Fat is Normal Now?

Back in the old days, even in the 1970s did you have to become a bodybuilder and work out for hours a day not to be fat?  Tnation is a bodybuilding and strength building exercise company. Think about that one...and think again about what I am saying about obesity all these years. People didn't wake up and think "I want to be fat" and decided all to become "lazy overeating bums".

The Answer is Yes

America The Obese: Is There A Multibillion Dollar Conspiracy To Make Sure Americans Stay Overweight?

I don't agree with him that a healthy lifestyle will make someone automatically thin, some people who do everything they can still struggle, but he is correct about what they are pouring into the food.

So Now Exercise Doesn't Work?

"That’s not a fluke. Our waistlines aren’t expanding because people aren’t exercising intelligently or vigorously enough. You don’t need a new personal trainer, another Insanity workout video or a more aggressive CrossFit regimen. What you need is the truth, and here it is:

Exercise — no matter how many gym memberships you buy or how often you wear your Fitbit — won’t make you lose weight.

The idea that our obesity epidemic is caused by sedentary lifestyles has spread widely over the past few decades, spurring a multibillion-dollar industry that pitches gadgets and gimmicks promising to walk, run and kickbox you to a slim figure. But those pitches are based on a myth. Physical activity has a multitude of health benefits — it reduces the risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and possibly even cancer — but weight loss is not one of them.

[Fitbits, ingestible chips and the big business of your data]

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that exercise alone has almost no effect on weight loss, as two sports scientists and I described in a recenteditorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. For one, researchers who reviewed surveys of millions of American adults found that physical activity increased between 2001 and 2009, particularly in counties in Kentucky, Georgia and Florida. But the rise in exercise was matched by an increase in obesity in almost every county studied. There were even more striking results in a 2011 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that people who simply dieted experienced greater weight loss than those who combined diet and exercise."

This is an odd admission, so now fat people aren't lazy? You mean you can't burn it off? 

Exercise Alone Won't Make You Lose Weight

Still No Cure Yet

This Pamphlet is at least 75 years old and they are not any closer to a real cure for obesity. Unlike some fat activists, I am fine with a SAFE cure that would work without damage to bodily organs like WLS, or the endless failures of dieting.

My Message to an Obesity Researcher

People Living With Obesity Need a Voice

"Nothing will change until they stop calling fat people liars, and the profit motive behind the failed answers is not held as the highest priority. I spent 17 years trying to find out why I was so overweight and this means years of suffering and almost dying of leg infections before finding out I had Lipedema Stage IV which is a rare fat disorder. The doctors even had discovered the endless "fatty tumors" throughout my body as early as 2000. My blog was started even to find out what was wrong with me 5 years ago and I achieved that goal. The diets are failing, many of us eat normal amounts of calories--I track all my food and follow a nutritionist and we are still fat and judged by society. They think everyone's body works the same. Nothing will change for the better until the stigma is removed and fat people are BELIEVED." 

What if Obesity Has Nothing to Do with Overeating?

"Peter Attia, MD, once judged patients who were overweight or obese until, despite exercising three or four hours a day and following the food pyramid to the letter, he gained a significant amount of weight and developed metabolic syndrome. As he explains in this recently posted TEDMED talk, the experience motivated him to radically change his diet, helped him lose 40 pounds, and greatly shifted his perspective on the conventional wisdom of nutrition. And he became almost maniacally obsessed in trying to understand the real relationship between obesity and insulin resistance.
Watch Attia’s talk to find out how he’s working with a team of researchers with competing hypotheses on the cause of the nation’s obesity epidemic to understand how the various foods we consume affect our bodies – and how use this information can be used to help people make sustainable lifestyle changes."

He basically questions the paradigm. "What if obesity is a coping mechanism for a far more sinister problem undergoing the cell?"

I think INSULIN RESISTANCE causes obesity. I was tested as having very high insulin resistance. It actually is a diagnosis that went along with my severe PCOS. [Hair-An syndrome]. In my case, I just do not have the Lipedema messing me up weight wise but OTHER illnesses.

"Is it possible that insulin resistance causes obesity?"

He questions the paradigm of how this is switched around and he asks:

"What if being obese means we are blaming the victims"?

