Feds Spend $1.5 Million to Study Why Lesbians Are Fat
- Thread starter petros
- Start date
So if a man looked at them twice, they would lose weight and become heterosexual? holy wow 8O
And 1.5 million is just what I need to retire right now...8O
There are societal and emotional components that factor into obesity. I do believe there is such a thing as food addiction which is generated by certain stressors such as rape, molestation etc. Both of my friends that are/were morbidly obese were molested as children. One has had a lapband put in place and she lost weight for a while. However, the food itself and avoidance of it is not really the root problem therefore she once again began to eat and put all of the weight back on. Now she purges (bulimia) and can remain chubby instead of morbidly obese. To my mind it is equally dangerous.
I don't believe it either. There are a gazillion excuses for being fat and why one can't lose weight. In reality there are very very few individuals who are pre-disposed to weight because of a bizarre medical condition.
Sure everyone's metabolism is different. For most of my life I could consume more food than most and still stay pencil thin. Now I can't and that is just reality. I have to keep my calorie intake at 1500 calories a day to maintain a healthy weight. Or I could just say I don't eat much and pack the pounds on. It's all about choice.
He did show other symptoms too though. His metabolism was sow slow he'd sometimes fall asleep at meetings. Sure he could be lying, but from I could observe and knew of him, it was probably true.
Lying is probably to strong of a word. He may believe it as well. I used to attend long meetings and there was always someone nodding off. I caught myself a few times I must admit and I sure didn't live near a nuclear test site.
That would go a long way with me too!
I agree that people lean on food as a crutch. Plus all the most tasty foods are usually bad when eaten constantly. I think it is a people problem as opposed to a GLBT problem.
I was lucky as well for most of my life. As a kid I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. I even used those weight gain drinks. Nothing. Age took care of that. Now I work out constantly and I am able to stay fit. However when I do fall into a rut I will gain. I did P90X three times in a row. It beat up my body so I gave it a break and I gained some of what I lost. Now I am doing Tapout X-Treme and I am losing the weight again. It simply takes effort, sometimes a lot of effort. It didn't take $1.5 Million to figure it out.
I find it interesting that the medical community is in quite glaring disagreement with you on this, and that's likely why government is stepping in and funding studies... trying to find the magic key to unlock the underlying issue.
See, the medical community had thought for a really long time, and tackled it for a really long time, from the 'calories in, calories out' point of view. And society kept getting fatter and fatter. And even when under direct medical care, some people kept getting fatter and fatter. Now specialists in the field, people like Doctor Sharma at the U of A, are finding that the issue is really much more complex and problematic than calories in, calories out.
Government is finding more and more, that obesity is the issue they need to deal with in order to keep their tax base healthy and working. It is such a pressing issue that this study, is peanuts. The combined U of Alberta funding for obesity related studies alone, is $35million. For one university, in a province with a comparatively small population.
I bet that's what you have to tell yourself.
lmao Utter nonsense, but it's fracking funny!
I agree that there are more reasons why people become obese than one could guess. Reasons such as engineered foods that trigger the hunger sensation, simple overeating, what people eat, metabolic problems, lack of activity, genetic disposition, pressure from marketing to be thin that causes anxiety, stopping smoking, things like processed sugar and salt that inhibit the sense of being full, etc.
BTW, I noticed that the study is concerned with Americans only. Seeing as a huge proportion of Americans are overweight or obese to begin with (33.3% are overweight and 35.9% are obese; totaling almost 70% according to 2010 stats as well as the stats saying that 4% more women than men are overweight or obese), the study's not at all surprising.
Agreed. But if everyone were placed on a diet that would burn more than what they ate they would still lose weight even those that have messed up their metabolic rate by attempting every diet known to man and then yoyo-ing. One can not gain weight on no calories. If they could we would have an answer to world hunger.
So really the study will determine why people can not stick to the number of healthy calories that their body needs in order to maintain a healthy weight. A million isn't that much in the scheme of things but I don't think it will tell them anything that doctor Oz does not tell his obese audience everyday. calories in...burn off or gain weight.
Well, that's fairly obvious.
I gave quite a few reasons why people cannot stick to their healthy weights. If I spent more time on it, I could come up with more reasons, too.
I think it's just odd that they choose to study homosexuals rather than say another country's traits. So the study seems to have an obscure aim rather than being one that could benefit everyone equally.
Racial and socio-economic traits have been investigated as determinants of obesity. Obesity costs Americans a lot of healthcare dollars, Canada too. The study is looking at more factors to study the epidemiology of obesity using a gender model with multiple levels and systems. They called it biopsychosocial. These types of longitudinal studies bear fruit, with repeated measures helping identify the other factors occurring simultaneously that are not so easy to determine.
If it was so easy top just tell people they are being unhealthy, the epidemic wouldn't be occurring. So is it better to do nothing than to look for possible solutions? I tend to think not.
If it was so easy top just tell people they are being unhealthy, the epidemic wouldn't be occurring. So is it better to do nothing than to look for possible solutions? I tend to think not.
Upon pondering the situation I would be willing to bet that Lesbians are fat for exactly the same reason other people are fat, so I'm beginning to wonder what nefarious motives those doing the study had! As if pissing away $1.5 million isn't nefarious enough already!
So the odd one a man might look at 10 or 15 times would be "skin and bones"..............scary concept!-
So the odd one a man might look at 10 or 15 times would be "skin and bones"..............scary concept!-
I suppose.
Well, I think the solutions are relatively easy. It's the application of the solutions that seem to be beyond people's ambition to implement.
Ton, I just posted a few stats that show lesbian women are not that much more prone to being fat than other American women. "Three quarters" as opposed to around 70% is not a staggering amount.
Overweight though isn't the same as obesity. Nearly 75% of lesbians are obese. The figure is 36% for women in general. If you include overweight women, then the figures become more alike, but obesity is at a much higher risk than someone who is overweight.
As for the cost, I find it helpful to think of it this way. Healthcare costs are increasing, and it is a big problem in the US. I will guarantee that the cost of treating obese lesbians is higher annually than $1.5 million. This type of research leads to answers that can help reduce those costs. That helps the economy. I find it odd that people can't see the benefit of social investments, but do see the value in personal investments, financial or otherwise.
If the prevalence isn't the same then your simple answer doesn't include an obviously important element. Seriously, think about that. The obesity rate for lesbians is more than double the national average for women alone. There is more to this than what is causing the underlying overall population trend.
They say that people overeat to replace something that is missing in their live....
Do I need to draw a diagram???;-)
Seriously, It could be that simply they are unhappy with themselves...????
Do I need to draw a diagram???;-)
Seriously, It could be that simply they are unhappy with themselves...????
Ah, ok. To me, overweight is overweight. But I suppose there's a need to distinguish the two in the clinical sense.
Can't see a problem with that.
I wonder if it occurred to the researchers that perhaps lesbians simply tend to overindulge the nurturing tendency more so than other women, just as a lot of hetero women tend to overindulge theirs using their kids.
Possibility but not a probability.
That very well could be what they find. It's possible that unhappiness or whatever analog they use to define it, will lead the shift towards obesity in this long term study. Hopefully the measurement interval is fine enough to capture information at that level of detail or better.
Personally, I'm interested in all the variables they are tracking. At work, whenever we start to work on a new problem, I always ask if there is epidemiological data to supplement our work. It's hard to address the problem when you don't know what the risks are that you want to target, or at least the context that the problem is occurring within.
You can compare any demographic, let's say lumberjacks compared to bartenders, while the numbers may be hugely different the reasons are exactly the same, too much intake not enough output!