I am against fat acceptance

[TheDean]

People can be fat if they want, and we shouldn't urt their feelings because of this.

 

[Stasisesque]

I'll support fat acceptance as soon as they introduce "ugly acceptance". The majority of overweight people can lose weight with just a little willpower, the majority of ugly people can't change their appearance without spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, a lot of pain and extensive counselling.

Which one do you think is easiest? Exercising/dieting - which cost nothing, cause discomfort (but not pain of the type you need painkillers for), and requires only some strong support from friends/family/maybe a doctor. Or plastic surgery?

No. People who are genuinely nice, warm people - who happen to be unattractive to look at, get far more sympathy from me than someone who hasn't got the willpower to stop eating.

 

[KSarty]

There is a very simple solution to all this you know. Start charging by the pound for airplane tickets and such. The thought of losing money will encourage these people to stop stuffing their faces.

As to the "diets don't work" mentioned by the OP, most people take the term 'diet' incorrectly. For a lot of people that are overweight, it is due more to the quantity of food they eat, not the quality. Whether you are eating steak or lettuce, if you consume 4000 calories a day, you're gonna gain weight. These people claim diets don't work but the fact of the matter is they don't have the willpower to stop eating, no matter what it is.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Bank robbers don't usually hate banks. Embezzlers don't usually hate the client they are swindling. Burglars don't usually hate people who own things. Muggers don't usually hate the people they rob. Tax cheats don't usually hate the government.

Was with you up to the muggers, thus why I said "almost". On the other hand, "hate crime" generally refers to murder or assault, that, is always a hate crime.

If you think about if for a second, you'll realize it isn't always such. Murder for hire? Assault for the purpose of getting someone to hand over their wallet? In both cases, there's no need for hate as a motive--just greed and a willingness to engage in violence to satisfy that greed.

That's not the only formulation of what constitutes a hate crime. Another formulation is that but for the difference of ethnicity, the crime would not have been committed.

what's the real difference between that and any other crime though? If it wasn't for X the crime wouldn't have been committed. Does it honestly matter what X is? Does the reason of the crime truly matter?

Sure it does--there's a good reason for punishing those who assault police officers in the line of duty than those who assault just a random person they got into an argument with, right? It's not because police officers are better people than the rest of us--it's because of the danger to society if people go around beating up cops trying to do their job. Or if you are a burglar, and you break into my shop, we won't punish you as much as if you break into my home, even if the amount you steal is the same. Why? Because it's a lot scarier to get your house robbed than your shop.

Same thing with hate crimes--if people go around attacking others on the basis of their skin color or religion, the logic is that it has a destabilizing effect on society greater than someone who goes around attacking people for a lot of other reasons. Greater destabilizing effect=greater need for deterrence. That it's scarier to think there are people out there targeting you just for your skin color or your religion than knowing there are people out there who are violent to anyone unlucky enough to cross their path, and that the scarier something is, the more need for deterrence.

Absurd. The crime should be punished the same regardless of the motivations for it. Every crime could be considered a "hate crime" if you just found a way to weasel word the situation before the courts. Ugliness discrimination, fat discrimination, black discrimination, mexican discrimination, half-japanese discrimination, white discrimination, sex discrimination, lawyer discrimination... There's just no end to this road once we start down it.

Besides, I favor the death penalty for those who kill others for no good reason. What are you gonna do, add some "extra death" to the original amount of death for the killer just because the victim was a different color? All hate crime does is support the idea that people are NOT created equal-that the life of that black man over there is worth more (and taking it requires a harsher penalty) than my little white life.

Edit: Also, somebody compared being obese to being religious, with the idea of becoming physically fit being akin to converting to another religion.

Being fat is not a religion. That's a very slanted comparison. There is no possible benefit to being fat, whereas there are provable medical benefits to being religious (prayer has been proven to improve people's overall outlooks on life and sometimes even their physical health). Being fat is BAD for you, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. A better comparison would be smoking or drinking.

 

[Erana]

Look, I've seen people who workout six times a week, never eat processed food, and are still overweight. And when I say workout, they work harder than I do. Heavier weights, with more vigor, and whenever I see them, eat they eat less than I do. Now, I don't have the best metabolism, but while I'm not obese and stuck at this weight, others are and are stuck at that weight. If there's going to be any sort of hoo-haa about obesity, it should be about effort.
It really isn't fair that some of the guys at the coffee shop can eat three doughnuts, two brownies, and a couple of cups of coffee for breakfast while looking borderline malnourished.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I know that discriminating against the few who are legitimately fat is wrong but I would rather that than give the majority of fat people a false belief that their condition is not destroying their body.

