Althouse: "This is a typical example of the way nervous modern folk turn normal behavior into a disease."

April 6, 2011

"This is a typical example of the way nervous modern folk turn normal behavior into a disease."

"I think they're diseased."

38 comments:

tim maguire said...: There is such a thing as food addiction, but it is probably no more common than other types of addiction. Besides, I know a number of "food addicts" and none of them are fat. That's not how food addictions work.

Besides, we don't have to wonder why we're getting bigger. Our eating habits suck. Not because we are sick, but because stuff that's bad for you tastes really good. Because it used to be rare, we evolved to crave things we needed that were hard to find. But with modern technology, those things are now as common as we want them to be. And we want them to be common indeed.

If that's a disease, then evolution is a disease.; 4/6/11, 10:53 PM
Carol_Herman said...: First, it's the abundant choices.

Second, you don't have to stay home all day and cook.

And, some people are getting fatter because they are living longer. Age and diabetes isn't where diets would even begin to work.

Hey, long ago people had to do heavy lifting. Women who wanted clean floors, heated water up on the stove. And, then went on their hands and knees. The rags were washed. And, rewashed.

Where's the exercise when you can open a laptop anywhere ... and sit. While you're punching keys on your computer?

Even refrigeration isn't that old. Back in the 1940's, you needed an ice delivery for your "ice box." And, you kept butter cool by placing it outside, on your window sill.

People also managed to get taller. Go into an old home, built more than 100 years ago, and remember to duck when you're walking through doorways.; 4/6/11, 10:54 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Gotta have it every single day or I get irritable and shaky. Even just a few hours after I've had it, I want more.; 4/6/11, 10:54 PM
traditionalguy said...: It's all that salt. I crave salty stuff. Seriously, the portions served are the fat people's biggest problem.; 4/6/11, 10:58 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: If only we could go back to the days of universal hard labor and frequent hunger. Those were the days; the good old days when men had abs you could see, when women's clavicles could be easily admired, when everyone was shorter, malnutrition was common, and endless toil filled all the years of one's life.; 4/6/11, 11:02 PM
Synova said...: I've been losing weight.

I eat breakfast every day. Not a lot because it's before 6am.
I go to work.
I get a 15 min break near 10am. I eat a snack of snack food and half a bottle of pop. It's hard to eat more in that short time.
I miss lunch.
I get off work.
I eat "normally" the rest of the day, and finish my bottle of pop.

I lost weight when I worked at the plastic molding factory, too.

It's hard to munch when you don't sit at a desk.; 4/6/11, 11:08 PM
Bob Ellison said...: I know a lot about this subject. I have been addicted to many things, and I have lent therapy to many people who were addicted to things. Addiction is a thing. I know a lot about this subject.; 4/6/11, 11:13 PM
JAL said...: Funny how that ole life expectancy number thingey keeps going up.; 4/6/11, 11:35 PM
madAsHell said...: Oooohh! Oooooohhh!

Can I play? I wanna be a victim too!

Let's see....I'm white, over 50, and I have a job.

Whadd'ya mean I can't play?; 4/7/11, 12:25 AM
themightypuck said...: Sugar for me. I can ignore sugar completely but if I eat just a little I want more more more.; 4/7/11, 12:33 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Bob Ellison, as an expert, do you think you can help me overcome my addiction to Althouse.blogspot.com? Or at least learn to live with my addiction reasonably?; 4/7/11, 12:43 AM
Unknown said...: Keep in mind, a lot of people overeat out of boredom.

Once Little Zero has inflation at double digits, making enough money to eat at all is going to take a lot of the boredom out of life.; 4/7/11, 6:10 AM
DADvocate said...: Two points:

1) Psychiatrists want to find illness in everything. They are wrong more often than right. Psychiatry/psychology/et al are psuedo-sciences led by modern day witch doctors.

