Do people have an ethical obligation to be healthy?

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Karst said:

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.

You can be chubby and healthy. 

 

Its not about a picture perfect bod. 

 

Most wilk never achieve this. 

 

Its not becoming a statistically morbidly obese person with social system straining medical issues.

 

Health is wealth. 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

As I said, I have a big Native American body.  Storing fat is how we survived times of famine.  We're not the only ones who get bodyshamed by white people.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/what-the-outcry-from-kumail-nanjiani-s-sculpted-body-tells-us-about-racism-masculinity-standards/ar-BB1cJn5k?ocid=msedgdhp  https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-12-24/lizzo-tweet-body-shaming-twitter  https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/sumo-wrestlings-healthy-secrets/

[Guest]

4 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

As I said, I have a big Native American body.  Storing fat is how we survived times of famine.  We're not the only ones who get bodyshamed by white people.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/what-the-outcry-from-kumail-nanjiani-s-sculpted-body-tells-us-about-racism-masculinity-standards/ar-BB1cJn5k?ocid=msedgdhp  https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-12-24/lizzo-tweet-body-shaming-twitter  https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/sumo-wrestlings-healthy-secrets/

BMI's aren't race related. Unless your body is muscular, it is quite accurate.

 

Also, being big isn't always indicative of poor healthy. It however is highly likely, that if one is obese, that they will be experiencing a higher degree of health issues.

 

This is health related. 

 

Making this a racial issue, is missing the mark, considering white people feel the most pressure to fit within these standards.

 

Not all bodies are created equal. 

 

Obesity, isn't healthy. Someone trying to spin it like it is, needs to provide evidence that a high BMI reading into high obesity rates or morbid obesity is typically healthy. 

 

Everyone stores fat in the winter. It's human nature. Animal nature, really.

[Alaska Native Manitou]

3 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

Making this a racial issue, is missing the mark,

So you didn't even look at my 1st link.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

So you didn't even look at my 1st link.

You mean the opinion piece you linked me?

[Epitaph]

On 1/10/2021 at 4:33 PM, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

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.

Not that I should be sticking my head into this for no good reason other than killing time. Andre the giant was a big guy. His heart was failing due to the fact that he had the issue of gigantism. He might have died from overworking, but his heart was already being overworked by the fact that his physical biology was reaching its limits. All people born with gigantism have usually been taken out by failing hearts and cardiovascular systems because they just can't keep up.

 

It's also actually physically very hard to work yourself to death. People usually correlate an early death to somebody who works hard as "overworking." They fail to consider the circumstances of what led to the death of the person. Somebody could work a physically demanding job that flips their shifts all the time. What killed a person in this instance wasn't that they overworked. It's that their circadium rhythm was likely fucked due to constant sleep change, which has tremendous long term consequences on the heart's health.

 

Stress is another factor. Nutrition makes a difference too. If you're vitamin deficient and you work, you strain your body quite a bit. If you're injured and you work, you strain the body quite a bit. Your body can only put up with that for so long. In that case, again, you've not died from overworking. It was lack of care for the systems that keep you running. When those become damaged too far, it starts a downhill slide.

 

You don't lose anything by exerting yourself normally because your body naturally repairs itself, which then makes it stronger. I've seen this trend in the elderly out here. They do basic activities like workouts and walking, and that keeps them moving. A body moving stays moving. Since covid showed up and they got stuck in their homes, a lot of the older folk's health has declined. Physically they're shot because they stopped doing activities to keep them moving. Once they reached that threshold, other problems occurred. And once those showed up, they became stuck in a downward spiral. The only problem with working is when you work with a fucked up body. If you're injured, if your systems aren't in good shape, you screw things up more, and that's what sends you to an early grave. 

