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I recently (and by recently, I mean two weeks ago) started water fasting, and to displace the constant feelings of food cravings I started watching food-related videos, most notably: TLC's 600lb Life. It is extraordinarily trashy TV, but illuminating.
Before I describe the negative observations, here's the positive ones: A) All of the successful patients had a good attitude to begin with (they wanted to lose the weight, and were willing to commit) B) They followed the doctor's instructions (important.) C) They had friends and family who were supportive and were generally affable individuals to begin with (likeable!)
As a representative slice of the people who get really, really fat, they're about 5% of the population. The rest that follows is the generalizations of everyone else.
Now. For the hot takes:
THE OBESE ARE IGNORANT
Do you remember the much-maligned food pyramid from your health classes, the one that put way too many grain carbs at the bottom? At the very least, it puts vegetables on the second tier, and fast food at the very tippy top. And these people don't even know that. The very concept of CICO they stubbornly defy. They don't seem to know anything about basic nutrition that even a kid would know. And it's not like they're getting fat off good cuisine, either. (A fat gourmand with a diverse palette would be, at the very least, a good friend to have to ask for recommendations.) They're just eating fast-food slop paid by their welfare checks. And speaking of...
THE OBESE ARE ENTITLED
There is a certain childlike narcissism that accompanies each and every one of these patients, that demands the world bend around them: that they should be fed, bathed, and cared after without giving anything back in return. They frequently manipulate their family members and spouses to look after them, hand and foot, even their children. They're rude and throw tantrums, and their ignorance only strengthens their stubbornness. (They even disagree with their own doctor, a man they're self-selected to seek out!) They continue their bad eating habits - even in the hospital itself! - and have food snuck in for them to eat. This inevitably leads to...
THE OBESE ARE STUPID
In wrestling, where the tiers are segmented by weight class, in order to hit the weight limits, athletes often go to extraordinarily lengths to temporarily lose 5-10 pounds before weigh-in to get as much of an advantage as they can. In the show, in order to qualify for bariatric surgery, patients need to lose a certain amount of weight so that it is safe for them to go into surgery. Now, admittedly, going to 1200 calorie diet when you're used to 10k+ is pretty hard, but even going to 5,000 - twice the amount of a healthy adult - would guarantee weight loss without significant dietary changes, other than portions.
Do they do this? Of course not.
In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't even weigh themselves beforehand. It's always a surprise and a shock when - surprise of surprises - that eating the same amount as you did before would maintain it. (In fact, some of them even gained weight.) The tantrums, the lies, the threats - all are laid bare before the uncaring measure of the livestock scale.
Of course they don't get the surgery. And they're always left wondering why, the poor buggers.
So, in conclusion, I have come into belief that you should judge people for being obese. Not to say that all fat people are ignorant, entitled, and stupid. But they definitely have at least one of these traits, and should be avoided at all costs.
To what extent do you think it's appropriate to judge someone else for their body type? Would you assess someone that was weak, small, or skinny as also lacking in character?
I think these days basic nutrition knowledge is pretty widespread. I mean it's not very good quality - someone that says "you need carbs for energy" is missing the mark but they at least have the concept of a macronutrient. I did meet a guy once who I had to explain what calories, protein and carbohydrates were to.
Not the OP, but I will bite - yes, it is appropriate with possibly the exception of "small". I can judge people especially for things that can be under their control: that they are weak, that they are anorectic, that they lack personal hygiene, that they have bad breath and other things including things like tattoos, piercings, foul language and so forth.
Now I have a question for you: why do you think it is appropriate to judge me for my criteria I judge for? Why should I care for what you judge as judgmental? Are you some ultimate meta-judge, who is going to set the standards of judging for all people? Who elected you into this position?
Are you judging them solely on aesthetics here? Or do you think these things actually give you meaningful insight about their character?
Aesthetics give a meaningful insight about character.
Now you have to have some cultural substrate to read it properly as for instance tats could mean extreme religiosity or irreligiosity depending on where you are, but it is a signal. Consciously or unconsciously people use their looks to communicate something to you.
A book's cover isn't the entire story, but it does give good insight about the content most of the time. The title is usually accurate, and if it's lined with that arsenic green, you know to grab gloves just in case.
This does not appear to be the case, if you’re judging someone’s moral character based on the mere presence of tattoos.
It's an analogy.
And I can tell with a high degree of accuracy that someone who bears permanent tatoos is unlikely to be a serious practitioner of most Abrahamic religions or other such naturalistic philosophies since they ban the practice with a small number of exceptions.
This does tell me something about their moral character. In that they do not hold their body's form to be sacred. Which itself is correlated to other things.
Of course none can read minds and have perfect knowledge of circumstances. Hence the phrase about the book and its cover.
But only a fool blinds himself to the obvious in the name of deeper inquiry.
When people tell you who they are. Including by making aesthetic choices. Believe them.
What @hydroacetylene said below.
There is even a subculture of (admittedly very online) RadTrads who almost encourage getting a Christogram tattooed on you somewhere.
And there's the tradition of sicanje. That is, however, largely cultural as opposed to theological.
I've personally always wondered why the aesthetic traditions of Catholicism and Orthodoxy do seem to bump up against an invisible force field when it comes to tattooing.
Having double-sleeved up young priests (all images being reverent, of course) might help The Youths feel like the Church is no cap fr fr.
Muslims have Henna despite stronger (but not coranic) prohibitions. I am not talking here in the absolute, but the general tendency of Abrahamism is to disavow such practices and people who disavow such practices are therefore more likely to be Abrahamists, which is useful information.
As I have said previously, reading cultural signals requires knowledge of the relevant cultures to be satisfyingly accurate. And it never bears certainty because we are all individuals. But generalizations are still useful and informative, despite the fanatical attempts by many to deny that they are.
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There are traditional tattoos given at the end of pilgrimage routes in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Full tattoo sleeves aren't looked on very kindly by either tradition because God made our bodies about the way he wants them to be, but it's not a sin per se.
And obviously self consciously relevant posturing is more likely to be cringe than relevant.
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