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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Lifestyle > Health

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  #11  
Old 14-04-2019, 03:27 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Originally Posted by Wally
174 cm. 105 kg. stocky build.
officially obese but I don't like the word.
my exercise regime is inconsistent as usual.
Food same Too fond of carbs. pasta, bread oh and sugars like cereal and yoghurt.




That's interesting, Wally, because I want to use neutral and honest language.

I also don't like the tone of 'obesity' and its category in diagnostic lexicon.

What do you think would be a more appropriate word to use?
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  #12  
Old 14-04-2019, 05:14 AM
Wally Wally is offline
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gravitationally challenged
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  #13  
Old 14-04-2019, 07:31 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Originally Posted by Wally
gravitationally challenged




I think I'll use 'high body fat percentage' for individuals or people - 'People/individuals with a high body fat percentage' seems unobtrusive and does not insinuate an 'epidemic' .


In general terms could use 'fatness'. Instead of saying 'obesity in school children' it would sound more like, "... new statistics on the fatness of school children show that 22% of school children under 12 have high to very high body fat percentages."


I think it takes it out of the 'illness category' and just says it as it is... but do you think it sounds affronting? And does it still make sense?
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  #14  
Old 14-04-2019, 03:27 PM
Altair Altair is offline
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Originally Posted by Gem
Right. There is a social/environmental pattern to the obesity equation, and we need to stop looking in the narrow scope on individualism. The general social narrative is saying, 'It's your choice. Your responsibility,' thus constructing 'a person' as a being who makes choices free from and without regard to all else. That's perspective hasn't worked because that's not the reality of people. People make choices that effect their environment as the environment affects them, and this constructs 'a person' as one who lives at the interface between themselves and the conditions in which they live.

I think it simply sits an unease with popular narratives in society, i.e. individualism, self-sufficiency, ''the rational man'' and all of that. The environmental factors are ignored..

Some people do get overweight because they have no discipline and eat loads of cookies, potato chips, hamburgers, etc., but when your entire environment is build in a certain way it becomes another story. Poorer people being overweight is also a logical outcome when quality food is expensive..

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Originally Posted by Gem
We have placed the whole 'burden' (pun intended) as individual responsibility and undermined the social responsibility we all share. This is very convenient, because the policy makers who create the structures and systems we build up the environments by can ignore the fact that the trends are social, and say, 'it's your responsibility,' as a way to shirk the social responsibility they have.

The policy makers are in large part responsible for the sort of people that exist in a society. Even something as simple as green space and form of buildings will have an impact on how people live and how they view their place in the world.. If someone grows up without any green space or with nothing but fast food around they will grow up to become different people, emphasizing different things in life, voting differently, etc. etc.

We may have been trained to view our ''I'' as an indestructible thing, existing in a vacuum, but it is malleable and changing..

Incidentally.. I view the mass consumerist, modernist cities as anything but individualistic! They make everything the same with clear structures. A business district here, a suburb there, a highway over there, some fast food restaurants here. It all becomes incredibly predictable and inorganic, cities all becoming ''more of the same''. Despite championing ''individualism'' such a built environment doesn't even get close resembling it..

Somehow lost the track with ''losing weight'' here.. I value complex environments as opposed to sterile, structured environments... hehe..
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  #15  
Old 15-04-2019, 03:50 AM
ocean breeze ocean breeze is offline
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Got into fitness through martial arts training. It was something that grew into a passion. It still is. Currently its what i spend most of my time doing. Training and completing my training is the goal itself. I don't train to be healthy, a better person, to lose weight, to look better, or to feel good about myself. The health, youthful appearance, mental clarity, and beautiful abs are just a byproduct of doing that which i enjoy.

I'm not a health nut when it comes to food. I'm not on any type of diet but i don't stuff myself with junk food either. As it will effect my training. Cook my own dinners to cater to my taste buds. Food is for fuel and enjoyment.
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  #16  
Old 15-04-2019, 08:02 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Originally Posted by ocean breeze
Got into fitness through martial arts training. It was something that grew into a passion. It still is. Currently its what i spend most of my time doing. Training and completing my training is the goal itself. I don't train to be healthy, a better person, to lose weight, to look better, or to feel good about myself. The health, youthful appearance, mental clarity, and beautiful abs are just a byproduct of doing that which i enjoy.

I'm not a health nut when it comes to food. I'm not on any type of diet but i don't stuff myself with junk food either. As it will effect my training. Cook my own dinners to cater to my taste buds. Food is for fuel and enjoyment.
Totally agree that the exercise components better be 'performance' based, so people can do the things that they want to do. Also agreed that simply not taking too much 'junk food'" is a necessary step for reducing body fat %.
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  #17  
Old 15-04-2019, 09:42 AM
Petey Petey is offline
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It will be terribly difficult for change to happen in the world of health, and specifically weight loss, until the food-health-government conglomerate is broken up. Here in the US I think that is next to impossible. There will need to be system collapse first. Until this happens, it's every person for themselves, with some potential help coming from those smaller "radical" groups and individuals who understand that health needs to be considered from a holistic point of view. It includes food and nutrition, physical activity (not just exercise), mental health, socioeconomic status, spirituality, etc.

