Comments on: FAT: What No One Is Telling You from PBS

By: Edene

Edene — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:38:32 +0000

I agree with the two previous comments that in most cases, the “energy in energy out” concept holds. However, there are people out there with rare metabolic syndromes that causes their body to store and burn energy at different rates. I’ve read a book once on a extremely rare disease that causes you to continue gaining weight no matter how much (or how less) you eat and exercise. There was also this documentary I watched about a girl whose body was very sensitive when it comes to absorbing and expelling water – when she eats slightly more, her body responds by retaining a lot more water, thus sway her weight by more than what you’d naturally expect. For these people, I believe that there’s nothing wrong with undergoing surgery. However, for others with natural metabolisms, diet and exercise is the healthiest way to go.

Besides, surgical weight loss procedures do not promote healthy lifestyles and most people who go through with them don’t maintain their weight. Those who have liposuction, for example, will just continue eating like they once have (thinking that they can always have another procedure when they gain weight again), while people who have changed their lifestyles in order to lose weight will continue to maintain their weight because they know the hardships they had to overcome. Multiple surgeries can also lead to complications and health hazards. It’s always better to do it naturally, in my opinion.

By: Noah

Noah — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:29:55 +0000

I watched the whole thing. I don’t agree with how they seem to be pushing surgical answers to weight loss, but I did appreciate how they looked beyond the simple energy in/energy out equation. There is a lot more to weight gain and loss than most burning more calories then you take in. We all know and understand that, the hard part is understanding why we still choose to eat more and exercise less.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:31:33 +0000

Please. It’s victim-mongering like this that encourages overweight people to blame everyone but themselves and as a result never get thinner. It’s simple physics. Your body does not create its own energy; it only has what you give it. If you give it more than it needs, it stores the excess as fat, and you gain weight. If you give it less than it needs, its only option (other than death) is to burn fat and muscle tissue, and you lose weight. The writer even admits as much in her post by stating that “we have a very rich and accurate physiological system” that “gets out of balance.” That’s exactly right. It gets out of balance when you lack the will power to eat properly and exercise regularly. Medical science knows precisely what makes us fat, and “fat prejudice” has nothing to do with the issue. Any fat person on earth will lose weight if they burn more calories than they take in, because their body simply has no other choice.