Talk:Obesity/Archive 2

message: Does anyone else find the reaction and regular vandalism done to this page facinating? It seems like such a minor, purely enviornmental thing yet its sparked so much hassle lately simply because of one picture and a couple of facts.
I think its a very interesting example of the modern world's general reaction to..putting it bluntly..fat people.  But its not just fat anymore...its even slightly overweight, chubby, husky...everything. I've personally never seen what the big deal is, but apparently if certain people take offense to something as simple as a picture of an overweight man in real life (to the point of constantly replacing it with something non-human), I think this really shows a deeply rooted social insecurity.
On a page for a Japanese animated thriller called Paranoia Agent that I worked on extensively, the young character of Shougo is an overweight child. When I was looking up information on this character to write for the profiles on the page, most commentary I heard on message boards and reviews was generally extremely nasty. Often times people remembered the names of even the most minor of characters yet this character was almost always referred to as "fatty" or "cow kid" or other rather deragatory statemens. I rarely saw his actual name mentioned often. Whats very sad is that in the show, the character is extremely sweet and well meaning. He even stands up for a kid who bullies him because he wants to understand why he's doing it. Yet many people dislike this character just because he "gets on thier nerves". Upon asking why he does often, a shockingly high number of people answered that his weight was a reason why. Despite the fact he was a sympathetic in the show many just hated him because of his build...
I have a good friend who's overweight, and he never tries to make exuses about that or dodge the subject. He just says he knows what he is and shrugs it off. He told me recently when we were thinking about this that he finds it really bizzare how so many people dodge the subject of his weight or the weight of others as if it were some incredibly derragatory thing. Name calling is one thing...but its usually the simplest things like what his favorite food is...or a sport that he may play. All really flat out weird reasons to be dodgy.I think it shows a shallowness and social development thats still rather new in today's society. 
I don't know, I know its touched upon in this article and most know the reasons why..but I just think its interesting how its gone from socially unnacepted..to flat out near obsessive denial and insecurity over the matter by many...overweight or not.
--Kiyosuki 22:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The modern day view of obesity and the overweight

message: CUBISM: From The Bread Perspective © 2003 Leeds.
When you debate you often have to deal with fallacies. For example, fallacies like ‘obesity’ exist by manipulating the facts. The reality is, in nature animals are rarely obese and the fact very basic things like genetic modifications have to be forced and deliberately sustained in an unnatural environment proves humans are influenced to become obese. The reality is, obesity is an aberrant biological condition and should be rare, yet paradoxically it is becoming prevalent in humans and domestic animals. The paradox is an illusion, the reality is obesity factors are like a rubick’s cube in that all sides of the cube contain tiny factors or biases toward weight gain like 'race/lean body mass' or 'fat/calories' etc., However if you manipulate all the biases to one side of the cube you can create an ‘orange’ face [the illusion of obesity]. The illusion is real to some extent, in the same way the easter bunny is real, but only because in an artificial world the illusion is perpetuated by cultures with a vested interest in maintaining it. Without being supported by unnatural things though, the natural state of a variety of factors on each face of the cube would resume. If you understand cubism, you can understand hallucinations are also created by saying just one orange square represents obesity, or 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction' therefore if one face is orange, then another face has to be normal and another face anorexia nervosa. Obesity is not the only illusionary face you can create. For example, fame is an illusion because even if the star does something society disapproves of, the media keep on photographing them. Intelligence is another face and so is mental illness and specific language. There are heaps of faces. So my Bread Perspective is:- just because it is possible to make something happen doesn’t mean it is a law. CUBISM: From The Bread Perspective © 2003 Leeds. 
I'm protecting this page for a while because of the persistent vandalism attacks of the past few days. --Angr/ 17:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While the vandal, in all his many incarnations (see WP:VIP#Manchester_.2F_obesity_.2F_Girls_Aloud_vandal), has shown a preference for this article, he's also exhibited a willingness to vandalise an essentially random selection of other articles. I don't think protecting this article will go any real way toward stopping him in general, and it's impractical to protect all the articles he touches. -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 17:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, perhaps you're right. I'll unprotect in a week or so and see what happens. --Angr/ 17:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protecting page 

