I wanted to comment on your Bloggingheads event with David Frum and his total non-responsiveness to your theory about why people overeat. As someone who works in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles--land of the perfect body--I totally agree that government pressure will do nothing to make people lose weight. People will only give up one pleasure in exchange for a more intense pleasure. And if you're poor and miserable, and eating is the high point of your life, you'll always reach for the cheetos.
I suspect the only way people will change their behavior is a sudden desire to move up the social ladder. Being thin and attractive gives you a competitive edge, especially if you live in a city with lots of talented people. The moment someone I know suddenly gets ambitious, or makes partner, or needs investors, they start losing weight. In California, being fat will hurt any career, whether you're a doctor, lawyer or accountant. We all take our cues from television/movie industry and the message is clear: you must be sexually appealing, no matter what you do. And so we tune out the Dominos commercials and reach for the tuna. Thank God for sushi, or we'd all go crazy.
No one I know is starving, but no one is ever full. But the point is we're compensated in other ways...
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First off, is there something you're not letting on here related to this "obesity watch" you seem to be on?
Second, gotta love this quote:
What crass b.s. That is a lot of assignation of motivation going on there, assuming that people who are overweight do not have a desire to move up the social ladder. Of course, coming from someone in lalaland, it makes sense when the only measure of someone's value is their waist size. Given the total FAIL that is the california government at the moment, I hope the rest of the country doesn't decide to listen to this contemptible ideal.
Oh, yeah, and the plural of anecdote is not data.
I take great pains not to denigrate anyone's language or ideas no matter what I think. But this thing that you published Megan, whith this, I have to make an exception: what a total load of b.s.
I too was born and raised in Los Angeles. Third generation Angeleno, have never lived anywhere else in my entire life, and I'm in my early 30s. I have a grandmother that was born and raised here as well. The vast majority of my friends and extended family like in this city and its suburbs as well. I stayed for undergrad in L.A. and graduate school I've lived on the eastide, the westside and varios points in different suburbs. And yes there are fat people in all those places and I don't buy into this crap that "they just needed to follow the joneses" of I don't know, Brentwood or Bel Air. This is plan absurd. And no, not all of us work in the "industry" and buy into this superficial narcissistic thinking.
I bet this person never once stepped foot in, or even bother to really get to know anyone, from Boyle Heights, East L.A., Watts, Compton or even Panaroma City for that matter. Oh yes! If only the poor and fat and browwn and black (guess what? obesity rates are higher amongst the poor, the black and the brown...it's no different in L.A.) would just get motivated like the white connected elites in L.A. it would all be better! And we know how diverse the movie industry is right? In front and in back of the camer? Sure right... Pleeez....
"We all take our cues from television/movie industry and the message is clear"
Who the hell is this "we"? Please this woman is not a spokesperson for the great "we" of Los Angeles. I'm not and she as sure as hell isn't either. Guess what, there are the poor working class in this city too, and have better things to do with their time, such as work for a living than I don't know, follow what people in the movie industry tell them to do regardomg how fat or how thin they should be.
I totally agree with you needapithyunname. But I must say, there is more diversity of thought and philosophy regarding body image and weight than you might think in "la la land" I am a total L.A. lover for a wide variety of reasons which don't have to do at all with this narcissism. We don't all think like this!
"Given the total FAIL that is the california government at the moment, I hope the rest of the country doesn't decide to listen to this contemptible ideal."
You know it's interesting, California in itself is a microcosm of the rest of the country. The inland areas are more conservative than the coasts. After all, this state did pass prop. 8. I know someone from Santa Monica who said this as a joke during the prop 8 protests period "yeah, I'm gonna go to a public rally in Santa Monica because we are gonna let all five people who voted "yes" there know what we think!"
Well that's another subject and don't mean to drag all of california politics into this thread. Point being: we don't all buy into a rigid body image standards set by the movie/tv industry.
"What crass b.s. That is a lot of assignation of motivation going on there, assuming that people who are overweight do not have a desire to move up the social ladder. Of course, coming from someone in lalaland"
did you just say crass b.s. and then say lalaland? i guess stereotypes and assignation of motivation don't apply to los angeles i guess? they just apply to the topics you favor.
Granted Los Angeles seems to put an extreme value on appearance, but that doesn't negate the point: if you're very ambitious, and you're surrounded by equally ambitious, competitive people, one way you can stand out is to look good.
Virginia Postrel wrote an interesting book on this topic and made the case that looks DO matter in the marketplace, because people everywhere value the pleasure that comes from gazing at an attractive person. Her thesis was Smart is Good, but Smart and Pretty is Better.
So if you're suddenly seized with a desire to become part of a more affluent class, you're going to do everything that might help you move into this group. Such as getting (and staying) thin.
