The Nanny State: Feds propose monitoring how long you watch TV to control obesity

a reply to: Gryphon66

I am not saying no one has researched obesity in the past 200 years. Ridiculous as you pointed out.

I am saying that the baseline definition for obesity, based on BMI
was defined 200 years ago and never challenged until the late 90's
at which point it was defined more stringently
automatically dramatically increased the number of overweight and obese

I'm not certain, but thinking back isn't that about the time the "epidemic" began?
Could the epidemic have been manufactured?
Yes the populace was gaining weight, but could it have been normal in a time
when more and more were well nourished.
Why define overweight down when more people were well nourished than ever before?
For what reason?
To increase control over the population?
What??????
It gave an excuse to micromanage the population.
It gave an excuse to enter "1984" of in home surveillance of the population.
All based on the shakiest of science.

What I am arguing is: it was the government who reset the BMI standard lower
then during a time of food insecurity and a time when the majority had extremely poor nutrition.
And to what end?
Could it have been to dramatically increase the "number" of overweight and to manufacture a crisis.
Our government is well known for manufacturing crises (or we would not have a need for ATS)
in order to increase control over the populace.

I am not saying my theory is correct
I am just thinking outside the box
in a logical way.
Of course, my premise is
based somewhat on conspiracy theory
(which is the basis of ATS and the great fun of coming to ATS) .

Don't feel compelled to respond. I've enjoyed our conversation and have discussed with you things at a level I normally reserved for Grad students. Thanks for the repartee.
We may never agree, and that is fine.
Remember no great forward movements in life are ever made by just accepting what someone says as absolute truth
(especially if it is a popular government meme, the ATSer in me says)
and therefore
we can each hold opposing views
and the real truth somewhere in between.

a reply to: grandmakdw

Could "just about anything" be "true" ?

Yes, of course.

The baseline definition for obesity was not established 200 years ago.

The concept of calculating "BMI" was. (Thank you for informing me on that point; well done.)

I'm going to cut through a lot of needless rhetoric and hypotheticals, make my points, and then leave your thread alone, Grandma:

The conditions of being overweight and/or obese cause health problems that would not exist if an individual weighed less or carried less body fat. In another way of speaking being "overweight" is not determined soley by BMI by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

In fact, most of us can detect the condition of being overweight simply by looking. It's really not that arcane a concept. Particularly when health issues start arising as a result of overweight/obesity, issues that have been proven, conclusively to result from overweight/obesity, I find it absolutely LUDICROUS and HARMFUL to quibble over what some government report says or doesn't say.

The government (Federal, State, local) has a duty in regard to "promoting the general welfare" to provide information and/or encouragement for folks to live healthier (with less weight and/or obesity). In fact, such actions are among the only justifiable actions of government, in my opinion.

The population isn't being controlled (obviously) by dietary guidelines, if we were we'd be thinner.

The population isn't being micromanaged by dietary guidelines, if we were we'd be thinner.

If you're looking for conspiracies in regard to weight and health, I'd look no farther than the corporate conglomerates collectively called "Big Food."

You'll find enough real calumny there to last several lifetimes.

Best, thanks for the discussion,

FINIS