The Obesity Thing
 

Interesting take on the Obesity thing: I wonder what the family would consider appropriate compensation. WTF?

'Too Fat' Family Wants Bigger Checks

"A British couple who say they can't work because of obesity-related health problems complained that the government checks they receive aren't enough to cover their living expenses. They aired their gripes in a story in the Telegraph.
Philip Chawner, 53, and his wife, Audrey, 57, haven't worked in 11 years. The government benefits they collect each year is equivalent to about $43,260 in American currency.

What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more," Philip Chawner told the newspaper.
The couple have two daughters -- Emma, 19, and Samantha, 21. The combined weight of the four is 1,160 pounds.
Each family member consumes 3,000 calories a day, about 500 over the recommended maximum for men and 1,000 over the limit for women, the Telegraph says.
Audrey Chawner admitted the family's diet isn't the best. But healthy food is "too expensive," she said.

Maybe they could start a garden - get healthy food AND exercise!

People like them deserve to be shot, their bodies ground up, and used as fertilizer on farmland to help grow food for rest of us who aren't wastes of oxygen. It IS your fault you can't work, YOU are the reason you're so fucking fat and can't work, not your fairy-tale thyroid or any other lame-ass excuse. They don't deserve anything from the government but a bullet to the head.

now tell us how you really feel

Sooo agree, Bullitt. Don't tell me it's a thyroid thing, unless it really really is. Then I'm sorry I'm so insensitive. And obese is not an excuse to get a handicapped parking space either. You wouldn't have those "conditions" if you ate healthy and exercised.

Well its good to see that Americans aren't the only ones with the "entitlement mentality." Maybe if their compensation was zero they would be properly motivated to actually DO SOMETHING.

Yeh yeh, I'm a heartless bastard, whatevah.

I'd like to see some of what they get given to others who are REALLY TRYING to better themselves. (SG)

Sorry, sometimes these things make you wish eugenics worked.

If each family member eats 3,000 cal/day, I don't think you can say it's a thyroid problem.

Maybe they're eating thyroids?

I say we round 'em up, grind their fat, blubbery bodies into a solution that I can use to power my vegetable-oil powered car.

I lost count of how many problems I just solved.

If they WERE eating thyroids (like cow thyroids) they'd lose weight (hyperthyroidism).

Effortless weightloss: my dream disease.

;)

I almost created a thread from this story last week, even to the point of typing it up, but then I deleted it at the last minute because I felt I was lacking sufficient compassion.

I know there are some Cellar posters who are struggling with food problems, or other addictions, and I didn't want to make them feel bad.

for me it's not a lack of compassion (lord knows I've my own issues) but the fact that they are so blatantly refusing to see their part in the problem - asking for more of a hand-out. The article doesn't say if they are at least trying to address the problem; maybe they are but from the tone of it it doesn't sound like it.

What about counseling, behavior modification, support groups? If they were a family of heroin addicts asking for more money, (and the "it's not my fault" mentality*) would you feel as sympathetic?

*realizing addictions are not "faults" but the behavior should be addressed.

Suppose they let them keep the compensation, but distributed it in a city-wide scavenger hunt? That would get them moving, inspire them to move faster than everyone else looking for easy money, and provide an incentive to get in better shape.

lol - thats a good one, sweet.

Here's the Telegraph article that I was going to post. It includes more detail and a group photo. The father really doesn't look very big.

So I could make $11,000.00 more per year if I quit working and eat more? MacDonalds, here I come!!!

Eating fewer calories than you feel like burning off isn't some big mystery is it? Really? Hasn't everyone come across that information somewhere? I get that it can be harder, sweatier, and involves less ice cream than many people are comfortable with - but "we don't know how" is bullshit.
Although, if they're giving away free money, why the fuck not jump on that wagon eh?

what a load of bollocks
they're just lazy scroungers who are too thick to realize the interviewer was about to pillory them. or they don't care because they're looking to be made famous by a reality TV show.

fruit and veg are too expensive...yet they're eating microwave pies? BS, the whole thing

Brianna: be careful what you wish for. I wished that once upon a time and I got it. Now I can't stop losing eight and must drink six cans of Ensure Plus a day to MAINTAIN my weight...plus eating around 2000 calories.

You can have my disease, I'll take yours.

Breast cancer? have fun with that.

Look, we all have our own definition of hell. Some of us are living it.

However, most of us have acknowledged that we are the ones experiencing it; I doubt Bri (-anna or -an) think anyone else can take their treatments for them.

I am obese; I have (pre) diabetes. It's my problem and I don't expect society to 'fix' it for me. I may get a lap-band to help me lose weight. But I have been a contributing member of our economy 13 years, and will continue to be one till I die. I have earned my medical insurance, and I will probably be (actuarialy) at least as valuable to society as my future medical care will warrant.