People will only give up one pleasure in exchange for a more intense pleasure.
I'm not sure why this wasn't bolded. I think it's much more central to any obesity issues than social climbing.
Think of why it's so hard to stop smoking. Even if you don't like doing it and want to stop, you're trying to replace an activity that your body finds pleasurable with, at best, no activity at all. Our bodies are hard-wired to want to do things we find pleasurable because, in most cases, those are the activities that we need to do to survive.
That hard-wiring can be overcome but you have to replace, at least initially, the sense of depravation with something. Money and status can be powerful motivators, among others. The problem is that there is no universal motivator that is going to get obese people to lose to weight. If there was, or if it was easy to find an individual motivator, they wouldn't be obese.
I suspect that most people discount the future at too high an interest rate, making possible future problems arising from overeating and lack of exercise seem small now in comparison with the benefits. Of course, this isn't the only reason people disregard the likely costs of obesity. Some have eating disorders that compel them to use surgical means by which to control their intake of food; but that is probably the minority of those whose input of calories is far greater than the output of calories by ordinary digestion and other physical activity.
I lived in NYC for five years, and the pressure to stay thin was just as bad as LA (I'm told Miami is even worse).
Anyway, I dont think the actual point of the post is being addressed by the indignant Angelenos: that maintaining a certain level of physical attractiveness will help you in a competitive market place. And if all your equally-talented competitors are thin and groomed, you're going to emulate them. And more importantly, if your equally talented competitors all start packing on the pounds, staying thin will help you even more.
And that is why those with higher incomes (and those who aspire to have higher incomes) are unlikely to become obese; it's bad for their careers.
I don't know of any other "indignant Angeleno" but me on this thread, but I still stand by what I said. In this letter, the implications for people that are poor, fat and don't work in the entertainment industry are still this: if you want to be successful enough, you will do everything in your willpower, no matter what, to be thin. Not healthy necessarily because who cares about that? Thinnes is what's important. You will try to be thin to be "socially mobile." And yes, let's ignore what some people (not all of course) have to do to get thin and stay that way, such as bulimia, anorexia and even smoking. It's one thing to be thin, but the pressure to be "hollywood" thin is a whole other level entirely, a "model" type thinness is extremely hard to maintain even for those that are already on the lean side. Please, I know people who do not want to quit smoking because they do not want to gain weight, yes, in L.A.
This whole paragraph implies that the poor or anyone else who doesn't fit a particular hollywood body type, don't wish to have a better life, or who don't really want to have a better education, or a better job or just be socially mobile in general. As if being thin is the main factor in stopping them. Let's ignore racism, classism, and any other socioeconomic barrier that would bare many from even entering a highly competetive ambitious field such as the entertainment industry in the first place.
but this:
"if you're poor and miserable, and eating is the high point of your life, you'll always reach for the cheetos" is pretty steretotypical as if she knows what poor think, as if 'reaching for the cheetos' or some equivalent thereof is the high point of anyone who is poor. Perhaps there are some but I don't think "cheetos" or any other food is necessarily attractive just for the poor.
I suppose that yes she is just stating a matter of fact of how the entertainment industry works (and other similarly ambitious industris) work. I just think this dynamic she is describing is absurd and ridiculous. No wonder I'm not in the entertainment industry! (partly joking here) I still think that what this amounts to is this: stigmatization of people who don't fit it. If you don't want to be a 'freak' fall in line or risk career ruin.
Um, I thought NYC would be thin, but really, each subway car I ride on has at least one morbidly obese person. I would estimate these people aren't going to make it up the career ladder for other reasons and have very little incentive to be thin.
If you want to visit a truly thin place, it's Stockholm. Curvy people? Yes, but I never saw anyone morbidly obese.
If only all the fitness and good values of Californians could make the economy work. The fat ugly states seam to have all the jobs and real money.
...and I don't think she was actually just describing what happens in the L.A. entertainment industry regarding sexuality and attractiveness and competitive edge.
It's this what I find suspect:
"I suspect the only way people will change their behavior is a sudden desire to move up the social ladder."
This. That sentence is what I have a problem with the absolute most. And yes, it makes me an "indignant Angeleno."
I live in California, and there is no shortage of fat people in upper-income jobs here. The entertainment industry is thin, but the rest of the economy feels no particular pressure to emulate them.
Even that's not true. Most of the people in the entertainment industry who work on the other side of the camera tend to be fat, dumpy looking. It's only the ones on the business end of the camera that look thin and pretty.
I'd rather eat and enjoy life, which I do even though I am a big gal, then be affluent.
Affluent people don't ever look all that happy to me.
I think I'll go get another piece of tomato pie....
