Letters to the Editor
healthyskeptic
Published Letters: 671 Editor's Choice: 14
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-- Cleopatra
[Read the article: Plus size, minus a few years]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact is 2/3 of America is overweight, 1/3 is obese, and the disease statistics are all weight related.
You can stick your head in the sand, and make analogies like the smoker who lived to be 90, but the fact is obesity is unhealthy.
If you're doing that to your kids, failing to encourage them to be healthy and adjust to their bodies exercise and nutritional needs to maintain a healthy BMI, perhaps to compensate for your own inability to be more healthy, then you're not a very good parent.
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-- Cleopatra
[Read the article: Plus size, minus a few years]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But maintaining a certain weight is more a matter of luck than most people want to admit.
Complete bullshit. "Luck" accounts for exactly zero percent of a person's body weight.
Personal choice is the key. Personal choice has to be made in relation to one's natural strengths and weaknesses, which are based on environment, genes, and so on.
If you look at photos of Pacific islanders a century ago, they were all lean muscular. Now? One of the most obese populations with highest rates of diabetes, joint problems, heart disease, etc. Why? Because genetically they're not well suited to modern living and diets. It's literally killing them. the only way out for them and other people prone to obesity, is to adopt a diet and exercise regime which meets their needs, to maintain a healthy BMI.
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-- brightstar65
[Read the article: Bouncy breasts seek better bras]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]more material below the breasts, would help to put less pressure on any single part of the bodice
Nope. If it was padding, it would just act as a spring between the mass of the breast and the chest, which is another way of saying compression, and going to be hot and sweaty. If it was structural and semi-rigid, you're back to the cone tit.
some strong wide vertical straps from over the shoulders should help with vertical bounce
Wide straps? Already done. Regardless, without any structural elements to the bra, it's still going to deform, and then the straps and cup act as compressors again.
but the more material you add, make it more of a body, the less any single point has to take
Still wrong. The cup material doesn't levitate. It only transfers the forces, to straps. Which is where the uncomfortable compression comes into play again.
To put it in perspective, if you make the straps maximally wide, basically an entire upper body shirt, you get maybe 4 square feet of area to disperse pressure. If a woman is large and has 10lbs+ of breast, which is being momentarily accelerated to 30+ lbs, that shirt, and more importantly the flesh underneath it, has to bear 7-8 lbs pressure per square foot, comfortably, on each step jogging. And that's only if it's perfectly distributed. In reality any elastic design will have cinch points, especially on tops of shoulders and around chest and under arms, which can get up to 20+lbs square foot, on every step. multiply that by a 30 minute jog, and soreness is inevitable.
And regardless, internal mass will still bounce, no matter how good the bra, straining internal connective tissues, and causing soreness.
There is a reason we have bones and ligaments. They support soft flesh. 10+ lbs of breast just can't jog without getting sore. It would require bones in the breast to anchor the weight, or a lot of ligaments.
That's why with breast augmentation surgery they add extra support for the additional mass, by anchoring it internally to the ribcage and wrapping it partially in muscles. Ironically, lb for lb, fakies properly done are superior to fat for athleticism and soreness.
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alara, factually challenged.
[Read the article: Greening the mommy wars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hate to break it to the women's studies grads, but birth rates declined in developing nations and population started to level with the industrial revolution and the move away from agrarian lifestyles. Complimenting that was increases in scientifically based medicine which reduced infant mortality.
Education and birth control helps, certainly. Especialy in the 3rd world where resources are scarce and poverty is rampant. But it hasn't been the primary driver of population control and lower birth rates in the developed world.
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-- Cleopatra
[Read the article: Plus size, minus a few years]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, I find it difficult to care about you personally, because you sound like a willfully stupid person without redeeming qualities.
But in regards to the general health epidemic, yes I do care about what we're doing to all these overweight and obese kids, adults, and the culture overall.
I've known people who've died from obesity related illness. One close friend was obese his whole life, a round happy guy sometimes, but suffered from chronic health problems and depression. Fat is hormonally active and often contributes to thyroid and metabolic problems, which also lead to depression. He died a horribly long and painful death of colon cancer and lost over a hundred lbs in the process. By the end he couldn't keep any food down.
I currently have obese friends who don't exercise enough and suffer chronic health problems and use off the shelf excuses. Basically, they don't really try. Or of they do, its a fad diet, but not a serious long term commitment.
I have a neighbor who is morbidly obese, and almost a shut it. She's miserable. She even literally smells bad. And her car is still filled with Burger King bags. She has a seriously unhealthy dietary addiction.
I've seen people let themselves go, thinking it's ok because everybody is big. And then I've seen some come back from the doctor pale faced, realizing how they're killing themselves, and wake up, and start getting in shape.
Parents should be educating kids to the dangers of obesity even more than drug and alcohol addiction. As a health epidemics, drug and alcohol addiction, don't even come close to killing the numbers of obesity.
I'm not trying to demonize fat people. But nor should we pretend it's not a serious, morbid, disease that needs addressing.
And as BR points out, obese people are in fact dropping like flies. Only to make matters worse, it usually includes many years of suffering through debilitating disease, shortness of breath, depression, joint pains, cancers, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, etc.