In the last decade (or two, if lucky) of a long life, I've finally tumbled to the fact that obesity is a description, not a diagnosis. Maybe I did myself a favor by taking care of my nutritional and physical health all these years. But maybe it was just a hobby after all.
It’s kind of astounding and humbling to realize I don’t know whether you’re describing your own existence within a HAES paradigm (emphasizing preventative and therapeutic practices against chronic disease while still being fat or fattish) or if you’re questioning/endorsing the wisdom and promised efficacy of practicing an optimized western diet/exercise regime. “Taking care of” oneself seems to have evolved within these cultures into a euphemism connecting a privileged existence, obsessive, unhealthy restrictive eating patterns coupled with excessive, expansive (possibly counterproductive) physical activity to an idealized, largely white and female body shape and composition that is expected to automatically guarantee exceptional health. Orthorexic food and workout choices as medicine, visible markers of health as aesthetic, obesity as immorality. No, this is not a competition and having lived ablebodied and well fed “all these years” is not tantamount to servicing the nation nor is it due special accolades or a participation trophy. Regretting your choices because the array of choices for other people has expanded is not a tragedy or a slap in the face.
At any rate, kudos to Yoni for tacitly acknowledging the elephant in the room: any substantive medical, pharmaceutical, or lifestyle tweak that can improve health, longevity, resistance against acute injury and the worst end-stages of chronic diseases, irrespective of whether one achieves absolute peak thinness or meets in every respect evolving uber blood glucose, blood pressure, and EGFR values, is to be celebrated but also ruthlessly promoted. No other bogstandard ailment in a world with an excess of prescriptions designed to address if not cure the thing, meets this kind of aggrieved reaction when a better solution through next-gen medication or safer, “elective” surgery has emerged.
We’re supposed to be sad, I gather, for the minority of people who battled or held of a looming metabolic condition ad hoc, bereft of good treatments, because the next generation will benefit in greater numbers from safer solutions? No marks for bootstraps. Improving public health is, pace rugged individualists, not entirely a game of meritocracy, thank goodness. But resources are limited. Which is why it seems so perverse to discourage access to modern pharmaceuticals on the grounds that somebody else, some earlier generation, struggled more and grappled harder with the same problem.
Love that term .. bullshittery ... so much of that in the pseudo-medical world of 'woo' . (my term for all that nonsense). These same hucksters who start internet bits with "Doctor's don't want you to know..." are now using ready to use doctors (or at least the health care administration) to sell their woo?
In the last decade (or two, if lucky) of a long life, I've finally tumbled to the fact that obesity is a description, not a diagnosis. Maybe I did myself a favor by taking care of my nutritional and physical health all these years. But maybe it was just a hobby after all.
Barbara,
It’s kind of astounding and humbling to realize I don’t know whether you’re describing your own existence within a HAES paradigm (emphasizing preventative and therapeutic practices against chronic disease while still being fat or fattish) or if you’re questioning/endorsing the wisdom and promised efficacy of practicing an optimized western diet/exercise regime. “Taking care of” oneself seems to have evolved within these cultures into a euphemism connecting a privileged existence, obsessive, unhealthy restrictive eating patterns coupled with excessive, expansive (possibly counterproductive) physical activity to an idealized, largely white and female body shape and composition that is expected to automatically guarantee exceptional health. Orthorexic food and workout choices as medicine, visible markers of health as aesthetic, obesity as immorality. No, this is not a competition and having lived ablebodied and well fed “all these years” is not tantamount to servicing the nation nor is it due special accolades or a participation trophy. Regretting your choices because the array of choices for other people has expanded is not a tragedy or a slap in the face.
At any rate, kudos to Yoni for tacitly acknowledging the elephant in the room: any substantive medical, pharmaceutical, or lifestyle tweak that can improve health, longevity, resistance against acute injury and the worst end-stages of chronic diseases, irrespective of whether one achieves absolute peak thinness or meets in every respect evolving uber blood glucose, blood pressure, and EGFR values, is to be celebrated but also ruthlessly promoted. No other bogstandard ailment in a world with an excess of prescriptions designed to address if not cure the thing, meets this kind of aggrieved reaction when a better solution through next-gen medication or safer, “elective” surgery has emerged.
We’re supposed to be sad, I gather, for the minority of people who battled or held of a looming metabolic condition ad hoc, bereft of good treatments, because the next generation will benefit in greater numbers from safer solutions? No marks for bootstraps. Improving public health is, pace rugged individualists, not entirely a game of meritocracy, thank goodness. But resources are limited. Which is why it seems so perverse to discourage access to modern pharmaceuticals on the grounds that somebody else, some earlier generation, struggled more and grappled harder with the same problem.
Love that term .. bullshittery ... so much of that in the pseudo-medical world of 'woo' . (my term for all that nonsense). These same hucksters who start internet bits with "Doctor's don't want you to know..." are now using ready to use doctors (or at least the health care administration) to sell their woo?