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There's quite a lot of recent research linking gut flora with weight, the ease of putting it on and the ease of losing it.

We do seem to be edging towards a point where we might be able to say 'healthy gut flora' is 'X' and some foods or types of foods are modifying 'X' leading to problems with weight.

I wouldn't be surprised to see antibiotics being implicated, firstly, obvious, and secondly, (a sample size of '1' I admit), I've had the bad luck to have to take a few prolonged courses of antibiotics and in every instance finishing the antibiotic course lead to a permanent weight gain of some half-a-stone that I couldn't shift.
Read the Diet Myth by Dr Tim Spector. Good introduction to the science surrounding the microbieme
 
On the other hand, I'm surprised to see Libya and Saudi Arabia ranked so high ...

They wank as high as any in Wome.

More seriously, the dimensions of the average twenty-year-old woman in the U.S. recently did duty as a meme-du-jour for the right-wing punditry. These were the figures quoted (accurate?)

The average American woman 20 years old and up weighs 170.6 pounds and stands at 63.7 inches (almost 5 feet, 4 inches) tall.
And the average waist circumference? It’s 38.6 inches.

All ages here:
https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weight-for-women

This seems bonkers. That's significantly heavier and more rotund than me and I'm an average-sized, average-weighing 40-ish-year old.

As an average, I suspect there are plenty of sensible-sized girls, but about 20% of the total are monstrously obese, which drags those figure northwards.

As an aside, I thought U.S. women were a shade taller than that figure quoted. Perhaps more of the kind of distribution I've suggested for weight, there being plenty of racial diversity.
 
They wank as high as any in Wome.

More seriously, the dimensions of the average twenty-year-old woman in the U.S. recently did duty as a meme-du-jour for the right wing punditry. These were the figures quoted (accurate?)

The average American woman 20 years old and up weighs 170.6 pounds and stands at 63.7 inches (almost 5 feet, 4 inches) tall.
And the average waist circumference? It’s 38.6 inches.

As an average, I suspect there are plenty of sensible-sized girls, but about 20% of the total are monstrously obese, which drags those figure northwards.

As an aside, I thought U.S. women were a shade taller than that figure quoted. Perhaps more of the kind of distribution I've suggested for weight, there being plenty of racial diversity.
From what I can tell, the height is definitely not accurate. This was the average height about 45 years ago. It's taller now.
If it is accurate, I wouldn't look to racial diversity to keep it down, I'd look to diet. There are a lot of people here who grew up on very poor diets, regardless of economic status, and I can understand how they wouldn't reach their full height.
 
According to the CDC (see above) the mean waist circumference for females (age 20 and over) was 38.15" (96.9 cm).

Average weight for females age 20 and over was 168.6 lbs.
 
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LOL what nonsense. Everyone knows the fatties are more energy intensive to maintain and clog up the tractor beams during harvesting.
 
The Venetian gondola trade has found it necessary to adjust to heavier customers ...
Venice reduces gondola capacity due to heavy tourists

The city of Venice, Italy, is reducing the maximum capacity of its gondolas from six people to five, but the reason isn't related to COVID-19 -- it's an issue of tourists' weight.

Andrea Balbi, the president of Venice's Gondola Association, which oversees the city's 433 licensed gondoliers and 180 substitutes, said the decision was made to reduce the capacity of the boats to ease the strain on the boatmen who propel them. ...

Raoul Roveratto, president of the association of substitute gondoliers, said the weight of passengers can sometimes cause the boats to take on water.

"From some countries, it's like bombs loading on and when [the boat] is fully loaded, the hull sinks and water enters," he told the La Repubblica newspaper. "Going forward with over half a ton of meat on board is dangerous."

SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...capacity-due-to-heavy-tourists/2321595446645/
 
"Going forward with over half a ton of meat on board is dangerous."

Red anorak girl, on the other hand, says, "Bring it on!" :oops:
 
This starkly illustrates how attitudes to obesity have changed over the last 100 years.

The b & w photo is of French circus "fat man" Léon Delbrun in his youth - probably around 90 years ago.

"He weighs 330 lbs" screams the caption (either 149kg or 165kg depending on whether they are quoting imperial lbs or French lbs).
OK, so definitely a bit on the chubby side, but hardly to the extent that his corpulence could earn him a living in a circus freak show!

leon.png


Just compare him with some of the people you may see these days when you go shopping.
Eat your heart out Léon (no pun intended)!

porky.png
 
New York City passes law barring weight discrimination

During public hearings, supporters cited difficulty navigating seating at restaurants and theatres, getting turned away by landlords, and butting up against weight limits on the city's bike sharing programme.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65562288

I wonder if statisticly better accomodation of people with obesity will increase the numbers. We limited smoking by making life less inviting for smokers.
 
New York City passes law barring weight discrimination

During public hearings, supporters cited difficulty navigating seating at restaurants and theatres, getting turned away by landlords, and butting up against weight limits on the city's bike sharing programme.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65562288

I wonder if statisticly better accomodation of people with obesity will increase the numbers. We limited smoking by making life less inviting for smokers.
Some people are obese through no fault of their own.
Smokers are completely to blame for their habit.
 
