I'm sorry to bump this thread up after a month, but there's a couple of issues I want to reply to.
I have been overweight most of my life - ever since stopping competitive gymnastics and well, actually being allowed to eat
But for most of it, I was extremely athletic (playing rugby for England students among other things) and I was perfectly happy with my health and shape, despite being theoretically obese.
However, a few years ago, I had a very nasty injury which resulted in having to give up rugby, and since I was suddenly doing no exercise, I put on 4 stone (er...56lbs). I hated it, I wanted to change it, but there was nothing that anyone could do or say that didn't make me hear "You're far too fat", with a lot of negative connotations.
I have since lost that weight, and am aiming to lose another stone or so, because at the weight I am now (the weight I was playing rugby competitively), I don't feel healthy. Why? Because I am not doing, in fact cannot reasonably do, the amount of exercise I was doing while playing rugby competitively, and am far more unhealthy at that weight than I was then. I could maintain that weight and feel healthy then, I cannot do it now.
One thing that made me start to seriously lose weight was the realisation that I really wasn't happen with my body. Until you get that, I don't think there's any way you can motivate yourself. Having said that, things like inviting your friend to go hiking, to play tennis, hell anything you can think of that is active where the focus is not on weight but on enjoying yourself, can be very beneficial; because the emphasis is on the social rather than the health issue, it's far less confrontational.
Fat has very negative connotations in society today - as evidenced in your posts
DyperBoi.
Which brings me onto my next point...
Originally posted by DyperBoi
I have the inclination and the ability to educate you in human anthropology and evolutionary biology, but I have no desire to as you have no foundation for it.
From what I've read of your posts, I don't think you have the ability to educate anyone in anthropology or evolutionary biology. But go ahead, educate me...and I should point out my degree from Cambridge is in Archaeology and Anthropology...I certainly have the foundation, but let me give you a little.
What you have been talking about in your posts is sexual selection. It is a very different thing from natural selection. What is sexual selection? Read Jared Diamond's The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee for a good general discussion, I really don't ahve the inclination to do it here
...well maybe just a little.
What you have to remember, DyperBoi, is that people's view of what is attractive varies widely from place to place, from person to person. Your view that fat people are the most unsuited to compete in the gene refinement game is based on no evidence whatsoever. Why do I say this? To take an example, here's a (paraphrased) quote from a Fore man (from Papua New Guinea) on what he finds attractive:
"I don't understand you white men. Your women are all so ugly - too skinny, pale limp hair, noses like axe blades, they smell bad and have big bulging eyes like a fish. When the time comes for you to find a wife, you should look at the Fore women - they are beautiful with their small eyes, thick frizzy hair, big bottoms and wide flat noses. Truly Fore women are the most beautiful in the world"
So what do we find attractive? Well, generally what we find attractive is what is similar to ourselves. Had you grown up with the Fore you would also think that slender blonde women with big eyes were ugly.
It is because of this that attractiveness is not a measureable constituent of natural selection. Your socio-cultural background will change what you view as attractive, and this can vary from person to person. Weight is not a measure of natural selection, precisely because it has very little effect (except in extremis) with child-bearing and child-raising capability. Furthermore, the immensely complicated interactions that make up human societies go well beyond natural selection in selecting for a suitable mate.
Had they, there are multiple well regarded peer reviewed studies showing that newborn infants will have their attention held longer when shown attractive human faces than unattractive ones.
Actually no. If you're referring to the studies I think you are referring to, the conclusion was actually that their attention was held longer by people with more
symmetrical faces, which is not the same thing as attractive. Many of the people that would be considered attractive actually have very asymmetrical faces.
it is Mother nature, or more accurately-natural selection that causes the sexes to be more attracted to traits that refines the gene pool than pollutes it. That is why some women who are so skinny they can become amenorrhic-they are not good candidates for perpetuation of the human species and natures tells them so.
Again no. Amenorrhea has nothing to do with not being a good candidate for perpetuation of the human species, at least not in the sense that you are talking about. It is a fairly complex problem, but at its heart is the fact that bearing a child makes demands on the body. If the body is incapable of meeting those demands, and this can be based on a number of things, then ovulation may stop in response as a defence mechanism, more or less. It is rather a survival trait, which if anything, will be naturally selected for - a body that has the resources to cope with child bearing will be far more likely to have a successful childbirth.
I find your posts
DyperBoi incredibly patronising. If I have come across the same way, I apologise to everyone.
Ali
