I agree with Potatofree. While it's true that for some people, their weight issue was not of their choosing. They did their best to eat healthy but they got fat due to a thyroid problem, insulin resistance or just plain bad dietery advice.

However, I am sure that weight gain is to a large extent an individual thing. Everyone has their story on how they got obese. I am sure that a significant number of people got big because they ate too much. My brother, for example is a regular at Harveys and Burger King. A few years ago, he broke his ankle badly and could no longer walk. Our house has several levels, so he could not navigate the stairs down to the kitchen. He was restricted to what my mother served him, and she served him only good food. Will you be suprised when I tell you he lost a considerable amount of weight ? And remember that was with zero exercise. When he got mobile again and resumed his long walks (which always seem to lead him to a junk food peddler) he packed on the pounds again.

So in his case, it's clear to me that his weight is definitively HIS responsibility and no one else.

Everyone has a different reason why they gained weight. In the original article, it was clear to me (and to the writer) that he was responsible for his weight gain, thus the stance he adopted. He forgot as many here did, that you simply cannot generalize your personal experience to everyone.

Yes, my health is my responsibility, whether I'm dealing with my obesity, my allergies, a muscle spasm in my back, gingivitis, smoking, anxiety/depression, or a virus. My responsibility.

That has NOTHING to do with whether or not I ought to receive professional health care in regards to any of those things. Those are all health issues I deal with, or have dealt with at sme point. I cannot deal with them without taking responsibility, but of course I receive professional health care, where a professional can help me.

If I should be turned away from health care for one of these things, on the basis of responsibility, then I'd have to be turned away for all of them.

Word. I've been paying more attention to people, lately, to their sizes and shapes and all that, and I've seen that obese parents a more likely than not walking with obese kids. I guess they just teach their kids the same lifestyle habits that they follow themselves, without really noticing what's going on.

YES!!! Get the sodas OUT of the schools!

When I was in high school, there were Coke machines everywhere, on all day long. At lunch, you had the option of buying an extra dessert, a milkshake, a"clearly canadian" soda, and extra fries with your burger. We had only one semester of required physical education (I took it in the summer, and it was walking).

And this was one of the best public high schools in the state.

I've noticed the same thing. I've seen that blond parents are more likely than not walking with blond kids. I guess they just teach their kids the same hair color habits that they follow themselves without really noticing what's going on.

But whether or not professional help should be available is not that same thing as saying that everyone else should be forced to pay for it. Is there anything health related at all that the government shouldn't pay for? How many studies link people's self-esteem with their overall health and well being? So, if the fact that I am bald is hurting my self-image should the government pay for my Rogaine?

I have NO problem if the school board wants to do this and encourage them and support them wholeheartedly. I DO have problem if any level of government above that comes in and issues their edicts about what can and can't be done.

I find it interesting that when most people talk about the decline of public education the start of the rapid decline is usually pegged at the mid eighties. I can only really think of two things that came into being in the early eighties on a widespread basis that might have a causal link - the advent of cheap calculators gaining adoption for classroom use in basic math classes and the creation of the U.S. Department of Education.

In 1971 when my dad confronted the school board about the school they wanted to move me to, they listened and responded to him. They had the power to do so because they were in charge and were elected by the man standing in front of them seeking a redress of grievances.

When one of my classmates from high school did a similar thing for similar reasons (I'm guessing it would have been early 90's) the school board just spouted a bunch of platitudes and finally informed her that it wasn't up to them because if they didn't follow this particular plan they would lose a bunch of grants and subsidies from the Federal Government.

There's an important issue which no one has been addressing. Obesity is more of a problem at the lower end of the economic scale. Poor people are more likely to be obese than well-off people. The reason is the starchy diet available to them and the lack of good information. Is obesity a choice they have made?

I'm certainly not rich by any means - there are LOT's of people out there with a lot more money than me and there are lots of things I can't afford. I couldn't even begin to afford a chef to prepare all of my meals every day to make sure they were healthy. I couldn't think of hiring a personal trainer to design a good fitness program for me and work with me six days a week to be sure that I do it and do it right. I can't imagine what it would cost to have a private physician devoting several hours a week to your health. There are a lot of people out there that can and do afford those things. I have no doubt that their battles with their weight and health can be a lot more effective than they would be if they couldn't afford those things.

But if someone were to proclaim that I lacked the ability to take my life and my health in my hands and make the most of what is available to me just because I couldn't afford the options available to those more affluent than I am, I think I was resent the implications about my ability to make decisions and act on them should I decide it is truly what I want to do.

And I think I would have reacted the same way when, in college in the late eighties, I was scraping by on $300 a month living in an 8ft by 10ft sleeping room for $110/month. Was I incapable of making and acting on good decisions then just because I was effectively making $1.75/hr? Hardly! Would I have agreed with anyone telling me that my situation was beyond my control and that I needed the government to step in and rescue me? Hardly!

In fact, I made greater strides back then then I have in all the years since I got a decent paying job and could afford halfway decent bad food. At one point I got down to 270 which was a loss of 70 pounds form where I started from - I have yet to achieve that low carbing, though I am getting close. I got a lot more exercise then because I was so money-starved that I couldn't dream of affording insurance on my beat-up old truck. So it sat for nearly two years while I walked everywhere I needed to go and limited where I went to where I could walk.

