Do scientists own science?

It's a question for everyone to consider. If scientific fact is obvious but unacknowledged by those who claim the title of scientist, are lay people allowed to acknowledge it?

I would say yes.

If the medical profession choose to build a "consensus" of falsehood using that same rejection of fact, are lay people allowed to opt out of any attempt to impose that particular falsehood on them?

Unequivocally, yes.

Most especially if that opting out is based on repeatedly putting that falsehood into practice, forming not merely an individual result, but an overall pattern predictable amongst the overwhelming majority of people, the overwhelming majority of the time.

Real or indeed hard science is REALITY. It is recognizable, testable and the results predictable. We know the outcome of reducing calories and increasing energy output is predictable, it doesn't make or keep people slim.

We know this, we have experienced this and we can see it in the people who've dieted walking around, not being slim. We can see it in the so called 'obesity' crisis that has manifested in tandem with the growth of multi-million pound slimming and fitness industries, not to mention the growth of nutritionists who specialize in trying to manage people's weight.

And that isn't correlation, because fat people have dieted, they have used the services of all that claimed to have the power to do this, including surgery. Denial of that is the mere necessity of those who wish to trade reality for delusion. That is their choice and must be theirs alone. They must stop using any power or influence they wield to force that on others.

Whatever else dietary manipulations can manage, they cannot manage what is being asked of fat people.

This needs to be acknowledged unequivocally without any hiding behind "Lifestyle change", nor sour rancour bitterness, towards or blame of fat people. No more slander or shame, to avoid reality no matter how difficult that is for those who are dodging it. No matter how high their position and reputation may be.
 
Because until that occurs, no real progress will be made in how to understand and/or alter the course of human metabolic function.  

Some of us have to face the fact that we are asserting this, in the face of opposition from those who are usually the ones to tell us what reality is.
Usually it's the other way around. It is usually they telling the rest of us even when that runs counter to our "intuition", or against our deeply held assumptions. That includes going against what seems to us to be what is actually happening or other false consciousness.

Now it is their turn to feel what that's like and they need to get on with it.

In the end, not even scientists own science. They are in a special position to have made a profession out of discovering the nature of what is really happening despite what we may think of as "common sense".

It shouldn't need to be said that it is as unacceptable for scientists to manipulate others using incomplete or bankrupt hypothesis as it is for the public to try and silence scientists on the basis of our cherished assumptions. Neither should it be acceptable for scientists to derail genuine scientific inquiry with their own quackery or pseudo science.

Science is for everyone. 

Is fat phobia the new homophobia?

Isn't that really what the title's about? Though the subtitle is;

Telling fat people they ought to be thin is about as helpful as telling gay people they should be straight

The point is deeper than any facile comparison between being gay and being fat. It points at the way 'obesity' has become the homophobia for those who would at least pay lip service to disdaining it, those who wouldn't often can't resist adding it to their portfolio of bigotry.

Eating has come to take the place sex takes up for fundamentalist religions. A central facet of existence, eating even more so, is the means to imbue with the dominant themes of who we are and how we should live.

Free will has come to the fore of our collective consciousness, replacing the fatalism of more precarious religious times. We see ourselves as self created through our conscious will, hence we create our weight.

It's not about whether these things are true or not, it's the need for constant repetition of said theme in every possible place. Like pattern on a cloth, we must always be reminded of what is there (that mimics the way truth is always there).

One of things many object to about those who cannot pretend we control our weight in this way, is we seem to be fatalistic, defeatist.

When in fact, all we are saying is, not this way.

That's pretty easy to discern but such is the fevered clamour for repetition of free will, even this is too provocative. 

Religion is concerned with fertility given the natural pre modern medical intervention(s) high infant mortality rate of human beings. Gayness, seen as not contributing to the creation of life became a container of and symbol to represent fears of extinction.

In more developed society's where the creation of life is taken for granted. Our central concern has moved to sustaining one's existence. God has fallen to earth, from the old creator in the sky, to each and everyone of us being a creation of our will.