(and yes the letter writer does sound like a bit of a snob who may not actually know anyone who is fat except for her cleaning lady.)
I don't see what's wrong with that sentence, as it shows a basic understanding of human nature.
If obesity is a major problem, especially among poor people, and everyone is trying to figure out how to fix it, you need to understand the REAL motivations of those who manage to lose weight and keep it off. Everyone, rich or poor, knows obesity is unhealthy. But few people seem willing to give up pleasure for health. So what DOES motivate someone to make such a drastic lifestyle change?
I suspect you won't like the answer, since these reasons usually involve less-than-noble motives: wanting sexual attention, wanting more money, wanting to trade up from your current boyfriend/girlfriend, peer pressure, fear that your wife/husband will dump you, or wanting to outshine the competition.
No obese person is going give up this particular pleasure, unless they can be motivated with another pleasure which compensates. Like it or not, money and sex usually do the trick.
You make the unjustified assumption that what those thin LA entertainment industry people have actually given up something "for health". If they are staying thin through smoking, appetite suppresents, cocaine or meth, anorexia, or whatever then the "thin or fail" incentive doesn't necessarily lead to healthier outcomes.
Second, who says that the thin pretty people in LA are people who used to be fat and took it off. That there is a population of thin pretty people and that you must be one of them to work there is just as consistent with an assumption that weight is 100% genetically determined and that LA selects for thin people; fat people end up permanently in bad jobs or other locations.
The original post (and everything Megan has said on this topic for weeks) specifically claims that most thin people are NOT thin "for health". They're thin for all the other reasons. And weather that thinness is a result of selecting for people who are already able to be thin or selecting for people with the motivation to become so makes no difference to the argument: thinness gives you an advantage, particularly in LA.
As for poor people, this argument is not claiming they have no ambition, just that they're on a different point in the main sequence. A McDonalds manager isn't competing with Hollywood starlets in the thin-olympics, but they are competing with the other potential managers. I would be surprised if there wasn't a similar (though at a higher BMI) correlation between success there and weight.
Well, I was replying to the comment by Marianna, which did reference health and ambition.
Marianna's point was that we'd do better to motivate the obese if we understood the real reasons people get thin (e.g., money, sex). My point is that it's even worse than that. If people in LA are getting healthy not because they give a damn about health but because of money/sex incentives, then adopting LA-style social norms on thinness in other cities would help improve health outcomes.
If thin pretty LA people are thin and pretty only due to genetics, than adopting LA norms everywhere makes no difference. If thin pretty LA people are that way due to drug habits or anorexia, then adopting the LA model nationwide would actually leave us worse off than if people just stayed overweight.
The biggest reason I think for why their are so many obese people is what I call the 'statin effect' where people think that it's OK to overeat because the statin balances it out.
Weird, especially since there is no hard proof that statins do anything good. Read the "Great Cholesterol Con" to know more. Statins might actually cause you to have a heart attack.
@ ElectronHayek
You may be right, but people think that statins will protect them so they tend to eat more unhealthy. I know I used to be one of them!
Interesting my cholesterol went from 310 to 275 in six months on lipitor and then I stopped taking statins, lost 40 lbs and started working out 45 minutes a day and in three months my cholesterol went from 275 to 210. There really is nothing better than diet and exercise for your health.
Fiber!
And if a naturally high in fiber doesn't do the trick, add fiber supplements. Three months after I started taking fiber supplements, my doctor told me he had never had anyone lower chlosterol so far on pure diet and exercise.
(Warning: first, build up to a high-fiber diet. Then add the supplement, and build them up slowly. Your digestive system will not approve of a sudden leap in your fiber ingestion.)
It's worth knowing the difference between correlation and causation. Just because heavy people earn less doesn't mean that they would earn more if they had liposuction.
Morbid obesity correlates with low IQ in infants, for instance;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060901164136.htm
I wish we had more of this mentality in my town. I'm sick of looking at all the fat, dumpy looking people. Heck even my gym hires fat, dumpy looking people to man the front desk! Talk about lack of standards!
"No one I know is starving, but no one is ever full." No wonder they want to punish everyone else.
I didn't read the initial quotation as having anything to do with actual obesity. It seemed to have more to do with not allowing people to age into normal middle aged looks. Those advanced jobs the writer talks about don't go to pretty 19-year-olds. If somebody who's 40 and in a demanding job is ALSO under pressure to look like a pretty 19-year-old, there's a problem. Only so many hours in the day, especially for women with family responsibilities on top of work, and you're setting the vast majority of people up with expectations no normal human can meet.
THAT may be why people decide to give up the body thing. They aren't necessarily choosing food over status. They may be choosing family time (or sleep) over long hours in the gym.
