Perspectives keep rapidly changing

The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.world to Memes@sopuli.xyz – 1047 points –
192

Another great example is "Chunk" from the Goonies (1985). He was considered so fat that it was comic relief. Now you can walk through any Middle School in the United States and find dozens, if not hundreds, of kids that are MUCH larger!

I'm the flip side, Go back and watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Once you're done cringing at the racism, think about the fact that Harrison Ford went on an intense weightlifting program for that movie, and was considered the most shredded leading man in Hollywood at the time. Actors using steroids has become so common that it has also skewed our perception of a normal fit guy's body.

IMO Harrison Ford looks pretty damn fit in that picture and I wouldn't bat an eye if he were in a super hero movie today. Like that's not a Thor body but there are many characters where that body would fit in just fine. I agree that movie bodies are not very attainable for most people with busy lives, but on the other hand, if you're playing a super hero you're not playing an average person. It would probably be weird to see an average body shape doing the impossible stunts you see in action movies.

Yea but also there's no reason for Superman or Thor to be tall and muscular. They're not strong because of their body.

Even with the lore explanations, I think it just helps maintain suspension of disbelief when you visually see someone muscular doing impossible feats of strength rather than someone physically unfit. But to your point, I would like to see more super heroes with strongman barrel physics instead of the aesthetic prioritizing body builder physique.

I think Spiderman is a decent example of not being comically ripped but I always believe he's as strong as he's depicted due to his powers.

Spiderman is still super fit. He's lean muscle and not bulky body builder fit, but he still has muscle. Even in the comics his muscles are very well defined.

Well, lore-wise earths sun literally makes Superman muscular

Well, I don’t know about Thor (but he is a god short of and from an advanced culture ), but Superman received perfect nutrition from our Sun.

There is that alt timeline story of Superman where he didn’t see the Sun and was captured when he landed as a baby.

He grew up to be skinny and had severe malnutrition, was still tall and became strong as soon as he saw the sun the first time.

Back when they made "300" it was almost satire how shredded these guys looked. It was obvious it wasn't realistic and wasn't meant to be. Nowadays we get shows like Reacher with an absolutely humongous lead that's supposed to wander around doing jack shit all day... right. His mother shat him out this way.

And female "tough" leads are often tiny and no muscle in sight yet they still kick ass and routinely dispose off bad guys twice their size. Why do the guys even need to be this big when physics don't matter?

I hate this so much. Hollywood is so fucking fake.

Yeah thats totally true. Just look at photos of Bruce Lee for example. A fighting machine but not nearly as big as any one of the gym bros nowadays that train for volume.

"Hollywood fat" has always been a thing, though.

Yeah Hollywood ugly is a meme. Oh man she's so ugly... But she's like solidly at least an 8, just not wearing makeup and in unflattering clothes and lighting l

I'm learning alot about Hollywood weirdness this month. So many actors have giant heads and tiny bodies. That way emotion shows better on camera.

They are always wearing makeup, even for "no makeup" looks.

Oh yes the ugly friend.

Saw a picture of that actor and he’s pretty lean these days

Larger or fatter?

Larger.
Watch out, I had to battle a group of 6 foot tall toddlers the other day just to get on a swing set. Ankle biters are becoming 2nd floor balcony biters. It's insanity!

It's very fucked up what people perceived has healthy now.

I've been in fairly decent shape my whole life but the amount of people, especially women, that tell me I'm too skinny and that I need to gain weight. Even when I'm actually closer to being overweight than underweight. Or how many times I seen someone point to someone on steroids or fat and say that they are healthy.

It's got to the point where kids need to be educated. I wouldn't even be against weighing them. If they obese then it's also child abuse and the parents fault.

People think now if you can see/feel ribs or have any muscle tone (while not being a body builder) it means you're underweight. That's how humans are meant to be built! Go look at hunter gathers tribes or any active person pre the 90's.

Shit even dogs are fat nowadays.

Or how many times I seen someone point to someone on steroids ... and say that they are healthy.

Gym bros be like

Gym bros normally know who's on steroids.

I find it's normally girls that are like "just look at a chicken and walk past a gym once a week and you can have arms the size of your head"

boooyyy half the people on steroids take them for medical reasons lol

Yeah that's clearly not what we're talking about here. Cortisol cream for eczema is a steroid, but nobody using it would say they're on roids.

