Letters to the Editor
KitchenGirl
Published Letters: 624 Editor's Choice: 39
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Honest question, no answer
[Read the article: Healthy, my ass]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I never eat fast food! You are so gross for ingesting it!
I am, I really am. It's disgusting, it's doing terrible things to my body and to the environment.
No wonder you’re still fat. You’ll never loose that last 5 lbs ingesting that crap even occasionally. And let’s face it – you should probably loose 10.
Tried that. I bottmed out at 116 (as an adult that is, obviously I weighed less than that growing up!), but I started looking like one of those lollipop girls. Between 122 and 126 is a good weight for me, given my height and the breadth of my shoulders.
You must have no self control. I’ll bet you’re lazy too. Maybe a stair master and some therapy would help you. Even at my fattest I was skinner then you are now!
I have moderate self-control, I am extremely lazy, and I probably could benefit from therapy although not for weight-related issues.
That feel nice? I’ll bet not.
I'm kind of indifferent, actually. Most of what you said was true!
So how come you dish it out like that to other people? You think you are the only one on the planet with feelings and hardship and a million things going on?
What did I dish out? I asked if people really didn't (or couldn't) feel the difference in how their bodies functioned (or ceased to function) after eating different types of food. The natural follow-up question to that would be, does that suggest anything about what your body needs to be healthy and vital, versus what is slowly poisoning it?
You do come off as smug and it’s wildly unattractive no matter how great you look on the outside.
Hee! I didn't say I looked great, I said I'd lost 20 pounds.
Cheers.
Right back at ya!
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No solutions here!
[Read the article: Healthy, my ass]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't get a smug vibe coming from Kitchengirl, and I happen to agree with her about feeling vastly better or worse depending on what I've eaten, but her attempt at a solution--"don't gain [excess weight] in the first place"--does absolutely nothing to help people who are already overweight.
Well, that wasn't really the point I was speaking to, so you're right it wasn't helpful at all for that purpose. I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician, and in fact I'm a lot more interested in the political- and social-science aspect of it (i.e. economic factors, factory farming and subsidies, food distribution systems, lobbying, city versus suburban infrastructure, etc.) so I don't have anything approaching an immediate solution for people who are already severely overweight. The only practical advice I can offer is from personal anecdotal experience: eat better, exercise more. Sorry, that's the best I can do.
See--it's easy to make the facile remarks, not that easy to come up with a real, applicable solution, is it? I realize I probably wouldn't be that great at it either (which is why I didn't become a nutritionist), but geez.
Well I guess you got me there, but again that's not what I was (attempting, badly apparently) to address.
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@ Deering, re nutrition education, etc.
[Read the article: Healthy, my ass]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As others have noted, nutrition education and fresh-food availability aren't as easy to come by as they should be. And if you grow up not knowing this information, it's easy to develop bad eating habits and gain weight in a short amount of time.
I find that nearly impossible to believe anymore. 30 years ago perhaps, but despite all the "fat bad-carbs good, no wait! carbs bad-fat OK, no wait! some carbs and fat good-sugar bad, no wait!..." messages, the one constant message has always been: consume fewer calories. This message has never changed, not one bit.
You can't tell me that parents feeding their children soda and Cheetos still haven't heard that the more calories you consume, the bigger you will be. This information is *everywhere*. Even the nutrition labels on the back of a pack of cookies has the most basic information possible: calories per serving, and the number of servings in the package. The information is on everything we purchase, literally in black and white.
What's the disconnect?
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The Disconnect
[Read the article: Healthy, my ass]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone here been urban, working poor?
Yeah, me. Food stamps and everything.
My parents still *never* fed me potato chips, soda, fast food, canned "prepared" foods, white bread, or any of that stuff. I never tasted any of those sorts of things until we moved out of the low-income city neighborhood that we lived in and out to the suburbs/rural part of the state with middle class families who all bought that stuff and fed it to their children.
I know one anecdote does not make anything resembling a rule or a trend or whatever, but it is certainly possible to be "urban working poor" and not shovel garbage into your children's bodies.