Don't Drink, Don't Smoke, What Do You Do?
I can’t stop thinking about this entry of Kate’s. A large percentage of 18-24 year olds believe that being fat is more unhealthy than drug abuse, smoking, or alcohol.
Hey there, mainstream media? JOKE’S OVER. Young people believe inhaling poison causes fewer problems than being fat. THIS IS NOT OKAY. And it’s your fucking fault for regurgitating press releases from Big Pharma and weight loss companies; for repeating “obesity kills” ad nauseam without citing any source; for utterly failing to fact-check what you publish about fat; for ignoring mountains of research demonstrating that fat is both far more benign and far less controllable than most people believe; for acting as if dangerously underweight, coke-addicted young women with eating disorders are the picture of “good health”…
Kate provides a lot of facts and statistics to back up her points, and I suggest you go read the full entry. At the same time, the media thinks they haven’t done enough:
We really feel like there needs to be a concerted effort made to educate children — who are prime candidates for obesity and who mirror the bad habits they learn at home from their often also-fat parents. According to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, almost half a million people in the U.S. die each year as a result of poor diet and a lack of physical activity.
That’s a serious problem, just as drugs, alcohol and tobacco use are. There is no reason why there should not be a full-court press on to help teach children that the choices they make about what to ingest as food can be just as deadly as the choices they make about drugs, smoking or drinking
“Poor diet” and “lack of physical activity” are indeed dangerous, but they are not the same as being overweight. Nevertheless, this article is in response to the larger ambulance for obese patients up to 1,000 pounds, to help transport them in a “dignified and safe way.” OH, THE HORROR. Now everyone will think it’s okay to weigh 1,000 pounds!
It’s a question of fatphobic scare tactics vs. sensible solutions that don’t point the finger at any one group. And of course the real problem is seen in young people who think it’s better to smoke than to gain weight:
The sad thing is that a few extra pounds should not be a huge concern when everyone knows how much damage smoking causes the body. Unfortunately, we live in a society where many women consider smoking to be more acceptable than carrying those few extra pounds. As Mary Donkersloot, R.D., a Beverly Hills based nutritionist puts it, “the prospect of looking in a mirror today scares them more than the idea of looking at an X-ray of their lungs in twenty years.” Surrounded by the glossy photos of today’s top models and actresses – most of whom are not just thin, but skinny -staying trim and fit seems like a necessity to be considered attractive, especially for women in their 20’s.
The Brogan Survey (which is the survey Kate is talking about) has its own blog, too, and speculates about the survey results:
Our findings can suggest a variety of things. Do you think the older population overestimates drug abuse in the state or country? Is this because of the media’s portrayal of young people? Are younger people more attuned to the obesity problem? Do they learn about it in school or base the level of health threat on people they know, indicating more overweight friends than drug addicts?
This quote seems to indicate that people were asked to consider which problem is more prevalent, which is, of course, a different question. Anyway, I’m off to go snort some crystal meth. Let me know what you think.
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This quote seems to indicate that people were asked to consider which problem is more prevalent, which is, of course, a different question.
Yeah, I believe it was phrased as “Which is the greatest threat to public health?” which could either mean “What’s deadliest?” or “What do you think affects the largest number of people?” Still, the fact that smoking and obesity were (once again) essentially equated from the get-go, seriously burns my fat, tobacco-addicted ass.
Thanks for the linky love. Off to shoot some smack.
I love you guys.
The irony with the smoking issue is that there are people who use the excuse that they will gain weight if they quite smoking to not quit. And they are generally right. My mom, who was a pack a day smoker (and underweight for her height) when she had her heart attack at 41, tells me that she’d forgotten how good food tasted when she wasn’t smoking. It took about 2 weeks of not smoking but she started tasting food fully for the first time in 20+ years. So, yeah, you aren’t suppressing your appetite and destroying your sense of taste anymore…
So, yeah, you aren’t suppressing your appetite and destroying your sense of taste anymore…
Spinsterwitch, I found the taste thing to be entirely true the last time I quit smoking (for a year and a half), though the effects were largely negative for me. Like, I never understood why people had a clear preference between Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke until about 10 days after I quit, when I nearly spit out the first sip of a Diet Pepsi. I had NO idea how sweet it was! I also discovered I don’t really love spicy food nearly as much as I thought.
Worse yet were the smells. I’d never lived in a big city as a non-smoker, and oh my god, there are SO MANY BAD SMELLS in the big city! Dog shit, bus exhaust, garbage, other people’s perfume… and yes, tobacco smoke. All of them 10x worse than they had been a couple weeks before. The adjustment period there was horrid.
Back on topic, I haven’t done much research on smoking and appetite, but I’ve also read that smoking increases metabolism, so post-quitting weight gain can be a matter of your body just resetting itself. Although in my case, frankly, I really did overeat like mad after I quit, for the stereotypical reason: replacement. I actually made a deal with myself that I could put anything in my mouth, guilt-free*, as long as it wasn’t a cigarette. And that meant I put a crapload of Cheetos in my mouth for a while, quite frankly.
But I made that deal with myself because — ding ding ding — smoking is so much worse for me than gaining weight. (Eating craploads of Cheetos isn’t great for anyone’s health, but my desire to do that quickly wore off, unlike my desire to smoke.) So your original point there about people saying, “I can’t quit, ’cause I’ll gain weight, and that’s just as bad” is well-taken. And maddening.
(*This was before I’d come around to the radical concept of guilt-free eating just as a general principle.)
I’ve known a few people who didn’t quit smoking because they didn’t want to gain weight. Or at least who said such things. But I don’t think they believed it’s healthier to smoke than to be fat — I think they were looking for any reason not to go through the hell of quitting the smokes. Faced with the headaches, the cravings, the sleeplessness, and the general crankiness that comes with quitting smoking, I always figured that the people who said “I don’t quit because I don’t want to gain weight” were just grasping at whatever straw they could to justify lighting up rather than trying (and often failing) to quit.
That’s not to say that some people aren’t idiotic enough to believe that smoking isn’t as bad as being fat, just that if a smoker thinks they’ll fail at quitting, they may tell themselves that they don’t want to gain weight and then go back to smoking anyway.
The exception here is the teenage girl category: I believe they really would rather face lung cancer than obesity. Of course, the teenaged sense of immortality plays a role here, too.
Kate’s entry was brilliant.
Especially the little line about MeMe Roth. I personally emailed that woman and her response to me was completely asinine. I sent her another email and she never replied. Especially after I told her about the BMI being something you couldn’t go on in the first place.
I don’t know… I’ve been quit for just over a month.. I don’t have any desperate cravings to smoke other than that the scale is scaring me!
I have gained almost 30 pounds in a month without eating significantly more. I am less likely to skip meals now, but that is supposed to help weight loss, not add to it.
At +30 lbs, I’m ready to go back to smoking. I wanted to stop smoking… I wasn’t looking for a new lifestyle of having to exercise non stop just to stay at the weight I was at. I quit smoking to prevent health issues but wasn;’t suffering from any. Now I feel horrible.
I started biking to work when I quit smoking, so I”m also exercising more than I ever have… only to watch my self-image torn apart when I was suppose tobe doing something good for myself.
I’m sorry, but I simply will not accept myself being fat. I have been of reasonable weight all my life and walking around with a gut and bloated and feeling horrid is too much a price to pay for clean lungs and for the convenience of every whiny nonsmoker out there….
Not sure what I’m going to do… but boy am I miserable right now… over 5 weeks invested in quiting and no benefits at all.