Fat bashing....what do you think?

[Samson]

Could you maybe lay off the ad hominem for a change?

 

No.

 

None of your studies agree with the statement that "compulsive overeating is comparable with a heroin addiction," within the context of discussion outside the cellular response to dopamine.

 

To extrapolate these studies to the behavior of any individual, and then to aggregate society in the way you have proposed is simply preposterous.

 

BTW: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.........................................particularly those hurled from on high- horses"

[moimeme]

within the context of discussion outside the cellular response to dopamine.

 

That was the point. I'm not exactly sure what yours is supposed to be, except to disagree with me just because you dislike me.

 

and then to aggregate society in the way you have proposed

 

It astonishes me how things I write can be so grossly misinterpreted. By some people. One might almost think it was deliberate.

[Samson]

I still don't think compulsive overeating is comparable with a heroin addiction though.

-Spock

 

Somehow deserved this judgment:

 

You can think what you like. The dopamine receptors act the same way so your thinking is irrelevant on the subject.-

-Moi

 

Its not you I dislike, its your behavior that not only I have noted, is sometimes "harsh," but is occasionally hypocritical, and arguably less often it is hyperbolic.

 

Now you wish to back-pedal, claim to be "disliked" and "grossly misinterpreted."

 

I don't expect you to admit you're wrong. This would mean having to abandon prejudice you happen to enjoy having.

 

Not a surprise.....Ooppps....did I forget to include the.........martyr-syndrome behavior that permeates whenever you are challenged.

 

 

 

The facts are that:

A. No one's thinking is irrelevant

B. The only relationship between compulsive eating and heroine addiction is so hyperbolic (on the cellular level, no less) that there is no reasonable comparison between the two.

[Mr Spock]

The compulsion to take an addictive substance and the compulsion to stuff food in your face are different.

 

I'm disgusted that so much time and money goes into researching a condition that wasn't prevalent 50 years ago, much less a 100 years ago. The fact that North American lives are so automated, and that few people break a sweat while working has caused society to bloat up-pork out. Instead of trying to fix this, we cry "Accept me!! I can't help it!!"

[moimeme]

OK then. Join a political party and try to sell a platform of devoting research dollars to diseases and conditons which only afflict the virtuous. Presumably that means people who do bad things you don't like as opposed to people who do bad things. For instance, then, any adulterer who picks up a disease or gets pregnant, I guess, should be denied medical attention.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Mr Spock

The compulsion to take an addictive substance and the compulsion to stuff food in your face are different.

In what way? I'm tired of people just saying things, and then having that be the sum of their argument.

 

Samson's argument seems to be that because food is legal, and heroin is illegal, there's a difference. Let's use smoking then. What's the difference, physically and psychologically of a compulsion to overeat and a compulsion to get nicotene? Can you even answer that?

I'm disgusted that so much time and money goes into researching a condition that wasn't prevalent 50 years ago, much less a 100 years ago. The fact that North American lives are so automated, and that few people break a sweat while working has caused society to bloat up-pork out. Instead of trying to fix this, we cry "Accept me!! I can't help it!!"

The truth is, food is worse now than it ever was before. The amount of hydrogenated oils, for example, is ridiculous.

 

Additionally, the diet industry is partially to blame. A lot of people don't realize how detrimental some of these diets are to your health.

[moimeme]

The truth is, food is worse now than it ever was before. The amount of hydrogenated oils, for example, is ridiculous

 

Exactly. To get the number of calories you can snarf down in a single triple-bacon-cheese-burger-fry fest today you'd have had to eat a whole cow 50 years ago. There was simply not the availability of highly-processed foods containing vast quantities of fat and sugar there is today.

 

PLUS people used to have jobs that required them to actually move. And they didn't get vehicles at 16. And kids went out to play rather than plop themselves down in front of computers and TVs and games. The entire Western lifestyle is indulgent. So even if someone got addicted to food (and there wasn't that much that'd addict you), they still had plenty of activity in their lives to burn it off.

 

Samson's argument seems to be that because food is legal, and heroin is illegal, there's a difference

 

Which somehow negates the effects of the dopamine receptors

[Samson]

I'm tired of people just saying things, and then having that be the sum of their argument.

 

Samson's argument seems to be that because food is legal, and heroin is illegal, there's a difference. Let's use smoking then. What's the difference, physically and psychologically of a compulsion to overeat and a compulsion to get nicotene? Can you even answer that?

 

By "you," I'm gonna assume me?

 

By legal definition there is a difference between "food" and heroine. I'm not sure how much more emphasis this deserves, despite how tired you, Dyer may or may not be of it being said.

 

There doesn't just "seem" to be a difference between the two. There simply is. A big one. And for numerous good reasons.

