Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[GoofGoof]

A cultural shift away from praising the obese for their "body positivity" would be a start.
And pretending that people are massive because they live in food deserts, rather than because they eat too much dessert.
I swear, we are living in the movie Idiocracy.
What's up is down, and we're all encouraged to believe the the Emperor is actually wearing new clothes.

Pretending that covid wouldn’t be an issue if everyone was skinny is equally delusional and self serving. I don’t want to change my actions in any way so blame it on the fat people. Problem solved.

 

[correcaminos]

Pretending that covid wouldn’t be an issue if everyone was skinny is equally delusional and self serving. I don’t want to change my actions in any way so blame it on the fat people. Problem solved.

Just another red herring. Children not getting sick thereby saying they don't need vaccination is another.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Philadelphia did pass a sugar tax for drinks. It’s why my parents stop and buy beverages near my house when they visit because I live outside the city. It’s not real popular and I’m not sure it helps much. What has been much more successful has been a move away from sugary beverages available at schools. When I was in school there was a soda machine with regular stuff. That’s not the case anymore in a lot of places.

I’ve always thought “sin” taxes were just a new way to raise taxes without as much outrage. A soda being a few cents more expensive isn’t going to stop 99% from buying it, it does raise some tax revenue though.

I didn’t realize how fat Americans were until my first trip to Europe… portion sizes are half the size, no free refills on sodas, people walk and bike to get around, hardly any scooters in DL Paris (adults AND kids actually walk )… it was eye opening.

It may not be a quick solution but education and promoting of healthy lifestyles would probably save as many lives as the vaccines.

Obesity has become a PC issue and it’s resulted in tens of thousands of Americans dying before their time every year, ignoring physical health for mental health has been disastrous.

 

[lazyboy97o]

t may not be a quick solution but education and promoting of healthy lifestyles would probably save as many lives as the vaccines.

Knowing that it would be better to walk someone is meaningless if you can’t actually do it. It’s not just a lack of knowledge that creates difficulties. The US has spent well over half of a century promoting and subsidizing a way of building that encourages less activity.

 

[SteveAZee]

This would require the denial of support of undeserved demographics that are very vaccine hesitant.

Huh?

 

[MaryJaneP]

Healthy mandate? No smoking, no drinking, no eating certain foods? Calorie limits? Sounds like one step short of eugenics?

 

[SteveAZee]

I guess I'm looking at Coronavirus, obesity, smoking, and a few other things as wholistic issues and they are interconnected. There's defending individual freedom of choice and there's defending (from the preamble of the Constitution) the government's role in 'promoting the general welfare'. Smoking and blowing it in someone's face, sneezing or coughing in someone's face in the era of COVID, rising insurance rates as healthcare takes up more and more of our income due to various controllable health issues.

People should wear masks to protect others, not themselves, but some don't want to believe that, or don't feel it's their responsibility, or just don't like the idea of being told what to do. Leading unhealthy lifestyles create a greater burden on the healthcare system and friends and family.

It feels like COVID has just brought to head the conflict between the individual and the society they are a part of.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

A cultural shift away from praising the obese for their "body positivity" would be a start.
And pretending that people are massive because they live in food deserts, rather than because they eat too much dessert.
I swear, we are living in the movie Idiocracy.
What's up is down, and we're all encouraged to believe the the Emperor is actually wearing new clothes.

I think you're missing the point of the body positivity movement. It's not celebrating being fat. It's celebrating being different shapes and still being healthy because some of us, women especially, have really poor body images, and we will never be stick figures, hard as we might try. It's to avoid young women getting eating disorders or thinking they must look like Barbie dolls to be acceptable.

Also, there's been studies done that show doctors have bias against overweight patients

Opinion | When doctors fat-shame their patients, everybody loses

Doctors fail when they conflate weight and health, believe their patients to be lazy or noncompliant or avoid discussing the topic altogether.

www.nbcnews.com

And lastly, weight alone isn't a good measure of overall health. Skinny people can be horrible eaters with high cholesterol, and there can be overweight people who are healthy, or perhaps someone is overweight but has an underlying condition causing weight gain (I personally think disorders causing weight gain are grossly underdiagnosed).