Maybe it's not just the grains but toxicity in this world? Maybe another process is creating severe insulin resistance in people leading to obesity? I think they should look outside the "diets". I wish I could write him an email and may do so.

I believe outside factors are impacting metabolisms. Look for something in the environment. No one chooses to be diabetic. Many of us are scared because our bodies are beyond control. Our bodies laugh at us while conventional wisdoms fails us.

He seems like a sincere man and I am glad someone is thinking outside the box.

The Rest of the World Makes Fun of America for Fat

                                          [picture source]

Language warning on these.....

I've seen people on message boards and websites, talk about how fat Americans are and how disgusting. Many make fun of us. Thinness is such the norm for many countries, they do not understand how easily obesity comes here and that includes Europe where they have all the modern technology, cars, subways.  Sadly they blame us instead of realizing how badly our food is being adulterated and filled with chemicals that are leading to obesity. If they are developing nations their obesity rates will be skyrocketing the more they let the same thing happen to their food. No one asks the obvious which is why on earth would people in one country get so fat? It's not like the passage of time and history meant for more would be gluttons, and same for the countries which are now fattening up where American food corporations have imported their products.

If you look at the pictures of what the world eats, the bulk and volume of the food for a week for each of these families seems to be about the same amount except for the poorest of the poor. There is a lot less processed food but even with the processed food in Europe, they forbid a lot of things being put in food here. I have even read the ingredients lists for the processed food in the international aisle, at my local large grocery store and seen a massive difference--this food from Britain, Israel and other countries.

On a message board recently, an American man wrote that he had gone to Europe for a year and lost 50lbs without even dieting. I believe him.

Another Interview with a Friend: Fat From a Male Perspective

When I was doing interviews with Pam, I had acouple of other friends jump on the recorder later. I started talking to my friend Don, about the time of my 400lb weight gain. Now part of this conversation is kind of telling, the part where he says I barely looked female. He was absolutely correct. At the time, they found that I had immense testosterone going through my body. Even at smaller sizes as a teenager girl, I never looked feminine, when I had the weight gain this severely worsened. In fact, going on one drug I am on now, that helps the heart and also feminizes a person, Spironolactone I forget how much of my appearance changed since being far more swarthy and masculine looking. The androgens were coursing through doing their damage. The discussion of steroids, too is of interest as I was on steroids constantly for severe asthma, and later what would become COPD, and even am on one inhaled steroid today. Another interesting part of the discussion is when we cover weight and the affect of sleep deprivation. This interview is circa 2004/2005.

MEMORIES OF THE SICKNESS: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

[FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP starts by asking Don what symptoms he noticed about her illness.]

DON: Well, let me think…I do remember, amongst other things, you had no problem moving around. You were pretty big, but you had no problem moving around. I did notice, A), you tended to get bigger, [it was] much harder to move around. Towards the height of your weight illness, you barely were able to get up and down the stairs – it was a good thing the cars I had were able to fit you in.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Any other symptoms?

DON: Tiredness; and I would say, towards the height, a definite androgyny came over you. It got awfully hard to be able to tell whether you were male or female, just by looking at your face, and such – you almost had to depend on the clothing [to tell]. I also think part of it may be, as you pile on weight above a certain level – I notice that also w/guys.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Am I much more feminine now?

DON: Oh, definitely female, no problem telling there. I also think part of it was, you get above a certain pound of weight – or you get below a certain level, gender differences do come out.

MEMORIES OF FAT-RELATED INCIDENTS

DON: Well, basically, it was like you just said: people were very mean towards you. Especially in [name of huge city I lived for a time], I think, people were just basically mean towards you – that may explain part of your [past] involvement w/NAAFA, because suddenly, there was this safe zone for you. I also think that part of it was, again, you got above a certain level – and I do think that people -- at a certain point -- sort of think, when you get above a certain weight, you’re supposed to hide yourself away. Not necessarily out of shame, but – out of the simple fact that, above a certain level, it takes so much for you to keep your body alive, that you walking around would be a physical impossibility.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Did the weight loss from the 600s, near 700lbs(pounds) to 500 range help?