I'm not sure what I came here to say, 'cept that freeloaders bother me! At least make a goddamn effort, please?

If they would just become heroin addicts, I'd bet they'd lose some weight.

They spend £50 a week on food?
Bollocks.

Oh, well, if their diet is as limited as they say it is, and they shop in Aldi (or Lidl, or Iceland) then maybe they do...

It's typical of newspapers to make benefits sound like living off the fat of the land though. Their family income is £20-odd grand. But that is not a lot to keep four adults on their feet. I know - I'm broke the day after my benefits come through, and I don't have to pay any bills! I do - make a contribution I mean - but I'm never actually asked for it.

All I can hope for them is that a do-gooder takes them under his/ her wing and teaches them to manage their money better/ how to cook & eat healthily. They'd have such an easy time losing weight, given that their current lifestyles are so obviously bad. If they only walked a few more minutes a day and ate a handful of strawberries instead of chips, the weight would fall off! Whereas poor old me... well let's put it this way, I am having to make far more effort.

I suppose I should be more grateful. There but for the grace of FSM go I.

Usually, in my limited experience, the questions asked guide the reponses. Monnie's right, they were clearly unaware of the interviewer's agenda.

Sophisticated media interviewer + unsophisticated family living on benefits and feeling a bit hard done to + a handful of leading questions and soothing reassurances = instant cultural villan.

I would expect nothing less of you, Dana. :haha:

[deadpan] What? [/deadpan]

So they told the truth and are now getting lambasted for it - TFB.

Clearly, this family needs some home helpers to come and spoon/shovel food into their mouths. Then they can be fitted with artificial jaws to chew for them (or the helper can pre-chew it). It is in our interests, as a society, to feed them as much as they want. They'll be dead before the year is out.

A family of poster children.

Most everyone has some bad habit that it should be logical to kick, but don't.

Any of those mocking, smokers?
Or don't exercise 30+ minutes a day?
Or don't eat 5-a-day fruit & veg (or the American equivalent)?

Yes, they are an extreme.
But they are just silly people. People being the operative word.
Use the same terms about smoking as you do obesity and see how many Dwellars smack you down.

Yes I write this because I am fat.
And I'm not saying it in a proud way.
I am intelligent. Which should make it worse.
But somehow their lack of intelligence makes them a target.

I hate that people can be lambasted in the street for being fat, but not for smoking/ drinking/ littering/ all the rest.

I underestimated how much the interviewer was manipulating them...

...I also don't compare them to anyone who is fighting the good fight - this family seems to have just thrown in the collective towel, given up, won't try...etc. etc.

you're right - we all have our "thing" whether it's smoking or working or buggering bunnies, our cross to bear. I don't begrudge that, but, aren't you supposed to at least try?


eta - or at least LIE about trying to try- that would be the most common way.

I'm guessing it's mostly the bunny's cross to bear. :eek:
Somebody call PETA! :bolt:

we're not mocking their fatness, we're mocking their attitudes.

Interviewers are very good at getting the responses they want. I deal with local news reporters on a semi-regular basis and they can still trip me up. Once or twice it really is only the fact that I have a good working relationship with the reporter that's saved me looking bad on the page.

It's a little like when you see these talent contest 'reality tv' shows. There are always a few there for freak appeal. They come on full of bravado and self-belief and we all laugh at how deluded they are. How can they believe they're good? We ask ourselves. They sound like a bag of cats being slaughtered, who could be so blind to their own lack of talent?

We watch them bigging themselves up and telling the judges and us how a singing career is their dream. And again we wonder at their lack of any grasp on reality. And then they get torn apart by the judges and are angry and cocky, or tearful and disbelieving. And again, we wonder at how they managed to maintain the dellusion, against all the evidence.

What we dont see is the behind the scenes machine. With the production team nurturing them into just the right intensity of self-belief, building up their confidence and expectation. Firing them up to 'not take it' and 'give some back' if the judges dont recognise their obvious talent. They're a star in the making.

The media is very good at taking ordinary people and shining a light into all their faults. Magnifying them and separating them from their anchoring contexts, until we end up with a caricature. We have no idea the length of the interview that got cut into what we see. We have no idea what questions were asked of them to illicit specific responses.

The reporter didnt go to interview those people with mind as open as notepad, the agenda, the purpose and desired result of the interview was preset.

Yeah. They said those things. They no doubt feel some sense of aggrievement (probably bolstered by the interviewer) and that may be unwarranted. Amongst their faults might well be a tendency to blame others for their failures or to feel that the world owes them something. There are worse faults. There are worse people.