We're obviously talking about people who juice for muscle mass.

Yeah, no one is mistaking my low dose prednisone for fucking gear.

Although sometimes I do wish it provided similar benefits, lol. I get the downsides and none of the fun.

It's very fucked up what people perceived has healthy now.

The Overton Window is always shifting, and not always in the correct direction.

Americans are particularly talented (but not alone) in this doublethink

Are you skinny fat by chance? I have a friend who's exactly like this. Bro looks super skinny to some but fat-ish to others.

Skinny fat means being lean but having near tummies, legs and arms. It's common with south asians like in indian subcontinent. It's mainly caused by unhealthy diets us desi's have.

Wdym by unhealthy diets? My family being desi had quite healthy stuff, so I rlly can't relate. Like do u mean oily gravies n stuff like they have in dhabas? Or generally low protein diets?

Yes. A lot of desis eat rice, daal, etc and don't eat much meat. All the oil in gravies and curries is also a thing. And most importantly, they don't workout. So they aren't fat nor healthy. Your family is an exception not an example.

No I think I'm just tall and long with big shoulders.

Clothes seem baggy around my tummy even with slim fit and my arms are actually legitimately quite skinny.

When I take my clothes off I used to get compliments on my chest and shoulders also butt and legs. Weirdly sometimes also arms which I didn't really understand.

how about we as a society just collectively stop making comments about people's weight at all

How about we don't, because being fat is unhealthy and also costs a lot of money to public healthcare and infrastructure.

Making it your business to call out people who are unhealthily overweight is counter productive. People know they're heavy, people know it takes a toll on their health. Lambasting them will only exacerbate their depression and make their relationship with food far more destructive. Don't be a dickhead.

Generally, I'd say that's true. But given multiple people have told I'm underweight when I was borderline obese (and I don't do any weight lifting or do manual labor as a job) does make me question how many people know they're overweight. Obese people generally know they're overweight.

The solution isn't calling out individuals about their weight though or collectively shaming people for being overweight. If you want people do have better diets and exercise more, changing the environment to be more conducive for that will do much more. But making sure healthyweight and overweight people aren't pressured into eating more by people who insist they are underweight is probably a good thing.

Exactly. We've got to treat the root cause of what's going on, and that's often an extremely complex challenge that varies from person to person.

how about if you actually crack a science textbook you'll learn that body fat matters a lot less than whether or not someone is physically active and that losing weight isn't as simple as just dieting and exercise and that giving an entire generation of people eating disorders put more strain on the healthcare system than obesity ever did

Looks like you need a science book.

If exercise and dieting didn't work you'd be breaking the first law of thermodynamics.

It would be an absolute guarantee Nobel prize and you'd change the world.

Diet more so them dieting. What you eat is very important.

Breaking out thermodynamics as an excuse to be a prick online doesn't make you seem cool.

The European study found that metabolic health is still the most important risk factor for heart disease.

So far matters less than fitness, like the person you are replying to stated?

Fuck you can't read huh. Metabolic health is inversely proportional to fat.

Metabolic health is inversely proportional to fat. Probably more like flipped the following over the horizontal: \__ γƒŽ

Also, relevance? That has nothing to do with the claim the person you claimed was wrong said nor anything I said. But sure. I'm the one who can't read.

Kinda wish gunny didn’t break him and turn him into the kingpin.

First he had to be hollowed out and worn like an "Eggar suit" by a giant bug.

Edgar Suit. The guy's name was Edgar, the bug wore his skin like a suit. Edgar Suit.

And become a serial killer with a vivid dream world including possibly some sort of demon. Took me a long time to figure out it was all the same actor. Well, however long is between fmj to kingpin role.

Vincent D'Onofrio is brilliant.

Along with being one of New York's finest detectives on the Major Case Squad. This is his story. DUN-DUN

Huh, never connected that he was the same actor...

My God this man is a chameleon. My family freaked out when they realized he was in jurassic world. Dude should have been a spy.

But at this point in the film, hadn't he lost like 15+ pounds and also shouldn't soldiers be held to a slimmer standard than others? And yeah the movie was made a long time ago. Most people are actually fat now.

