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A Rant About Diet Privilege
May. 21st, 2010 04:39 pmI was reading http://worldmysteries9.blogspot.com/2010/05/harmful-drinks-in-america.html and it's all about how much sugar and calories are in popular drink items that we probably don't think about. I found it interesting, as someone who ingests a LOT of sugar on a regular basis and will probably develop adult-onset diabetes because of it, but as someone who is not all that concerned about weight gain, the lack of other information wasn't a problem. Sometimes, you can really only tackle one problem area at a time.
But then I started reading the comments, and they just pissed me off. Most of the were complaints that it was only a comparison of sugar, not of fat or whatever other problem that individual has with foods - yes, we know that, the author said so at the beginning, and not all health or dietary problems have to do with eating fat. Quite a few of them were admonishes for anyone who dares to drink anything other than water - ever. More than I'd like to see were insults about all Americans being fat and how Europeans understand diet better & are therefore not fat. And a few called for the legal system to intervene making these death-foods illegal for our own good.
I had quite a few things to say about all this, and I tried to post, but ran into some problems. First, it told me my post was too long (who, me?). Then it let me post the first half but gave me a vague "your request could not be completed" error when I tried to post the second half. I waited between postings, and I waited before hitting submit in case there was some 'bot using time as the sole criteria for determining auto-form-fillers. No dice.
So I'm posting my entire answer here for safe-keeping. Eventually I'll try to post the second half again, but in case it never gets posted, I'll have it here:
First of all, to the people who say "Why offer alternatives? Just drink water!"
Because the reason why people drink this stuff is because they LIKE it. We want something that tastes *like this* or does whatever else the drink is supposed to do (like alcohol or caffeine), it's not because we're dehydrated.
If you want people to give up something they like doing, you have to suggest something they will like at least enough to make the substitution worth it. Trading water for a mocha latte isn't going to cut it (not to mention the caffeine withdrawal & the belief that they "need" the caffeine to stay awake - that's a whole other topic).
Second, to the people who think this should be illegal:
The whole point of living in a supposedly free society is so that other people can't arbitrarily decide for you what you will and won't be allowed to do to yourself. It's absurd to make this illegal just because some people over-do it. I am well below the obesity range, no matter what system you use, I have low blood pressure, low cholesterol, good muscle tone ... basically, I'm about as healthy as you get. And I eat junk food regularly because I like it. I am aware of my individual nutritional needs & I moderate as required by my own dietary requirements, not yours. I was lucky enough to have been born with good genetics, and your inability to process sugars the same way I do does not give you the right to dictate to me how I should eat and what foods I should choose.
I can't process vegetable protein, so I require a diet high in meat. How would you like it if I made a law that said you had to eat as much meat as I do simply because that's the diet that works for me so it MUST be right for everyone? Clearly meat is good for me, and vegetarians often have difficulties getting the correct amount of protein and fats, so vegetarianism should be outlawed because it's so dangerous! Right?
Humans evolved though times of scarcity which created a design to want to find as many calories as possible to survive. But with the abundance of calories in a First World society and not enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories, people find it harder to be "healthy". BTW, a recent study showed that we, as a species, are not actually less active than our tribal ancestors - we just consume more calories, and being "fat" is no longer necessary for survival, which once overruled the other health problems associated with obesity. "Survival", in evolutionary terms, doesn't mean "most efficient", it means "good enough".
The real problem is that foods with higher calories but lower nutritional value & lifestyles not conducive to enough physical activity to balance out the calories are more readily available, while the lower-calorie/high nutritional value foods are more expensive and not as easy to find (neither is the time for exercise). When you have only $5 in your pocket and you're on your way to your minimum wage job standing around and not moving, you are more likely to drive through the Starbucks window on the corner than to find a Farmer's Market on the way with a filling-yet-affordable breakfast item, and to pick up McDonalds or a pizza after your 10 hour day that is required to make just enough money to survive only to come home and find more work to be done with a household of people depending on you and not enough people contributing (kids are liabilities in the First World, not assets to contribute to the labor and fewer adults are invested in the family's survival than in tribal societies too) so there's no time to cook that healthy meal full of fresh vegetables and lean meats that you can't afford even if you did have time.
If you really want to work on the obesity problem, don't insult all Americans (which is a stereotype and not even true), and don't revoke people's freedoms to suit your own biology that doesn't match everyone else's. Find solutions to the economic problems that make these "empty calorie" foods so much cheaper, and find ways to make the "healthy" foods more appealing to our limbic systems that thinks "sweet" and "fatty" are the primary criteria for survival.
