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From:  "Dre de Man" <dredeman@y...>
"Dre de Man" <dredeman@y...>
Date:  Tue Feb 6, 2001  5:42 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] female morphology, weight etc


Judy wrote:
[...]Women are expected to eat and exercise in a way that makes them lose their
periods, girls do not develop breasts, young women in their twenties have
advanced osteoporosis, and they often suppress their natural appetites with
cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.[...]

Dear Judy and co vocalisters,

Judy, aren't you exaggerating a bit?

Everybody knows there are much much more women (and men!) unhealthy because
they eat too much, than those who suffer from underweight. Besides: experiments
with animals have shown, that those who are underweighed, live much longer.

Obesitas *is* a huge health problem in the US, and it is growing fast. In
Europe it's becoming a problem as well, since most Europeans are so stupid to
copy the American way of life, and especially the bad things from it, like
pop-music, coca-cola, hamburgers and worst of all: those utterly ridiculous
movies and series made in Hollywood.
Be critical and watch tv one evening while thinking how it influences you and
your children, not only the programs but also the commercials, and you'll see
where people are being stimulated to eat continuously and to be thin at the
same time.

The reason why weight is out of control of large groups of people, is cultural
and psychological rather than medical for the vast majority of people. If you
see food all the time, it is very difficult not to get hungry. If you see and
hear commercials about food all the time, the same applies. If you live in a
town with people that do have non-ideal eating habits, it will affect you. Not
to mention what happens if you have been raised, thinking that you have to eat
'enough' to stay healthy or grow.
Nobody has to teach their children to eat; when they're hungry, they'll eat,
and at the end they'll always eat enough, mostly more than enough. But the fear
that children (and grown ups) don't eat enough, is related to the fact that
people associate being thin with being ill. The opposite is true of course. But
people see other people getting thinner when they are ill, and make the
association thin = ill. Thus they are confusing cause and consequence.
Furthermore: it is quite normal for many girls and boys between 10-15 to be
thin, almost skinny: they're growing, and that shows normally. If you want
children between 10-15 to look more round, you're helping them to get a weight
problem later. You don't have to eat much to get overweighed. You just have to
continue eating slightly too much over a long period of time, let's say ten
years, from 15-25. Then you've got a problem: to get rid of that in a normal
way, is very difficult and will take a long time, and from what I have
understood, there are no miracle diets.
An even bigger problem is, that many people have learned to see food as some
kind of reward. If you have been raised like that, it is hard to get rid of it.
It even happens that when people feel bad about their weight, they eat to make
themselves feel better: a perfect viscous circle!

Although the Body Mass Index is nice thing, everybody can see what is over- and
under weight: no matter what evolution did to us, people don't come with
accessories like swimming belts, nor is there a skeleton-only variant of the
human race.

Having a couple of pounds too many is not a problem, but being 20% or more
overweighed is. I hate to see the increasing amount of people growing up to
become unhappy, overweighed people, trapped between the wish to be thin and
eating habits they cannot change anymore. I don't say all overweighed people
are unhappy. If you cannot change your weight, for whatever reason, you'd
better accept it: you'll see that other people will accept it too. But in this
tv-influenced society many people are more or less bound to be both obese and
unhappy about it. And that is a small tragedy.

Best greetings,

Dré





  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
9112 Re: female morphology, weight etc Tako Oda   Tue  2/6/2001   3 KB
9115 Weight Control thomas mark montgomery   Tue  2/6/2001   5 KB
9119 Re: female morphology, weight etc Laura Sharp   Tue  2/6/2001   2 KB

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