message: I deleted the naked fat man photo.
:That was vandalism, and it's been reverted. --Angr/ 17:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you -- good call. --tgeller 21:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Moi? In control of the content? Anyway, I'm generally in favour of decency, so naked Angr may have to go. I'd like to get some more voices before this is done. JFW | T@lk 14:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you seem to have built a lot of the research on this page. Unforunately for Angrs sake, I personally think the picture should go. I know the nakedness is very subtle but this seems to be coming out with contraversy with the constant deletions and such, and generally because I'm not going to move my picture to a higher spot unless someone does, or there is a general opinion for mine to go higher. As well as the decency factor - sure I'm all for a free wikipedia but I believe this article is important amongst students and such who are not appreciative of seeing nudity. Anyway, I'm interested to see opinions. - Boochan 14:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I absolutely deny that my photo is any way indecent. JFW, I'm especially surprised that you think it "may have to go" considering you originally suggested it be moved to a more prominent position. The constant deletions are nothing more than vandalism, which this article saw plenty of even before I added the picture. --Angr/ 15:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I hadn't noticed the private parts. JFW | T@lk 18:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah - Angr, thats the only reason that the picture and article is constantly vandalised, is because your sitting there naked. Even if it is hard to see and very subtle, but quite a few people will obviously dislike it being there. I don't mind it at all to be honest, but just generally I would think many people would notice the nakedness easily which causes the main reason for constant "vandilism". Boochan 07:14, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not the only reason for vandalism of this page. This page was frequently subject to vandalism even before I posted that pic. Anyway, I have now replaced it with a censored version, even though doing so is a direct violation of Wikipedia policy. --Angr/ 14:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Angr is correct that this article is frequently vandalised, especially during weekends. We should have an autoprotect going on Friday evening and coming off Monday morning :-).
[removed - no longer relavant - do not want to be shown.] - Boochan 08:22, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted naked fat man photo 

message: The following Campos' quote exists in the Medicalisation of Obesity section:
[i]the ideal disease would be one that never killed those who suffered from it, that could not be treated effectively, and that doctors and their patients would nevertheless insist on treating anyway. Luckily for it, the American health care industry has discovered (or rather invented) just such a disease. It is called "obesity".[/i]
I'm not sure how to word it but surely some criticism of this statement belongs alongside it in the article. Is there anyone who would really claim that obesity never kills those who suffer from it, or that it cannot be effectively treated? It just seems self-evidently false. Ordinary Person 09:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One sometimes wonders if the obesity thing is not being overplayed, but to say that excess weight is medically neutral is a fallacy. The article presently lacks a good source that stratifies the health risks according to BMI. The Mokdad source is not specific enough to debunk Campos' lunacy. JFW | T@lk 09:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Obesity itself never killed anyone, but it does accompany diseases that can be fatal. However, all the fatal diseases that can accompany obesity can also be present in non-obese people, so obesity is not a necessary condition for any of them. And no, there is no effective treatment for obesity. Eating right and getting more exercise might be an effective way to prevent obesity from occurring, but once obesity is present, eating right and exercising has never been shown to cure it. --Angr/ 09:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Changes in diet and exercise might not be completely reliable methods, but obviously there are many cases where changes in diet and exercise have "cured" obesity. Ordinary Person 08:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Case study? --Angr/ 08:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Campos quote criticism

message: Hi- I have a contention of the statement, "obesity often develops from a combination of genetic and environmental factors..."  Obesity is only caused by an imbalance of calorie intake and expenditure.  I inserted something along the lines of, "the psychological factors that promote obesity often develop from a combination of..."  Isn't that more accurate?
:I changed what you wrote because it struck me as too POV. Your version presupposes that psychological factors promote obesity, which is an opinion. The current version makes no such presupposition, but doesn't exclude the possibility of psychological factors either. --Angr/ 18:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's never been really scientifically established; it's just the "common wisdom" (the same way that a thousand years ago it was the "common wisdom" that the sun moved around the earth). But even granting that it is probably true that most if not all obese people consume more calories than they expend, it's also true that there are plenty of people who consume more calories than they expend without gaining weight, and plenty of people who consume more calories than they expend and become somewhat overweight but not obese. So consuming more calories than they expend might be a necessary condition for becoming obese (but even this hasn't been satisfactorily proved), it certainly isn't a sufficient condition. --Angr/ 17:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I have no idea. I wish I did. I'd be a wealthy man today if I did! --Angr/ 16:21, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes 