**UPDATE** grumble I finally gave up re-submitting and tried posting under "name & URL" instead of my open ID (LJ in this case), which is how I posted the first half. This time it went through. It should go through moderation soon and show up on the blog site.
But then I started reading the comments, and they just pissed me off. Most of the were complaints that it was only a comparison of sugar, not of fat or whatever other problem that individual has with foods - yes, we know that, the author said so at the beginning, and not all health or dietary problems have to do with eating fat. Quite a few of them were admonishes for anyone who dares to drink anything other than water - ever. More than I'd like to see were insults about all Americans being fat and how Europeans understand diet better & are therefore not fat. And a few called for the legal system to intervene making these death-foods illegal for our own good.
I had quite a few things to say about all this, and I tried to post, but ran into some problems. First, it told me my post was too long (who, me?). Then it let me post the first half but gave me a vague "your request could not be completed" error when I tried to post the second half. I waited between postings, and I waited before hitting submit in case there was some 'bot using time as the sole criteria for determining auto-form-fillers. No dice.
So I'm posting my entire answer here for safe-keeping. Eventually I'll try to post the second half again, but in case it never gets posted, I'll have it here:
First of all, to the people who say "Why offer alternatives? Just drink water!"
Because the reason why people drink this stuff is because they LIKE it. We want something that tastes *like this* or does whatever else the drink is supposed to do (like alcohol or caffeine), it's not because we're dehydrated.
If you want people to give up something they like doing, you have to suggest something they will like at least enough to make the substitution worth it. Trading water for a mocha latte isn't going to cut it (not to mention the caffeine withdrawal & the belief that they "need" the caffeine to stay awake - that's a whole other topic).
Second, to the people who think this should be illegal:
The whole point of living in a supposedly free society is so that other people can't arbitrarily decide for you what you will and won't be allowed to do to yourself. It's absurd to make this illegal just because some people over-do it. I am well below the obesity range, no matter what system you use, I have low blood pressure, low cholesterol, good muscle tone ... basically, I'm about as healthy as you get. And I eat junk food regularly because I like it. I am aware of my individual nutritional needs & I moderate as required by my own dietary requirements, not yours. I was lucky enough to have been born with good genetics, and your inability to process sugars the same way I do does not give you the right to dictate to me how I should eat and what foods I should choose.
I can't process vegetable protein, so I require a diet high in meat. How would you like it if I made a law that said you had to eat as much meat as I do simply because that's the diet that works for me so it MUST be right for everyone? Clearly meat is good for me, and vegetarians often have difficulties getting the correct amount of protein and fats, so vegetarianism should be outlawed because it's so dangerous! Right?
Humans evolved though times of scarcity which created a design to want to find as many calories as possible to survive. But with the abundance of calories in a First World society and not enough physical activity to burn off the extra calories, people find it harder to be "healthy". BTW, a recent study showed that we, as a species, are not actually less active than our tribal ancestors - we just consume more calories, and being "fat" is no longer necessary for survival, which once overruled the other health problems associated with obesity. "Survival", in evolutionary terms, doesn't mean "most efficient", it means "good enough".
The real problem is that foods with higher calories but lower nutritional value & lifestyles not conducive to enough physical activity to balance out the calories are more readily available, while the lower-calorie/high nutritional value foods are more expensive and not as easy to find (neither is the time for exercise). When you have only $5 in your pocket and you're on your way to your minimum wage job standing around and not moving, you are more likely to drive through the Starbucks window on the corner than to find a Farmer's Market on the way with a filling-yet-affordable breakfast item, and to pick up McDonalds or a pizza after your 10 hour day that is required to make just enough money to survive only to come home and find more work to be done with a household of people depending on you and not enough people contributing (kids are liabilities in the First World, not assets to contribute to the labor and fewer adults are invested in the family's survival than in tribal societies too) so there's no time to cook that healthy meal full of fresh vegetables and lean meats that you can't afford even if you did have time.
If you really want to work on the obesity problem, don't insult all Americans (which is a stereotype and not even true), and don't revoke people's freedoms to suit your own biology that doesn't match everyone else's. Find solutions to the economic problems that make these "empty calorie" foods so much cheaper, and find ways to make the "healthy" foods more appealing to our limbic systems that thinks "sweet" and "fatty" are the primary criteria for survival.
**UPDATE** grumble I finally gave up re-submitting and tried posting under "name & URL" instead of my open ID (LJ in this case), which is how I posted the first half. This time it went through. It should go through moderation soon and show up on the blog site.
