CNN: Memes lead to teenage obesity, lawmakers told

[PeterMP]

7 minutes ago, Destino said:

 

Exactly how does allowing teens to repeatedly make poor choices to the point of obesity teach them to make their own choices?  I’m unfamiliar with this method of instruction.  Sounds like allowing someone to learn how to drive on their own and standing by while they slam into things because on the hope that they’ll survive long enough to become self reliant.  

 

Teaching is demonstrating and holding people to the right way of doing things until they show they can do it on their own.  Let’s be honest, teenagers don’t do the grocery shopping and don’t choose the breakfast and dinner menu in their own homes.  Ha dis off parenting is probably easier though.  Who wants to argue about unhealthy snacks all the time?  Easier to just buy the snack food. 

 

1.  Just because one thing contributes to a problem, doesn't mean other things don't too.

 

It is possible for something to have more than one contributing factor.  Poor parenting and fat shaming memes can BOTH contribute to poor food choices by teens.

 

2.  Many teens have access to money independent of their parents and have access to food independent of their parents (e.g. friend's homes, school cafeteria, etc.).

[Destino]

4 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

1.  Just because one thing contributes to a problem, doesn't mean other things don't too.

 

It is possible for something to have more than one contributing factor.  Poor parenting and fat shaming memes can BOTH contribute to poor food choices by teens.

 

2.  Many teens have access to money independent of their parents and have access to food independent of their parents (e.g. friend's homes, school cafeteria, etc.).

Do you imagine that, in general, obese children age 13-16 are consuming the bulk of their calories at their fiends houses or purchasing it with their own money?  Exceptions are not rules.  

 

I’m going to also point out that childhood obesity became a problem before memes.  This entire premise is absurd and little more than a smokescreen. 

[Riggo-toni]

[PeterMP]

Just now, Destino said:

Do you imagine that, in general, obese children age 13-16 are consuming the bulk of their calories at their fiends houses or purchasing it with their own money?  Exceptions are not rules.  

 

I’m going to also point out that childhood obesity became a problem before memes.  This entire premise is absurd and little more than a smokescreen. 

 

1.  They might get most of their calories at home, but if they are getting enough excess calories away from home, it doesn't really matter.  If my kid is going to a friends house on a regular basis and getting a bunch of empty calories, and then comes home and eats a good well balanced dinner, then they are still going to end up obese.

 

2.  There's very little doubt that fat shaming people that are fat only makes the problem worse, not better.  Memes would be a small part of fat shaming in general.

[PeterMP]

5 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

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There are always going to be weak people in society.  The idea of people being logical in general is badly flawed.  Most people make most decisions very quickly (and realistically, you probably aren't an exception).  Bacteria in your gut are related to how much important neuro signalers you make.  You don't have the control that you think you do.

[Riggo#44]

[thebluefood]

See, this is why I get annoyed when people call the EU or any of its member states (including Sweden) "socialist." Not only is it patently untrue on every metric but socialists love memes. Socialists spread ideology through memes. Hell, the Flyer's terrifying (and amazing) new mascot, Gritty, has been adopted as a mascot because of memes. 

 

If nothing else convinces you that Europe's socialist cred is nothing but bunk made to scare your naive, Fox News watching uncle, then please let this be it. 

 

[Riggo#44]

9 minutes ago, thebluefood said:

See, this is why I get annoyed when people call the EU or any of its member states (including Sweden) "socialist." Not only is it patently untrue on every metric but socialists love memes. Socialists spread ideology through memes. Hell, the Flyer's terrifying (and amazing) new mascot, Gritty, has been adopted as a mascot because of memes. 

 

If nothing else convinces you that Europe's socialist cred is nothing but bunk made to scare your naive, Fox News watching uncle, then please let this be it. 

 

My Fox News watching Uncle hates memes. I'm confused. Is he socialist now? Am I? I think I need a meme to tell me what to think and feel.

[mcsluggo]

my daughters eat sugary crap all the damned time.....   and yet, there they are with their awesome slender genes.    It really puts a crimp in all my best efforts to fat-shame them into better behavior.

 

 

what is a good daddy supposed to do in this situation ???

 

 

[Hersh]

Unless there is a medical issue, it’s the parents fault if their kids are obese. Is there really a debate suggesting otherwise?

2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

1.  They might get most of their calories at home, but if they are getting enough excess calories away from home, it doesn't really matter.  If my kid is going to a friends house on a regular basis and getting a bunch of empty calories, and then comes home and eats a good well balanced dinner, then they are still going to end up obese.