He did gain 70lbs for the role so technically he was fat, just not as fat as some people are today.

Yeah but my point was I remember thinking he got skinnier throughout the film, as though he was supposed to getting "whipped into shape"

throughout the film

It's been awhile since I've seen it but I'm pretty sure this guy redecorated the bathroom in bootcamp.

That's about the time the tone of the movie changes significantly

Oh cool! Like new wallpaper and tiles or just redid the backsplash? Either way, that's mighty kind of him. That guy's got a real good head on his shoulders.

Ok granted maybe it was only a 25 minute period I'm talking about but there was a progression iirc. "Redecorating the bathroom" is the crudest least empathetic way I can imagine putting it

"Redecorating the bathroom" is the crudest least empathetic way I can imagine putting it

Thanks. I pulled out all the stops for that one.

Apparently nobody’s clothes fit after basic because you either lose weight or gain muscle.

Don’t know about slimmer but soldiers should definitely be carrying less fat reserves and moving with more muscle mass. Calories supplied in the field, and if the logistics for that break down then you’re not going to live long enough to starve.

This was my thought exactly. The military has actual weight standards. So he could be fat compared to all his fellow soldiers, but not fat by normal standards.

Yup. The dude was fat for military standards then and he'd be fat for military standards today.

Remember when everybody got gaslit into thinking Gunny was great at his job

I know nothing about his actual military career, but he was great at his job of acting in the role of Drill Sergeant.

If I recall correctly, he got the job by scaring the shit out of Kubrick.

He rattled off a nonstop stream of profanity and insults for like 10 min straight as a way of training / demo-ing to the actor. Kubrick thought he did a far better job and left him in the role. Much of his dialog was ad-libed.

The original DI ended up as the crazy guy shooting civilians from the helicopter. "You guys oughta do a story about me!"

Nah, more like abusing his contact with him. If my memory doesn't fail, he was hired as an instructor for the actors but he thought he could do it better, so he started sending audition tapes to Kubrick. Kubrick eventually got tired and watched the tapes and he loved it, so the guy got hired.

Or maybe I'm just misremembering πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™€οΈ

Hired to coach actors to act like drill instructors because he was a drill instructor. Turns out it was more effective to just have the former drill instructor act like a drill instructor. Turns out the drill instructor did do it better than the actors, and ended up being one of the most accurate portrayals ever put to film.

Except it's not accurate. He played it as the worst example of an ineffective, sadistic drill sergeant. He has said that over half of that stuff wouldn't fly even back when he was in boot. To make it realistic that Pyle would snap he had to be a truly horrible drill sergeant, so that's how he played the role.

Having been through boot camp I can tell you there is a big over lap between what officially wouldn't fly and what unofficially does happen. He became a spokesperson for The Corps, even getting promoted after leaving service, of course he wouldn't sully the reputation of the Marine Corps on record.

Remember when everyone got gaslit into believing (name any movie plot)

Come on get over yourself.

He was an actual marine, so he seemed like a good fit for the role.

Yeah, so he knew how an ineffective drill sergeant would behave.

Dude what about Chunk?

That kid was fat for his time.

Nowadays that’s practically median.

Even 10 years later, Heavyweights was literally about really fat kids. They aren’t really fat nowadays.

Shit, have you seen all those fatass larping gravy seals out there at right wing larps? Some of them are so fat on their rascals it's amazing they can even hold a gun and have enough strength to squeeze out a runny turd, let alone a trigger!

Sgt. Hartman would have a field day.

The ones on scooters are weak.

But you'd be amazed how strong the ones who can walk are. Can you carry 250 pounds up a flight of stairs without significant effort? Because there are 400-pound people who walk up staircases every day without trouble. The fact that they can walk, get up after lying down, etc requires that they be immensely strong.

All this is to say, don't get yourself into a position where one may take a swing at you. They may be out of shape, slow, etc, but if they land a hit there's a lot of muscle and mass behind it that shouldn't be underestimated just because they're unhealthy.

They need a lifted pickup truck because a regular one would bottom out and scrape the ground.

They claim "well-regulated" means "properly functioning" and not "subject to regulations", but how functional is a militia of morbidly obese men with no combat training, no psychological assessments and no demonstrated ability to use or safely handle a weapon, who probably enthusiastically voted for the government that needs overthrowing?