Do you agree that fat acceptance is wrong or am I discriminating?

If you work out a lot and eat healthy to stay in shape I will say that your opinion is fine.

If you don't have to work hard to be skinny, you have a high metabolism and are a lucky mother fucker, and that you holding someones weight against them is bullshit because YOU get a free ride.

That's how I feel about the issue.

 

[KSarty]

I know that discriminating against the few who are legitimately fat is wrong but I would rather that than give the majority of fat people a false belief that their condition is not destroying their body.

Do you agree that fat acceptance is wrong or am I discriminating?

I stay pretty thin without really trying, but I don't really eat that much. I only have 2 meals a day, and I stop eating when I get full. When people I eat lunch with at work always look at me weird when I leave half a plate full of food, I just tell them that I stop eating when I'm full, and they all tell me they wish they could do that. What's stopping them? People force feed themselves because of some ridiculous notion that you have to clean your plate, even when standard restaurant portions are severely oversized for the most part.
If you work out a lot and eat healthy to stay in shape I will say that your opinion is fine.

If you don't have to work hard to be skinny, you have a high metabolism and are a lucky mother fucker, and that you holding someones weight against them is bullshit because YOU get a free ride.

That's how I feel about the issue.

I stay pretty thin without really trying, but going back to my original post, I don't really eat that much. I only eat 2 meals a day and when people at work look at me weird for leaving half of my plate untouched I tell them that I stop eating when I'm full. They tell me they wish they could do that. So what's stopping them? Most people force feed themselves past their breaking point either because of some ridiculous notion that you have to clean your plate or because they have no willpower. Most of those people will become overweight. It doesn't help that most restaurant portions are over-sized nowadays.

 

[CommandoUK]

wow, i cant belive this post, its just ridiculous. im a big guy myself, and just because im big doesnt make me any less human at all! i think its pathetic that some people judge from what they see on the outside rather than getting to know that person on the inside, like people say 'Dont judge a book by its cover'.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Gender selection: Illegal. For a country so populated with religious fundamentalists Americans don't half like playing God.

Weight discrimination: Meh, sometimes appropriate sometimes necesessary sometimes not. It all depends on context. Would you hire a fat dude as Lifeguard?
"I'm sorry madam, your son drowned because I got out of breath before I reached the waters edge and had to sit down, it's not my fault, it's glandular,"

Or for that matter a Policeman, soldier, courier etc.

But then "You can't work at this library, you're fat," doesn't hold much weight as an argument.

 

[beddo]

Fat acceptance is an anti discrimination movement aimed at creating laws that punish people for discriminating against the overweight, I am completely against this.

Advocates of fat acceptance protest that some fat people are born fat and can not change their overweight appearance. I feel that they are using this as a scapegoat; the percentage of the population that is overweight for their genes is nowhere near the percentage of the obese that are fat because they eat unhealthy or don't exercise.

They also claim that diets don't work (which I agree) and state that nobody that goes under a diet for five years will come out healthier while fat discrimination originates from the weight loss companies. I can sympathise that these people have tried and failed many diets but to be a member of their organisation you do not need any proof that your weight is the result of genes and not a lack of exercise and poor eating. I believe that these people are demonizing the weight loss industry without taking the alternative of five years of healthy eating and regular exercise.

As soon as the fat acceptance movement makes it compulsory that members must prove that they can not lose weight I will give them credibility; but until then I believe that many disheartened obese people will use this as an excuse after they find that they don't have the willpower for regular exercise, after all a lack of will power is why so many people are obese in the first place.

I know that discriminating against the few who are legitimately fat is wrong but I would rather that than give the majority of fat people a false belief that their condition is not destroying their body.

Do you agree that fat acceptance is wrong or am I discriminating?

You're likely bordering on the discrimination. Your views suggest that you simply don't advocate the view of a group, this in itself is not discrimination. However, proposing a negative view on someone merely because of their size without respect of other factors may be considered discrimination.

I don't believe it is acceptable to discriminate in certain ways based on a person's weight but I think it should be frowned upon not made illegal. I mean things like negative behaviour, talking down to them, treating overweight people as second class, that is unacceptable behaviour.

I can think of many instances where a person's weight should be counted against them. Health insurance for example. Also, medical treatment. If a person requires an entire Fire Brigade to move them out of their house they are putting an unfair strain on scarce public resources. However, that doesn't mean that they don't have a right to be treated, if we start denying treatment on time and effort required, well, that's a slippery slope, one that we have already started on no-less. I don't think that all health authorities should be required to supply 'super-sized' medical equipment to deal with the minority.

