TYT: Is This Family Too Fat To Work?

[ihavenobias]

Run time: 03:16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L55GmtfpV4A   Posted on YouTube: March 21, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 23, 2009 By DU Member: ihavenobias Views on DU: 2221

 
NOTE: Here is the article about the family: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5004431/Family-who-are-too-fat-to-work-say-22000-worth-of-benefits-is-not-enough.html



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[jennied]

1. I never heard of obesity being hereditary. I heard of bad habits being inherited though.

Maybe I'm wrong and obesity is hereditary. But that would mean that no matter what, even with the healthiest diet ever, and exercise that a child will still turn out to be obese. That doesn't make sense to me.

[ihavenobias]

2. Well, there *are* genetic components to obesity.

Quite a few actually. But like with anything, it comes down to what people do within the constraints of their genetics.

Consuming too many calories (especially in the form of bacon sandwiches) and not exercising is inexcusable in the context of claiming the inability to work and receiving government money.

[burning rain]

5. Even people from fat families...

can lose weight by eating less and exercising more.

[bumblebee1]

3. Obesity is hereditary?

It may be, but, bad eating habits are learned. There are people in my workplace who are larger than the father. They still come to work and do their jobs.

[npk]

4. I had no idea that calories effect some people differently than others, WOW

Talk about learning something new everyday. All this time I have been under the impression that too many calories consumed, versus what the body needs to maintain a normal weight, led to gaining weight. I guess these people showed me.

[Seldona]

6. What a complex situation.

I don't know enough about their medical situation to make any sort of judgment. But as it comes off like these people could be doing more.

If their weight is the result of say, a pituitary malfunction that is passed on, they are right. If not, they should get the help they need, because being that size is not good for your health.

[mwb970]

7. The family looks like a typical "party of 4" at our local Bob Evans.

Many, many Columbus residents look just like these people (I see them every day), yet they manage to work and get paid in the usual way.

[ejbr]

8. Anna's RuFFLes....

sorry, yeah, that family is whack.

[GOPBasher]

9. Now THOSE people are free loaders.

American conservatives call anyone free loaders, including, say, children who get cancer while their parents get laid off and lose health insurance. American conservatives are just plain mean.

On the other hand, it looks like in Britain they need to be a bit more conservative. They go WAY too far in giving handouts. They should give these parents jobs, not free money.

[TheEuclideanOne]

10. You would be this fat also, if the government paid you

If the government paid me to sit on my fat ass all day, it would just get fatter. If the government cut them off and they had to work to survive, you would bet they would get jobs. In fact, getting paid by the government to remain fat is actually an incentive for them. Nobody in that picture is morbidly obese. It doesn't even look genetic, it just looks like people who have an excuse to skip on doing exercise and skip on eating healthy. They probably were just hoping that this would not make the news because the most obvious reaction by anybody watching is that this is a scam.

[Anser]

11. Hereditary

Humans are biological machines.
We take in X amount of energy in the form of the calories we eat.
We expend Y amount of energy through our resting metabloism and our daily activities.

As long as X is less than or equal to Y a person WILL NOT gain weight.

Now, how efficiently a given person burns energy may vary, but claiming hereditary obesity is, unfortunately, just an excuse.

Your genes may put up a few speed bumps on your road to fitness, but it will almost never put up a road block.


And just for some personal context, on both sides of my family people look larger than those in the above video. My aunts, uncles, parents, grand-parent were almost all 300+ lbs, some topping 450.

For comparison I am 6' 3", under 200 lbs, and have worked as a personal trainer.

For those offended by this that struggle with their weight, don't get mad, get on an elliptical.

[Vektor]

12. There is absolutely a genetic component to body type, metabolism, etc....

But that is one piece of the puzzle. Diet and exercise do play a role as well, but there will always be people who are obese from early childhood, don't eat any differently than other kids, yet struggle eternally with weight gain. Then, on the flip side, we have those incredibly skinny folks that eat nothing but crap, don't exercise, and are always thin. Most people fall somewhere in between, and will maintain an average body weight if they balance their calories taken in with calories burned.

This family might be more genetically inclined to have a large body type, and slower metabolism, but that said, I have seen WAY fatter people who work full time. I really don't think these people are too fat to hold jobs.

[Donnachaidh]

13. If you get BBC America, watch a show called *You Are What You Eat*

Gillian McKeith is a nutrition specialist who travels around Britain re-training fatties like this to eat HEALTHY. She typically gets a list of what one of the people showcased has eaten in ONE week, and piles it on a table for them to see. Most times that table is laden with the most godawful shit you can imagine. Bacon sandwiches are usually not as disgusting as all the other things put together.