They're children claiming they need a PlayStation 5 "for homework".

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Everyone back then was living on cocaine and cigarettes. That dude was just a little thicc is all.

Born too late to die of consumption, born too early to be infused with microplastics, but born just in time to enjoy all the asbestos and cigarettes he could possibly want

This dude was overweight enough that it was a health problem. Calling him "just a little thicc" makes you part if the problem

Can you, like, chill? God damn.

It's a fucking movie and they wrote the character that way. The actor, Vincent D'Onofrio was in much better shape than what he made us believe. That's what acting is, after all.

Hell I like you. You can come over to my house and fuck my sister

You had best unfuck yourself or I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck

It's military standards and boot camp. It has literally nothing to do with perception. Look at drill for a fraction of a second while standing at attention and he will berate you endlessly for trying to suck him off with your eyes. Your bootlace is dragging because you're dumb. You're tired because you're weak. And you are the fattest motherfucker in this universe because you stood in front of the cake in the chow line for too long. It's not about perception. It's just basic. Even in active duty today, he would still be considered overweight, and even if he passed the PT test it wouldn't protect him from getting chaptered out for fitness.

6' 5", 200#, according to the Army, I was overweight by 15 lbs. I ran A group most mornings in PT (fastest, farthest runners), ran low 6 min miles, maxed situps and still had to wait 40 seconds for the test to end. Pushups were always low but fuck off, soy alto. I started lifting, gained 50 lbs, and my neck grew to 19"+ and all of the sudden I was "fit", even though I couldn't run A group anymore, couldn't break 7 min miles, and barely finished the situps in time. No improvement on pushups so don't stop fucking off. It's just military standards. It has literally nothing to do with perception. And people were fat before the 80s, JTFC did I just have to say that? Sure, there are more today, but it's not like Pvt Pyle was broadly considered obese by civilians at the time. The people ITT... πŸ™„

Sure we had fat people back then, but it was nothing like how it is today. Now most people are fat, and that wasn't the case in the 80's.

It was probably the neck width that helped.

No, it was exactly that. When my neck taped in over 19, it was the first time I had ever not been on PT watch. I had to do higher frequency PT testing. It was dumb.

YOU ARE A DISGUSTING FAT BODY PRIVATE PYLE!

WERE YOU BORN A FAT SLIMY SCUMBAG YOU PIECE OF SHIT PRIVATE PYLE? OR DID YOU HAVE TO WORK ON IT?

Unironically inspiring

In Bridget Jones Diary, Renee Zellweger has fat jokes made about her the entire film (because to Richard Curtis, cruelty to fat people is comedy) but she's not even remotely fat.

Were those jokes not in the book? I haven't read it.

It is now year-round bulking season, and I'm loving every minute of it, jerry.

Biggest difference between your conventional fat dude and a sumo wrestler is the nature of their fat deposits. Regular fat dudes, no exercise, have what is called "visceral fat", where the fat is beneath the skin, and exists in between the organs. Sumo wrestlers have subcutaneous fat deposits, just right beneath the skin, as a sort of layer between the organs and the skin. It truly matters less whether or not you're fat, and more whether or not you're active, and have a good dietary composition regardless of potential caloric excess.

The only major limitation on this that I might qualify is that overweight people will probably have to put more effort into flexibility and strength exercises, especially in their lower body, their ankles, their knees, for the same reason that extremely tall people tend to have similar injuries. There's also the problem that it tends to be harder to cut back later in life, and so you can kind of see a huge onset of lots of visceral fat if you keep up the same lifestyle choices while cutting back on the activity, or even keeping the same level of activity as your metabolism slows down, so that's something to also consider.

People also have made points about how the excess of simply carbohydrates, like high fructose corn syrup, and palm oil as a preservative in highly processed american foods, and food deserts, are contributing factors to why americans tend to be super fat. This is true. The other side of this coin also tends to be that american civic infrastructure doesn't tend to keep you as active as perhaps other countries might, so there are less opportunities to burn calories without making a kind of committed lifestyle choice centered around that.

In any case, I do find it really, sad, and funny also, that people tend to treat obesity as a kind of personal moral failing, rather than treating it like any other kind of public health problem, or epidemic. Reminds me of how they treated HIV.