We are our own creators.

The extent to which calorie restriction/expenditure consumes one's existence-pun intended- means investment in it creates a momentum to centre our way of life around it. This necessarily extends to distorting the way we see ourselves.

It has to replace the norm which has effectively happened, it is normal eating for many, which now seems disordered or greedy, naughty or worst of all, fattening. Certainly the rigid, inflexible, watchful, unsustainable nature of calorie restriction doctrine exacerbates a sense of insecurity by comparison. Even whilst it is creating and promoting its own mayhem.

It comes down to the insistence on this as the route to weight alteration-which must be a product of an unhealthy fixation on free will as it yields not to evidence or reality of any kind. The refusal to accept that our design does not submit to our modish metaphysical fixations, is the driver of fat phobia, just like the refusal to accept that some people simply cannot make themselves heterosexual enabled the revving up and spread of homophobia. 

The two mirror each other to a weird degree, for fat phobes what has replaced religion as the way to validate reality for all of us, science is now being bent into something more akin to religion by fulfilling a similar role, rather than as a beacon of empirical truth.

Fraught

I was going to respond at the blog in question, then remembered, that's not going to work. 

It’s also a good reminder that Health at Every Size is truly a weight-neutral approach – sometimes people do lose weight as a side-effect when they are doing what is right by their body (a lot of the time not, but it does happen on occasion, usually when other physical conditions are in play.)

Ok, but this still implies weight-loss is not a rational/acceptable personal goal.

It of course doesn't, its "weight-loss" not weight loss dieting that HAES avoids. It's the difference between weight loss and weight loss dieting again. Though it seems obvious the conflation can't get past the programming. That's why the pathetically emotive pretending not to be "anti science" accusation is so risible.

If your mind is frozen solid on an issue-apart from what what others say, your pompous arse is going to be hanging out with that gambit. If these people were so "pro science", like pro life we all are, you'd think they'd have noticed how absent real fat people are from the 'obesity field'.

And note the fatuous condescension;

I get that this is super fraught territory with tons of toxic cultural messages surrounding it

Oh do you really, well spotted. Because when women kick off-and frankly the anger of fat women is nothing compared to the inchoate meltdown of anyone daring to query the use of bourgeois sweeties (anti depressants)-it couldn't be because their intellect is being blocked and shut down by sexist levers or the even to me surprising anger at the violation the basic principle that its not who knows but the quality of what is known?

No, its the eeemeaushun of it all. Everyone knows women are more prone to hurt fee fees aren't they? Principles are for the menz.

This is why I'm glad not to bracket myself with this demeaning attitude feminism has sunk to in its glorious "intersectional" phase; so easily led by the male lead fat phobia. Well, that's all inclusive isn't it? Why should patriarchal arseholery that can trade on its ad hominem reputation, not shine out and discredit a group dominated by women. 

Who because of that, need to constantly "prove" they are not crazzee and illogical for thinking; get this; that this existence of theirs, is actually happening to them.

zomg.

The seeming implication that WL(D) is not a rational blah, blah, is the "fraught" effect the commenter mentioned but of course, in their own mind, projected onto fat people. 

People have a pronounced tendency to only be able to see their own issues in fat acceptance because fat people are always wrong, it just "FEELS" so right. Like being drawn into a well worn mental groove.

By the way, I don't believe in set point theory either, not that it matters because on the internet people look for what confirms their hobby horse so they can have a whine arse rodeo, rather than seek those they might agree with and move the dialogue somewhere.

Well, we've all done it. 

It's homeostasis, or the body's self regulation that stops weight loss dieting from being feasible.  Though yes, that may differ for low amounts apparently up to about 10% and /or recent gain after long term slimness.

And no, it is not about gaining over a long term, it's whether the underlying setting of your weight has shifted or is just a temporary response to something.

Sorry, but I'm so far beyond bored around the world many times with this now that its hard not to sound annoyed.

