My only stop-smoking aid was expensive, but probably the most effective. That is, it was expensive for Kaiser Permanente (sp?), or at least for the folks paying to be covered by Kaisar. I had a tonsillectomy (after I had mono, one tonsil swelled up to close half my throat, so I had the surgery for that reason). There's nothing like the excruciating pain of hot smoke going by the open sores in my throat to convince me to put the cigarette OUT.

By the time I could stand the pain, I had been quit for a couple months, so I stayed quit.

Also, two weeks of eating nothing but Jell-O (watermelon Jell-O was all I could stand to swallow) has put me off jell-O for the rest of my life, so if Jell-O is ever discovered to be evil and addictive, it would work for that, too.

I think a fat person is the last refuge of allowable discrimination. It's further bolstered because fat people themselves allow and participate in it. A lot of fat people compare themselves to other fat people and feel superior when they are not as large. A lot of fat people hate themselves and others for being fat. How many times on this board have we heard the disparaging comments? We all have!! Fat people that have lost weight or found their way can be the worst!!! "If I can do it, anyone can!!" How many times have we heard that?





I agree that some people are overweight due to simple overeating. A lot of people are not. I don't agree there's a lack of determination on the part of fat people to lose weight, nor is it their sole responsibility that they got that way. How many of you have been on more than four diets in your life? How many of you have wound up heavier at the end of it? How many of you have researched hyperinsulimia and insulin resistance? How many of you know the effects on the body? On the urge to eat? This is a chemical reaction that has to do with the body's chemical imbalance and very little with how much a person eats.

Case #1.
I was born with the fat gene or hyperinsulimia. I ate the same as my family. I got fat. They were all skinny. I ate normally. I have a sister to whom, 5 lbs. of potatoes french fried was a single serving. She was a size 2. I was a size 16 at 12. Was I responsible? Was my mother? I followed "healthy diet after healthy diet and got bigger. My hyperinsulimia got worse. Now my carb addiction kicked in. I got bigger. I researched. I restricted carbs. I lost weight. I got pregnant and gained the weight back rapidly. I lost the weight again and again and regained the same way. Now I think I was as well read as anyone. I knew what I had to do and could succeed for a while, be successful for a while. But after a while without carbs, the cravings would come back. I would fight them but they would win. I would spiral downward. Eventually I would recover and move on. Did I know what was causing this? Did I know how to control it? No, but I do now. It was a long road to get to this point.

How many others...on this board...aware of Atkins and lc go through the same thing? How many have we seen? Again and again? How many of us have been through this? Is this totally, one hundred percent our fault? I think Dr. Atkins and Drs. Hellers would disagree.

Case #2
I knew I was carb addicted and raised my daughter with that conciousness. Because I was aware and tailored her diet to restrict carbs my daughter never developed a sugar/bread tooth and stayed medium weight to adulthood, preg #1, preg #2. After preg #3 the hyperinsulimia kicked in and she blew up. She wasn't eating differently, she certainly wasn't eating sweets, she doesn't like them. She wasn't eating a lot of unhealthy carbs, so what happened? Is she totally responsible? Am I responsible? Luckily she has me and will be going on Atkins to lose the weight.

How many women on the board have been thin all their lives until pregnancy? The first? The second? The third? According to the Drs. Hellers, Drs. Eades, and Dr. Atkins, pregnancy can trigger hyperinsulimia. Is it the women's fault? Why would a woman think it's carbs when she's controlled her weight all her life before this by eating a "healthy" diet? And lost it, if she had to lose by restricting calories and maybe, gasp!! eating lower fat? Why would she suddenly lose that perception?

CASE #3
Economic status--Sometimes I think this is the most compelling and gains the least sympathy.







Wbahn, How nice you were able to go to college and survive on $110/month after rent. $110/month for one person isn't bad. I assume that room was heated? Did you have health insurance at college? Nice!!

Did you know that a lot of people in this country are paying over 55% of their income for rent? Before utilities? Before insurance payments? So lets take that $300 you used to get and take $165 from it. And another 25 for utilities. That would leave you with $115 for the month for food. Before insurance. Now lets give you children. One? Two? How about three? How long do you thing $115 would last for the month. Let's not forget transportation costs to get to work. How much to take out of the pot now? Oh, and before I get a comment that she shouldn't have had that many children. How about she was married and her husband left and now she's divorced and can't find him for child support so she's doing the best she can? And how about she doesn't have a car and the closest store doesn't carry good or reasonably priced produce? Oh and do let's qualify her for food stamps. So now she has more money for food. But let's say that the better store is a $20 dollar cab ride there and back and the bus line doesn't go near it. And say she only has a regular apartment size refrigerator. How does she provide her family with a healthy low carb diet now? Health insurance?