And mental health, and addiction, and anything else that lets people write another person off as β€œbad” and not worthy of their compassion.

Yeah. Strikes me as the laziest possible explanation for a thing, and it always seems to ironically come from people who are convinced that they're better than others because they're working harder or trying more.

The least compassionate people I know are the ones fastest to write off the humanity of others.

I swear, without irony, that if a young black man got shot in the face for parking next to a yellow curb, some of the people I’m thinking of would say β€œwelp, shouldn’t have broke the law!”

I think my kids are old enough to appreciate the jokes in Full Metal Jacket now. I got them to watch LOTR and now we started with The Hobbit. Star Wars next, but that's a tough one, since it seems old to them, but maybe I'll start with Rogue One since it's the best modern star wars movie.

Why would you want to expose them to The Hobbit

Because while the residents of Hobbiton are pretty shy, the whole area is Shire.

Unless it's one of the good fan edits. I think M4 is the best one.

They will like it 100x better when they watch it for the first time on their own in college with their friends

Honestly it might be the best Star wars movie, period. At least from todays perspective. The original trilogy was groundbreaking for their own time but haven't aged the best. As with many media, what was innovative 40 years ago is cliche and stale today.

The OT hasn’t aged well? Wat

Absolutely yeah when you compare it to innovative things like Madame Web

I suppose "aged badly" means something different to me: that something was socially appropriate at the time but is not any more, like overt sexism. The only thing somewhat going there is slave girl leia, though that scene ends with her strangling her oppressor. I’d say that’s at best a bit sexualized, but that’s nothing bad in my opinion. Sex positivity please

Are you saying overt sexualization isn't apart of modern Hollywood?

Sexualization and sexism are not the same thing. The former is fine (for any gender, if the role asks for it) and the latter isn’t any more, which is also great.

My only problem is the plot sucked. Like visually it looks great, but it’s kind of just loosely connected scenes that more or less copy the same story from a new hope.

Urgh... My love of the OT is compelling me to downvote your opinion as objectively wrong ... Must ... resist the dark side...

I always hear that. I couldn't get more than 30 seconds into the movie

Episode 8 made me unable to watch the movies. But Episode 7 killed Star wars for me though - when it came down our entire department took a half day to go together

I'll never forget walking out of that theatre, the people who only kinda liked it were happy, the guy who memorized wookepedia was disappointed, then I shared a look with my team lead, who has been a diehard fan since the originals, he's a big old school nerd.

We just shared a look of despair and loss, something we loved died that day. We'd both extensively read the extended universe, and we'd talk about it frequently. I don't think we ever brought up Star wars again after that day

Solo is the only Star Wars movie they’ve released since the OT in my opinion.

The rest tried too hard, but Solo had the YEEHAW which made Star Wars great.

I know folks hate it, but it was fun in the way Star Wars (ANH) was for me as a kid.

Rogue One?

Was a great movie, I loved it.

It was set in the Star Wars universe which I love, but my statement is more about the β€œyee haw hold on to your assholes” that Star Wars was before there was a Empire strikes Back even.

What I loved about Star Wars is what Solo did for me

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Hope you didn’t make them watch the extended Hobits. I’m not gonna risk it with my kids - I’m starting with LOTR

Sci fi is my favourite genre. Watched the second trilogy of star wars when the came out and thought they were enjoyable enough.

Was excited to watch the orginal trilogy because everyone went on about how much better it was than the new ones.

Could not get into it at all. It's boring as hell and I'm not even sure what makes it a good movie from a modern standard. Prepare to be disappointed with their opinion of it.

That's not to say I don't like old movies. Alien and Terminator are great movies, 2001 is pretty good though long winded. And non Sci film like 12 angry men and butch cassidy are amazing.

Orginal star wars honestly is pretty bad.

Original Star Wars is "bad" for the same reason that anyone watching the Matrix for the first time is going to think it's kind of dumb and cheesy as hell: Tastes have changed, and all of the tropes and groundbreaking stuff it did were copied and satirized to death. There are definitely movies that have held up better than others and stayed more in line with modern tastes, but I don't think it's fair to look back at an old movie with almost 50 years of progress and judge it entirely on that.

The Matrix is great and I believe it still stands up.