 

2.  There's very little doubt that fat shaming people that are fat only makes the problem worse, not better.  Memes would be a small part of fat shaming in general.

 

Obesity doesn’t happen overnight. If a parent isn’t aware their kid is putting on excess weight, they aren’t paying attention to their kid. 

[PeterMP]

26 minutes ago, Hersh said:

Unless there is a medical issue, it’s the parents fault if their kids are obese. Is there really a debate suggesting otherwise?

 

Obesity doesn’t happen overnight. If a parent isn’t aware their kid is putting on excess weight, they aren’t paying attention to their kid. 

 

Again, in the teen years kids are transitioning to adulthood.  They have to learn to make their own decisions.  Food choices is an early place where to start.  I seriously doubt that you will find somebody in childhood development that would suggest that monitoring everything your teen eats is a good way to produce a self-reliant productive adult or to build a long term healthy relationship with your teen into adulthood.

 

And again, obesity changes people's brains and bodies, and they don't change back even if the lose weight, and the changes start well before the person is obese (see skinny fat).  A person doesn't wake up one day to find themself obese, but the things that lead to obesity in terms of causes and effects also don't happen over night.

 

Obesity itself is a medical condition.  We need to think about obesity as an addiction.  You wouldn't claim that it was only the parent's fault for having alcohol in the house if their teen turned into an alcoholic.

 

(There are 2 different issues here that are some what related:

 

1.  How people become obese?

 

2.  And helping people to quit being obese.

 

Clearly, in terms of children, parent have a lot of responsibility towards the 1st and 2nd, but I have a 12 year old that isn't obese (and is even skinny), but doesn't eat particularly well, but I'm not at all sure she's not already "skinny fat" because she also eats a lot of junk.  And she's not then already had changes to her body that aren't going to make fighting obesity in the future very hard.

 

It is also very hard and probably not a good thing  in terms of longer term development for me to police everything she eats.

 

I can lead by example based on my diet.  I can talk to her about the importance of eating well.  We can put fruit and vegetables on the table every night for dinner, but she's getting to the age where she needs to make choices too.)

[Riggo-toni]

You know, we should also do away with memes that ridicule smokers. Nicotine is an addiction, and making fun of smoking will only make teenagers smoke more to calm their nerves and deal with the embarrassment....

[PeterMP]

17 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

You know, we should also do away with memes that ridicule smokers. Nicotine is an addiction, and making fun of smoking will only make teenagers smoke more to calm their nerves and deal with the embarrassment....

 

If your objective is to help smokers stop smoking or you care about smokers (as humans) and so generally want to help smokers quit, memes ridiculing smoking are almost certainly in general counter productive.

 

And not just for smoking, but anything addictive in general.

 

If you don't care or want to see smokers keep smoking, then memes shaming are fine.

 

In general, shaming people with addiction issues is not a good way to help them recover.

[Hersh]

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that letting a kid eat like crap over and over again is somehow okay or good under the guise of “they need to learn how to make their own decisions.” That's actually a really terrible excuse to let a teenager eat anything.

 

My son already make choices about what to eat as a 4 year old. For whatever reason he doesn’t eat meat and I don’t force it on him but that doesn’t mean he gets to eat like **** for breakfast, lunch or dinner. When my kid gets older, he will continue to eat what is provided while having the opportunity to weigh in on what to eat. 

 

Btw, I don't see anyone saying that monitoring everything a teenager eats is a necessity or good for the kid. Noticing a kid is getting heavy and a parent not doing anything about it is an abdication of responsibility. A parent taking action doesn’t mean providing a strict diet, it also means getting into some of what you are talking about by understand any underlying causes of the overeating through professional help if need be. 

 

 

[Kosher Ham]

So videos are still cool...right? 

 

 

[PeterMP]

16 minutes ago, Hersh said:

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that letting a kid eat like crap over and over again is somehow okay or good under the guise of “they need to learn how to make their own decisions.” That's actually a really terrible excuse to let a teenager eat anything.

 

My son already make choices about what to eat as a 4 year old. For whatever reason he doesn’t eat meat and I don’t force it on him but that doesn’t mean he gets to eat like **** for breakfast, lunch or dinner. When my kid gets older, he will continue to eat what is provided while having the opportunity to weigh in on what to eat. 

 

Btw, I don't see anyone saying that monitoring everything a teenager eats is a necessity or good for the kid. Noticing a kid is getting heavy and a parent not doing anything about it is an abdication of responsibility. A parent taking action doesn’t mean providing a strict diet, it also means getting into some of what you are talking about by understand any underlying causes of the overeating through professional help if need be. 