Those statistics for 20 year olds are horrifying, and exactly what we're seeing now, in fact teenagers are not just obese, but overwhelmingly so, young girls who think it is perfectly fine.
 
It would be wonderful if your Twiggy (or someone similar) could make a comeback, and make it cool to be thin again!!
 
I certainly criticise poor lifestyle choices, but I never lay into people simply because they're fat. When we're talking about a growing number of people who weigh multiples of what the medical profession considers healthy, however, lawmakers really have to do all they can to avoid normalising the phenomena. There's a middle ground between 'don't treat super fat people like shit' and 'being morbidly obese is a normal part of the happy spectrum of human size', but those whose duty or desire is to influence society seem to miss it regularly.

Further, there are unfortunately a number reasons why an employer--say--might legitimately wish not to employ a morbidly obese worker: greater susceptibility to illness, shorter lifespan, workplace safety, and even (at the risk of sounding heartless) brand propriety.

If, for instance, one is selling health products, staffing a medical clinic, teaching P.E., or promoting haute couture (off the top of my head--there are more), it does not seem unreasonable to me to want staff whose physical dimensions are in consonance with those aims.

Nobody would hire a dental nurse with a mouthful of decayed and missing teeth.

It strikes me that the new law mentioned above is just going to lead to more work for lawyers and another financial drag on small businesses.

@Mythopoeika is also correct; obesity is not always a lifestyle choice. Ideally one would want a way to distinguish among inert gluttons and those unfortunate enough to have no power over their predicament; the latter should be legally protected in the same way that disabled workers are, but I can't think how such a distinction can reliably be drawn.
 
Some people are obese through no fault of their own.
Smokers are completely to blame for their habit.
You are right ofcourse, but I have the same worry that Yithian stated much better above. We reduced smoking by un-normalizing it. I also think we should not be normalizing unhealthy BMIs. My wife's critique of my belly helps me keep a healthier lifestyle :)
 
An observation. I today planned have a banana (90 calories) and a tin of baked beans and sausages (450 calories) for lunch. Someone brought a packet of chocolate biscuits. I had four (400 calories total) ate my spare banana and called it lunch.

Four biscuits, most of a meal's calories...
 
You are right ofcourse, but I have the same worry that Yithian stated much better above. We reduced smoking by un-normalizing it. I also think we should not be normalizing unhealthy BMIs. My wife's critique of my belly helps me keep a healthier lifestyle :)

The standard perception of drunk-driving went from 'You'll regret it if you get caught' to 'Give me the keys, you monster!' in my lifetime precisely by, as you say, de-nomalising the practice.
 
You are right ofcourse, but I have the same worry that Yithian stated much better above. We reduced smoking by un-normalizing it. I also think we should not be normalizing unhealthy BMIs.
Oh, I agree. I think we've gone too far the other way, with 'fat pride' and 'fat acceptance'.
This will probably lead to more young people with BMI-related disorders.
 
I wonder if statisticly better accomodation of people with obesity will increase the numbers. We limited smoking by making life less inviting for smokers.

I don't know but I wonder if there will be a whole lot of unwanted consequences? Restaurants and theatres may close rather than rip out all their seating/tables and replace it with fewer and larger seats. The ones that stay open will put their prices up and normal weight people will not like subsidising the over large - who may not be able to afford it anyway given the link between income and obesity. Likewise the bike scheme will likely close rather than spend vast amounts of cash reinforcing bikes enough to be able to take pretty much unlimited weight. But I suppose we will find out in due course.
 
My wife and I most of our adult life have been overweight.

Fortunately, we were never discriminated against at our work place, but in social groups it is a different story.

Maybe an example would be in a social function at a church, my wife and I felt like people looked at us as “ second hand citizens”.

People who were rich, or supposedly “ normal “ size would get the attention of the group.

No matter what you did, if you are rich people just love you.
 
My wife and I most of our adult life have been overweight.
Fortunately, we were never discriminated against at our work place, but in social groups it is a different story.
I sincerely hope I did not offended or hurt you with my remarks above. Ostracism and disrespect is certainly not a solution.
I know people who sincerely try to lose weight and who struggle with it. The brain can be a bastard working against you:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29243729-the-hungry-brain
 
Lots of Arab countries suffer with obesity and like everywhere it's getting worse.

It's not just from consuming 'fast' food though- a vast metropolis such as Cairo has very little in the way of space- parks and sports facilities etc (unless you're one of the few wealthy citizens) but even then they tend to be very crowded places.

Add in cheap and poor quality ingredients and lots of oil in the diet- (the Greeks seem to do ok consuming vast amounts of oil though) and lots of sugar.

Of course, I suspect the immense heat is also a factor to do with people being less active there.
 
I have known two people who had their stomachs reduced for weight loss.

I think it made them unhappy people for whatever the reason.
 
I have known two people who had their stomachs reduced for weight loss.

I think it made them unhappy people for whatever the reason.
A relation of mine had it done. It went wrong and she was so ill with internal bleeding that she had a near death experience.

(As she is a most unpleasant person, when I heard about this I nearly had an NDE myself from laughing. :evillaugh: )
 
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