My opinion on obesity:

Laziness.

At one time, I weighed 230 lbs.

I was fat. Point blank.

I changed the way I ate (no diet)
and began working out.

That was 16 years ago. I still
maintain a weight of 170-175 lbs.

Trying to blame a virus for being obese
is key to a lot of problems in our world.

Blame everything, except the source.

Regards,
Lex

I wonder if a virus which causes people to gain weight would be an advantage in times of starvation?

IOW, if eating the same amount of calories would cause the person to gain weight after being infected, then presumably, if their calorie intake dropped, they'd live off their stored fat longer.

Eventually everyone would lose weight as calories dropped, but in survival situations, an infected person could conceivably live longer.

This is the same deal as blaming Satan for the worlds evils or Cursing God for the worlds failings. Humans have an innate need to blame everything except themselves, for the things they do to themselves.

I'm with Lexion on this one. While there are exceptions to the rule, those exceptions being medical conditions such as hypothyroidism, for the most part people are fat because they are lazy and don't know how to eat right.

I've been overweight before, and it was during a time in my life when I didn't exercise and ate at least two HUGE helpings of everything at every meal. I stopped over-eating and low and behold I lost the weight I needed to lose. I still don't exercise, but I don't over-eat and have maintained a healthy body weight for at least 6 years now.

The problem we have in America is that we'd rather blame someone or something else for all our troubles instead of owning up to the fact that we make ourselves fat. No one holds a gun to our heads and makes us eat that third quarter-pounder with cheese from McDonald's or that second piece of triple-chocolate-fudge cake. We do that on our own, but we'd rather blame it on McDonald's or the cake maker or a disease and say that's why we're fat rather than admit that we eat to much and spend too much time staring at computer and tv screens.

Actually, I think that people try to make it complex when it's really quite simple. There are some cases of obesity that are caused by medical conditions (something I stated in my original post) however, for the most part it's one form of laziness or another that causes a lot of the obesity in America. Everyone has a fit over children in America being obese, but look at what they do each day. They sit and watch tv, play video games, play on the computer, etc. They aren't typically running around outside anymore. They are being lazy.

When I was a child we didn't have a computer, all the cartoons went off around 10am and I didn't like soap operas, and when we finally did buy a game system I was too busy playing outside to mess with it. That's the difference in 20 years. The few times I did try to stay inside all day, my mom would send me outside to play with orders not to come back in the house except to use the bathroom, get a drink, or if I was bleeding. Anything else was an unacceptable excuse to just lay around all day and she wouldn't allow it. When my own child gets a bit older, he will be sent outside to play in the yard. He's only four right now and I'm not always able to take him out for an extended length of time every day, but in a few years when he's old enough to play outside without constant supervision his hind-end will be outside, not inside watching tv.

When I was little, my mom and dad had jobs that required physical labor and when they got home they were either working around the house or cooking from scratch. Up until recently I had a job that required physical labor, but I hate to cook especially from scratch. So the bit of extra weight I have from time to time is a result of my being too lazy to go to the store, buy ingredients, and then come home and cook my meal from scratch as opposed to spending five minutes max in line at a fast food place or buying boxed or frozen meals which take half the time to cook.

As I've said before, there are always exceptions to the rule and there are people who are obese due to reasons they can't control. But to say that obesity is a complex issue is just ridiculous IMHO. Even those who do have a medical condition, except in extreme circumstances, are capable of losing at least some of the weight. Maybe not all of it, but certainly some of it. With all the diets, exercises, surgeries, etc., that are available they have options. Obesity is only a problem if you let it become one and don't even attempt to prevent it or reverse it. And again I will say, nobody holds a gun to our heads and forces us to eat junk food or to eat fast-food. We choose to do so.

Originally posted by PPLwakeUP

1.They will need more money to study cause it´s important 90Million people in the USA are obese.

So what? we American are rich? what is wrong we fat?

Fat means we eat more than you do, we have more money to buy food than you do!.

We have all the money from Asia, Middle East we conquered.

What is the problem with FAT to you?

Hi

Fat means you eat crappier food then I do.
My woman makes me healthy food that´s why I ain´t fat and I have good sport at night as excersice if you get the clue.

Add something to teh topic instead of attacking me i just post news taht was on BBC and came from your universities.
read the source.

Nando out!

[edit on 8/24/2007 by PPLwakeUP]

If it's wide spread infecting people or not we can't ignore, societies' contribution to the problem.

Naturally the body wants to gain fat incase of it being starved. I'm not really for belief on the virus, as much as that people's bodies are all different, some being prone to obesity. That doesn't mean it has to be a virus! Even being so, we could work around it like other viruses right? Eat right and exercise, then it will probably cause it to not flourish. That or possibly make non dormant.