What needs to be done is that people who are overweight need to be encouraged to get back in shape. If we stopped people becoming this big in the first place we wouldn't have to provide this obscene level of care.

Now for something completely different...

Sex selection where a mother chooses the gender of their child is allowed in the U.S and banned in Australia. The Australian government has banned it on the grounds of avoiding a disproportionate population such as the case of China. Advocates of sex selection believe that it is a personal freedom the government is robbing from them.

There are also extreme cases where mothers would end up with eight children before they got the gender they wanted or would abort their child because they were of the wrong gender. The other side of these cases is that some mothers believe that they want a gender for their child but when they receive the wrong gender find that they are happy regardless and managed to avoid paying thousands of dollars for gender selection.

So should gender selection be legal or banned?

Gender selection should be banned. It is simply unethical but also illogical for a number of reasons.

As you mentioned in the case of China, if you let a society select the gender then you can have a population crisis; too many of one gender will not only distort social balances and the natural population growth but will also upset the balance of society leading to potential unrest. The same can be seen in India where males are regarded as more valuable than females.

We can note that this occurs in particularly undeveloped societies and cultures without the intervention of science. The fact that males are regarded with more worth than females has led these cultures to essentially reap what they have sowed.

In Western societies gender selection would likely be more balanced but this is by no means guaranteed. Western society that is becoming less based on religion and could swing either way in future hence the Australian government's argument is valid, though it does not address the cases of selective abortion.

To address why inevitable selective abortion does not justify gender selection we can look at simple ethics. Just because something bad is going on doesn't mean it's okay to provide a workaround to it that is less damaging but has the same overall effect. The same could be said of euthanasia, just because someone is going to die anyway doesn't mean we have the right to intervene(Please note that I understand euthanasia is a completely different and complex issue and am not taking a side on that debate).

A further point is that no-one has the right to have children. While no-one has the right to stop a person having children (unless under some unusual case where that person always aborts them or would persistently put their children at risk - though to my knowledge action like this has never been taken in today's society) no-one has the absolute right to become a parent.

 

[Anaphyis]

Depends on the definition of discrimination. As for job selection, perhaps. There are some fat people who can do heavy physical work, however most cannot. But then again, these wouldn't apply for this job in the first place.

As for your personal targets for bullying: Get a life and fuck off. Seriously. I can understand the resentments against smokers - as long it's not extremist. However, some idiots seem to have such a unsatisfying, dull life that they have to pick some random group - be it fat people, gays, blacks, jews, muslims, woman etc. - to throw their hate mongering (or even worse, their misplaced good intentions) at them regardless the fact that these people and what they do have no effect on your life at all. Someone is currently sitting at BK, eating their weight in burgers. So what?

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

The problem with most these issues, is that it's not a matter of personal habits that only affect you. Second hand smoking kills a lot. I agree with the smoking ban in most cases. People might still have unhealthy habits, but government can make these habits less likely to become epidemics.

I take it you are american? There's a big cultural difference in the way most americans see their government, and how Europeans see theirs. All I can say, is that I have a healthy skeptic towards the legislators, but the state as such, I regard as something that helps me realize my goals, rather than hold me back.

Accountability can only be measured by so much. If I smoke in your face, fine... clearly I am making your clothes stink and your life hell.. but in an open space, I see no harm. However, I don't think it's the government's place to enact a higher cigarette tax in order to make the potential for me to smoke in your face prohibitive.

As an American I view government as a bloated beauracracy that is incapable of dealing with the dynamic social changes and demands of its people. Judging by Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy's portrayal of Vogons, many Europeans feel that way about their government as well.

Myopic attempts at social manipulation at the hands of committees, councils, and chambers by way of political lobbyists and handouts are never going to result in anything efficient or fully effective.

Here in the midwest, (i'm from California originally) Restraunts operate fine with both smoking and non-smoking sections appealing to both customers. Sure, some of them have shit vent systems and smell like ass but I obviously don't go to those trash dives and subsequentlly they lose out on my business. Hell, just let the wants of the people define their reality... I'm sure you would argue that the employees suffer at the hands of these smokers well, again. If the ventilation system is shit then yes. If not than then the exposure is minimal. Hell, at my brothers bar your more apt to come out smelling like fried food than cigarettes.

All that said, I don't get cigarettes. Nobody needs a cigarette that badly and nobody has ever been so addicted that they sucked a dick for a cigarette. So continuity wise, I don't want laws enacted but as a selfish person.. fuck smokers because I'm not one. Oh, I'm also for insurance companies raising premiums on unhealthy people.