 

I've never said a parent should do nothing either (heck, I've said in the context of childhood obesity, parents have a lot of the responsibility), but there is also only so much you can do as a parent.  Especially in the context of trying to raise somebody who is going be self-reliant adult.

 

My father was an alcoholic, and he also smoked for years.  Even after it became clear smoking was bad for you and my mom had stopped years before, he struggled with stopping  He had recovered as a smoker and a alcoholic by the time my younger brother was in middle school and spent the rest of his life as a recovering alcoholic.

 

My younger brother started dabbling in drugs, started with cigarettes, in his early teens.  My dad, who had personal experience with addiction and recovery as both a recovering alcoholic and an ex-smoker, tried all sorts of things.  He talked to brother, my brother was sent to addiction places, my dad was an active member of AA and tried to get him to go to similar meetings.

 

But in the end, there wasn't really anything he could do.  My brother made his choices.  It wasn't on account of a lack of effort by my parents and especially my dad to get him to do the right things.  As a parent, you do not have the control of a 14 year old that many here seem to think you do.  I don't even have the control of my 12 year old that some people seem to be suggesting that you'd have of a teen.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

3 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

My younger brother started dabbling in drugs, started with cigarettes, in his early teens.  My dad, who had personal experience with addiction and recovery as both a recovering alcoholic and an ex-smoker, tried all sorts of things.  He talked to brother, my brother was sent to addiction places, my dad was an active member of AA and tried to get him to go to similar meetings.

 

But in the end, there wasn't really anything he could do.  My brother made his choices.  It wasn't on account of a lack of effort by my parents and especially my dad to get him to do the right things.

 

Honest question here...

 

Is the addiction to eating as strong as it is with alcohol or nicotine? I only ask because your story may not be apples-to-apples. 

 

Additionally, I have a hard time believing that the majority of overweight/obese Americans are suffering from an overwhelming addiction. I think that's true for some, of course. But I also have to imagine a large number of people could simply eat better/exercise more/demonstrate more self control. 

 

I hope that doesn't come off as rude or insensitive, it just seems that too often we throw our hands in the air and excuse individuals of any type of self-improvement. 

[Hersh]

I would not lump smoking, alcohol or drug use in with teenage obesity nor compare what parent can and cannot do in those situations. 

This is about obesity and parents being more responsible for what they provide at home food wise. 

I do think one valid issue is the cost of getting any kid help and it’s another reason we need universal health with a focus on prevention.

[PeterMP]

21 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Honest question here...

 

Is the addiction to eating as strong as it is with alcohol or nicotine? I only ask because your story may not be apples-to-apples. 

 

Additionally, I have a hard time believing that the majority of overweight/obese Americans are suffering from an overwhelming addiction. I think that's true for some, of course. But I also have to imagine a large number of people could simply eat better/exercise more/demonstrate more self control. 

 

I hope that doesn't come off as rude or insensitive, it just seems that too often we throw our hands in the air and excuse individuals of any type of self-improvement. 

 

I don't know how easy it is to compare addictive things, especially from person-to-person.  I've got 5 siblings.  Only 2 people in my family (my brother and my dad) had issues with alcohol addiction so for everybody else in may family alcohol was not really addictive and that's the case for most people.  Alcohol addiction derailed my Dad's life for about a decade.  Addiction has ruined my younger brother's life (first smoking, than alcohol, and then other drugs).

 

Many people took the same attitude for alcohol that we now see for obesity.  They drank and didn't have any issues so the issue must be the self-control of the alcoholic.

 

It is clear that in obese people, the body has changed at the molecular level with respect to how it processes food and the signals it sends and receives with respect to food and hunger in the brain and other organs.  The DNA and proteins associated with the DNA in cells are changed at a molecular level (epigenetics) so that they no longer make the same proteins at the same levels or respond to the same proteins in the same ways that non-obese people so.  These changes start before the person is really obese and last for at least years afterwards even if the person loses the weight.

 

Nicotine is a little different in that large numbers of people become addicted to nicotine, but even there, my mom smoked for probably 20 years, but then stopped relatively easily.  It took my dad probably 4 or 5 years after my mom stopped smoking to stop smoking.  Addictive things affect people differently.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 minute ago, PeterMP said:

 

Many people took the same attitude for alcohol that we now see for obesity.  They drank and didn't have any issues so the issue must be the self-control of the alcoholic.

 

Good post. I see your point, but I want to zero in on that...