DON: Yeah. You get above a certain level, I don’t think people expect you to move around. Also, the androgyny [was a problem]: at a certain point, people want to know whether you’re male or female. They tend to base it on obvious physical characteristics, or your dress.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Do you remember some of my emotional outcomes when I was having this weight gain? What would I say about it at the time? What was my manner? You can be honest in this.

DON: I’m trying to remember, that’s the problem. Not only that, but I don’t think I saw you that often. If you see somebody on a constant basis, you may notice something, but it’s much more noticeable than if you have a two- or three-month period [between visits]. I do know you were talking about why you were putting on so much weight. I think you were putting on…30 pounds [a month].

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s almost like a pound a day.

DON: And I do remember, you were always talking about your asthma: I remember, it started w/your asthma, now that I think about it. You were complaining about having to do asthma [treatment?] for an extended period of time, much longer than people suggested – and that, I would say, crosses all borders.

I remember I’d been having some trouble w/my eyes, before I figured it had something to do w/allergies. I remember getting these droplets, and basically sticking it in the eyes, and they’re some sort of steroid. Basically, they cleared the stuff out. A little bit later, I’d go through this stuff, and the lady [WHO?] said, “Don’t use it, throw it away! Keep using that stuff, you may get cataracts.”

And generally, they say, steroids are best for short-term [use]. At the time, I wonder how much of an effect on the weight gain that that stuff [prednisone] had.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I think it actually triggered a lot.

DON: Yeah, ‘cause you’re talking [about] long-term use of a steroid.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Also, I know towards my late twenties, as my asthma got worse, I couldn’t move around as much.

OTHER REACTIONS TO THE WEIGHT GAIN

DON: There’d be friends and family, I’d put them on the line: “This is FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP, she’s awfully fat, she’s suffering from a few things,” and they always took my word at it. When I was much younger, there was this woman named **********: very infamous. You mention that name, it’s like [sounds “Dragnet”-style music]. You knew this was a girl to be feared – I think somehow, I spotted her, and she was very overweight…to the point, again, of androgyny. [Was in elementary school.]

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Was she tortured in elementary school?

DON: By the fact that her name had with it, a lot of infamy based on it, I’d assume that she was tortured, and picked on. For some strange reason, I remember just looking in a classroom, seeing this overweight girl: “Oh, that’s **********.”

HOW SOCIETY TREATS FAT PEOPLE

DON: I think part of the problem w/society right now is, we’re in a very odd, very unusual situation. Historically, fatness has always been the exception, not the rule, but there’s been a major change, starting in the ‘50s – when you had this image of the “ultimate,” Marilyn Monroe, statuesque, extremely built – almost manic, you’d say. And it happened, during that period of time, actually matched up to where women were able to develop in that sort of situation. Also, remember, we had gone through the Depression, and World War II – two periods of starvation – and suddenly, we got plenty, like you wouldn’t believe. And since then, the ideal has directed itself towards thinness.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: The focus on thinness actually makes people fatter, because it brings an over-concern w/food.

DON: I think our diets have changed: It used to be, women would stay home, and cook food. We used to have smaller portions, and we used to eat in the home; nowadays, we drive in our cars, we stop off, and everyone’s working. What’s really interesting – look among the rich. Women who can develop careers and run companies are actually staying home, raising their children. They’re choosing it. If you were able to choose it, they choose it. Because, basically, you’re eating at home: there’s something about women that they actually enjoy keeping house more.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Actually, I had so many problems the work world. I felt forced to be a hyper-feminist by my family with none of the benefits – I was rejected on one level, because of “you being an art teacher”; that’s kind of a female profession.

DON: Well, teaching has been considered a female profession – basically, anything to do w/nurturing generally is considered female. And I think there’s some aspect about that, I can understand you feeling like you were forced to be a feminist – basically, you want to protect yourself. You have to get out in the work world, and it’d be a good thing if you could rise up in that world, take on more responsibilities…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Well, a lot of my friends felt like we were set up – we were told, “You can do all this, and have all this,” and it turned out to be a bust for most of us.

DON: Well, what they didn’t really tell women is – basically, you could choose this, or you could choose that: the idea [of], “you can have it all, bigger and more is better, blah-blah-blah.” Life is a definition of choices: every choice reduces the amount of freedom, ‘cause it forces you up on one line. The only way you could maximize possible freedom is to just keep yourself undecided as long as possible, and even [in] that [scenario] – time starts closing down stuff, eventually.