 

There's gotta be a balance to things. Working hard never killed anybody. Working hard in failing health did. On the flipside, sedentry lifestyles are part of the reason people live longer in first world countries. That's because of reduced injury rates. You don't get your ribcage crushed between freight as an office worker. You get carpal tunnel from keyboading all day, and eye strain from staring at a computer screen. Much easier to manage long term those are. But, like working, if you do it with injuries, if you're too sedentry, it backfires on you and ends up killing you. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, E said:

You don't lose anything by exerting yourself normally

Key thing to note.

 

Normal levels of physical exercise are proven to benefit your brain and heart function (among other things). By normal, we're talking 30 minutes a day, of strenuous exercise that manages to get your heart rate up.

 

One extreme (morbid obesity), is no better than the other (someone who over works their body, and doesn't allow for it to recover).

 

One pointing out to those who fit under such extremes, only point to the fact that such extremes are bad. Not a healthy lifestyle.

[Snao Cone]

idk, I get more exercise than that (depending on what counts as "strenuous" and what level a heart rate needs to be to count) and I'm still perceived as a burden on society. I think the level of exercise that's deemed essential to justify ourselves is a moving target, as people who get the suggested amount of activity can still be fat. We eat the same number of calories that we did 50 years ago but we're still fatter. That has to do with what our food is made of, but the effects of that aren't spread evenly since there's so much genetics in how we digest, process, and store food on our bodies. It's not fair, nor is it healthy, for society to blame individuals for size as if it entirely comes down to personal accountability. Factors are usually systemic, so it's less about a failing of personal ethics, but of society at large.

[Epitaph]

1 hour ago, Snao Cone said:

idk, I get more exercise than that (depending on what counts as "strenuous" and what level a heart rate needs to be to count) and I'm still perceived as a burden on society. I think the level of exercise that's deemed essential to justify ourselves is a moving target, as people who get the suggested amount of activity can still be fat. We eat the same number of calories that we did 50 years ago but we're still fatter. That has to do with what our food is made of, but the effects of that aren't spread evenly since there's so much genetics in how we digest, process, and store food on our bodies. It's not fair, nor is it healthy, for society to blame individuals for size as if it entirely comes down to personal accountability. Factors are usually systemic, so it's less about a failing of personal ethics, but of society at large.

 

Less of society even. Society places a lot of verbal emphasis, but I think nobody really looks at one of the major silent factors out there. Both processed sugar and carbohydrates are two of the absolute worst contributors to fat gain, for anybody involved regardless of their respective body chemistry.

 

The maximum amount of processed sugar you can have in a day is something around 2 grams. With carbs, your liver can only process roughly 50 grams a day. So when you eat over those two ratios in a day, all of that is converted and stored as fat. Carbs are especially hard to curb, because they alter our gut flora as well. When our body is running off carbs, all it wants is carbohydrates. It takes about two weeks to switch over to another form of power that your body adapts to. Of course, take a look at the labels on most food and you'll see sugar and carbs in spades. Those are the hardest to cut down on and they're in practically everything.

 

Sugar industry also protects itself very well. They're responsible for the myth that high cholesterol corelates to heart failure, when the missing detail is we use cholesterol to repair our body. If you've a high concentration of cholesterol blocking your heart valves or arteries, it's likely because it's being sent to repair the damage that sugar has done to your internals, or something else like too much sodium.

[SithLord]

I do think there's some moral arguments to being and staying healthy. But there's a point when it stops. 

 

When you're unhealthy to the point when you're a burden to others, then I would consider it immoral to stay unhealthy if it's your choice to be so. Basically, if you intentionally let yourself be a burden (this can be done in ways other than poor health), then I think it's immoral to continue as such. 

[NewStart]

On 1/5/2021 at 12:10 PM, Anthracite_Impreza said:

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

I agree, but the mindset in the US is money over health/lives.  I have a half sister that has Cystic Fibrosis.  She is married and her husband has health care provided to the family. There are politicians that would like to make it difficult to impossible for someone like her to get health insurance if her husband were to lose his job and health insurance.  I am for national healthcare which would allow people like her to get health insurance.  She flat out said she is against it because she does not want to pay for someone else’s healthcare.  I was just like, wow, just wow.