#4
And for the argument that government should butt out and The Constitution wasn't built on the concept of "promoting the general welfare". It always gets me that this is said by people who are "making it". And by "making it" I don't mean the upper middle class.

If the government didn't butt in we wouldn't have unions which gave us
Liveable wages, 5 day work week, paid holidays, vacations, retirement benefits and insurance.

We wouldn't have minimum wages, such as they are.
We wouldn't have workplace protections.
"Equal" Opportunity
Air and water standards
Social security
Retirement Accounts
Preventive Medicine Research
Elimination of Childhood diseases and epidemics

The social contract isn't a buffet. You don't get to pick and choose what you want to pay for. Some things you like, some things you don't. The recent increase for the military could have taken care of the entire Welfare budget for the past ten years.

And before someone puts the argument in place that the free market would have provided for the above. Think a moment. Think of those countries where the government allows the free market choice. What do you have.
You have...low wages, unsafe working conditions, no benefits, environmental damage, low standards of living except for the haves.

What did we have in this country before the government stepped in to protect the unions? We had the same thing. Ever hear of the robber barons?Unions were brutally and violently repressed. Read your history books. We can't self select and cherry pick facts to support our arguments. Certainly not from standing on the benefits that we've acquired up to this point.

If obesity is now treated as a disease, so what? Why not? The agruments against don't stand up, in my opinion. Treat them all or treat none. There is no difference.

That's my opinion.

For me, there IS no solution. You can't lump "fat people" into one class and generalize any more than you can say "white people all want..." or "Poor people need...."

What we DO need is a less wasteful, red tape ensnared, confusing, poorly administered system. There is no hope of eliminating waste and failure without massive overhaul. I don't see that happening, since each administration has thought it had "the" answer, and IMO have made it progressively worse.

That, and a growing number of people who are out to milk the system dry at the expense of people who really NEED the help.

Since you demand all or none - at least for anything that someone somewhere decides to call a disease - and since you obviously don't side with the none crowd (which I haven't seen anyone here yet, myself included, who does, but I'm opting for the rules you set down which is all or none) then clearly the government will have to pay for Cuticle Inflammatory Disease - what most people call hangnails. After all, there is some poor person somewhere that has such bad hangnails that it intereferes with her ability to work the clerical job she has which is the only thing allowing her to feed the twelve children that her rat bastard husband saddled her with when he took off. And, besides, there is no difference. Right?

How about this - we simply eliminate poverty in America all together. The median income is presently about $30,000 so we will establish a Basic Living Stipend (BLS) of, say, two thirds of that for a single person plus another $10,000 per dependent. The government will guarantee everyone at least that minimum income. If you make less than that, the government will supplement your income up to that level. Now, since some will argue that this would be inflationary and cause housing and food costs, in particular, to go up we'll address that by imposing price controls on all of the basic living requirements. This will keep the greedy slumlords from profiteering. Of course, even this level of income can't cover anything but the most basic of health costs, so we will have Universal Health Care that is free to anyone receiving any portion of their BLS (since that means that there total income from all sources is equal to the BLS threshold) that covers anything that can be treated by any form of health care practitioner so that people that benefit from aroma therapy aren't cutoff just because someone in the government might be foolish to decide that it shouldn't be covered.

And who, might you ask, is going to pay for this? Why, the "haves" of course. After all, the greedy CEO's simply aren't paying their fair share. Why, the top 0.1% of wage earners only paid 15% of personal income taxes while the bottom 60% paid nearly as much. That's disgraceful and proves how the have's are saddling the have nots with an unfair burden of the load of supporting the compassionate efforts of the Federal Government.

The level of discourse on this thread has detreriorated considerably. Goodbye.

Honestly I wasn't implicating any one person, but it just seems to me a lot of people answering this thread aren't remembering where they came from.

If you have 3 or 4 kids, buying expensive fruit and vegetables (and they can be expensive), isn't a choice, its hard to afford to eat that everyday for a month. Many people wouldn't consider canned beans or potatoes as junk. I personally grew up having food we weren't poor, but when I became an adult and got married and had hard times ...I did have to make economical choices. On top of that I didn't know what I know now.

In nutrition classes at the local social services buildings they have that same food pyramid chart. There is a "digital divide" still in existence in this country where many poor people don't have access to the internet. How can you change what you don't know. Or how can you change what you don't know how to change. If I have to choose between buying a 10 lb bag of potatoes --or lettuce, or a bag of oranges; economically the choice is clear. Being poor takes away alot of choices.

All I am saying is lets get both sides of the story. People may be saying the same thing about all of us who are overweight. They may be saying how did they get that big, they were or are so lazy. Not knowing you are exercising everyday. Why can't the government help those who need help? I remember when they didn't want to admit that diabetes was an epidemic. I just can't find a reason not to help those who need it. There is a lot to complain about other than the government helping people who are overweight?

Amen Zuleikaa!!!!!