 

But I'll agree that the dead horse seems to have been beaten, and her name is................................. (I in no way "negate the effects of dopamine receptors," however IRRELEVENT they may be to comparing the aggregate effects of compulsive eating to heroine addiction within our society).

 

Now, Dyer, are you asking me for an answer to the question:

 

What's the difference, physically and psychologically of a compulsion to overeat and a compulsion to get nicotene?

 

I'll tell ya what. If you're really as curious to find an answer to the "burning question" (sorry for the punnet), then we'll take two rooms. In room A we'll put our fatties; room B we'll put our smokers. No food or coffin nails for 20 days. Just water.

 

At the end of the 20 day period, whoever is left alive can have EITHER a box of KFC or a box of Marleboro Red.......(no freakin'"lights" after a month............I'm not a sadist, after all!).

 

Do we really need to begin rounding up test subjects to answer your question?

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Samson

By legal definition there is a difference between "food" and heroine. I'm not sure how much more emphasis this deserves, despite how tired you, Dyer may or may not be of it being said.

Stop using legality as an issue. Legality is arbitrary.

 

There simply is. A big one. And for numerous good reasons.

 

But I'll agree that the dead horse seems to have been beaten, and her name is................................. (

You'll understand now why I accuse you of saying things and not supporting them. You have to prove there's a difference in the brain's reaction to drug addictions and compulsive overeating.

 

I'll tell ya what. If you're really as curious to find an answer to the "burning question" (sorry for the punnet), then we'll take two rooms. In room A we'll put our fatties; room B we'll put our smokers. No food or coffin nails for 20 days. Just water.

 

At the end of the 20 day period, whoever is left alive can have EITHER a box of KFC or a box of Marleboro Red.......(no freakin'"lights" after a month............I'm not a sadist, after all!).

 

Do we really need to begin rounding up test subjects to answer your question?

That's not a scientific experiment at all, nor does it prove a thing about the assertions you're making.

[moimeme]

Samson, go call up Brookings and tell them they got it all wrong. Tell them your reasoning. Tell me when you're calling so I can call, too, and listen to the gales of laughter.

[Samson]

Stop using legality as an issue. Legality is arbitrary.

 

Gee, Dyer,

 

Ya wanna prove that?

 

Your pat rejection of one issue, in favor of any other, certainly is no inspiration to say anything more about the need for me to do scholarly research to support opinions posted on a simple discussion board.

 

Here we need to prove nothing more than Aristotle or Plato or any other that has based their philosophy on dialog, rather than favoring wild extrapolations of clinical data most of which is irrelevant at best and inaccurate at worst that can be easily generated by any self-serving know-it-all that is able to do a google search and then expect to sit comfortably upon their laurels.

 

They'd better think again.

 

Some of us still rely on "common" sense.

 

But, of course, that's another thread....................................

[moimeme]

need for me to do scholarly research to support opinions posted on a simple discussion board.

 

But it's not a 'simple' discussion board. In fact: During the course of discussion, participants may wish to share relevant external sites to support an argument.

 

wild extrapolations of clinical data most of which is irrelevant at best and inaccurate at worst

 

Right OK, so Science, and Brookings and the lot have all got it wrong - plus everybody who reported the results got that wrong, too.

 

Some of us still rely on "common" sense

 

 

That serves in place of logic, fact, and empirical data for some, I suppose. It doesn't for people who learned in school to be rigorous about what they learn and what they believe, however. Particularly as that which some call 'common sense' is merely opinion - baseless, biased opinion.

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Samson

Gee, Dyer,

 

Ya wanna prove that?

Assertion : In terms of brain chemistry, drug addictions and compulsive eating are identical

Your response : There's a difference because drugs are illegal, and food's legal

 

You realize that legality has nothing to do with brain chemistry--right?

 

Plenty of addictive substances are legal. Caffeine. Nicotene. ALCOHOL.

 

Here we need to prove nothing more than Aristotle or Plato

The difference was that Aristotle and Plato loved logic, and would never argue that because something's illegal, it's inherently different than something that's legal, simply by virtue of it being illegal.

[havNfun]

i just wanna say that my picture is me! LOL

 

flowerpot

 

I don't believe you. Perhaps you can put a different pic up to prove that it is you?

[Samson]

Particularly as that which some call 'common sense' is merely opinion - baseless, biased opinion.

 

Considering the source of this thought................................it is not a surprise.

 

 

Assertion : In terms of brain chemistry, drug addictions and compulsive eating are identical

Your response : There's a difference because drugs are illegal, and food's legal

 

You realize that legality has nothing to do with brain chemistry--right?

 

You know Dyer, I appreciate this quote, mainly because I'm not a really big fan of lawyers! Until I need one, of course.