But either way what we are discussing is if star wars is enjoyable today. I'm not disputing if it was enjoyable in the 70s or if it was groundbreaking.

There are movies where the special effects blew people away and did things that were unbelievable. You look at them now and the special effects look terrible and then the rest of the movie doesn't hold any power because it was leaning on how good the special effects were.

I believe star wars is in that category.

Terminator 1 the special effects are shit. But it's still a good movie.

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I was watching Steve Mc Queen in The Getaway. When he takes his shirt off I think that this guy isn't very well built. At the time of that moive McQueen was one of the top action stars. A few days later I'm watching a show about an average cop, and when he takes off his shirt he looks like he's been working out every day.

Steroids are rampant in the movie industry these days.

There's a story I've heard from several folks.

People go to buy the Luke Skywalker doll they'd had as kids. The original looked like Mark Hamill, but the new one has Luke built like a young Arnie Schwarzenegger

I swear no one in this whole ass thread remembers John Candy or Chris Farley. There were plenty of fat dudes and dudettes back in the 80s and 90s. Yes Americans are getting fatter, but it's not nearly as profound as everyone is making it out to be. Trust me there were tons of fat motherfuckers running around back then too.

Sincerely a fat motherfucker.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/955031/adult-body-weight-average-us/

https://usafacts.org/articles/obesity-rate-nearly-triples-united-states-over-last-50-years/

"In the early 1960s, roughly 13% of people were considered obese by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. Recent figures suggest that a current national obesity rate closer to 43%."

Looks to me the fatties have doubled since the 80s and 90s. Just because there used to be fat people before, doesn't mean there's no problem today. Line goes up. If the trend continues, it's just like 2-3 decades till almost everyone is fat.

Seems like a big problem to me

What are you even arguing? OP is talking about what is accepted as fat has changed. Those two examples you mentioned? Fat. Gomer Pile? Disgusting fat body.

No one is talking about comparative stats against other countries or questioning the existence of fat people πŸ˜‚

Also, you type like you're trying to not sound like the mid 30s person you are, whole assidly 😭🀣

It’s really weird how everyone went into what about mode.

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It’s hard to remember that fucking everyone was super thin until like 1990. When the movie came out, the audience considered him to be huge.

No no they where not. I know it's a shock but their where fat people before the 90's.

Yes, dear, but go find a photo of someone’s birthday party in 1985 and compare to today. The average weight has increased dramatically. If you deny this then you’re just being oppositional.

Never seen this movie but really love Vincent D'Onofrio. Just downloaded it to ckeck it later

well you're in luck, it's one of the best movies of all time.

btw, when the guy says "Easy, you just don't lead them so much.", leading means to aim your gun where they're running to, to account for the time it takes the bullet to travel...
referring to the fact that women and children don't run as fast as men...

that line always confused me...

also, all the shots with the news reporters are exact recreations of real news footage... word for word...

People aren't shoveling foods into their gullets anymore, they're dumping truckloads into it and proud of it.

Alternatively: Capitalism has robbed the working class of any time for exercise while simultaneously pushing food that is dirt cheap to make with artificial additives that lead to excess consumption.

But that doesn't fit the convenient narrative of "it's all society's fault," which pushes all blame and need for action off the observer.

Is there anything in the world this website won't blame on capitalism?

There are plenty of working class people that aren't fat and there are plenty of rich people, or retirees, or unemployed that are fat.

Being fat is about eating too much and not moving enough. People at some point need to take some responsibility for their actions.

It's pointless blaming the individual for a global crisis. Something systemic is to blame. And it really is a global crisis, it's just more severe in some places.

As a not fat person that doesn't have time to exercise, it's not hard to avoid one or two meals a day. Fat people eat too much, period. Don't blame capitalism.

Clearly because you don't struggle with this thing, the struggles of others are invalid.

Capitalism is significantly at fault because it pushes more and more food, makes cheap (read: affordable) food severely fattening, and creates industries that prey on people's insecurities and entices them into all kinds of disordered eating. To say nothing about the general decline of physical and mental health caused by unfettered capitalism that often manifests as disordered eating.