I guarantee you, if a reporter decided to shine an unkindly light on my life they could easily make me look bad. I'm not 100% sure I'd spot the agenda any faster than they did. And I'm pretty sure I can be caricatured as easily as them.

You thought that was just an expression, didn't you?

You though she was kidding, didn't you?

Widely corroborated by many sources and the newspapers during 2005.

Either he's hung like a hamster, or he just misunderstood the whole playboy bunny business.

It was the eeeevil weed that made him do it.

Yeah, them carrots are Bad Shit.

Exactly. It's their want of intelligence. The cadmium rods are too damn far into their reactors.

seems the family changed their tune. Now they are victims of cyberbullying. And they do eat healthily -just salads really. And they don't want more money after all.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7970491.stm

These people got caught up in the X-Factor media machine. I feel a little sorry for them. They don't seem terribly bright and have, I suspect, been manipulated into showing a ridiulous side to themselves. They're perfect tabloid fodder. I feel a little sorry for them. Children playing with matches.

My mom kept a bit of a diary when she was a teenager - really just some papers folded together; they were quite poor. She had a weight problem and was sensitive about it. Because of her weight she felt shy with boys and absolutely certain, in the way that teens are absolutely certain about things, that she'd never have a boyfriend. I remember one line from this diary: "I would like to slim down, but I don't know what to do differently or what to eat."

Granted this was the 1950's, but even then people knew that losing weight = eating less fats and sugar, less in general. Surely she'd heard about that in PE class?

I didn't understand that for a long time. "Duh," I thought. Want to lose weight? Just eat less and take the long way walking home from school. How can anybody be that ignorant? I was thin, after all. Thin people don't understand why it's hard not to be thin. (I do now!)

Yet it's true - poverty makes you fat. I suppose if you were truly starving that wouldn't be the case, but few people in the US & UK are starving. If you look in the most impoverished, economically downtrodden regions--say, Appalachia or the deep South--you'll see almost to a person big rolls of fat, moony faces and little piggy eyes. Including the little kids. And you think: they can't be THAT poor, looks like they're eating fine!

Yep. They're eating eggs, potatoes, bread, cheese, fried meats, and washing it down with sweet tea and Mt. Dew. Cheap foods. Comfort foods. Foods that make you feel full and satisfied. Foods they are familiar with and know how to prepare, almost without thinking about it, certainly without needing a cookbook. So for a while they can delude themselves into thinking they're doing all right, eating things that taste good. The Food Stamps people don't care if you buy a bag of carrots or a chub of ground beef. They also deal with what is called "food anxiety." When your cupboards aren't always full, when you know what it's like to go to bed hungry, you think about food a bit more than an ordinary person would. It probably also alters your metabolism and brain chemistry, making you crave fats and carbs more than an ordinary person; the body's hedge against starvation.

These people in the UK say they're eating "salads." Salads aren't really that healthy, especially when you dump on a bunch of dressing. It's also open to ambiguity. What kind of salads? Potato? Chicken? Pasta? "I eat salads" is the standard reply of the fat person under scrutiny; it's like a default answer. People who are thin because of a chosen lifestyle usually don't eat a lot of salads. They eat a variety of healthy foods.

I have my own theory about how to manage people on government aid, but most people wouldn't like it. It involves education.

The thing is. I probably eat less healthily than that family. I survive on junk foods, food fads, high-carb comfort eating, feast and famine. Other than walking my dog, I do very little exercise. I am never still...but it's nervous energy, and I can burn off calories sitting in front of the tv. I am a junk eating, sports hating, sun avoiding, couch potato. I know how to eat healthily yet I can still go into a supermarket and get overwhelmed with questions like: "aubergine....yeah, but I have no idea what that goes with?". And sure you can start looking at recipes and checking out the tip cards, but Christ on a bike, there are times I can't make myself brown toast, the reality of cooking from scratch is overfacing, most of the time.

It's easier (and if you're not brilliantly clever with your ingredients, cheaper too) to buy convenience foods. Supernoodles are half a meal, and they're less than .70p a pack. A cheeseburger might have very little actual nutritiona value but it makes you feel full temporarily for very little. And it gives you a boost, a little chemical high in the brain. It actually does make you feel better....a little, just for a few moments.

Thing is, I just happen to be thin. I have a thin person's metabolism and therefore my body goes way out of its way to ensure I stay thin. I over indulge in calories and I get sluggish then edgy and fidgety (probably doesnt help the eczema any :P) My body forces me to respond in a way that burns off those calories. I don't go do a work out at the gym, I just *shrugs* speed up my metabolismm to meet the extra calories (I don't mean *I* do that, my body does that).

I deserve way harsher judgement on my lack of self-control and 'laziness' than most people, fat or thin. But I don't have to walk around with my sins emblazoned on my jacket for all to cast their judgements on me.