[Epitaph]

1 hour ago, Moonman said:

Only if your body cannot store that excess glucose as glycogen. If it can then none of that becomes fat.

Different sugars, different types though. Sugar typically comes as primarily sucrose formed in a 50/50 yield with glucose and fructose. It's proven that your body stores more fat through breaking down sucrose in order to get to the natural glu and frus. Plus, the level of sugar in your bloodstream at the time of digestion automatically determines whether or not sugar is dispersed or absorbed. Since one candy bar can set your blood-sugar over the limit for the entire day, any other sugar entering your system is automatically stored. And because of the presence of gluclose, the amount of fructose absorbed is higher. Fructose is what's converted into fat. Glucose is what's converted into glycogen.

[Alaska Native Manitou]

I just learned a new word:  bigorexia.  

 

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

I just learned a new word:  bigorexia.  

 

Just like morbid obesity, the obsession with fitness or bulking up to extreme levels, have dire results. 

 

From the steroids and products one would take, to the effect it will have on your heart and body in general. 

 

I kept my products clean, and simply sticking to protein powders and creatine, noticing that the latter made my body cramp up while playing sports. 

 

I just ditched the powders and just focused on eating clean, and hydration with far better results. 

 

Fitness just like food, cannot generally harm you in moderation. 

 

Humans are generations worth of hunters and gatherers. 

 

Our bodies are not designed to be sedantary, nor are they built to bulk up to 400lbs of muscle. 

 

I have seen guy literally explode biceps over doing it. 

 

Serious injuries, heart attacks, you name it. The body cannot be sedentary just like it must be allowed to recover. 

[Epitaph]

3 minutes ago, Moonman said:

Small caveat to this but the liver does attempt to convert fructose into glucose, it only converts it into fat if its overworked.

Learn something new every day. I like the use of the word "attempt" though. Does it just halfways try before giving up?

 

"Oh my god stop giving me carbs and alcohol, fuck now there's fructose, that's it I'm going home early today."

[Alaska Native Manitou]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:16 AM, E said:

Andre the giant was a big guy. His heart was failing due to the fact that he had the issue of gigantism. He might have died from overworking, but his heart was already being overworked by the fact that his physical biology was reaching its limits

https://www.thesportster.com/news/director-andre-giant-doc-startling-revelation-acromegaly/

[Karst]

17 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

https://www.thesportster.com/news/director-andre-giant-doc-startling-revelation-acromegaly/

People with acromegaly tend to have shorter-than-average lifespans for the same reason that big dogs do- you're carrying around a body that's significantly larger and heavier than what your heart and body plan evolved to support.

[Zerο]

Depends on the healthcare system.  If they're paying for it themselves, go nuts and live your best life.

 

If the cost is shared with others?  Eat some veggies and get some exercise.

[Beam Anne]

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On 1/10/2021 at 5:11 AM, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

On 1/10/2021 at 1:59 AM, Perspektiv said:

sedentary lifestyle

 

On 1/10/2021 at 7:38 AM, Iam9man said:

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

Some Buddhist monastic traditions practice fasting.  Here are a few examples (copied from Wikipedia)

Quote

...the Chinese Buddhist practice termed zhaijie or baguan zhai (eight-fold fast)

....

...the duration of the fast varied, common forms were a six day fast (liuzhai) and a three day fast (sanzhai)

....

...Another form was a long fast (changzhai) which is observed continuously, "in the first half of the first, fifth, and ninth month.

During fasting, (buddhist, like any spiritual) monastics (and lay practitioners of spiritual fasting) perform their daily duties and activities as usual.  Through fasting they train their ability to receive their energy directly from God.