 

[Zersy]

Fat acceptance is an anti discrimination movement aimed at creating laws that punish people for discriminating against the overweight, I am completely against this.

Advocates of fat acceptance protest that some fat people are born fat and can not change their overweight appearance. I feel that they are using this as a scapegoat; the percentage of the population that is overweight for their genes is nowhere near the percentage of the obese that are fat because they eat unhealthy or don't exercise.

They also claim that diets don't work (which I agree) and state that nobody that goes under a diet for five years will come out healthier while fat discrimination originates from the weight loss companies. I can sympathise that these people have tried and failed many diets but to be a member of their organisation you do not need any proof that your weight is the result of genes and not a lack of exercise and poor eating. I believe that these people are demonizing the weight loss industry without taking the alternative of five years of healthy eating and regular exercise.

As soon as the fat acceptance movement makes it compulsory that members must prove that they can not lose weight I will give them credibility; but until then I believe that many disheartened obese people will use this as an excuse after they find that they don't have the willpower for regular exercise, after all a lack of will power is why so many people are obese in the first place.

I know that discriminating against the few who are legitimately fat is wrong but I would rather that than give the majority of fat people a false belief that their condition is not destroying their body.

Do you agree that fat acceptance is wrong or am I discriminating?

Now for something completely different...

Sex selection where a mother chooses the gender of their child is allowed in the U.S and banned in Australia. The Australian government has banned it on the grounds of avoiding a disproportionate population such as the case of China. Advocates of sex selection believe that it is a personal freedom the government is robbing from them.

There are also extreme cases where mothers would end up with eight children before they got the gender they wanted or would abort their child because they were of the wrong gender. The other side of these cases is that some mothers believe that they want a gender for their child but when they receive the wrong gender find that they are happy regardless and managed to avoid paying thousands of dollars for gender selection.

So should gender selection be legal or banned?

my view if people are fat they should accept they are fat

 

[Uskis]

Accountability can only be measured by so much. If I smoke in your face, fine... clearly I am making your clothes stink and your life hell.. but in an open space, I see no harm. However, I don't think it's the government's place to enact a higher cigarette tax in order to make the potential for me to smoke in your face prohibitive.

As an American I view government as a bloated beauracracy that is incapable of dealing with the dynamic social changes and demands of its people. Judging by Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy's portrayal of Vogons, many Europeans feel that way about their government as well.

Myopic attempts at social manipulation at the hands of committees, councils, and chambers by way of political lobbyists and handouts are never going to result in anything efficient or fully effective.

Here in the midwest, (i'm from California originally) Restraunts operate fine with both smoking and non-smoking sections appealing to both customers. Sure, some of them have shit vent systems and smell like ass but I obviously don't go to those trash dives and subsequentlly they lose out on my business. Hell, just let the wants of the people define their reality... I'm sure you would argue that the employees suffer at the hands of these smokers well, again. If the ventilation system is shit then yes. If not than then the exposure is minimal. Hell, at my brothers bar your more apt to come out smelling like fried food than cigarettes.

All that said, I don't get cigarettes. Nobody needs a cigarette that badly and nobody has ever been so addicted that they sucked a dick for a cigarette. So continuity wise, I don't want laws enacted but as a selfish person.. fuck smokers because I'm not one. Oh, I'm also for insurance companies raising premiums on unhealthy people.

On the government issue:
When I say government, I probably should say state, since I disagree with my current administration. I think a lot of people in Europa has a lot against the EU, which is more like the Vogon bureaucracy . But I don't think you'll find the same hate towards the states inside the european nations as such. I can't back it with statistics, but I'm pretty certain people have a pretty good relation to the state in Europa, or here in Scandinavia at least.

I used to have similar views on lobbyist, but you got to realize: the politicians can't see all problems in society. If there's a problem only known to say some environmentalist groups, they become lobbyist in order to get attention towards an issue the people who work for the minister have overlooked.
That said, I know lobbyism is a problem, and beleive there should be more regulations on it
On the smoking issue:
Smoking is an addiction, and while it's not so expensive and all consuming that you need to suck dicks on the subway, it is something you just can't quit like that. I know a lot of people who smokes. It's a part of who they are, and even if some of them try to stop, they usually get sucked back in.

Second hand smoke is pretty dangerous, and not just if you blow it directly into my face. If you've ever been to an bar, where there's a lot of smokers, you know it can get suffocating. smoking bans are created (in my country at least) to prevent employees at bars from being gassed by customers 8 or more hours straight.

 

[poleboy]

I saw a show on BBC Food about a British famliy that was really fat, so they went on a diet... in America.

The world's gone mad.