There are times I bring my eczema on myself. I go down a self-destructive lazy little path of sweets and overindulgence and the sugar rush or colourings set me off (I know, what am I, like 5?). Thirty seven years old and I still fall off the food wagon and eat stuff I fucking know might set me off. Or drink a really good, oaky Rioja knowing full well that it may exact a cost. People see me with my skin flared they don't generally leap straight to "stupid cow, fancy eating a bunch of stuff you should't. That'll teach you for being greedy and lazy"


Food is the very basic central fact of our survival. Our relationship with it starts in the womb and continues through our whole life. It is subject to strains and stresses, changes and derailments. It's a fucking complicated thing. Trouble is we people want it to be as simple as all the other theoretical constructs into which we fit our world.

ohhh no! We'd probably love it, I know I want to hear it. Please share.

Dana, that was a great post. I will note, however, that while the average passerby may not look at your eczema flare-up and know that it came from irresponsible eating, you know it, and you readily admit to it. You are not insisting that you "just don't know" how to solve the problem, which is what was most galling about the family in the original story.

Maybe so. But then I've been on quite the journey of self-discovery. I'm not sure I'd have so readily recognised my level of responsibility ten years ago. Back then I just felt helpless. I knew what I needed to do...and yet I didn't really know how to access those skills and apply it to my own life. How to establish positive, useful patterns. Saying shit is easy. Doing it and living it isn't easy, else we'd all be happy little fuckers with no problems. I'd blame anybody but myself back then. Why? because it;s hard enough being unhappy, without having to bear the responsibility for your unhappiness as well. It's a heavy weight if you dn;t feel like you'll ever get from under it. Easier to find external problems. Much easier.



[eta] These people have committed the cardinal sin. They appeared on a savvy media for savvy viewers and they were ordinary, flawed, selfish and human.

in the UK salad means a green salad. And usually not with much dressing compared to the US. Tuna or chicken with mayonnaise are not called "salads".

Salads are Americanizing a little over there -and it's probably changed more since I've been gone- but I still suspect Brits would not view grated cheese and croutons as essential salad components.

These days I think most people say salads meaning bought salad boxes or a fill up from a salad bar. Lots of pasta and oil and dressings.

I'm lucky: I hate salad dressing, and mayonaisse, and...

You have to get creative making salads if you're not going to dump a glob of goop on it.

My new favorite thing to add to salads is a handful of ravioli, first boiled and then pan-seared in a little olive oil just until the outside is a little crunchy.

I love a good salad; one of my favorites is shredded carrots with raisins and just a touch of vinegar! I also like bunches of greens with apples, almonds, dried cranberries, and my favorite dressing, made from lemon juice, basil, and avocado.

I was explaining this to the boy the other day because he asked if I could make that chicken/mayonnaise/grapes stuff... so we talked about the mayo "salads". Her was pretty wtf about it.
We eat a lot of salads. I always have the materials available, and the kids will often make themselves a quick salad if they don't like the veg of the meal.

Daughter and I like salads (the veggie kind :)); husband and son won't touch 'em. But we don't eat enough of them to buy the makings very often; they just rot. If I can grow the stuff, maybe we'll eat more. I'm going out in an hour or so to do some more planting.

I like salads with a bunch of goop and goodies on them. I confess! I eat salads because I like the veggies, not because I'm trying to eat diet food. Not that I couldn't stand to eat a little more diet food. Or a little less non-diet food, that is. I like salads with cheese, and craisins, and chow mein noodles, and a big glob of French dressing! Honey mustard is good too. Hey, it's almost lunchtime. I need to go find me a good salad bar now.

Jinx, what's a "quick salad?" Is that like fast food? ;)

Speaking of health food (not) they're putting in a Chipotle down the road from me! Hooray! You know, people actually think that by getting their Chipotle stuff in a bowl without the wrapper they are eating *light*??? :D

The salad I made last night was killer... spring mix, chicken breast, black beans, avocado, shredded cheese and salsa instead of dressing.

A quick salad is chopped romaine with tomatoes, possibly carrot shredds, and dressing for the boy, the girl eats her salads dry most of the time.

How about a taco salad from taco bell? I wonder how many calories are in that thing? :)

850 (430 with no shell). That's less than the 1K cal burritos at Chipotle...

Wow, you're good. :)

My metabolism has slowed way down in the last few years, especially since I work at home and don't really go anywhere. Luckily the upshot of that is that I just don't eat that much anymore. Mostly I eat fish, lean meat, and vegetables, but in the summer I eat a lot of fruit. I'm not thin, but I'm not getting any fatter either. :)

I've found that it's really easier to eat food cooked from scratch, anyway, as well as a lot cheaper and better for you. You just have to know a few basic ways of preparing things, and you're set.