MEMORIES OF OTHER FAT PEOPLE

DON: Let me think: I had a friend named *******]: he was sort of fattish. He developed this fantasy world where he made himself out to be much bigger than he actually was – and he was much better at it. Your husband is not the thinnest person in the world. He made himself out to be much different than most people.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Would say being fat has some people form more distinct identities?

DON: Having weight, ‘cause some cases, if you develop fatness, it can cause a withdrawal.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: What differences do you see in me, from other fat people?

DON: Well, basically, you seem to be out there more than most fat people. I don’t think you grew up w/the stereotypically fat profile, which is “Keep on being beaten down and up, you just withdraw.”

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, I had some years of normalcy.

DON: The thing was, I don’t think you were specifically fat, until you moved to [big city I used to live in].

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Until I had the huge weight gain – yeah, I know. I was considered “large” or “Amazonian,” by most, but not “huge fat pig,” or anything like that. I wasn’t really noticed.

DON: I think part of it is, “fat” itself is sort of a loaded term. The idea is, you’re talking about all this weight pressing down – part of the definition of fat is, so much weight pressing down on an inner mass.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, that’s true.

DON: And it is kind of interesting – I look a little bit fat, but most people don’t notice it, because I’m still able to move around quite a bit.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Yeah, you have gained some weight. I’m not trying to be mean, or nothing, but you have in the last year…

DON: Well, right now, I’m up to 265, 270 pounds. I had been steady around 260 since, I would say – since the second year of living w/my girlfriend, that’d be ’99, 2000, and I’d been around 240, 250 before that.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That makes sense, yeah – see, you can carry it, because of your height, too. But if you were to gain 50 more (pounds), you would enter “Fat World.” You know what I mean? It is kind of almost a different existence. I would say “Fat World” came for me when I hit 320, and then, of course, it went up, and up, and up.

DON: It depends on how you carry it – one thing about guys versus gals is that guys tend to carry their stuff around here [the waist], whereas, w/gals, it’s lower down.I think, in some ways, it is an adaptation – but, like I said, it’s kind of weird how you can get around growing fat, too. I remember, before I had my pneumonia, I think I was around 240, and I lost some weight because of the pneumonia…recovering from that…recovering from the weight loss, I think I sort of overshot to about 250 [pounds]. So, maybe in some cases, the dieting is there, but you’ve also got all the food you eat – to be honest, for your average person, if you want to lose weight, you’re going to have to do some heavy duty adjustments to your diet, and such.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: That’s true.

DON: The thing is, most people – you lose weight, and it’s like, “Good, I can relax”…

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: And they go back to the way they did before. In my case, if I ate fried chicken every week, I’d be dead.

DON: Well, basically, w/most people, your comfortable weight adjusts upward…in fact, one of the things I noticed during the first couple months I was living w/my girlfriend, I sort of leveled off around 260.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: Can you understand why people get themselves off the diet rollercoaster, though, and just kind of give up on that whole world, to some extent? Well, I have some health problems – that’s why I’ve refused to get weight loss surgery. It is difficult, ‘cause they always expect you to be on the constant diet.

DON: You do have to have constant vigilance, even if it’s just the idea of portion control – as Americans, we’ve grown used to eating so much, and we’ve also grown used to, when we feel the least bit hungry, we snack.

THE LOST GREAT AMERICAN NAP

 FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I think the whole American lifestyle is messed up. I know, for me, when I was gaining the weight, I had no time to relax – especially during that job – no time was mine. Never could cook. I didn’t even have the right facilities to cook!

DON: I’ll bet you part of your problem was the weird time, because I do know that people who have trouble getting enough sleep, they tend to fatten up, because you’re taking about cortisol – basically, from what I can guess…I’m not gonna say I know everything about it….but my understanding is, it basically makes your body burn energy efficiently.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: There’s a hormone that’s released during sleep, and I even have that in my theories about weight gain; there’s a hormone that’s released when you sleep. I know people who’ve had serious sleep apnea, have gained 200 or 300 pounds. I know – for me – I have the sleep apnea finally treated and it seemed to be another factor in not gaining weight anymore.