In 1986 the US Navy decided that it needed to get rid of people in order to save money. It would have been fairly easy to just not let some of it's junior enlisted people re-enlist, but somebody had an idea. Why get rid of the junior enlisted when we can get rid of some of the senior enlisted. This would save not only their salaries, but we wouldn't have to pay their pensions as well. "How do we do that?" someone asked, "Easy. We change the body fat standards and give them an impossible time limit to comply. If they don't comply we release them from service for medical reasons.". That is exactly what happened. I know I was caught up in it.

Government research funding was mentioned earlier. How do they decide what research to fund? Easy. They fund the issues that get the most attention or affect the most people. If your particular field of study doesn't affect enough people, you just change the scope of your study untill it does. Is obesity a problem? Yes. Is it the problem that it is being made out to be? Probably not.

Originally posted by D.E.M.
This is the same deal as blaming Satan for the worlds evils or Cursing God for the worlds failings. Humans have an innate need to blame everything except themselves, for the things they do to themselves.

What you say is 100% true. But it could be quite possible that a real side effect of this virus is weight gain. Of course, people should still eat properly and exercise if they had this virus. However, whether or not people are lazy has no bearing on whether the virus itself causes a physical change to the body.

So if you take in the proper amount of calories for your body type (lets say 2000 calories) daily, you will not gain or lose weight. So if we are to blame a virus for obesity, it would have to "steal" part of the 2000 calories, so it would make fat...but since you are under the 2000 calorie point, wouldn't you lose weight? For this virus to make you "fat" my guess would be that you are intaking more than 2000 calories AND not exercising to burn off the extra intake. This sounds like a nice find in the data, like when they found that *most* men with prostate cancer have a specific virus in their bodies...but prostate cancer is on the rise because of better screening, better blood testing, earlier detection and more men living older (every man will get prostate cancer if they live long enough).

harddrive21,

Good points, however, I think a little clarification is in order. Adenoviruses 36 and 37 specifically work to increase the amount fat stored in the body by over a 2.5 fold increase. This essentially means that anyone with these viruses digesting 2000 calories per day will have over a two fold increase in the amount of fat that is stored from these food products. The interesting aspect of this is that fatty acids (lipids) like Monoglyceride and Phospholipid as well as Cholesterol are actually found in very low concentrations in people observed to have AD-36 or 37 in conjunction with obesity. In normal obese individuals without these Adenoviruses the cholesterol and Fatty Acid concentration is much higher, which coincides with the natural side effects from too much consumption and too little exercise to burn off those extra Fatty Acids and Cholesterol. There is very good scientific and Virological evidence that points to this being the case, and I'm sure as more research is done we will see the results of that as well.

This is not to say that every case of obesity can be directly releated to this particular virus, and I don't believe that the reasearch shows that. Only a MINORITY of obesity cases in the United States can be shown to have a correlation with the virus. I think a lot of people are confusing this aspect of the research in that they believe science is attributing Adenoviruses to ALL cases of obesity. That is not the case however.

On a side note...

I am also aware of some interesting reasearch going on with Adenovirus-2, which has shown a correlation with a reduction in the amount of fat cells the body is able to build up over time.

My 2 cents.......

IF obesity is a virus, that would be all the more reason to eat a raw/vegan diet. The body needs cleansed to eliminate any impurities...so fasting is in order.

It's possible that certain powers that be are putting things into food to cause obesity. If that is the case, I would believe they are targeting the lower income brackets, as healthy food costs a great deal more than unhealthy food. I honestly believe animal products are an issue as well. If there is a virus, it's probably in the animal products.

I am overweight. I don't believe for a second that it's a virus. I gained weight during pregnancy #2 and have never taken it off because I was LAZY. I was content with being fat. I ate whatever I wanted as long as it tasted good.

I have found out that a huge salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, sugar snap peas, strawberries, bananas, and NO DRESSING tastes so much better than a burger & fries. Not to mention how much better my I feel mentally and physically after eating food that fuels my body as opposed to infecting it.

Eh.....I think it's just another way for someone to make money. Feeding people another pill to keep them addicted to some type or other bull$%!#.

i think there is something else going on physically with overweight people.
i used to also have the opinion that they were just lazy or over ate, that was before i met a college roomate i had, we were in most of the same classes and hung out together all the time, we ate at the same places and at the same time, and let me tell you that i ate way more than him, he was watching what he ate and was careful because he was overweight and still i was what we consider normal, and another thing, this guy didn't drink alcohol or sodas and unlike the steretype we have of fat guys chowing down on junk food and candy bars this guy considerd them a sin practically.
yet he was very overweight...he never complained he just stuck with it, like he would say "can you imagine how big i would be if i didnt eat llittle portions?"
so in my book there is definetely something causing some of these obesity cases.


[edit on 31-8-2007 by infiltr8u]