That being said, the *typical* British diet that includes bacon sandwiches is pretty grisly. But Gillian has taken the most hardcore folks she can find, and re-educates them on how to eat AND exercise. This family should be a prime candidate for her show.

She has a website at: http://www.gillianmckeith.info/

Gillian could straighten this lot out fast.

[Lorien]

19. Just watched the clip on the link you posted

Good Lord! I'm shocked that the bodies of that mother/ daughter team can endure what they're putting into them! My father is horribly obese but even he can't pack away that much food.Whatever happened to good old common sense?

[Donnachaidh]

20. You should see the families with small obese kids!

Some of them haven't seen a veggie in YEARS.

Gillian's nutritional books are great. We've bought a couple, and her diets are common sense, good nutrition. Gets people away from fats and meat. The detox is powerful - you feel like a million bucks after 8 weeks.

We have bad eaters in this country, too. It just seems really extreme the way they showcase it on Gillian's show.

[jfkraus]

14. No time to exercise?

If they are not working, what in hell do they do all day? Oh, they eat.

[Creationismsucks]

15. I see many here consider themselves to be experts on this topic

we crave people to blame, don't we? If you've ever been seriously overweight, I'm interested in your opinions about this. If not, you can cram your opinion up your fucking ass hole. I thought maybe a DU crowd would be more curious about the human angle on this topic, but from reading the comments here, I thought I had accidentally followed a link to Freeperland.

Suddenly you're all endocrinologists? Give me a fucking break. Even with your vast 'knowledge' of the heritability of obesity, of diet and exercise, once somebody weighs a lot more than is healthy, all they can do is their best, and no, that does not mean they magically weigh less in a month or two. Just as religion should not be used as a quick proxy for morals, someone's weight should not be used as a proxy for their strength of character.


Let me be clear that I'm NOT talking about the people in the TYT clip. I don't know anything about them.

...some here seem to think that all they need to do is look at them to get all the information they need.

Maybe this family IS freeloading, but I'm not talking about them.

Just because you lost 20 pounds once in your life, does not make you an exercise physiologist.

I hope some of you here who are just brimming with pseudo-certainty, live to gain a lot of weight some day.

I hope you see the looks from your children's friends, as you pick them up at the playground.

I hope you lie awake at night, wondering "when will the stroke come?"

I hope you take it all off only to gain it all back, and then have friends and doctors chide you that you didn't make a "lifestyle change" but only fell for a "fad diet", when in truth you followed only the soudnest medical advice, but then after a few years slipped up and dared to let your mind wander, and watched in horror as you found your old habbits re-asserting themselves, undoing months of hard, hard-won progress.

I hope you gain hundreds of extra pounds, and are told on the street "damn! you need to get your ass to a gym", only to be asked "what are you doing HERE?" by the same people, when you ARE at the gym.

Until you've been through that, over many years, you can help yourself to a nice hot cup of SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[grace0418]

18. But we ARE talking about the people in the TYT clip, and you don't have to be an

endocrinologist to see that they are full of shit.

For the record, I used to weigh 285 lbs. and have struggled for years just to lose 75 of those pounds. Only half way to my goal, and I work on it every day. So I know the pain, believe me. But these people actually make me angry because they reinforce the hurtful and negative (and largely untrue) stereotype of the lazy, good-for-nothing obese person.

I have to say I read through the posts and do not see any that are offensive to overweight people in general. Most were quite respectful, in fact, and the ones that were derogatory were specific to the family in the OP. I will admit that I've seen many threads on DU where people say vile things about being fat as if it were a crime against humanity on par with murder. However in this thread I feel like you're seeing broad judgment where there is none.

[depakid]

21. Something else to consider

The NHS (National Health Service) would provide this family with considerable assistance that Americans trying to lose weight wouldn't get.

[grace0418]

22. So true. But they act like they have no idea how to go about losing weight.

Defeatism at its worst.

[DS1]

23. Uh. We ARE talking about THEM, so you take your cup of SHUT THE FUCK UP

and slam it down

[OhioChick]

16. K&R

:kick:

[grace0418]

17. I used to be as fat as the girl on the left and I've had a job since I was sixteen. When I was in

grad school, I went to school full-time, worked full-time, and still got *some* exercise in.

When I started losing weight, I worked full-time and spent six nights a week at the gym. I still go five nights a week.

This family is full of shit. And it makes me angry because it's people like this who reinforce hurtful stereotypes about people who struggle with weight problems *AND* people who are getting government assistance. Fucking idiots.