DON: And, basically, ever since the wide distribution of lightbulbs, Americans have had one hour less sleep per night, on average, than they used to get.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: I think it’s even worse than that, now – people brag about having no sleep. Now, I can sleep as much as I want; that’s one blessing of disability [laughs], ‘cause [what] I remember, for years, is being absolutely sleep deprived.

DON: Well, I would say, not being sleep-deprived – but I’m aware that my body, if given the chance, would happily drift over to ten hours of sleep a day. I know eight is generally the average; some people can get less. But, generally, the average most people get is six [hours] – you know there’s massive amounts of sleep deprivation going on in this society today.

FIVEHUNDREDPOUNDPEEP: OK, well, thanks for the conversation, Don.

DON: You’re welcome.

Are Calories Themselves a MYTH?

Calories poorly grasped for maintaining weight:Obesity experts concerned about caloric literacy

I like Dr. Sharma's other writings and website, but disagree about calories.

To be honest, I have wondered to the shock of others, if calories are even "real". A few friends have chuckled saying, "Now Five Hundred Pound Peep, you may be getting out to lunch with this one!"

Some may wonder about me saying, that "Is she insane"? Yeah I know I am pondering something that is a bit different. Just thinking aloud. But what else would you expect of someone like me? Remember I've had enough strange health problems not to buy all the "accepted wisdom" as complete and utter fact. One day if technology and knowledge is allowed to expand anymore and it's not a new "dark age" and if the world hasn't ended by then, well one day, the facts will prove they got fat people wrong, very wrong.

But I always have had that thought lately, I mean given calories don't seem to mean a thing to my body, and I am told all this stuff about how they work, and I never see the evidence, tell me why I should believe the whole "calories in and calories out" myth? Why should I believe fewer calories mean weight loss?  How many fat people do I know that worry about every little bit that crosses their mouths while so many people who are thin, just eat when hungry and let the chips fall where they may, literally.

I know EXACTLY what calories are in everything. I can sit here and add up what I ate today, and yesterday. Every fat person over the age of  25 just about knows every calorie in every food. They drum it into your head. Hey I kept endless food diaries for YEARS. Do Weight Watchers enough and the other stuff, and you got the calories memorized. Toss out a food, the portion, and I bet I can hit within 50 to 100 calories where it's at. By the way for some reason everything you eat out, has far more calories.  I know what foods have more calories then others. With nutrition, given my health food interests and others, I can tell you what foods to eat for healing different diseases. This book is referred to all the time in my household.

They ignore metabolism when it comes to the CALORIES IN and CALORIES out formula, and they ignore the bodily systems that turn calories to fat so automatically and how this system is thrown off.

Hey did you know they literally figured out the calories in food, by lighting them on fire and BURNING them, I kid you not. Any hands? Even Straight Dope admits that is SIMPLICITY, but is the human body simple? NO. Also just adding up the carbohydrates, proteins and fats too seems very limited as well, given that even nutritionists admit to the existence of micro-nutrients.  Hmmm, so if you don't even know everything that exists in food yet? Maybe I distrust science, or maybe I just realize so much of it today isn't as unbiased as it claims. The other day, a food company told me GMOs were safe......hmmmmmm

Do they even understand completely how this energy is utilized? Calories are a measure of "heat", by that alone the fat process is not explained.

How come no fat people ever are studied when it comes to calories?

The math never added up for me. You do realize to be 500 lbs, they expect your caloric intake to be over 10,000 calories a day.  I couldn't afford the groceries. I mean they have so much of our society dedicated to calories in and calories out, and well, all the health magazines, shows, constant beration isn't stopping anyone from getting fat is it? Why do we believe something that does not work? By the way what is with those women's health magazines that tell everyone to lose weight and then put in endless recipes for things like h'ordeuvres dripping in olive oil and 20 dollar a pound fish?

I guess it's like the old days when people believed in spontaneous generation, accepted as fact, not questioned until later. They may light a pound of fat on fire and claim it that it equals 3500 calories and try and divide up the food into the simplest equations, but something isn't adding up. Feel free to disagree with me here, or that I am on too much of a stretch, this discussion is open.