(As an aside, workout time is part of the job for performers, as it is for athletes, firemen, and members of the military. It's like research and continuing education in other fields. What that has to do with everyone else isn't exactly clear.)
For what it's worth;
,a href="http://thyroid.about.com/od/loseweightsuccessfully/a/sleepdiet.htm">source
Of course, this could just mean that sleep disorders cause weight gain. (hGH is produced in deep sleep and is a powerful metabolism booster. Some weight lifters take GABAergic drugs to boost their deep sleep and increase hGH production.)
I am interested in this because I am still struggling with the question of "what motivated me?" Because I *did* have a sudden burst of motivation, or willpower, or something, that spurred my loss of 27% of my body weight last year after a lifetime of obesity.
I agree with this: "People will only give up one pleasure in exchange for a more intense pleasure." I agree with this part: "I suspect the only way people will change their behavior is a sudden desire..." ... but the desire might be for many different things.
Because I'm a 34-year-old homeschooling mother of three (one's on the way). If weight loss would help me climb a social ladder, I must be on the wrong ladder. :-) I have great friends and a wonderful support network -- I have for years. I've been married more than 10 years and, though my husband appreciates my new appearance, I don't recall that he ever said anything, intentionally or not, that made me feel bad about my old appearance. I'm not planning an extramarital affair, nor to start a new job anytime in the near future. I didn't even hate the way I looked, back then -- I had pretty much come to accept my appearance as permanently attached to me, and I wasn't defined by it. I never noticed any outright "fat discrimination," at least not since I left high school.
And yet one day I literally woke up and decided to try being hungry for a change. I immediately began losing weight and continued steadily (to my utter astonishment) until I was at normal weight. Still am, though a normal weight for 4-1/2 months pregnant.
The one tangible thing I did desire and was already desiring was a healthy pregnancy. You might be able to point that as a strong enough motivator -- except that it doesn't explain why it didn't motivate me to drop the pounds in my three previous pregnancies, all of which were planned with plenty of time in advance to lose weight for them if I wanted to?
As odd as it may sound, what I keep coming back to is that I took a good hard look at myself -- not my appearance but my overeating behavior. I wanted to be generous and gracious, hospitable and frugal, and our family had been examining how to use fewer resources... I think I took a good hard look at my eating habits and realized that I was eating enough to feed three people, and it kind of disgusted me. I suddenly didn't like what I was *doing,* recognized that my behavior was contrary to my real and sincere values. Maybe the desire that overwhelmed my desire to eat was... simply the desire to be the kind of person (not just look like the kind of person) that I wanted to be.
A few years ago, I too decided to start losing weight. My motivator was pretty simple - fear of dying young. I did one of those online "how long will you live" calculators, and it said I would be dead at 56. I decided to start losing weight, and dropped almost 100 pounds over the course of about 2 years, and have been able to keep it off for the last 3 years.
Not being fat definitely has it's bonuses - I can climb a flight of stairs without panting, it's easier to find pants that fit me, and I feel better about myself. It hasn't made a difference in my career, though - but I work in IT, a field not known for it's lookism - and it hasn't really helped my dating life - I've gone from never getting dates to occasionally getting dates from women who then never call me back.
When I lost 35 lbs a few months ago (I started my diet in January 09 and reached my goal weight loss of 30 lbs in May 09, my motivation was simple: vanity.
It was that simple for me. I got tired of looking at my chubby and unattractive (I thought) body in the mirror. I am 5ft, so the extra weight I was carrying (in the areas of my stomach and thighs) was very visible.
I lost the weight by eating healthier and eating less. I very rarely exercised.
Now, I do live in NYC (where, it was recently reported, that some of the thinnest people live in the country) and work in an industry (creative) where I am surrounded by young, and very fit 20 to 30 year olds. However, I can't say that this at all pressured me to lose the weight.
Again, I just did not like looking at myself in the mirror; my image depressed me and I decided to do something about it.
First rule of donut holes: Don't rile up the fatties!
By the way:
An antidote to the "losing weight and keeping it off is impossible" mindset might be to look into the work that's been done by the National Weight Control Registry.
They have what strikes me as a far more constructive way of reacting to the fact that few people appear to succeed at weight loss: They study the successful ones and try to find out what distinguishes them, and ultimately, how more people might be helped to become part of that subset.
The most accessible way I know to take a look at statistics developed by the NWCR is through the newest edition of the book Thin for Life (Google Books preview here) by Anne Fletcher.
I don't understand why this conversation (not just this thread but all the other threads on this topic as well) centers so much around the tails of the distribution curve. Yes there are some people who are built like NFL linebackers who skew the BMI measure. Yes, there might be some 5'4", 230 pound women who jog regularly. These people are outliers.