2) People probably are programmed to eat as much as our ancestors did. Since we lead a much more sedentary life style, that's way to much. If we don't eat enough, we fall short of taking in some of the needed nutrients leaving our body with real nutritional cravings.

Having mild hypertension and a slight arrhythmia, I make a specific effort to take in enough potassium. After checking potassium content in various foods including the most potassium rich, I easily realized that it was virtually impossible for me to eat enough for me to get adequate potassium from natural food sources without going way over in calories. I started drinking a couple of low sodium V8s a day. Each contains 33% of the daily potassium RDA.

Unfortunately, going over the RDA of sodium is as easy as eating a single frozen dinner or restaurant meal.

Our nutrient intake/activity level is out of balance but it's not an addictive disease although psychiatrists would love it to be so in order to stand up above and issue edicts to us underlings. Psychiatry is one of those professions where they know little and pretend to know a great deal in an effort to puff their images as experts and authorities in a most neurotic way.; 4/7/11, 6:12 AM
Bob_R said...: In this case it's an example of doctors explaining something they don't understand and can't cure by comparing it to something else they don't understand and can't cure.

I love the way they describe obesity as a "preventable" cause of death and in the same breath admit that their success rate at preventing it is approximately zero.; 4/7/11, 6:27 AM
PogoПОССУМ said...: Most excellent victory by Obama will make less fat peoples in Amerika.

This he learn from Comrade Castro, who thinned population in Cuba same way.

If you no can afford car, or gas to put in it, you walk!

If you no can afford food, you buy less!

Победа! Victory!
No fats!

Castro mistake was that food contain vitamin. No vitamin, and some proles went blind or made painful nerve damage.

But in collective is best to take one for team, да?; 4/7/11, 7:19 AM
KCFleming said...: Proving the neurological correlates for the maxim 'Everything in moderation' seems a bit of a waste of time.

However, I can see how it might lead to drug treatments that shut off the desire to eat, which would actually be useful.; 4/7/11, 7:27 AM
Calypso Facto said...: When every temptation becomes an irresistible "addiction", then the government can insert itself as the caretaker of public health to reign in the "epidemic" for the public good.; 4/7/11, 8:12 AM
Calypso Facto said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/7/11, 8:20 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Chip Ahoy, you can overcome your addiction to Althouse, but the therapy involves drugs, alcohol, and lots of bacon. You will end up fat, homeless, and scavenging for turtles in upstate New York. Start with the bacon if you're still interested.; 4/7/11, 8:21 AM
Wince said...: Now, that gives me some clarity on a lyric that always confused me:

"Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease..."

Obese man dies after found fused to chair
By QMI Agency

A morbidly obese man is dead after he was found fused to a chair that he had been stuck on for two years.

The 43-year-old man from Bellaire, Ohio, was discovered unconscious on Sunday by his girlfriend.

Emergency crews had to pry him free, as his skin was stuck to the recliner with urine, feces and maggots.

Local reports say one officer threw away his uniform because the conditions were so putrid.

"The living room where the man lived in his chair was very filthy, very deplorable. It's unbelievable that somebody lives in conditions like that," Jim Chase, a code enforcer, told local news station WTRF.

A hole was cut in the wall of the home to remove the heavy man.

Officials said his girlfriend, who lived with him along with another roommate, told investigators she fed the man in his chair, as he complained of leg pain.

The unidentified man was transported to hospital in critical condition, where he later died.; 4/7/11, 8:35 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm addicted to breathing..

I cant stop.. I need help.

Btw.. Did Althouse just hijacked her son's post ;); 4/7/11, 8:36 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm addicted to pointing fault in others.. or something.; 4/7/11, 8:38 AM
Lyle said...: Obesity isn't just linked to bad eating habits, but also the lack of proper exercise.

Most Americans have to drive everywhere to get around and usually to end up sitting down somewhere. We're not forced to walk around as much, which leads to flab.