Longer 'exposure' to US may raise immigrants' obesity risk

Longer 'exposure' to US may raise immigrants' obesity risk

This definitely points to environmental causes rather then reduced will power, and lack of discipline and all the lies the obesity profit merchants want to sell us. So what is different about Mexico for instance where a person may be normal and healthy and they move here and fatten up or their children fatten up without delay?

We just couldn't believe the fact that we found roughly a threefold increase from the one extreme… to the people on the other side," said the study's lead author Karen R. Florez, an associate social scientist at the non-profit research institute Rand Corporation, in Santa Monica, California. 

  Past research has found that immigrants to the U.S. are typically healthier in many ways than people in their ethnic groups who were born in the U.S. In February, one study found that Hispanics born abroad had a much lower risk of stroke than their counterparts who were either born or spent most of their lives in the U.S. (see Reuters Health story of March 7, 2012.) 

Florez and her fellow researchers said it's also been established that U.S.-born Mexican Americans have greater odds of being obese than their family members who originally migrated from Mexico. But the team wanted to extend that comparison to people who are still living in Mexico, in an attempt to tease apart and identify factors in the U.S. environment, or in the fact of being a migrant, that might influence obesity risk.

I sometimes wondered seriously if I moved to a country that outlawed GMOs and had a more sane culture and society, would some of the weight drop off? Not going to happen given my low socio-economic standing but it's one I've mulled over. Of course one knows, the poorer people in America have to eat the more adulterated food, thus that too affects the obesity rates.

It’s Hard Enough to Be a Fat Kid Without the Government Telling You You’re an Epidemic

STRONG Language warning on this one. I do think there IS an obesity epidemic, so do not agree with the author with everything but I have even asked myself "What is this doing to the fat kids out there?" and of course in 40 years nothing has changed but more of the same shame and blame and NON-ANSWERS.

 "Look. I don't want people to die. I don't want the next generation of kids to have lower life-expectancies than their parents. I want people to be healthy! But first of all, though weight loss can certainly improve some people's health, "fat" does not universally equal "unhealthy." Health itself is a much more effective and specific goal. And campaigns like this—which target fat people instead of the system that makes them fat—do nothing but hurt that supposed cause. An anti-fat-people campaign is still an ANTI-PEOPLE CAMPAIGN. And I'm pretty sure that treating people (fat people are people!) like animals, cartoonish ice cream addicts, and disease vectors is decidedly bad for people's health. The times in my life when I've been healthiest align directly with the times I've been happiest. This is not a loose correlation. 

Here's a thought, America: If you really want people to be healthier (I'm not entirely convinced that you do, but that's another article altogether), why don't we treat the concept of getting healthy the way that getting healthy actually works? There is nothing that anyone is going to do or say that's going to make fat people skinny tomorrow. Sorry. There is no magic commercial that's going to shame people into becoming thin overnight—just like there's no housewife who discovered one weird trick to burning off belly fat. It's just not going to happen. The real problem is much bigger, much harder to solve, and much less fun for people who get off on hating fat people."

This part I definitely agree with. Course I have the belief that people and children ARE getting fatter from the stress, and "unhappiness" in America, so ponder that one a bit.

Programmed to Be Fat! Man Made Chemicals Are Making Us Fatter!

Programmed to Be Fat

second link here too:

Programmed to Be Fat?

But a small group of scientists have begun looking beyond the obvious because of a group that can’t chew, let alone jog: infant obesity rose more than 70 per cent in just 20 years. You can’t blame them for unhealthy lifestyles. The scientists suspect that, starting in the womb, man-made chemicals may be triggering changes to our metabolism that result in life-long weight gain.

Programmed to be Fat? tells the stories of three scientists whose unexpected findings led them to follow the research of a curious doctor in Scotland, baffled by her inability to lose weight. For three years she pored over existing research on environmental chemicals and finally published a key study in an alternative medicine journal. It linked endocrine-disrupting chemicals to the obesity epidemic. The scientists came across the paper while puzzling over their own research results. None of their studies were about fat, but they had two things in common – they were all researching endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and they all ended up with unusually heavy lab animals.

Check out the comments on this one, some very interesting points I have been making for years on this blog.