Similarly, you don't need to spend "long hours in the gym" to be fit or active. Maybe you do if you want to look like John Rambo (and don't forget to take your steroids). But is there anyone here who wouldn't consider that physique to be an outlier (not to mention the embodiment of a quasi cartoon character)? Maybe you also do if you want to try to emulate the in-front-of-the-camera talent in Hollywood, but aren't they outliers, too?
Whatever ever happened to simply going out for a run? Not training for the Olympics, not training for the NY Marathon, not necessarily training for anything. Just go out and enjoy the exertion, enjoy the sweat, and enjoy the scenery while you burn up some calories and burn off some stress. Finish up 30-45 minutes later, maybe have the kids ride with you on their bikes. Or just go ride a bike yourself. Or swim. Or walk. Or hike. Play some tennis, play tag with the kids in the backyard. Hoe your vegetable garden, cut your lawn with a push mower instead of a rider. Etc., etc., etc. There are a million ways to be active, and they don't require hours of self-torture. They absolutely require some self-discipline, however, along with long-term regularity.
The comparison I've come up with is shaving. If a guy shaves twice a week, he can't go around claiming he's clean shaven. By definition, clean shaven pretty much requires daily bodily maintenance, and regular maintenance is my point. (Yeah, yeah - some guys may be able get by shaving once a week . . . but they are the outliers. I'm also not aware of any particular health benefits of being clean shaven, but go with the analogy for a moment.)
Being fit - healthy fit, not just thin and not fit to some cartoonish excess - demands maintenance. No way around that. And, like shaving, those minutes of the day may not be your favorites and they probably won't be your easiest. But if you do what you can to make them as pleasant as possible while integrate them into your routine, you'll benefit from them in the short-term and the long-term. When activity becomes part of your routine, it's already taken on a whole different character than the dreaded long hours in the gym. Those long hours come from folks who are outliers, too.
I absolutely agree, Rofe II. I think this "long hours in the gym" attitude makes people think it's an all-or-nothing endeavor -- either you work out every single day, or you might as well be sitting on your butt. The government websites encourage this attitude too -- check out the three categories into which you can classify yourself at the MyPyramid.gov website -- Doing NOTHING AT ALL exercise-wise puts you into the same category as someone who exercises 25 minutes every single day, or one hour three times a week.
I exercise forty minutes, three times per week. I do this at the gym because for me, it's easier to make that appointment with myself if I leave the house to do it. I swim twice and run once. Eighteen months ago, I was doing nothing. I am so much stronger and fitter with this three-times-a-week regimen than I was before, it's almost funny. You should see the change in my upper arms and shoulders alone! And still I encounter people who attempt to patiently explain to me that I'm not possibly exercising enough to make a difference.
"Being fit - healthy fit, not just thin and not fit to some cartoonish excess - demands maintenance."
True.
Hey, Rofe, I would LOVE to spend more time at the gym. Or biking, hiking, or anything like that. And less time at meetings and on airplanes too. But certain careers impose certain constraints. I'm stuck with travel, and sometimes long hours. The "maintenance" that my career requires is mostly brain maintenance, which I get to do on the clock. Physical fitness I do in my limited free time, for myself, and sometimes I don't get to do as much as I want.
A professional athlete or performer, in contrast, has a physical job that requires physical training in the way that mine requires airplane time. Or in the way that a musician's requires practice time. Performers who go for super-macho or super-sexy appearances have the most extreme demands, but even pudgy character actors do something physical when they perform and have to be able to do it on a sustained basis without keeling over.
So, for a middle-aged desk jockey to look like a super-sexy Hollywood star is probably a pipe dream. If that's the goal, most of us will fail. Even if we want to and would enjoy the process, it's not our meal ticket (in most of the country) and therefore falls further down the priority list than it does for people who make their livings doing something that requires a higher degree of physical fitness.
Again, this has nothing to do with actual obesity, and I agree that a regular suburban exercise program is fine for most people. But don't you ever wish you could let your brain take a break and invite your body come out to play a lot more often? I don't think constant office work is even remotely natural.
Now you've done it -- you've gone and defended BMI.
Of course, everyone knows that because BMI sez that Tom Brady is overweight, that means it's pure baloney! BMI sux!
What are you going to do next -- defend the electoral college?
Tom Brady is actually likely obese. As is Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The problem with BMI lies in the just past overweight area, where it's very easy to classified as such just by having a normal body volume with under 10% body fat percentage.
At the basic level, there are three factor. Pleasure, pain, and efficiency. The post focuses only on one, pleasure. Most people are aware of pain as a factor, as well. But another major motivator is to minimize energy usage. For example, people prefer will diet pills to exercise because diet pills require less effort.