That my dietary choices were based on poor information was hardly because I was poor and I made those same choices based on that same information long after that ceased being true. What would the government stepping in have done to change that?

I sometimes wonder how much our motivations stem more from a belief that the poor are mentally or emotionally incapable of caring for themselves and that what they really need isn't financial help, but rather for us to step in and assert control over them for their own good.

Finally someone in this thread with some type of compassion for people. The bottom line to me is that it is hard for people on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale to afford a lot of things. I know lots of people who base their diets and their kids diets on Beans and potatoes because they are very economical and filling. That's one thing. I'm not saying they are not responsible for themselves but does everyone in this thread have insurance or something, or has never been without insurance? I've been laid off from my job and not had insurance before and its not fun. On top of that, I'm paying taxes, for what reason? Paying for this government to run, so my whole position is that the government is technically working for the taxpayers, we support it. All the people who keep trying to separate the government from our lives, its not going to happen. Just try not paying taxes next April and see what happens. Just like they are supposed to protect us from terrorists threats they better be there to help me when I need them, I'm paying them a big chunk out of my paycheck every week!
Just because you may be losing weight now, and feel like, why can't everyone just do this, I'm doing it, don't think you are superior. How long did you walk around in the dark not knowing how you would ever turn this thing around. Personally it took me about 15 years to do it. Don't look down your nose at other people.

I have enormous compassion for anyone with a severe weight problem, since I have walked in the same shoes. I think at the end of it, we have all seen the same things, been exposed to the same humiliations, and looked into mirrors with the same dread.

That doesn't mean I want the federal government, whose official stance is that we should eat mostly carbs as the main nutrients of our diets, in charge of anything in regard to weight loss. And when you inject Federal money into something, you inject federal control into it.

Would that stop me from low carbing? They can hardly do that. But they can waste tax money doing it.

The originial writer we spun into this debate thinks obesity is a choice. Actually, he's incorrect. People get fat for a number of reasons, in and somewhat out of our control. I disagree with him and especially his hateful tone.

What I believe is that recovering from obesity is a choice. And whether or not the federal government is involved, nothing would change for the vast majority of people unless they decide to take responsibility for their conditions. I spent my entire life in denial about my condition. When my daughter was born, I knew I'd have to do something if I wanted to live to see her graduate high school.

Had any government program existed all that time, it still would not have mattered. I had to make that choice before I could do a thing about it.

I'm walking that road, and so are most of the people on this forum. We can get support, we could have a trillion dollar federal program, we could have cheerleaders on the shoulder, but the only thing that matters is our own resolve.

No, they can't stop us from low carbing, but consider this scenario:

The government decides to take control of the country's weight problem. They decide what are and are not healthy foods based on the current food pyramid. To discourage the eating of what they consider unhealthy foods (fats, red meat, etc...), and fund their anti-obesity program they impose a tax on those foods making them much more expensive to purchase than they are now much like what has already been done with cigarettes. So...the foods that we low carbers consider healthy and good, with the exception of vegetables, get a lot more expensive while those foods that most of us are trying to avoid (pasta, potatoes, rice, etc..) get considerably more affordable. Do we really want to go there? I know I don't.

I've been there with no insurance, for months at a time, sometimes over a year at a time while working to build a career. Now I work for a health insurance company and it's interesting to see it from both sides.

I agree about the greater impact upon people in the lower reaches of the economy. Those food which are cheap and filling are those which are highest in carbs. That's the whole reason carbs became part of our diet. It was a combined phenomenon. As more people lived closer together they needed a cheaper and easier form of food. You could get more calories out of a field of grain than out of the same patch of land with domesticated animals which give much more than the same patch of land from hunting. As grain production grew it allowed an even greater density of population. Civilization, as we know it, was truely built upon a foundation of bread. Grains, potatoes and beans are the cheapest food stuffs to produce in terms of calories/dollar.

I most parts of the world, meat is a delicacy and is used mainly for flavoring rather than the substance of the meal.

One point about insurance companies. If it seems that they will have to be paying for obesity treatments, then I can guarentee you that they will become much more active in finding effective ways of preventing obesity. The more payments they have to pay out, the less profits (for the for-profit companies) and the less reserves (for non-profit companies) they will have. Insurance companies have realized the benefits of preventing the diseases or at least controlling chronic diseases that affect their bottom line. Obesity does have some impact now, and so you see companies promoting healthier lifestyles, but if it becomes a direct impact, you'll see more action.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Plane Crazy

You can't selectively raise tax on staple goods like meat or fat, the outcry would drive them out of office. What they would more likely do is tax such things as processed junk food, since there is no lack of agreement that they are bad for you. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. However it's not going to happen. Look what happened when the WHO issued their guidelines about limiting sugar consumption.

America is ruled by lobby groups and financial interests. You can be sure the greater good will never triumph so long as someone stands to loose money because of it.

Would it? Look at how many agencies (and individuals, for that matter) are saying that low carb is bad for people because of "all that fat" and for the most part, after years of anti-fat dogma, the public agrees. I could forsee a tax on foods with a "greater than X percent of fat content" or "greater than X percent of saturated fat content" and the outcry not being that great since so many people are of the mindset that fat is the root of all evil dietary-wise.
Granted, we (low carbers) wouldn't like it, but would the rest of the population see it as a bad thing?