Inside Every Fat Person (Health)

[Mick Harper]

I don't think you understand the word 'rational', Endless. It's not the same as 'true' and it's certainly not the same as 'believed by Mr Rocking'.

I've never heard a eugenicist arguing that it is a matter of 'self-preservation'. It is to improve the species. I daresay even a eugenicist has noticed that the human race has managed to preserve itself quite well without the benefit of eugenics.

[DPCrisp]

I was going to say...

'Ere,

if obesity is all down to carbs

and carbs are all down to processed grain

and Venus figurines (from the 25,000 year old ball park) accurately depict obese women,

then we have evidence of graniculture that must have been practised in the cities, all the way across Europe to Siberia, long before agriculture was farmed out to the countryside.

Bread, etc. are such hard work, it's no surprise that only a few posh people could afford it.

Is there any other way for Upper Palaeolithic European women to get fat?

Can someone check that the Venus figurines do not occur in the Middle East credited with inventing agriculture? I bet a map of all hundred-ish finds would be interesting.

...but on looking for a quote to tag this to, I found a bunch of disagreement. Did I miss something: do we have the key to obesity or not? Do we know what the Venus figurines are evidence of all the way across Europe to Siberia, long before agriculture was farmed out to the countryside?

[Komorikid]

[Mick Harper]

Perhaps we ought to concentrate momentarily on this idea that carb-ingestion was originally an upper-class thing. After all, they are highly addictive which is normally the cue for forbidding them to the populace.

This would imply that carbs were not originally cultivated (which they later were for both animal and human consumption) but found. My guess would be in the form of wild tubers....what are truffles and is their acquired taste/rarity value a holdover from earlier times?

Compare the feeding of chocolate to the Aztec high-ups.

[Hatty]

[DPCrisp]

[Ishmael]

[Tatjana]

[Mick Harper]

So now we know it wasn't Anatolia.

[DPCrisp]

[Hatty]

[DPCrisp]

[Hatty]

It's commonly claimed that obesity in some cultures, Africa particularly, denotes wealth and social standing and is therefore attractive. Our society which is incomparably wealthy overall by most standards has such an abhorrence of obesity that even young children are weight-conscious and in some instances develop into anorexics.

There was a programme about an eight year-old girl who had to be admitted to a clinic in order to prevent her dying from self-imposed starvation; it was clear that she was very bright and came from a well-off family. It was also clear that she understood calorie-counting and the effects of prolonged exercise (told you she was bright) but wasn't considered mature enough to be able to explain her self-destructive behaviour. Despite blaming the "bad fairy" or inner voices, the children are evidently self-aware; can't help wondering if they're avoiding disclosing family shortcomings out of loyalty.

Seeing girls -- it's usually girls -- putting themselves through such pain made me wonder if the idea of size has changed forever and we will become not so much health-conscious as fat-intolerant.

[Rocky]

[Mick Harper]