 

My point, dear sir, is that if the brain (and behavior) responded identically to opium injections and to Big Mac Attacks, then they would both be legal (assuming we could not live without food...................I know, I know! I'm going out on a thin intellectual branch here Moi, without any Brookings Institute Study to support this bias opinion )

 

You do realize that legality has everything to do with controlling behavior----right?

 

You might have read recently about the successful adoption during the past year of "Cheese Burger Bills" in a dozen states. Basically these laws prevent frivolous lawsuits wherein the fatty population believes courts should "protect them from their own excesses," as one U.S. District Judge put it.

[Samson]

HavNfun,

 

If you left click the "PM" radio-button at the bottom of LFP's post, you could send her a personal message (that's what "PM" stands for) about her avitar, and your need to have double-indemnity proof that it is indeed her.

 

Frankly, if she has a web-page, please share the URL!

[Mr Spock]

Originally posted by moimeme

OK then. Join a political party and try to sell a platform of devoting research dollars to diseases and conditons which only afflict the virtuous. Presumably that means people who do bad things you don't like as opposed to people who do bad things. For instance, then, any adulterer who picks up a disease or gets pregnant, I guess, should be denied medical attention.

 

Are you now stating that obese people aren't wonderful or "virtuous" because they're obese? I am still wondering anyone has managed to determine if being really fat is that person's fault or not.

 

I fail to see how you made the humongous, flailing jump from my disgust of the amount of money being wasted on reasearching why people get FAT and denying someone medical treatment. It IS presumptuous of you.

[moimeme]

Are you now stating that obese people aren't wonderful or "virtuous" because they're obese?

 

No. I'm stating that you, apparently, think so since you bemoan the research dollars 'wasted' on them so that must mean they are somehow inferior to not deserve research being devoted to their issue.

 

I am still wondering anyone has managed to determine if being really fat is that person's fault or not.

If you have chemicals compelling you to do something, it requires an extraordinary effort to battle that. And those of us who are not subject to such compulsions have no business looking down upon those who are.

 

It's not about 'fault', per se, but about the causes and potential remedies for obesity. And blaming people because their systems create powerful cravings that the rest of us aren't subject to is unfair and stupid.

 

I have *never* been driven to eat a whole dozen doughnuts or a whole bag of cookies at once, but I have friends who dare not have those things in the house because they will go through them. I almost understand it, because cashews are the closest I come. I'm sure if I didn't fight the impulse, I could eat a whole can at one sitting. But I am not subject to intense cravings for anything, thank heavens, and I don't have too much trouble even with cashews.

 

I think rather than being smug about not being overweight, people ought to thank their lucky stars their dopamine receptors are all in place. I know I sure am.

[Samson]

people ought to thank their lucky stars their dopamine receptors are all in place. I know I sure am.[/quote]

 

Really?

 

Has the Brookings Institute come out with a study on your receptors?

 

Frankly, this smacks of extremely bias opinion.

[Mr Spock]

Perhaps I'll rephrase that then. I'm disgusted that we as humans have ALLOWED this condition to become common and serious enough to HAVE to put money into researching it, when it has only become such a problem within the last 50 years or so.

[moimeme]

Well, me too. It's about profit in the end, though. Alcohol makers, cigarette makers, people who manufacture extremely unhealthy foods make a ton o'bucks on this stuff. And, in the end, whatever makes money rules. So if people can get rich on other's addictions, they will - and do so gladly.

[Matilda]

I have posted the link to this information before, but it seems relevant to the current discussion about "addiction" to food.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104064022.htm

 

GAD2, which sits on chromosome 10, acts by speeding up production of a neurotransmitter in the brain called GABA, or gamma-amino butyric acid. When GABA interacts with another molecule named neuropeptide Y in a specific area of the brain - the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus - we are stimulated to eat.

 

The researchers behind this study believe that people who carry a more active form of the GAD2 gene build up a larger than normal quantity of GABA in the hypothalamus, and suggest that this over accumulation of GABA drives the stimulus to eat further than normal, and is thus a basis for explaining why obese people overeat.

[Samson]

It's about profit in the end, though. Alcohol makers, cigarette makers, people who manufacture extremely unhealthy foods make a ton o'bucks on this stuff.

 

Don't leave out the "scholarly community" (e.g. pharma researchers salaries to generate studies about whether or not compulsive overeating is a result of genetics), the $multi-billion diet industry, the liposuction business, and the fattys' plaintiff lawyers that insist that a Big Mac Attack cannot be controlled.

[meanon]

Samson: to your fat thread PM - delete some so I can reply!

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by Samson

My point, dear sir, is that if the brain (and behavior) responded identically to opium injections and to Big Mac Attacks, then they would both be legal

Some drugs have been illegal long before we understood brain chemisrtry. The main factor in whether a drug is legal or not was government profitability--why do you think tobacco is legal but marijuana is not? If the colonists had settled the west coast instead of the east, we'd have a different (legal) cash crop.