Dec 15 2006
Way Too Much Time On Their Hands
Someone has way too much time on their hands if they think warnings on clothes for over weight people is something governments should invest in. Being overweight is a known danger people struggle with. Being a nag will not help one single person deal with the problem. The people behind this should be sacked. They are wasting time and money better spent elsewhere.
Kill two birds with one stone.
Have a health insurance company make an offer. Because right now if you’re 60 pounds overweight, you won’t be accpted into a private health insurance plan. And, you’re probably not gonna get hired by a major company that offers health plans. (In other words you gotta work alongside more than 15 people.)
Too bad we don’t set up lotteries for fat people so they could buy the surgery that would help them reduce. (Nah. Not the American one where they cut your stomach into a “Y.” But the Austrailian way. By putting a “bandaid” around the top of the stomach. Reducing it’s size. And, you’d be surprised. It’s a great technique. Since the government is gonna go ahead and “nanny” ya. We should at least be able to reach a healthy compromise.
I think there must be related to these people.
Intelligent children ‘more likely to become vegetarians’
JANE KIRBY
INTELLIGENT children may be more likely to become vegetarian, according to a study out yesterday.
Those recorded as having a high IQ aged ten were more likely to be vegetarian aged 30, it said.
The research, published online in the British Medical Journal involved a study of 8,179 men and women.
Aged 30, 366 (4.5 per cent) of them said they were vegetarian. Of those, nine (2.5 per cent) were vegan while 123 (33.6 per cent) said they were vegetarian but ate fish or chicken.
On average, vegetarians had a higher childhood IQ score than non-vegetarians. The mean childhood IQ score of vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians was 106.1 and 100.6 for men and 104 and 99 for women.
It is already known that children with a high IQ have lower risk of coronary heart disease in later life – something the researchers said could be down to a vegetarian diet which is also regarded as good for the heart.
They said: “Vegetarians were more likely to be female, to be of higher social class, and to have attained higher academic or vocational qualifications, although these advantages were not reflected in their income.
“Higher IQ at age ten years was associated with an increased likelihood of being vegetarian at age 30.
“IQ remained a statistically significant predictor of being vegetarian as an adult after adjustment for social class, academic or vocational qualifications, and sex.”
The authors also noted that vegetarians were less likely to be working in the private sector.
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=1861232006
Alarmingly stupid. Perhaps the fat people should wear signs on their back, too. As you said, most overweight people struggle, much like alcoholics or drug addicts or smokers. They know their habits are detrimental, although I certainly think this has been exaggerated as well, but they have a metabolism signaling system that can’t adjust to overabundance of nutrient food. Efforts need to be put into place to enable these people to get their appetite control back.
Carol, I don’t know what you’re talking about – lots of fat people have good jobs.
And a cure for diabetes might have been found. Sadly for Mr. Fox, it doesn’t involve stem cells.
Turns out diabetes might be caused by neurological issues.
The story about the vegetarians says intelligent people are likely to become vegs, but the media is playing it in the opposite direction in their headlines implying that vegetarianism causes higher intelligence.
There is probably a good reason for that. People with below average intelligence probably can’t afford to be vegetarians. If you have $4 in your pocket, where are you going to get a vegetarian meal? I don’t know about where you all live, but around here the popularity of vegetarianism seems to track pretty well with affluence. Richer Marin County seeming to have more vegetarians than poorer Alameda County, for example. Vegetarianism is popular here among rich white kids, not as popular among poor hispanic or black kids.
But that entire thing goes by the wayside if taken outside the US. In India, for example, I doubt vegetarianism would show any correlation and all with intelligence.
For example, this article from the UK:
“Frequently dismissed as cranks, their fussy eating habits tend to make them unpopular with dinner party hosts and guests alike.
But now it seems they may have the last laugh, with research showing vegetarians are more intelligent than their meat-eating friends.”
I will bet “intelligence” also tracks with income. People able to afford higher and better education being more “intelligent”. So the intelligence is really a reflection of wealth. I would be tempted to say that “vegetarians are more affluent than their meat-eating friends” would probably be a more accurate. And again, in India even that would go out the window.
In the Western world, it is more expensive to be vegetarian. You can buy a cheap burger anywhere in the US. It is harder to get a balanced vegetarian diet on a low income at fast food places. Vegetarian fast food joints around here (SF Bay area) tend to be expensive too.
Vegetarianism is almost solely a bourgeois preoccupation and, as Murray and Herrnstein showed long ago, the middle and upper classes have an IQ advantage. They also, however, tend to overestimate their own wisdom and go off chasing all sorts of rainbows — in the belief that they can see truth and virtue where most people cannot
Britain is a nanny state. Let the government take care of citizens and do their thinking (and even non citizens) from the cradle to the grave. Tax them to death in the meantime.
I, for one, do not want the government meddling in my life or my business. They are encroaching too far as it is. The government does not have the authority to solve any social problems. That is something they have taken upon themselves. They’ve made a law in some states that you can’t re-do your bathroom without wheel-chair access just in case you ever sell your house to a wheel-chair bound person. And when we get into that area, you can’t sell your house to whomever you want to or not sell it to whomever you don’t want to sell it to. But the biggest laugh was when congress decided how much water you could use to flush the toilet. As AJ says, way too much time on their hands.
Crosspatch, thank you for linking that story.
Yeah. Like I say, take that survey to India and it goes right out the window. In other words, take it to anyplace where the culture is vegetarianism for all classes of people and you discover that A: even the dull are vegetarian and B: the population tends to still be uneducated and poor.