 

[hopemax]

COVID forced restaurants to close or operate at 50% capacity, and the outrage was high from certain elements. If humans suddenly had a group epiphany about obesity and started changing their diet to compensate, eating at home by choice, for example like we were forced to during March / April 2020, the impact would be the same. A sudden drop in business and the resulting labor adjustments as a result. Which businesses are people willing to economically harm by people making correct diet decisions? The drink and snack companies like Coke, Pepsi, Nabisco, Frito-Lay Hershey's, the beer companies? The restaurants like McDonalds, Olive Garden, etc. Or is this another magical universe where people can eat right while still consuming the same amount of "bad" products as before so companies that produce bad products don't see decreased profits, and don't have to shrink their work forces because of a decrease volume of consumption? Are the farms who produce healthy foods going to be able to handle the increased consumption, and have the labor to support the planting / harvesting? We know the outrage when people dare suggest companies pay more, threats of $15 Big Macs, so where is the labor going to come from? A cookie baker or brew master may have absolutely no interest in becoming a fruit picker, or work in an animal processing facility. So pay more, immigration? Where's the water for all of this healthy food going to come from too?

But it's the same thought process of solving COVID by locking up the vulnerable. It's super easy to just make a pronouncement. It's a whole lot more to explain the logistics of how things would actually work in this "preferred" situation. 300 million individual choices of buying a pack of Oreos or an apple has large Macro economic consequences in terms of money, resource allocation, labor allocation etc. But sure, it's just people eating too much dessert as to why things are the way they are.

Knowing that it would be better to walk someone is meaningless if you can’t actually do it. It’s not just a lack of knowledge that creates difficulties. The US has spent well over half of a century promoting and subsidizing a way of building that encourages less activity.

Not just building. There are so many things that contribute to obesity that reversing would require a radical rethink of how the country functions. But based on the reactions to COVID, and then the reaction to vaccinations it's crystal clear how it would go. But with the building, I'd love a train system like the rest of the world has. Every time we go to Europe or Asia we joke about how much exercise we would get if we had trains like London, Tokyo, Hong Kong have trains. I was just in Disneyland this week, where we walked over 50 miles in 6 days, but getting *to* there to walk that much is just so much of a hassle. I want a hyperloop, or high speed rail across the desert portions.

 

[Nubs70]

Huh?

First, spellcheck messed up and should have read as underserved not undeserved.

Second, per a Rand Corporation study. 35% of Black Americans said they would not get a vaccine. 25% were "not sure". 40% planned on getting the shot.

If governmental support is to be taken away from all vaccine hesitant, do we want to turn vaccination status into a racial one also?

 

[DisneyDebRob]

I think you're missing the point of the body positivity movement. It's not celebrating being fat. It's celebrating being different shapes and still being healthy because some of us, women especially, have really poor body images, and we will never be stick figures, hard as we might try. It's to avoid young women getting eating disorders or thinking they must look like Barbie dolls to be acceptable.

Also, there's been studies done that show doctors have bias against overweight patients

Opinion | When doctors fat-shame their patients, everybody loses

Doctors fail when they conflate weight and health, believe their patients to be lazy or noncompliant or avoid discussing the topic altogether.

www.nbcnews.com

And lastly, weight alone isn't a good measure of overall health. Skinny people can be horrible eaters with high cholesterol, and there can be overweight people who are healthy, or perhaps someone is overweight but has an underlying condition causing weight gain (I personally think disorders causing weight gain are grossly underdiagnosed).

This is exactly correct. My sister in law runs 3 miles everyday and eats fairly healthy. She would be the first to tell you that she is not “fit” looking but is more healthy then myself who wouldn’t even get to a mile or two yet I look like the healthy one. Let’s not even get into the disparity of where people live and what they can actually buy. That’s a whole other conversation. Just look out from behind the white picket fence and make assumptions as to why people need to do this or that.
Is there a obesity problem in the US? I guess there is but this is exactly how red herrings work. The conversation has shifted from fixing the actual problem of COVID to.. look over there.. look at this. It’s the same old song and dance whenever someone gets on their high horse and disagrees with someone. We see it with the insurrection at the capital.. to just the other day with the post here about the couple being thrown out of a restaurant for wearing masks. It turned into..” they weren’t even wearing them correctly “to “ what kind of parents would go out when they have a immune compromised child”. Turn the table from the actual conversation to.. look a squirrel.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

This is exactly correct. My sister in law runs 3 miles everyday and eats fairly healthy. She would be the first to tell you that she is not “fit” looking but is more healthy then myself who wouldn’t even get to a mile or two yet I look like the healthy one.
Is there a obesity problem in the US? I guess there is but this is exactly how red herrings work. The conversation has shifted from fixing the actual problem of COVID to.. look over there.. look at this. It’s the same old song and dance whenever someone gets on their high horse and disagrees with someone. We see it with the insurrection at the capital.. to just the other day with the post here about the couple being thrown out of a restaurant for wearing masks. It turned into..” they weren’t even wearing them correctly “to “ what kind of parents would go out when they have a immune compromised child”. Turn the table from the actual conversation to.. look a squirrel.