 

PS  Please do not try this at home.  Fasting can do damage and kill even ... faster than overeating, if done incorrectly.  Very few people really know how to fast.  A lot of what's online is misleading or plain wrong.  In fasts of three days or more, the most dangerous part is re-feeding: it is a do-right or die science that, sadly, developed only after many nazi-concentration-camp and comi-Siberian-work-camp survivors died when they got access to food.

+

[Beam Anne]

+

Above is the SPECT-scan of a HEALTHY BRAIN (bottom, R, L & top views)

 

On 1/19/2021 at 2:59 AM, Moonman said:

Andre the Giant was also a very heavy drinker. Legendarily heavily. Mythically heavily. Unofficially certified as the biggest consumer of alcohol that the world has known.

Below is the SPECT-scan of a an alcoholic's brain

+

 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

5 hours ago, Beam Anne said:

During fasting, (buddhist, like any spiritual) monastics (and lay practitioners of spiritual fasting) perform their daily duties and activities as usual.  Through fasting they train their ability to receive their energy directly from God.

😕  You think Buddhists worship a god?  Which one?

[Beam Anne]

+

10 hours ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

You think Buddhists worship a god?  Which one?

No, they don't.  They still believe they can receive their energy* from the "ether"** (( I apologize, I do not know the buddhist lingo; but if I come across specifics, I might edit ::here::))***. 

Maybe I generalized too widely in that post.  The idea is that some Buddhist traditions fast.  (Not the line whose tradition stems directly from the Buddha, but rather "branches" which had grafted in preexisting traditions of people who embraced Buddhism. 

Even though they do not view Life as a personal God, they still believe they can receive their energy* from the "ether"**, and quite a few succeed to various degrees.

No matter how we look at it, it is the same Universe made by the same God, regardless how/where-from we look or how little we see and comprehend.  This is where that generalization about ::monastics who fast:: came from.

----

* Virya

** Buddhist heavens

[Guest]

Hmm my understanding of Buddhist fasting (which is common in various forms in most if not all branches of Buddhism) it that it is nothing to do with receiving energy from the "ether". It is about living in moderation, practicing self control, and reducing desire.

[Beam Anne]

2 hours ago, theV0ID said:

Hmm my understanding of Buddhist fasting (which is common in various forms in most if not all branches of Buddhism) it that it is nothing to do with receiving energy from the "ether". It is about living in moderation, practicing self control, and reducing desire.

 

Hmm let me do some footwork for you:

The "common" path, followed by most lay Buddhists and practiced in Buddhist monasticism is 

Quote

The Buddha's Middle Path

After his extreme fast that lead him to emaciation but not to his goal, the Buddha finally attained Nirvana after resuming material nourishment.

He concluded that the path to Nirvana was moderation, therefore he did not encourage fasting, but preached moderation.  The practice of vegetarianism and one-meal-a-day are not fasting.  Although some might call vegetarianism "fasting from meat", shrinking it to "fast", is a misnomer.

 

2 hours ago, theV0ID said:

living in moderation, practicing self control, and reducing desire

is not the goal, it is the means for attaining the higher states, or "heavens" and eventually Nirvana.

 

Buddhists discontent with the state of the world, who find the Middle Path to exit too slow, return to more ascetic practices, from fasting (defined as abstinence from any food in excess of 24 hours), to asceticism, to self mortification.

One extreme example is

Quote

The East Asian Buddhist practice of self mummification (sokushim-butsu), [which] includes intense fasting.

Obviously, the goal is not to become a mummy.

The final goal, wether it is Nirvana or something more elusive than that, is a matter of debate in which I am unlikely to participate.

 

But the Buddhist Middle Path of moderation has some good parts, which, if wisely discerned, are useful guiding clues for healthy daily living.

+

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Beam Anne said:

 

Hmm let me do some footwork for you:

The "common" path, followed by most lay Buddhists and practiced in Buddhist monasticism is 

After his extreme fast that lead him to emaciation but not to his goal, the Buddha finally attained Nirvana after resuming material nourishment.