It is all about projection. People trying to project their own issues onto data. Oh, and having entirely too much money and not enough to do.
Vegetarianism is a fad. Trendy people follow the fad de jour. Trendy people are high income professional people who can afford to follow the latest fad. And as with any cult they feel superior in their habits. They think they are smarter than meat eaters because their minds are pure . I have often wondered what will happen if people decide that plants have feelings too.
There does seem to be a general correlation between high IQ and a tendency to believe stupid things simply because Mr. Joe Average “Lunkhead” Sixpack doesn’t believe them. (Because it’s just sooo tempting to think you know something that the rest of the world doesn’t know.)
Like vegetarian diets leading to higher intelligence. (I seem to recall that the human brain needs lots of protein to function properly. That means you gotta eat your meat. 🙂 )
If you look at the study, it doesn’t say that vegetarianism leads to higher intelligence. It says the opposite, that higher intelligence tends to lead to vegetarianism.
“Yeah. Like I say, take that survey to India…”
CP, sorry I didn’t specify thanking you for linking the story about curing diabetes in mice.
As for vegetarianism: been there, did that, barbecued and ate the horse it rode in on. (No, just kidding, I didn’t really eat a horse.) I function best as an omnivore, but that’s a personal decision.
Something else to sue over, I suppose! Sigh.
Meanwhile, we have a re-elected DA (Mike Nifong) conspiring with the head of the private lab who evaluated the DNA in the Duke LaCross case, to withold exculpatory evidence from the court and the defense in order to “protect” unamed persons who DID have sex with the “victim”.
The lab manager admits (UNDER OATH) that he and Nifong conspired to withhold the results that kept three INNOCENT men under indictment!!! When can we expect the arrest of Mr. Nifong and the lab manager? I don’t give a rat’s butt about him being “re-elected” by the people! This is CRIMINAL intent if I ever heard of it! See Free Republic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1754097/posts
Carol
Scientific basis for IQ:
Assume a quantity that can’t be defined. Determine it in a way that can’t be measured. Promote it in a way that cannot be questioned.
The obesity epidemic in the US began around the same time our municipal water supplies were flouridated. Years ago I heard a Lecturer say that in the 1930’s the Germans experimented with feeding large amounts of flouride to rats. Those fed the most Flouride became tremendously obese and died of obesity related ailments. After hearing this, I switched to drinking distilled water. I was surprised to find that my voracious appetite vanished. I am not saying that flouride affects everyone this way. But if you are one of those people who can sit down at the table and stuff yourself as full as you can, and the first thought in your mind when you get up is, “What can I eat next?” I suggest you switch to nonflouridated water and see if it stops your constant craving for food. It worked for me.
So what would these warnings say anyhow? Here are some possibilities:
“If your ass fits these pants, you should consult you physician about a thyroid problem!”
“Wide Load!”
“PROPERTY OF ROSIE O’DONNELL!”
“Contains 1,786,908,654 Calories, 98% from Fat. Avg serving size, four trips to the buffet.”
“Property of Barnum and Bailey”
“Built by Ben and Jerry’s Construction”
Maybe we should have tags on clothes for other purposes too.
Madonas underwear: “CAUTION: TOXIC WASTE!”
Britanny Spears underwear:
Rush Limbaughs Clothes: “Caution: Makes Wide Right Turns!”
Jimmy Carters Clothes: “If found, please return to Plains GA home for the Senile in Denial.”
Snoop Doggs Clothes: “State of NY Case 556742.a Evidence item 1456 B”
Rudy Guliani’s clothes: “Size 18”
Nicole Richies clothes: “Size -3”
Oh well, that’s enough fun for now. Merry Christmas All!!
Yes, lots of fat people have good jobs. I even know a few.
But, yesterday, talking with my own doctor, whose nurse is overweight; AND SHE HAS NO HEALTH INSURANCE THROUGH HER JOB, he said, his office is too small for him to be able to offer group insurance. He told me he’d need 15 employees. And, she’s way overweight!
It’s not easy to “take off weight.” And, there is something called obesity. Where, today, fat people WHO CAN AFFORD IT, can have marvelous results through surgery.
What you, up there, call “good jobs.”
On the other hand, people with good jobs can also afford good tailors. So the crux of hanging labels onto things will not go to the Brooks Brothers crowd at all. But to people who cannot avail themselves of today’s better, and more, expensive interventions.
A lot of good labels will do ya, if you can’t get health insurance.
Ah. Again, that’s what my doctor said yesterday. His nurse weighs to much. And, he knows even if she applied for health insurance she’d be rejected. (They have cut off points. Since most insurance companies are risk averse.)
Again, fat people can have health insurance. IF THEY BELONG TO A WORKFORCE THAT’S GREATER THAN 15 PEOPLE. Because the group can’t be discriminated against, the way the individual can find themselves without coverage.
I didn’t make up these rules. Nor do I think a label is gonna be of any “halp.”
“Someone has way too much time on their hands if they think warnings on clothes for over weight people is something governments should invest in.”
How about just putting a “Big Fat Loser” label on anything the elite don’t like? Like maybe SUVs, large clothes, maybe even hamburgers along with fur coats, Republicans, and anything from WalMart.
Carol
I have talked to several people who had that marvelous operation and all regretted it. One worked in a cardiologists’ office and all the doctors tried their best to talk her out of the operation. They said it was dangerous to her health.
Also, I don’t think much of your doctor discussing his employee with a patient.