message: [removed due to picture not being myself] --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Boochan (talk • contribs) 
:Please stop vandalizing the talk page, and please stop changing your mind on the image. One could argue that you released it under the GFDL, you can't just change your mind.. -Locke Cole 08:28, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I have - sure, its still up - but it will be eventually deleted because the picture up now is fairly irrelevant. Actually, I have voted it for deletion myself, and chances are the whole history of it will disappear soon. I am not vandalising the talk page, btw - I am removing bits of mine I do no longer want up, I DID NOT at all remove anyone elses. I have the right to do this because I put it up... not anyone else,  myself. I advise you quit bitching and accept that people can change their mind on things. Anyway, thats the last I will say on this article - If you have a personal problem with me, take it up with me on my own talk page. - Boochan 15:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh huh...  whatever. -Locke Cole 16:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obese Teen - Picture Added 

message: As we see here, even having a censored version of the "sunglasses" picture does not protect this page from vandalism. --Angr/ 07:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  And on it goes 

message: I have temporarily removed some text added by . Apart from being sparse in references (and therefore problematic), some conjenctures are not at all logical:
Several lines of evidence indicate lifestyle-induced hyperinsulinemia and reduced insulin function (i.e. insulin resistance) as a decisive factor in many disease states, including obesity. For example, hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance are strongly linked to chronic inflammation, which in turn is strongly linked to a variety of adverse developments such as arterial microinjuries and clot formation (i.e. heart disease) and exaggerated cell division (i.e. cancer). Hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance (the so-called metabolic syndrome) are characterized by a combination of abdominal obesity, elevated blood sugar, elevated blood pressure, elevated blood triglycerides, and reduced HDL cholesterol.
:This paragraph was placed in "causative factors", but seems to talk more about the effects of obesity on low-level inflammation and the metabolic syndrome.
The state of overfatness/obesity clearly contributes to insulin resistance, which in turn can cause type 2 diabetes. Virtually all obese and most type 2 diabetic individuals have marked insulin resistance. Although the association between overfatness and insulin resistance is clear, the exact (likely multifarious) causes of insulin resistance remain less clear. Importantly, it has been demonstrated that appropriate exercise, more regular food intake and reducing glycemic load all can reverse insulin resistance in overfat individuals (and thereby lower blood sugar levels in those who have type 2 diabetes).
:Again, this seems to pertain to a therapeutic intervention (obese people have insulin resistance, and a diet helps improving this). Or is the intent to show that insulin resistance causes obesity?? This has been suggested in the literature but is by no means an accepted theory.
Overfatness can unfavourably alter hormonal and metabolic status via resistance to the hormone leptin, and a vicious cycle may occur in which insulin/leptin resistance and overfatness aggravate one another. The vicious cycle is putatively fuelled by continuously high insulin/leptin stimulation and fat storage, as a result of high intake of strongly insulin/leptin stimulating foods and energy. Both insulin and leptin normally function as satiety signals to the hypothalamus in the brain; however, insulin/leptin resistance may reduce this signal and therefore allow continued overfeeding despite large bodyfat stores. In addition, reduced leptin signalling to the brain may reduce leptin's normal effect to maintain an appropriately high metabolic rate.
:Leptin is actually discussed further down in the article, and whether resistance to it is a cause is still a matter of debate. The role of insulin as an appetite regulator is similarly debated and cannot be presented as fact.
There is continuous research and debate about how and to what extent different dietary factors - e.g. intake of processed carbohydrates, total protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake, intake of saturated and trans fatty acids, and low intake of vitamins/minerals - contribute to the development of insulin- and leptin resistance. In any case, analogous to the way modern man-made pollution may potentially overwhelm the environment's ability to maintain 'homeostasis', the recent explosive introduction of high Glycemic Index- and processed foods into the human diet may potentially overwhelm the body's ability to maintain homeostasis and health (as evidenced by the metabolic syndrome epidemic).
:The analogy to environmental pollution is rather POV. Is the introduction of high-GI foods truly "explosive"? I would not call something that has been around since the 1970s "recent" or "explosive" without further quantification.
:In brief: I don't think this material adds much to what is already covered in the article, especially because it lacks resources and some of it is a tad too speculative. JFW | T@lk 13:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Causative factors