Hobbes said it best: motivation can be reduced to attraction and aversion. The key is to structure both so your motivation works. Have you guys looked at http://www.stickk.com ? I think the premise is interesting.
What a bunch of hooey, especially about LA. And it ignores a lot of inconvenient truths. There is nothing intrinsically meaningful about being thin. It is a function of extravagance. During the 19th and early 20th century, the rich advertised their excess wealth by being fat. They had more resources than you and wanted you to know it.
Now, the rich and celebrities advertise that they have an excess of time and money by being spend. Unlike the average guy, they can spend time at the gym to work off the excess fat they've accumulated. And increasingly, they result to cosmetic surgeons to carve away their extra pounds, or staple their stomachs so that they can no longer stuff themselves silly.
And it's still the case in LA that powerful men will simply junk their old, fatter partners and get younger, slimmer partners. Thin Asian women are particularly valuable in this kind of social "cash for clunkers" program.
I'm already seeing gyms and fitness centers in Southern California close down, because memberships are declining as upper income people see their discretionary income decline.
This probably means that we will start seeing more news stories that proclaim, "Fat? It's not so bad." And the phony obesity crisis will fade away and be replaced by some new junk science nonsense.
Oddly enough, when I quit smoking I considered a number of exercise options and settled on running/walking precisely because I didn't need a lot in the way of equipment or prep; just put on my shoes and go outside.
This was also around the time when I was thinking about the difference between 'good' and 'bad' people along a variety of behavioral continua and it came down largely to a matter of habits(as opposed to ideology, or family upbringing, or bad brain chemistry.) Good habits, once you acquire them, are hard to break out of, and the same for bad habits. That is, people who make excuses for their behaviour, or who are always two-and-a-half minutes late, or who wait until the day before their homework is due to start it, or who lie as a first resort(there are surprisingly large numbers of these - maybe 5%) rather than a last, all seem to do so as a matter of habit. Break them of their bad habits and train them into new ones, and they will be just has habitually early as they were late, just as willing to accept responsibility as they were to duck it, etc. In fact, just as unable to do otherwise . . . exactly the same as before.
Going back to the story, I chose running/walking because as far as instilling virtuous behaviour goes, it seemed a lot easier to pick up stepping outside for a jog around the block as a good habit than having to drive twenty minutes just to get to a gym so that you could actually go through your workout. The elaborate preparations, complete with psych-up routine? That seems to actually be detrimental to the formation of a long term habit.
This may seem a bit mechanistic for some people's tastes. But it's what I've observed, personally, over and over and over again(I also don't think it's all that unflattering to note that most people live severely constrained by their habits; for the most part, they are able to choose which ones they adopt after all.)
Where do you live? It's one thing if you live in San Jose or San Diego quite another if you live in Buffalo or Minneapolis.
Heh, I had the same thought. I *do* live in Minneapolis, hence the gym membership.
Seriously though --
This is very personality- and lifestyle-dependent. For me, anyway, leaving my house, driving to the gym, changing, etc. is part of the ritual -- leaving my responsibilities behind me for a brief respite. Exercising at home, or even in a run out of my front door, is hard for me because I keep seeing little things that need to be done... I'll just take care of this first, and then this other thing crops up... before you know it I've let the workout slip by.
And then there's my children, of course. The gym has child care. That makes a huge difference. As much as people promote things like "Go take a walk in the woods with your kids!" it is pretty hard to get your heart rate up that way, at least when your kids are 9, 5, and 3. They keep wanting to stop and look at bugs and stuff. Which is fine for them, but not enough for me.
Re: "As someone who works in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles... I totally agree that government pressure will do nothing to make people lose weight."
What on God's green earth is supposed to be the connection between these two things?
God. This just reminds me how much I'd hate to live in LA. The idea of doing mindless dieting and exercise to look like I'm doing mindless dieting and exercising makes me want to slit my wrists.
I'm 140 pounds (male, 5'9") because I run 10 miles a day, every day, mostly at a 6:30/mile pace at altitude. I do that so twice a year I can run a marathon in 2:45. I do THAT because I like knowing that I'm faster than 99% or the people in almost every race I enter (and every now and then WIN). But if I didn't have this motivation? If I was just running to keep my weight to a normal level? Slit my wrists...
"If men were angels, they would have no need for diets."
The question of habituation and self-improvement goes back to Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics Book II). It was true then and it's still true today. I know it's anecdotal, but the timing is exquisite, and thank you, Megan, for bringing up the topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Round-Secret-History-Full-time/dp/1594202311
got a very nice review in the NYT this weekend (okay, so he's the NYT food editor. Still, give it a little credit). "A religious approach to exercise" is *one* of his solutions. If you love food (I do) and you don't want an early exit from the store ( http://www.bertandi.net/mp3/notjustyet.mp3 ) you need to exercise.