He concluded that the path to Nirvana was moderation, therefore he did not encourage fasting, but preached moderation.  The practice of vegetarianism and one-meal-a-day are not fasting.  Although some might call vegetarianism "fasting from meat", shrinking it to "fast", is a misnomer.

 

is not the goal, it is the means for attaining the higher states, or "heavens" and eventually Nirvana.

 

Buddhists discontent with the state of the world, who find the Middle Path to exit too slow, return to more ascetic practices, from fasting (defined as abstinence from any food in excess of 24 hours), to asceticism, to self mortification.

One extreme example is

Obviously, the goal is not to become a mummy.

The final goal, wether it is Nirvana or something more elusive than that, is a matter of debate in which I am unlikely to participate.

 

But the Buddhist Middle Path of moderation has some good parts, which, if wisely discerned, are useful guiding clues for healthy daily living.

+

I wouldn't call reading quoting wikipedia "footwork", but thanks I guess...  still, none of that has anything to do with "taking energy from the ether". 

 

1 hour ago, Beam Anne said:

The practice of vegetarianism and one-meal-a-day are not fasting.  Although some might call vegetarianism "fasting from meat", shrinking it to "fast", is a misnomer.

Eating one meal a day is a type of fasting. Over 24 hours in a prolonged fast, less than 24 hours is intermittent fasting. 

 

1 hour ago, Beam Anne said:

Obviously, the goal is not to become a mummy.

To bring this back to the actual topic, I don't think this type of deliberate unhealthiness (starving oneself to death for religious reasons) is unethical, as they are not causing anyone else suffering (I class things as unethical only when they negatively impact others), except I suppose the people who cared for them... but as this was a lofty religious goal I suppose their loved ones might have actually been happy for them. The ethics of allowing someone to do this to themselves are another matter.

[Beam Anne]

 

+

8 hours ago, theV0ID said:

I wouldn't call reading quoting wikipedia "footwork"

Interesting.  Obviously I am not a Buddhist and my notion of it is very scant at best.  As such, I did not find any fault with the information I quoted from the Wikipedia, which was well referenced.  If you found the info in the quotations faulty, please give us the correct information and the source thereof.

 

Then you misquote me:

8 hours ago, theV0ID said:

"taking energy from the ether". 

because paraphrases are not given in quotation marks.  But I give you the benefit of the doubt that you did not know.

 

This is what I said:

12 hours ago, Beam Anne said:

they still believe they can receive their energy* from the "ether"**, and quite a few succeed

[...]

* Virya

** Buddhist heavens

I will connect the dots for you:

Buddhists train themselves to receive their Virya from the higher heavens, realms or existential planes.

 

As far as:

8 hours ago, theV0ID said:

Eating one meal a day is a type of fasting.

I cannot agree, because during most of human existence, at least as far as known history, the vast majority of people ate once a day or less.  In biblical times two meals a day are mentioned, but that did not apply to the rest of the world, and even in biblical lands, not to all classes. 

Quote

"The Romans believed it was healthier to eat only one meal a day," 

The early middle ages were not three meals a day times, when most of the day was spent toiling, fleeing from invaders, fighting, tending to the wounded and the sick and burying the dead.  There were weeks of hunger and days of feasting.  

 

Naturally, throughout history, until the industrial revolution, meal-schedule was shaped by supply, context of activity, degree of urgency.  From the industrial revolution on, it started to gain more regularity and rhythm, until  

 

Quote

By the late 18th Century most people were eating three meals a day in towns and cities

in Europe.  From there this pattern spread gradually throughout the world. 

( Source of Quotes above: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20243692. )

And yet: no!  One meal a day is not fasting.  A lot of people in the world in all walks of life eat one meal a day presently, for all kinds of reasons, from lack of food, to lack of time, to disability, to preference, to the hope of losing weight.  Yet only the latter will call it fasting.  Billions of people throughout the millennia were happy when they were able to eat every single day for a length of time.  Does that mean that humanity fasted during most of its existence?  I guess not.

