As I've repeatedly said, I couldn't care less how you look. And hell, I mostly don't care if you die at the age of 35 or 20 or 90. However, obesity is a problem, and it is a sign of lack of willpower (etc. etc.). A bunch of men are not sitting around talking about what's attractive, and whether or not being fat is healthy has already been decided: it's not. Slightly overweight is fine. Obese = not so fine.

whooooo, are you ever in for it now, e.j.b.

somebody pass the popcorn, i can't wait to watch dru tear him a huge new one.

i think the one that really got me was the "lack of willpower" bit - oy. this puppy does not know which carpet he has just pooped on...............

Guy lists himself as 5' 8", 185 lbs. That's approaching obese according to this formula.

Shock! Gasp!

That whole thread reeks of Libertarianism.

*I* control everything about my life.

Because *I* have been able to do X, anyone that cannot is weak.

Anyone that claims they are having difficulties is defective.

If only they'd shape up, they'd be fine.

Whine. Whatever.

Ass.

I'm 5'10", 180, and surprisingly muscular, moron.

Wooo, I am in for it now? I suppose I'm still waiting, then.

I think you got your scathing powers back, Dru. You are mighty!

Once a person begins the list of things I'm going to die of I pretty much back away from the screen. It's always interesting to me that people don't take a minute to wonder if the hatred they spew isn't as harmful to my health as the size of my ass. But they don't.

I think it's hilarious when people who never were or will be fat have discussions about why others are. "Oh yes, must figure out why they're so fat, tsk tsk." "Laziness, I say!" "But they might be overeating to cope with stress." "No no, it has to be genetics." As if I or anyone else will fit their cookie-cutter mold, as if every fat person can have their weight chalked up to a neat and categorical reason. Do you see them claiming that all thin people are strong-willed, determined and mentally stable? Nope. But thin people are REAL people, not like us fat tubs of lard, eh? They're complex human beings, not US. We're just lazy slobs. Their audacity and sheer ignorance boggles the mind.

I'm with you, Dru. They can kiss my fat ass.

'm 5'10", 180, and surprisingly muscular, moron.

wow, that's a chat room come-on that went awry if i ever heard one. a skilled top does a little verbal foreplay before cutting straight to the insults, fyi. hey hunky, got a web cam? hope you like bi-curious bears.............

*snerk*

Love you, r@d@r.

Meanwhile, a small thought or two for Erik:

I'm so pleased for you that your body shape is a happy thing in your own opinion.

Given that it is, why do you feel this compuslison to go about questioning the body shape sported by other people? It's none of YOUR buisness. It does not hurt YOU. You are free to socialize with, make friends of, or fuck whomever you'd like, and you can most certianly limit your tiny, tiny world by body shape if it pleases you.

I would posit that you can only be driven in this obsession about body shape and size by some lingering doubts about your own. And since your height and wight are so obviously within the current fahionable 'norm,' I can only begin to wonder about which bits of you are not satisfactory, in your own opinion.

Whichever they might be, I'm sad for you, that it drives you to such mean excesses: you are attacking people you don't even know, making blanket judgements that are upheld by spotty science, and generally flailing about like a complete asshole. That's a shame. It obscures whatever might actually be good and worthwhile in that hot, muscular frame of yours. Frankly, I don't care about your physique; it's the bullshit in your head that makes me want to reject you.

And so I do, in the hopes that you might someday learn better ways of behaving towards your fellow human beings. All of them.

Eric may be an ass, but he's not completely wrong. I have a different perspective: I'm a woman. I'm 38. I've had two kids. I was overweight my whole life. My parents are both fat. (And yes, both have fat-related illnesses.)

I kept saying "it's natural. It's how my family's built. It's my metabolism." And then my grandfather (fat) died relatively young of heart disease. So I decided to do something, and joined weight watchers. I didn't go on a crash, crazy diet. I didn't starve myself. I ate healthy, exercised, and lost 80 pounds in about a year and a half. That was more than a year ago. I've kept it off. I don't deny myself, I eat well.

And you know what I learned? Fat isn't metabolic. It's not genetic. The part them comes from your family is learning how to eat. I was a charter member of the "clean plate club," instilled since childhood. I ate too much of the wrong food, not enough of good food. I didn't exercise enough. That's my family's legacy, and I'm breaking it.