Ingestion minus exertion equals weight gain or loss. And yes, there are many, many variables such as metabolism, emotions, etc. But to a rational mind, it's not a lot different than budgeting. Income minus expenses equals savings.
Applies to the national budget as well. Oh well, it's hart to be rational about these topics.
Along the same topic of successful people being more attractive, is something I've noticed in my morning commute. I live in Brooklyn and take the train into the city everyday for work. Most days I leave for work around 7 or 7:30am. At that time of day it seems that the average passenger is shorter, heavier, and in general not as physically attractive as they are on the days when I take the train in around 9:30am. At 9:30am it seems that I ride the train almost exclusively with tall, thin, and incredibly good looking super models of both sexes. I've always been curious what industry this is that seems to employ so many good looking people and allows for a fairly leisurely start to the day?
Dylan,
Not sure about the train but on the plane there are three classes of people.
A. Sales People - they are usually very attractive, well groomed and well dressed.
B. Consultants - They are normal looking, for decently dressed, educated upper-middle class people.
C. Programmers/Engineers - they look like the Swingline stapler guy from Office Space.
Interesting then, that this study does indicate an obesity rate of 10.37% for engineers and 10.43% for computer scientists versus a 12.13% rate for sales representatives. Although managers check in at 13.11%, so perhaps it's the IT & engineering managers you're seeing.
It's also interesting to note in the above links that for sales representatives, the male rate for obesity is 12.13% versus 6.58% for women.
The occupational pressures associated with weight certainly are not gender neutral.
solarlux,
Do those numbers adjust for age?
It could also be that the people who travel a lot are either young enough not to have kids are old enough that they need to go on the road to pay for college. So you get the young and fit and the middle aged.
7:00AM is finance. 9:00AM is advertising.
I don't think that is it, as the 7am people usually are not wearing suits or even business casual. Seems to be more labor and service positions later I've always figured is marketing, advertising, and other "creative" positions. Again, not much with the suits, but a lot more designer ripped jeans.
You mean California success as in the Real Wives of Orange County whose homes are being foreclosed on or thin like Karen Carpenter or prosperous as in an 11.9% unemployment rate and government IOUs?
No thanks.
I would submit that if believe the city you live in is pressuring you to be thin, then you'd probably feel that pressure regardless of where you lived.
Also: 90+% of Los Angelenos don't work in the movie industry. Remember - LA's got millions of residents, right?
And finally - there are plenty of overweight CEO's. Not every rich person is famous. These kinds of generalizations are dumb and unhelpful.
This comment ignores the fact that there are lots of people who don't fit into the size 0 ideal of Hollywood and other "prestigious" places who also work very hard to be thin. But they will never be thin enough to satisfy the film/television/fashion industry. It is not physically possible for many people to fit into this ideal. Based on body type alone, you could starve yourself and still be a size 10. Or you could eat healthy and exercise and be a size 14. There is a massive selection bias in Hollywood, wherein only people who are either naturally thin or naturally thin ENOUGH to starve themselves down to skinny are allowed in. So the fact that most people in Hollywood are thin is not evidence of the fact that a bunch of big fat people were incentivized by ambition to become thin, but that a bunch of thin people are sufficiently incentivized by ambition to maintain their thinness. Certainly there will be the occasional person who was big in high school and slimmed down in order to compete in Hollywood (or on Wall Street, or in the music industry, or whatever). But those are outliers.
Would it really be that hard to be thin if it was your job? Instead of having to get to the office for the 9am staff meeting - you had to get to your 9am pilates class.
My point exactly.
You would get some variation even if everyone had equal time to work out, but then not all Hollywood actresses (one of the most extreme groups) are waif-thin. Romantic leads, yeah, but somebody else is playing the put-upon social workers and wisecracking nurses. People who look like regular people look when they stay in reasonable shape and have someone do their hair.
You would get some variation even if everyone had equal time to work out
One caveat - I've worked with a number of people who have very demanding jobs and still make the time to work out. I think it has to do with the same workaholic perfectionism that often leads to career success also drives people towards wanting to stay in shape physically.
One example - go to any teaching hospital in America. Look at the women in the Doctors lounge and then look at women at the nurses station - the female nurses will have BMI's a good 10 points higher than the female doctors.
I recall Sarah Jessica Parker once saying something to this effect. She urged normal women with day jobs not to try to emulate her because they wouldn't have enough time. Working out and staying slim and athletic is her job and she puts in the hours like it's a job.
I also recall some biographies of Arnold Schwarzenegger that said he was logging 30+ hours a week in the gym in the days when he was Mr. Universe.
You don't have to exercise 40 hours a week if you want to stay thin. But it's silly for a typical working stiff to compare their physique against an actor, model or athlete who exercises for a living.