 

For every obese person who has an addiction, it stands to reason that there are some that do not. So, not to take anything away from those who do, but that seems to be a smaller number. That's the case with alcohol (many can drink 10 beers and not touch it again for a month, so it's that behavior of drinking 10 beers that they are responsible to control). 

 

My main point is that so many people could be living a healthier lifestyle simply by exhibiting self-control. I think we as society should be focusing on those when it comes to behavioral changes. For the ones who legitimately cannot help it, then sure, they should be seeking additional help/assistance and not held to the same standard. 

 

 

[PeterMP]

1 minute ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Good post. I see your point, but I want to zero in on that...

 

For every obese person who has an addiction, it stands to reason that there are some that do not. So, not to take anything away from those who do, but that seems to be a smaller number. That's the case with alcohol (many can drink 10 beers and not touch it again for a month, so it's that behavior of drinking 10 beers that they are responsible to control). 

 

My main point is that so many people could be living a healthier lifestyle simply by exhibiting self-control. I think we as society should be focusing on those when it comes to behavioral changes. For the ones who legitimately cannot help it, then sure, they should be seeking additional help/assistance and not held to the same standard. 

 

But, you don't get obese by losing control once a month.  I can go out to eat once a month and really over eat and eat lots of bad stuff, but I don't become obese because I eat well and exercise in between.

 

To my knowledge is that the vast majority of obese people (I'm not really well read on this so I don't want to give a percent) have real changes in their epigenetic state related to how the body (including the brain) precieve and process signals related to hunger and food and food itself as compared to non-obese people.  And again, those changes don't go away simply by losing weight.

 

And epignetics is really partly Lamarckian in nature in that those changes can be passed down to off spring.  At this point, some people are (very likely) actually inheriting those changes from their parents.

[Kosher Ham]

2 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

For the ones who legitimately cannot help it, then sure, they should be seeking additional help/assistance and not held to the same standard. 

 

Love your post...except this sentence. 

Every behavior is not a negative, or even sometimes considered positive by many. 

 

I can go a lot of ways with this one. 

Laws are created to have folks comply to standards, which may or may not be normal to them. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

8 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

But, you don't get obese by losing control once a month.  I can go out to eat once a month and really over eat and eat lots of bad stuff, but I don't become obese because I eat well and exercise in between.

 

To my knowledge is that the vast majority of obese people (I'm not really well read on this so I don't want to give a percent) have real changes in their epigenetic state related to how the body (including the brain) precieve and process signals related to hunger and food and food itself as compared to non-obese people.  And again, those changes don't go away simply by losing weight.

 

And epignetics is really partly Lamarckian in nature in that those changes can be passed down to off spring.  At this point, some people are (very likely) actually inheriting those changes from their parents.

 

Meaning that they were born with this tendency or got this way by overeating? If the former, I get it. If the latter, doesn't this put MORE emphasis on trying to prevent people from getting to this point if they are predisposed? 

[Riggo-toni]

[PeterMP]

12 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Meaning that they were born with this tendency or got this way by overeating? If the former, I get it. If the latter, doesn't this put MORE emphasis on trying to prevent people from getting to this point if they are predisposed? 

 

Likely, both are happening.  Epigenetics are changes in your DNA that can then be passed down to offspring.  Some people are likely inheriting epigenetic changes that we don't completely understand that make them more prone to becoming obese.  These changes are more likely to be passed down from people that are already obese.

 

However, it is also clear that over eating causes epigenetic changes (obese people have the epigenetic changes to pass down because their DNA has changed a s a result of their over eating).  

 

Yes, clearly best way to not to become obese is not to over eat.  Also the best way to not become addicted to alcohol is to never drink.  And the best way to not become addicted to nicotine is to never smoke.

 

Like most things, when it comes to addiction, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

However, try going around telling people they should never over eat (or drink alcohol) and see how well that works (or try making it illegal.  Try putting an extra tax of sugary beverages and see what happens), especially as people are different.  Different people are going to be able to over eat different amounts until their body starts to make the changes that really lead to obesity.  And this is something I tell my daughter about addiction in general-

 

The problem is you don't know what kind of person you are until its too late.  You might be the kind of person that is able to over eat a lot without having changes that are more likely to lead to obesity or not.  You might be a person that can drink alcohol on a regular basis without becoming addicted.   Or you might the person that gets addicted essentially after one drink.

 

The changes start happening before you are a obese.  It isn't like one day you aren't obese and don't have the changes, but another day you are obese and have changes associated with obesity.  And when and where those changes occur and how it differs from different people is not clear.