But yeah, eating too much is the only problem. Thanks I'm cured /s

As a non-fat person who doesn't exercise consistently, it's not that simple for the vast majority. There are a lot of factors including health/genetics and the stuff mentioned in the comment you responded to. I'm not skinny because I avoid meals, I'm skinny because I lucked out genetically and I really don't have to worry about what I eat in terms of gaining weight.

Also, avoiding meals is like the worst way to maintain your weight and you should stop implicitly recommending it. It's just going fuck up your metabolism, nutrition, and ability to maintain your weight. Quality matters substantially more than quantity, and quality is prohibitively expensive for many.

You do not need 3 meals a day, period. I'm not implicitly stating that, I'm explicitly stating it as a fact of human history. Having unfettered access to huge calorie bombs 24/7 is not normal. People who are obese should skip at least one meal a day and eat less food.

Quick guideline that'll help you be more empathetic to the rest of humanity: other people's experiences aren't like yours. Their bodies behave differently, they have different socioeconomic statuses, their minds struggle with things yours finds easy and vice versa. So "skip a meal" is trivial for you and impossible for another. That's why many different diets exist.

Stop painting humanity with one brush just because you can't see outside your own world view.

Also: A chunk of human history where we skipped meals regularly also involved getting eaten by predators. Just because it was true in the past does not make it true now. Having access to calorie bombs 24/7 is normal now. And society hasn't figured out how to deal with that. Some handle it fine, others handle it poorly.

I eat two meals a day. I drink mostly plain water, with some black coffee and unsweetened tea. I cut out soda over a decade ago and sweets are a rare luxury. I can't afford to eat massive amounts of food even if I want to. So why am I still fat?

Because you expend less calories than you consume.

Maybe you eat processed food? Lots of nasty stuff in there.

Good luck!

Being "processed" has nothing to do with whether or not something is healthy. It's the ingredients that matter.

Well good luck finding processed food without a lot of crap in it my friends.

Food deserts exist, man. I've been there. Living in a shithole area with no shops supplying fresh foods, and no convenient transport links to such shops

You're probably just gonna go to the overpriced shop and buy processed crap, y'know?

Which is fine, just buy less of it. Calories matter. I understand what poverty is, trust me, but using poorness as an excuse to blame capitalism for your bad choices is silly. There's plenty wrong with capitalism already without blaming it for people's choices.

If processed food is the only option, how exactly do you "just buy less of it"? Eat nothing? Be serious, dude.

I've had great success losing weight and saving money at Taco Bell.

Reading the calories and reading the body's signals are key. It took awhile for me to separate the craving for flavors from the pangs of genuine hunger.

Nutrition tho...

The focus on weight, specifically, is a mistake. Health is far more than just weight. Eating junk food is bad, full stop, and will cause issues for health no matter your portions. This is the problem.

Diabetes, risk of cancer, addiction, malnutrition, even mental health problems, all are risk factors on a diet of processed food, even so-called "healthy" diets.

Man shut the fuck up, shut up.

A can of mountain dew is:

  • In America: 355 mL with 170 calories (0.49 kcal/mL)
  • In Germany: 330 mL with 95.7 calories (0.29 kcal/mL)

Feast your eyes upon this and perhaps begin to question the dumb bullshit perspective that lives in your head.

Yes Americans, you do deserve to be able to enjoy a soda without fucking your calorie intake up. Did I mention the german one uses real sugar and tastes way better, which makes it harder to drink in excess?

Crazy how many calories are in just 25 mL of soda

They use different sweeteners which have different calorie densities.

Why the fuck do they drink sugary drinks if they're fat? Soda should be a rare treat, not a substitute for water.

Where did they assert that it was a substitute for water? I missed it. I also missed your justification for the same (approximately) beverage being twice the calories in America, thus contributing to that problem that you blame on individuals. Almost like you don't have one. Weird.

You’re not sensitive to subtlety.

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Ah yes, thank you for your single data point. That'll be sure to topple this mountain of evidence otherwise.

it's not hard to

People who say this almost always refuse to believe there can be any nuance to situations beyond their own limited experience.

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Proud of consuming truckloads of food? I must have missed that memo. Alternative take - overstressed, overworked, and struggling to survive, seeking out any kind of dopamine or serotonin bandaid to make the struggle with bothering for one more day worth it. It's not something people typically WANT to do, but it can be an unhealthy coping mechanism when options are limited.

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