[Holly]

I just read an article posted on msnbc written in Geneva that obese people are a contributing factor of global warming. We require more food and are less likely to walk. At least we aren't generating "income" as oil companies are. Victim blaming at it's finest! Maybe the extra body heat I generated yesterday from my 5km walk was also a contributing factor and the article should target the marathon runners as well.

[morrisma]

Can't imagine a more poorly aimed arrow. It's money, not fat that drives the engine. Just ignore it. Stupidity also increases warming.
Mike

[owlyn]

On a similar note, not all diabetics are obese. The title of your thread "Anything else we can be..." when read with your first message, makes it sound like all diabetics are obese. Not even all T2s are obese.

[Dewey]

Originally Posted by Holly

I just read an article posted on msnbc written in Geneva that obese people are a contributing factor of global warming. We require more food and are less likely to walk. At least we aren't generating "income" as oil companies are. Victim blaming at it's finest! Maybe the extra body heat I generated yesterday from my 5km walk was also a contributing factor and the article should target the marathon runners as well.

Holly, I understand just what you're saying...and if anyone looks at the stupid guidelines (well, at least the AMA ones in the US), they pretty much consider all people "obese," whether or not they have Diabetes. I for one, would literally have to be anorexic to be the toothpick they want me to be (they say someone my height <4 feet 11 inches> should be 92 - 104 pounds or so!!!). These ridiculous guidelines don't take into account bone structure or anything else, for that matter. Of course, I should weigh less than I do, but seriously, if I was 92 - 104 pounds, I'd snap like a toothpick! I'm with you 100% on how you feel!

I think all too often, the news puts out stories without truly thinking things through or without researching ALL aspects. I'm with Mike in that stupidity causes global warming, too!

[Scrabblechick]

There was an article on MSNBC a couple of weeks ago that said something like, "How much money would we save if no one were fat?" Charming, no?

My first response was, "Well, how much money would we save if no one were a JERK?" Or, "How much would we save if we were all nice to each other?" Let's see: prisons would be empty, auto accidents would drop, greed would be eliminated, etc.

Right there with you, Holly.

[Cloudedbrains]

Overweight people are the answer to alot of idiots prayers - someone to dump all the world issues on

[fgummett]

It seems that in our politically correct World, we overweight folks are the last who can be poked fun at
I struggled for along time with the guilt associated with being overweight and its relationship to Diabetes. I now see clearly that it is a vicious cycle and firmly believe that my D caused my obesity... not the other way around. Check out the book in my signature line.

---

Originally Posted by owlyn

On a similar note, not all diabetics are obese. The title of your thread "Anything else we can be..." when read with your first message, makes it sound like all diabetics are obese. Not even all T2s are obese.

Seems a bit harsh... this is posted in Type 2 where unfortunately the vast (hah!) majority of us are overweight. It's not like it said, "anything else Diabetics can be blamed for"... and the very first line of the post makes it quiet clear.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Dewey

Holly, I understand just what you're saying...and if anyone looks at the stupid guidelines (well, at least the AMA ones in the US), they pretty much consider all people "obese," whether or not they have Diabetes. I for one, would literally have to be anorexic to be the toothpick they want me to be (they say someone my height <4 feet 11 inches> should be 92 - 104 pounds or so!!!). These ridiculous guidelines don't take into account bone structure or anything else, for that matter. Of course, I should weigh less than I do, but seriously, if I was 92 - 104 pounds, I'd snap like a toothpick! I'm with you 100% on how you feel!

Yes, I agree that the AMA guidelines are so off base that they need to be revised.

Many years ago I went to a doctor for my back and he said that I needed to lose weight. He said that at 6'-2" I should weigh 190 pounds. I laughed in his face. He asked me what was so funny.

I said, "Doc, some years ago I was taking Fen-Phen to lose weight. The Fen-Phen completely took away my appetite, so that if I ate 1/2 of a sandwich in a whole day, that was a lot. I was eating maybe 400 calories a day because I felt stuffed all the time and couldn't eat. If I felt hungry, three saltine crackers stuffed me. I lost so much weigh that my ribs were sticking out and I looked anorexic. At that point, I weighed 210 pounds, and now you say you want me to get to 190 pounds? How would I go about doing that doc? Should I eat 1/4 of a sandwich a day for the rest of my life.(which wouldn't be very long)?"

I looked at the weight chart that he got the 190 pound figure from and I said to him, "According to your chart, Lou Ferrigno (the Incredible Hulk) is obese and needs to lose some weight, correct? I mean, he's 6'-5" and weighs 285 pounds, so your chart says he's way overweight, right?"

He just grumbled that I should get my weight down.

When someone like that doctor says something that I think is obviously stupid, I like to throw it in their face a bit.

[Scrabblechick]

Frank, my endo pretty much TOLD me that my genes are much more to blame for my weight than my eating habits.

He said I'm naturally over-producing insulin and have high resistance. This, he says is a genetically provable combination. Insulin, of course, increases appetite and leads to weight gain.

He said the hunger signals I get from my body are very real--
except they're unnecessary. My stomach is full. My pancreas just doesn't believe it. LOL. So my disbelieving pancreas gives my poor, puzzled liver a poke and voila! Unnecessary glucose, followed by more insulin, which increases my hunger. Yay. As my endo, Dr. H. said, "You're at war with your body and it isn't a fair fight."

However, so many people look at the overweight and diabetic and think, "Well, if you'd just DONE something about your weight earlier, you wouldn't be diabetic." It's almost, "Serves you right for being a pig all these years."

Truth is, Dr. H. said with my family history of the D, I was probably born with mild insulin resistance and it just wasn't noticed until I'd fallen off the cliff into D. Keeping my weight down MIGHT have delayed the onset, but probably not by very long.

He explained something very interesting, as well. He said the reason diabetes is more common among those living in the Southeastern U.S. (like me) is because we are the "Children of the survivors." In the lean days during and after the Civil War, when food was scarce, our bodies adapted to the smaller food supply, extracting every nutrient out of what we ate. However, our society changed dramatically after 1930 or so, but our bodies haven't yet caught up. They're still programmed to get the most out of every bite. It makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. He said, "You're not a bad, weak-willed person. You're just Scarlett O'Hara's great-great granddaughter." Did wonders for my self-esteem.

My endo isn't very touchy-feely, but he's a thoroughly good egg and I like him.

[jacobsam622]

I have been shouting this from the roof top for the past 4 years, Gaining weight is a symptom of diabetes not the cause. As they say "its the genes dummy". If you take a close look at the progression of diabetes you can see it clearly, unfortunately only a few of us know when it actually began. I was tested for diabetes in 2003 because of issues related to my back I had the eight hour glucose tolerance test done. I guess some of the pinched nerve symptoms could have been caused by diabetes and in hindsight they were. Unfortunately the doctor who ordered the test was green around the ear's and failed to read the latest news from the ADA. If he had been paying attention he would have noticed that ADA had changed its guide lines for diagnosing pre-diabetes. In 2002 I was just under what was considered normal but by the middle of 2003 I was well over the new numbers that were being used for diagnosing pre-diabetes. This was the same time that I started putting on weight. about 8 months later my bgs were in the 500 range. The night of June 12 2004 I was up late doing shots of tequila I went to bed and woke up an hour later with extreme pain in my lower back my wife took me to the hospital and it turned to be a kidney stone and they say to me "did you know your bg is above 500" At the time I was more concerned with. I always wondered what my bg would have been if I had not been doing shots.