I've noticed something similar at courthouses, when comparing groups of lawyers with groups of cops. This applies even more so to the men, and what's most interesting of all is that there is also a really dramatic height difference... 8 or more inches on average. (The cops are the tall ones, if you are wondering.) And it's hard to tell ethnicity except at the extremes, but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing an ethnic difference (several, actually) as well.
So there are a lot of things going on. For some people, being in phenomenal physical shape is a size 12 (women). For some, it is size 2. These two categories are not distributed evenly among the population. There are broad-shouldered people who can put on a lot of muscle but who will never be skinny-skinny. And there are people very small-boned people who cannot bulk up without resorting to chemicals. Look at all the different body types that excel in all the different sports to see what I mean.
But even so, the people who are very ambitious in physical fields are going to hit fitness levels that the ones who are ambitious in mental fields will never have the time for. Levels that can't be achieved by ANYONE in just an hour a day.
M.C.
Being gifted physically and being gifted mentally are very similar.
For example:
You take 1,000 18 year olds and give them an anatomy textbook and give the 8 hours to study, then test them. There will be a bell curve of results. But, out the right side of the curve you're going to find the intellectually gifted doing very well.
You take 1,000 18 year olds and start them training for a marathon. You will see the same bell curve - some kids will be no faster and have no better stamina than when they started, other will be dramatically faster and have much better stamina after six weeks.
You can't say - look at him/her with that perfect body. They could have such a perfect body because they saw results in 3 weeks that you could hardly see at 9 weeks. It's not that they had more drive, it's just that they are physically gifted.
No arguments, jmo... but the people who are useless at the marathon might be the sprinters, the swimmers, or the power lifters. Even sticking strictly to the physical side, there are a lot of different gifts that can be developed to a lot of different degrees. I was too tall to be a gymnast by the time I was 9, but I can do other things.
But we have drifted a long way from obesity. Let's take it as given that none of the athletes, not even the stocky shot-put types, are actually obese.
OK, I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, did a wonderful chapter on this concept in his book, "Stick To Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain". He talks about "pleasure points": as an example he describes the difference in resisting a delicious cheesecake when you are either a 300lb. 60-year old with no future, or you are Eva Longoria. Think about it.
Heinlein described it as the choice between what pleasures most or hurts the least.
Of course, there's some discipline and delayed gratification involved. But it all depends on "how bad do you want it".
Or at least it seems that way to me. I'm always packing an extra 30 pounds, and people are constantly telling me ways to lose it. I know perfectly well how to lose it: eat less (I already exercise a fair amount). When I decide to eat less, I'll lose weight. Until then, I won't. It's pretty simple. Not easy, but simple.
That's his Pleasure Unit Theory, and I agree with it completely.
FWIW, I moved to LA 15 years ago . . . gained 35 pounds and got wealthier beyond my wildest imagination. Go figure.
Cool. What did you eat?
Cool. What did you eat?
I believe it had more to do with the who than the what.
anything and everything, from burgers to sushi. Los Angeles is a great restaurant city.
Americans are much fatter than the French or Italians because
1. The French and Italians for the most part have many dishes but only one cuisine, not 25, so they are more easily satisfied. Americans eat Chinese one night, Italian the next, Tex-Mex the next, and so on. Always something new to pique the appetite. It's much easier to control your hunger when there is less variety to choose from. (Yes, I know there are Chinese and some other ethnic restaurants everywhere in Europe but there are far fewer of them in Europe and the natives rarely go to them.)
2. The French and Italians have sex lives, unlike Americans. In America food is a substitute for sex whereas on the continent they are alternative forms of pleasure. This is of course rooted in longstanding cultural differences between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to sex (i.e., for a Catholic a sin of the flesh is less serious than spiritual sins, while for Protestants infidelity is a sign that you are not really a Christian in good standing). A Frenchman or an Italian feels that life is impoverished if he/she is not enjoying a love affair.
This is written by a patriotic American who has lived many years in continental Europe, so it's not Euro-snobbery, just an observation.
Just for the record:
Reader "Susan from L.A." is full of "shit." I live in L.A., too. Her every observation is a tired cliche. The brutal truth of the matter is we've got fat people, chubby people, slightly overweight people, too-thin people--we've got it all!
"People will only give up one pleasure in exchange for a more intense pleasure."
This is worthy of the freshman dorm, tops. Tell it to anyone trying to kick coke, alcohol, etc., etc.
As for being someone who works in "the entertainment industry," who isn't? Susan is, I am, Megan is.
I like Jesse Taylor of Pandagon's response to this: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/tiny_tim_said_mother_stop_savoring_that_gruel_before_someone_thinks_were_no/