I think that is one of the differences between the United States and Europe. Europeans walk around more. At least this is my non-scientific observation.; 4/7/11, 8:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Eating food causes a feeling of well being.

There is a cycle of feeling bad about one's self, then eating to numb that feeling, then getting fat, then feeling bad about one's self, etc.

Is it a disease? No - no more so than being gay is a disease.

It is a feeling - an urge - and it can be given into, and giving in has repercussions.; 4/7/11, 8:41 AM
Anonymous said...: If it's an "addiction," then eventually, insurance (ie, you and me, the premium payers) will be forced to cover the 30-day inpatient treatment program.; 4/7/11, 8:45 AM
mishu said...: I like that anti-science idiot in the comments trying to blame rising obesity on GMO foods. The fact of the matter is that obesity is rising because people have stopped smoking. When people are bored or anxious, the revert to child like habits to placate their oral fixations. Is it really that difficult to understand?; 4/7/11, 8:52 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The people from Eating Anonymous and Anorexic Anonymous are talking ;); 4/7/11, 9:11 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: I haven't even read the whole thread yet, but Freeman Hunt 10:545 p.m. for the win!

wv: alcava. I'm assuming that's the yet-more-obscure South American grain that's going to displace quinoa.; 4/7/11, 9:14 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I haven't even read the whole thread yet, but Freeman Hunt 10:545 p.m. for the win!

Has anybody told you you might be addicted to hitting on women ;); 4/7/11, 9:18 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Class factotum,

If it's an "addiction," then eventually, insurance (ie, you and me, the premium payers) will be forced to cover the 30-day inpatient treatment program.

OTOH, if the 30-day inpatient program is seriously cold turkey, you won't have to pay anything after it, now will you?

wv: crulan. Yeah, fair enough.; 4/7/11, 9:19 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Lem,

Has anybody told you you might be addicted to hitting on women ;)

Well, not until just now.

wv: dratedic. In this context, I'm not going there.; 4/7/11, 9:21 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I see you are into Attitude Anonimus..
I'm not proud of you.; 4/7/11, 9:26 AM
lemondog said...: How food affects me rules what I eat.

I've a weakness for sweets. Once I could eat ice cream all day long. I would inhale strawberry shortcake.

I know if I eat certain foods I will feel like crap so I stay away from them. Over time I've lost the desire for the bad (for me) foods.

Read those labels!; 4/7/11, 9:44 AM
traditionalguy said...: An interesting fact about overweight folks is that many of them are in religions that identify alcohol usage and sex as sinful conduct. Overeating is all they have left.; 4/7/11, 10:53 AM
Phil 314 said...: An underlying scientific principle is that urges, desires etc are chemically mediated. There's good evidence for that. But if true then with time and good research we will find a treatment for homosexuality.

(And assuming I get "push back" from that statement, how do we decide what urges are ok and which are aberrant?); 4/7/11, 1:19 PM
HT said...: Not enough detail and information and thought in this discussion. I am one thousand percent against the medicalization of .... everything, that is now going on in our country perhaps the world. But more thought and pause needs to be given to this question. I do not think one can become addicted to raw foods - that is to say whole foods. And no, probably not the processed horrors we have now, but that's an extremely different animal than fruit, mean, and veggies. Processed carbs are more "addictive" than fruit, meat, veggies. I put it lightly in quotes because there have been studies done, but at the same time I am reluctant to say it's a full-fledged addiction like meth, tobacco (which I used to smoke), or heroin. I don't know enough science, for one thing, but there is SOMEthing going on, just do some reading about it. And different people respond differently.; 4/8/11, 7:13 AM
HT said...: Phil 3:14 said...

An underlying scientific principle is that urges, desires etc are chemically mediated. There's good evidence for that. But if true then with time and good research we will find a treatment for homosexuality.

____

And heterosexuality too, presumably, no?; 4/8/11, 7:14 AM
RC3 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/8/11, 12:01 PM