Is it that we are designed for once daily meals?  Or that we are adaptable, and once we got spoiled by the availability of food and time to eat we gave in gladly to our favorite activity 

 

It might be that eating less, more often and regularly suits the organism well in our modern needs and activities.  We sure got habituated to it to the point that skipping meals can be cause disturbances like pain, hypoglycemia and even peptic ulcers!  

 

8 hours ago, theV0ID said:

less than 24 hours is intermittent fasting

The trend of "intermittent fasting" is just that: a trend.  That kind a meal-schedule is probably suitable to some, because it matches their biorhythm, their own physiological needs.  But is it real fasting?  Had humanity been "fasting" until the industrial age?

 

8 hours ago, theV0ID said:

Over 24 hours in a prolonged fast

24 hour is the time the supply of stored glycogen lasts.  This is why 24 hours is the minimum time to call a fast.

 

Most fasting (done with the intention to fast – I am not talking about skipping meals and definitely not about starvation) is done from after dinner, skipping a day, to the third day breakfast.  (For example starting Thursday after dinner and ending with breakfast on Saturday.)  Which brings it to 32-36 hours.  When done correctly there is very little if any sensation of hunger, and definitely no "craving". 

 

After 24 hours the body starts using alternatives to glucose for energy.  First protein, mainly out of the muscles.  This is why moderate exercise is important during fasting.

 

Prolonged fasting starts after the 3rd day, because at that time the body had switched to mostly lipids for energy and ketogenesis, which can result in ketoacidosis.  This is why, after the 3rd day, fasting is more difficult and requires thorough know-how and discipline.  Ketoacidosis is a form of metabolic acidosis which is harmful and can be deadly.

 

Healthy fasting is a science that requires art.  But I do not see how from prolonged fasting one could emerge healthy without the Presence of God.

 

+ 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

On 1/22/2021 at 8:26 AM, Beam Anne said:

No matter how we look at it, it is the same Universe made by the same God

Setting aside the way you just insulted my religion, could you stop looking down on atheists?  Thanks.

[Karst]

10 minutes ago, 2SpiritCherokeePrincess said:

Could you not insult the nature Spirits I know by comparing them to your bloodthirsty biblical god?  And stop looking down on atheists?  Thanks.

Can we leave religion out of this? 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

2 minutes ago, Karst said:

Can we leave religion out of this? 

I'm not the one you should be saying that to.

[WoodwindWhistler]

On 1/3/2021 at 7:17 PM, Karst said:

Western culture tends to tacitly assume that being morally virtuous and being physically and mentally healthy are linked- consider the kind of language used to describe dieting and exercise, or how heroic characters in fiction are almost universally fit and able-bodied.

 

But is there any real basis for considering staying healthy a moral achievement?  And do these attitudes harm people?

They do harm people. I don't think that's mutually exclusive from it being a vague moral imperative, though. 

 

For one, we need to distinguish "healthy" from "good looking or slim." My mother is obese. But her doctors all tell her she is very healthy, especially for her age, because she works out literally every day and eats a primarily plant based diet. She just can't shed the pounds for whatever reason. 

 

For her, the motivations are to feel better (her joints have stopped hurting since switching to plants) and being around as long as she can for her children and potential grandchildren. 

That second one is where the moral imperative might come from. If you damage your own body, that's one thing. But if you make everyone around you either tend to you if you get sick (meat causes cancer and a host of other chronic illnesses or surgeries) or lose you to an early death, technically, that's harming them. 

No man is completely independent. Maybe hypothetically if you were a hermit, or were rich enough to never need social support from anyone in the case of getting ill, this might not apply as much. 

 

I use the same reasoning to address whether taking drugs is strictly a "victimless crime." The romantic partners of druggies and even friends suffer secondhand from their suffering. 

 

You could also get into some debate about whether taking government subsidized healthcare for damage you intentionally did to yourself is fair for everyone else paying into it.