What serves corporate interests better than expanding market share by chemically arranging for appetites and waists to swell and metabolisms and built-in safeguards to malfunction?

Are there still people who believe that the obesity epidemic and contributing endocrine disruptors just "happened"? That they "happened" to take place during the period in which checks and balances on corporate abuses of consumer trust were progressively gutted or removed entirely?

And now, after the epidemic has caused so much personal distress, Science has finally, miraculously uncovered the biochemical mechanisms responsible — as though environmentalists had not been warning us about them for decades?

There's an alternative approach to waiting for belated scientific revelations: Don't eat "edible food-like substances" (Michael Pollan) that corporations have been pushing and propagandizing. Don't accept that your food and drink must be packaged in ways that put cost reduction first and consider long-term health and environmental consequences last.

and

EA Helwick:

"Yes, the endocrine disruptors are playing a major role in the obesity epidemic by mimicking thyroid and gloming to the receptors thus preventing the normal T3 connection. Certain chemicals that accumulate in babies are creating oxidative phosphorlation, which is causing mitochondria dysfunction. Several key satiety hormones are also being turned off thus leaving on the urge to consume more food. It's not the food guys, but rather what's in the food and water we are consuming.

I am the co-author of a groundbreaking book due out mid 2012 that turns conventional wisdom completely upside down when it comes to obesity, diabetes-2, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome. And yes, the need to move away from highly sprayed and treated fruits and vegetables with pesticides represents ground zero. We are rapidly approaching the point where we cannot afford not to bite the bullet and shift to organic foods. And yes, new borns who are feeding off mom's fat reserves have at least 300 known toxic chemicals in their body at the time of birth, which play an important role in altering the expression of various genes (epigenetics)."

I had major chemical exposure, cleaning jobs, work in factories around printing and manufacturing of plastics, and I was an art teacher, that was around oil paint, paint thinner and clays. I believe everyone however in general is being exposed to major toxins and endocrine disruptors and these scientists are on to something.
Look, we are being lied too about the calories in, calories out thing, something more is going on. I am glad there are some honest researchers out there.

Fat People Don't Need To Be Punished

Fat People Don't Need to be Punished.

Punishing fat people comes out of a society stuck on stupid, and trying to kick those who are down. Adding on to the stigma, discrimination and more is failing and in many ways has added to the problem. If some of these right wing "You Choose to be fat" myth makers add on to the financial burden of fat people all they will is make them fatter due to lower funds, and more stress. This article has good points but I also worry about the nanny government that would want to foist more exercise on people...[no cars allowed in the city, you must walk 1 mile between bus stops] Some businesses have even started this horrible trend to keep the serfs standing all day, at their desks instead of sitting. Anyone who has ever worked an on your feet job, knows those break break down your health and feet too. Overall I think the writer means well and I agree.

The Skinny on Obesity (Ep. 3): Hunger and Hormones- A Vicious Cycle

This one is interesting going into Leptin Resistance. Lustig asks: "How come leptin used to work thirty years ago, and doesn't work today?"

Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity/) Sugar impacts the brain just as much as the waistline. In this episode, Dr. Robert Lustig explains the biochemical shifts that sugar causes, making us store fat and feel hungry at the same time. Series: "UCTV Prime: The Skinny on Obesity" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 23592] Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/prime

Lustig states: "Insulin makes fat, insulin drives weight gain"...

He talks about how people gain more weight via the biochemical problems and the higher levels of insulin.

He talks about those being "pumped full of insulin" and talks about the connection to the industrial global diet.

Basically, the higher your insulin, the more energy you store, and the more weight you gain off fewer or the same calories. Hey this make sense to me.

I found this interesting on the very personal level, as I was found to have severely high insulin as part of my PCOS diagnosis. A doctor when they diagnosed me back then as pre-diabetic, did a blood insulin test. I was near the tail-end of my weight gain, and had just had the hypothyroidism diagnosed.

Please watch these videos as they explain a lot about obesity in a very simple to understand format. I am glad this doctor is speaking out for fat people who are being blamed as being "gluttons" and "sloths" and is looking at the bigger picture.

Frankly it is the bigger picture I deal with everyday I write on this blog, the REAL CAUSES of the obesity epidemic.....