message: Really I don't understand why there's been so much fuss over the pictures of a bare chested or mostly nude picture of an overweight man. I think its a perfectly relevant thing to have on the topic, something to show what an overweight human being looks like naturally(although most obviously would know by the time they can even read this but I disgress). Its for the scientific purposes of making this a well detailed, neautral encyclopedia entry on the subject. I guess I can *kind* of see the point in cencoring the picture of Angr, although I still find it a bit overly sensitive. This website's about the hard facts of things and I think there should be at least one picture of an overweight person in real life. I think its very brave of someone to have submitted a picture of themselves for its use as well. 
If someone visits this site and isn't mature enough to take it as it is then just reverse. Immature people will vandalize pretty much anything to fuel their unstable ego's anyways. --Kiyosuki 01:21, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Vandalism of this page appears to be unrelated to its visual content. Weekends are particularly bothersome.  As this site is visited by adults and children, it is only logical that revealing images are avoided when possible (e.g. genitals). I know this is not very liberal, but there you are. JFW | T@lk 01:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that we should only use nudity when relevent to the topic i.e. pornography but you have to remember that "Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors" from WP:NOT Jtkiefer T | @ | C  ----- 02:58, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Aaargh! I knew this answer would be given by someone at some point! I know we don't censor for minors (their parents should be supervising them if they don't want their kids to see things online), but non-functional nudity offends many adults just the same. The "censorship" has certainly reduced the shock value and made the article accessible to many people who would previously have avoided it. Shall we not rehash the whole debate here? JFW | T@lk 08:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Non-functional nudity"? Is nudity okay on Wikipedia in the context of sexuality, but not otherwise? Should we censor Michelangelo's David because that article isn't sex-related? Aren't more people offended by sexually graphic images than by non-sexual images of people who happen to be naked? Frankly, I think people are offended by my pic not so much because I'm naked but because I'm fat and naked. --Angr/ 10:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, my objection concerned the nudity, not the presence of adipose tissue. I think I was quite clear about that. And David... If this was Jfdwolff's encyclopedia he'd have a black bar over his private parts, but this is Wikipedia and consensus seems to run the other way.... JFW | T@lk 13:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: ??????????????????????????????????????? -- Jason Palpatine 23:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So you would eliminate that section of WP:NOT and start censoring wikipedia? Jtkiefer T | @ | C  ----- 07:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Translation -- I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.   I did not eliminate/censor that picture.  I did not contribute that picture.  I don't know where/when it came from.  And, looking at it, I can't tell if the guy is of isn't naked.  He could be wearing bathing trunks whch are covered over in the image.  As I said: I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.  -- Jason Palpatine 08:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The previous comment was direct at JFW, not at you. --Angr/ 14:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: All the fuss over the bare chested/naked pictures

message: Environmental causes of obesity was considered under Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Environmental causes of obesity.  The result of the debate was keep as merge and redirect (to this page).  As such, it is inappropriate for a "see also" to point from this page to that redirect (and thus back to here again). -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 19:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I didn't actually check that, I'm sorry. But this is the value of using Edit summaries: if the e.s. had said "remove link that redirects here" I wouldn't have reverted. It just looked like an anonymous, gratuitous removal of information. --Angr/ 20:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Environmental causes of obesity

message: I think five attacks by Bogdanov sockpuppets in an hour are enough. I'm protecting the page. --Angr/ 23:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the weekend again. JFW | T@lk 23:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

text: it has nothing to do with it, but Igor and/or Grichka Bogdanov are very unsatisfied with the ArbCom ruling against their desire to dilute the Bogdanov Affair to meet with their need for flattery.  so, it appears that Igor has arbitrarily picked on Obesity as well as some other articles to lash back.  this is vandalism done by (or at least in the interest of) two television personalities in France.  kinda shameful. r b-j 22:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protecting page from vandalism