On the one hand, I DO hold individuals responsible for their being overweight and all of the medical problems they have due to their lifestyle choices. (The minute we believe there is no individual choice in how we lead our daily lives the game is over.) Most of us in US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and developed Asia DO have a choice of what to put in our mouths. That said, I completely understand that individuals are up against a huge power of an imbalanced society with health care and government inextricably bound to mega corporations. Not too long ago I would have laughed at such an idea thinking, "Oh, get out of here with your conspiracy theories." But I have since come to realize that it doesn't matter if the collusion is intentional or organic; it's an imbalanced relationship, and it is a danger to all of us.

Pulling oneself out of that imbalance is incredibly difficult. BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Many people have changed their lives around from dis-ease to well-being, and there is no reason why an average westerner can't do that. But it is a huge change, and it does take effort, knowledge-seeking, and trust in one's own self.
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  #18  
Old 15-04-2019, 10:54 AM
Altair Altair is offline
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Just be glad you don't need to work 50 hours or more a week, Petey, don't have time to cook, and have to rely on fast food restaurants. It's very easy for us all to talk about ''individual responsibility'' but to a lot of people out there such a thing is a luxury..

Concerning conspiracies.... It's not much of a 'conspiracy' when it's wide out in the open. Governments serve the wealthy and the multinational companies. They have vested interests to keep the status quo. In my country for instance lobbyists from the intensive farming sector have a tight grip on mainstream political parties and even have guaranteed positions in government..

Governments are interested in keeping the status quo of mass production of unhealthy lifestyles intact because they deem it necessary to stay globally competitive. People producing and consuming rubbish on a massive scale keeps these unhealthy systems rolling. Some people can't choose, but those who can have a duty to speak out..
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  #19  
Old 15-04-2019, 11:05 PM
Petey Petey is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Altair
Just be glad you don't need to work 50 hours or more a week, Petey, don't have time to cook, and have to rely on fast food restaurants. It's very easy for us all to talk about ''individual responsibility'' but to a lot of people out there such a thing is a luxury..

Concerning conspiracies.... It's not much of a 'conspiracy' when it's wide out in the open. Governments serve the wealthy and the multinational companies. They have vested interests to keep the status quo. In my country for instance lobbyists from the intensive farming sector have a tight grip on mainstream political parties and even have guaranteed positions in government..

Governments are interested in keeping the status quo of mass production of unhealthy lifestyles intact because they deem it necessary to stay globally competitive. People producing and consuming rubbish on a massive scale keeps these unhealthy systems rolling. Some people can't choose, but those who can have a duty to speak out..

I can only respectfully disagree. Fast food is never the answer, regardless of how many hours one works. There is always a way to get real food, and this goes back to the idea that this isn't about "weight loss". It's about lifestyle...work included, mental health, including things like a sense of fulfillment. But the second anyone ever thinks they HAVE to eat fast food, they have abdicated their personal freedom. And once that happens, weight loss and even just health aren't even up for discussion.
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  #20  
Old 16-04-2019, 01:07 AM
Gem Gem is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Petey
I can only respectfully disagree. Fast food is never the answer, regardless of how many hours one works. There is always a way to get real food, and this goes back to the idea that this isn't about "weight loss". It's about lifestyle...work included, mental health, including things like a sense of fulfillment. But the second anyone ever thinks they HAVE to eat fast food, they have abdicated their personal freedom. And once that happens, weight loss and even just health aren't even up for discussion.

The issue is responsibility, but the locale of that responsibility is non-local because people are dependent on society at large. Where an individual is dependent, individual responsibility is dispersed into the milieu. This does not reduce an individual's responsibility because when an individual decides, their decisions effect everything around, while everything around affects the individual. Hence, any individual is able to make a new joblifestyle change, but that will effect everyone and everything in their life, which they, in turn, will be affected by.

This only means that the obesity equation is bigger than the individual it concerns, and the statistical trend toward bigger bodies is the outcome of living normally in our culture. Normalcy is dictated by the social narrative, which is an articulation of an ideology, which is an imagining of values and/or virtues. In a society where well-being is statistically declining in regards to physical weight and ability, and the majority of maladies are diet-related, and this is brought about by having a normal life... we have to change the social narrative which dictates what is normal.

If it were normal to consume whole, self-prepared food and ride a bike or walk around, then the way we build up the environment would reflect that norm, and individuals whole be affected by it, it would affect what sorts of decisions they make, and if nonsense food was talked about as strange, usual and abnormal... which it objectively is... the social trend would be to "be normal", and clearly, cultural norms should trend toward well-being.
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