I know. Most diets fail. 80, 90, 95, whatever percentage you want. Because unlearning a lifetime of unhealthy habits is hard, and because food is everywhere. Imagine how hard it would be to quit over-smoking if you had to smoke everyday to survive! And because fad, crash diets don't work. You can't go through life without ever eating a piece of bread. But weight can be lost, it can be lost safely, and it can be kept off.

I don't think people should be discriminated against because they're fat. But I don't think fat people should say they're helpless victims, either.

And I've read big fat lies. All the fat apologists quote the first half until they're blue in the face, but ignore the fact that he says people are overweight because they eat poorly and don't exercise enough, and that he includes a diet in the book!

(And don't get them started on the fact that Gaesser has written an exercise and diet book that helps you - gasp - lose weight.)

Not that this is central to the discussion and I don't know if he's still coming here or not, but the dude changed his numbers!

About page now reads 5'10", 180 but as you can see in the text on google search, it says 5'8", 185.

Just to prove I'm not crazy via Wayback Machine.

"Fat isn't metabolic. It's not genetic."

This is just wrong. The statements are way too sweeping to be correct.

What about cortisol imbalances? What about PCOS? What about insulin imbalances? All of these things are metabolic, sometimes by way of genetics which can cause a person who does not overeat to become overweight. Stress can also effect metabolism, causing people to gain or lose weight without changing their eating habits in the slightest. I know this personally.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0846/9_21/84599063/p1/article.jhtml

http://www.gsdl.com/assessments/finddisease/weight/dysglycemia.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/958023.stm

http://www.biostat.wustl.edu/overview/Inthegenes.html

http://www.bodybalance.com/male/condition.html

By the way, my whole point here is to illustrate out how low the weight is for a person to be considered "obese."

The government puts out these alarmist studies with huge numbers of people listed as obese, yet their own threshhold for that is quite low.

The whole thing is politicized and messed up for all the reasons that dru could point out much more eloquently than I can.

I mean, according to that formula, a majority of professional athletes are obese.

The whole thing is a distraction from the *real* issues here. The cheapest food is the unhealthiest. The problem of "obesity" then shows up in poor communities more than rich ones.

Since the U.S. myth of meritocracy likes to blame the poor for being poor, this stuff allows us to blame them for being fat too.

In reality there's a huge problem of people being *underfed* and/or *undernourished*, not the opposite. The government's stats on obesity and its definition is all a part of masking the reality that in the richest country in the history of the world, there are millions of people going hungry and/or subsisting on junk.

And that's all in addition to the genetic factors that everyone else

I also find it really ironic that someone who feels like he can condemn about half of the population of the united states as "inferior" mentally due to what he considers "poor eating choices" lists COKE as his favorite beverage.

Um, yeah. I suppose if i said coke was my favorite beverage, it would just be further evidence that I'm stupid and incapable of making healthy choices about what to put into my body.

Ass.

I'm overweight, and a woman. 105kg on a 5ft 3 in frame. Around 16 and a half stone. I suspect people find it hard to be into dieting because they expect to take off, at 3 to 4 pounds a week, what they put on at a half pound or even quarter pound a week, usually over many years. The middle aged spread probably takes around a decade to put on. Sure, it's a hassle being fat, especially if it comes with being a bit unfit. I can't bend over properly and have lost my looks. But there are payoffs. i don't waste hours with the make up or the blow dryer anymore. This is how I look, how I am. If millions of guys can go out with short hair that doesn't suit them, no make up, not even a bit of kohl on their eyes or lip gloss, week in week out, lifetime in lifetime out, why should I feel the need to paint myself up like a pretty clown? Also, because a lot of people are put off, okay, sure, I miss out on those friendships, but on the other hand the friends you do get couldn't give a toss about how you look, which is a tad deeper in my books than the superficial 'shape up' types, probably male, posting to this thread.

As to why the slim and fit obsess about fatties, it's the 'me too' syndrome. They are too scared to try out being a fattie, but don't see why fatties should have something that they didn't have. I doubt there is a guy out there wolfing down brown rice who feels totally happy. The choice is brown rice or chocolate, walking around the suburbs looking like a wally bored out of your brain, probably talking to yourself , or watching the sports or some other interesting show on TV. Come on people, let's get real. Half of America, over half if the polls are to be believed, vote for the chocolate , coke and TV. It is so, so comforting to know that at least half of the developed world prefers to pleasure themselves rather than punish themselves?

To the guys looking for slim toned up bums, go bore your brains out in a gym!