The sad thing is I literally had to put it on my chart that I don't discuss my weight with anyone besides my endocrinologist. I'm very active (I use an elliptical and I walk; can't run because of the asthma), I've never had a problem fitting into airplane seats, roller coasters, or anything else, and doctors still have always been like..."but your weight!" Except for her because she does blood work twice a year and can tell I have low cholesterol and everything else. Not to mention BMI was developed in the 1800s as a means of studying weight trends in populations. It's a very poor method of studying health in individuals because it doesn't take into account things like bone density and muscle composition; doctors just use it because its easy.

This is just another red herring to distract from the actual issue: get people vaccinated and we'll get covid under control.

 

[SteveAZee]

First, spellcheck messed up and should have read as underserved not undeserved.

Second, per a Rand Corporation study. 35% of Black Americans said they would not get a vaccine. 25% were "not sure". 40% planned on getting the shot.

If governmental support is to be taken away from all vaccine hesitant, do we want to turn vaccination status into a racial one also?

I was suggesting that currently there are government subsidies on agriculture products that may do well for mass production (wheat and corn) but aren't the healthiest base for a national food supply. I honestly don't know if there's a way to migrate farmers to healthier crops, but it doesn't seem like the focus of the subsidies is on large agra rather than national health. I'm not an expert, just following the money.

I wasn't connecting it to the vaccine... just broadly answering the question about what the government could do to promote healthier diets. PSA's don't seem to cut it.

 

[GimpYancIent]

Absolutely.
Taking care of one's body should be our number one concern.
It's not surprising at all to me that this mild virus has done a number here in the US.
You guys can slap each other's backs about masks.
I'll carry the torch for being healthy.
Did you know Amercian's actually got MORE obese in the past year and a half with covid and lockdowns?
Should have taken this time to lose weight.
Instead they gained weight.

Yes, the "Lock Downs" for lack of better words did result in more eating and less exercise which translates to more out of shape and overweight people. Some folks went out and worked out anyway (socially distanced of course) or did Peloton, or mirror or just plain roughed it in their home made gym in their basement or garage. But some is not the general population of couch potatoes, sadly.

 

[Communicora]

hardly any scooters in DL Paris

You do know that a lot of people who use scooters or powered wheelchairs are disabled and for reasons beyond weight, don't you? Would you rather they all stayed home? I appreciate how much more disability-friendly the US is as compared to places like France.

Anyway, I regret getting involved in this sidetrack.

Yes, it would be great if the US was more healthy. Would covid still be a problem if it was? Yes. Get your shots and let's move forward.

 

[JoeCamel]

I was suggesting that currently there are government subsidies on agriculture products that may do well for mass production (wheat and corn) but aren't the healthiest base for a national food supply. I honestly don't know if there's a way to migrate farmers to healthier crops, but it doesn't seem like the focus of the subsidies is on large agra rather than national health. I'm not an expert, just following the money.

I wasn't connecting it to the vaccine... just broadly answering the question about what the government could do to promote healthier diets. PSA's don't seem to cut it.

The US spends 4B a year propping up the price of sugar. No middleman with that one

 

[GimpYancIent]

Knowing that it would be better to walk someone is meaningless if you can’t actually do it. It’s not just a lack of knowledge that creates difficulties. The US has spent well over half of a century promoting and subsidizing a way of building that encourages less activity.

50 / 50

 

[GoofGoof]

You do know that a lot of people who use scooters or powered wheelchairs are disabled and for reasons beyond weight, don't you? Would you rather they all stayed home? I appreciate how much more disability-friendly the US is as compared to places like France.

Anyway, I regret getting involved in this sidetrack.

Yes, it would be great if the US was more healthy. Would covid still be a problem if it was? Yes. Get your shots and let's move forward.

I’m with you on that. Got sucked down the rabbit hole. All this talk is just a distraction anyway to deflect attention away from the actual problem. Your last sentence says it all….get your shots and let’s move o.

 

[willtravel]

Healthy mandate? No smoking, no drinking, no eating certain foods? Calorie limits? Sounds like one step short of eugenics?

You forgot marijuana. That leads to munchies.

So I have been told.

 

[MaryJaneP]

Some of the products mentioned as receiving subsidies are products that this nation routine exports to less food-producing areas. Perhaps starvation is averted. Also some subsidies are the only way various farming families are able to survive. Ibid.