your body.

 

It's so ableist.  Who gets to decide the standard of  "health?"   What about those with conditions that can never fit the definition?

 

Andre the Giant knew that being a pro wrestler was shortening his lifespan; yet he continued till the end.  Was it wrong for him to die doing what he loved?

[Guest]

8 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

Today it's driven by the fitness industry

Obesity is unhealthy. This is proven by fact. By science.

 

There is no denying the health repercussions of a sedentary lifestyle or a poor diet. 

 

Sure fitness groups have used this to create unrealistic body images (I used to be a gym rat, and no matter how hard I tried could only achieve flat toned abs--couldn't get the defined 6 pack look some of my friends got with less effort), but it doesn't remove the fact that 30 minutes of any activity (it could be cleaning, a walk), is critical for optimal heart function. 

 

Honestly. My mother passed away in a nursing home very young. Lead a sedentary lifestyle. 

 

Believe me. Its not pretty once you make it past 60, if that is the lifestyle one chooses. 

 

Seeing hundreds of seniors, some barely being over 60 being spoonfed, being fully incontinent, and knowing that is not only potentially preventable in some instances or a thing you can heavily delay with lifestyle changes, should be a no brainer. 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

3 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

sedentary lifestyle

[Iam9man]

2 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

Whilst most Buddhist monks do spend hours in meditation I believe they also live very active lifestyles serving/cleaning/walking/etc 😊

[Karst]

Another point I should add here-

When people automatically pile on the scorn for someone who looks unhealthy because of their weight, it can actually discourage them from getting in shape.  It's much harder to go to the gym if people are staring at you judgmentally.

[Morays]

10 minutes ago, Karst said:

When people automatically pile on the scorn for someone who looks unhealthy because of their weight, it can actually discourage them from getting in shape.

As James Corden put it, "If making fun of fat people made them lose weight, there'd be no fat kids in schools."

 

Compassion does much more to help people than shame.

 

 

[Snao Cone]

Using certain shapes and sizes as benchmarks is also terrible, because some people just aren't built in a way that it's ever attainable, but they can still have a healthy functioning body and an active lifestyle with sufficient nourishment. 

[Karst]

40 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

Using certain shapes and sizes as benchmarks is also terrible, because some people just aren't built in a way that it's ever attainable, but they can still have a healthy functioning body and an active lifestyle with sufficient nourishment. 

And being thin/muscular isn't a reliable indication of good health either.  A person can look "healthy", but actually have all manner of issues.  For example, bodybuilders actually damage their health with the extremes they go to to look competition-ready- they'll fast and dehydrate themselves to dangerous levels to get the perfect look.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

Monks don't live a sedentary lifestyle.

 

They in fact lead a lifestyle full of sacrifice. Most as a result, wouldn't be cut for it.

 

Meditation, and trying to find oneself isn't sedentary. Discipline and mental strength, neither.

 

I've gotten to experience the lifestyle while in China (to name one country), getting to visit tons of Buddhist temples, including of course, the big Buddha in Hong Kong.

 

Chinese cuisine is actually highly healthy. Many live in absolute poverty, so sedentary lifestyles mean starving.

 

Main reason you'll see a 90 year old still hustling. Its not a choice. Its an obligation.

 

Unless you were posting the picture for some other symbolic reasons you'd like to discuss, I'm confused.

[Guest]

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[Alaska Native Manitou]

I just noticed that you followed a post where I talked about Andre the Giant literally working himself to death with a rant about sedentary lifestyles.  My grandfather died of overwork.  In fact my father's whole family is made up of workaholic muscleheads, from whom I learned what not to do.  The older generation is long gone, my half siblings are dying off one by one, but me with the round body inherited from my mother's Native ancestors am still going.

[Karst]

Beauty standards are deeply linked to class-based discrimination.  For example, most modern cultures consider a lean, fit body to be The Ideal, but historically, this hasn't always been the case.  In early modern Europe, for instance, the idealized women in artwork tended to be chubby.  (Take a look at some Baroque paintings, and you'll see what I'm talking about.)  When the average person couldn't always afford to eat enough, having some extra fat was a sign of status.  Having an Instagram-fit body is the status symbol now because the spare time to work out is something that correlates with wealth in industrialized societies.