N.B. Love this explanation of badness of quackery which is so apt for authority supported dieting. Though the writer was talking about comp med.  

Chicken lickin'

When it comes to our expectations, on how we should feel about a given thing. It seems that our brain seeks its meter. The extent of outrage some have set themselves up to feel about hatred of gay people, doesn't match what they're able to manage.

Enter some fat phobia to bridge the gap.  

"Fat"homophobes? Maybe they just "feel" fat

The hatred cultivated for fat people + homophobia = a better actualization of what our level of outrage about homophobia is supposed to be.

Meanwhile a truer reflection is indicated by slim people + homophobia = neither here nor there. Oh the increasing chasm between fat and slim!

It started off with a warning that those who had a BMI of 30 +  had a worse overall health prognosis THAN those who have a BMI of between 18.5 -24.9. This "ill effect" started at BMI 25 and rose from there, but achieved some mysterious significance at BMI 30.

That fused with fat is somehow the opposite of slim, something marked by the 'obesity' construct. Slimness is "healthy", fatness "unhealthy". 

It has achieved polarity.

This is an underlying feature of the workings of our minds. Polarizing things that seem to come in twos; two sexes, two sexualities, two heights, two races, etc., Wherever we can characterize things in pairs, we tend towards placing them in opposition to one another.

The features of one then explain the features of the other.

You can see how this underlying feature could be useful. Hurtling towards the rocks, you need to swerve abruptly, change course quickly. It is a feature of our conscious minds that the rest of our mind can be set on a totally different course, when we realise it is the wrong one and need to change, even when that feels wrong due to the legacy of habit.

Like the deck of a ship veering over to one side or the other with the motion of the waves, keeping its balance.

This inner balance reflex can engage when something we invest belief in requires something to balance it out. The above fried chicken lovin' gay bashing debacle shows slimness is reaching a point where it increasingly cannot contain wrongdoing.

The sheer goodness now invested in slimness, is blotting out any badness. In order to perceive badness, one can only see it in a less angelic background.

This weird dichotomy shows the construct of slimness is no more human than the construct of fatness, just more positive seeming. People will take the undercutting of their humanity, if it seems to favour them.

It now requires fatness and slimness to make up something like a whole person. Neither can stand on their own as expressing the variety of a human whole both good or ill. They are becoming separate streams through which each category needs to be channelled to make sense.

More US children measurements are "off the official charts"

Ye gads, what could be responsible?

Official CDC charts using data from the 1960's and 70's. Why? Because; This government agency doesn't want 'obesity' to become the new norm.

Other notable facts, 17% of American children are in the 95th percentile. 

RUDE

As the fat hating consciousness was gaining momentum, we were expected to return fire. We never really were able to, not from a fatcentric point of view, though we might have squirmed desperately trying to "answer" the rhetorical guilty verdict this is, "Why're ya fat?"

At some point instead of making sorties then tensing up waiting for the expected explosive reaction, there was a taking for granted that no more than an ineffectual squeak at best, would come forth.

That shift of energy, like when the fight goes out of something wild and it is tamed, was fat people permanently relocated to the backfoot.

Things proceeded from there. No matter how angry, forceful nay formidable a fat person was in general, barely were they or anyone else able to surmount that deadened sense of being overrun and cornered.

Now that we've realize our part in that and are ready to do what it takes to advance again to re-gain our own selves; we seem to some to be rather rude. By that I'm not referring to the quality of response according, to character mood or mode of expression and so forth.

I mean merely saying anything that isn't defenselessness so palpable that it leaves a scent. 

The rudest of all is to simply respond, converse, debate, argue whatever, as if you know you have some idea of what you are talking about. Without any apologia, or countless reference to how well meaning you know disingenuous irrational hatred is.

The truth gets handled

Well well, well;

Again, the commonly held idea that moderate exercise is helpful for weight loss is somewhat destructive. Weight loss requires sustained, strenuous exercise to the point of extreme fatigue. Period. If you don't have the physical capacity for that, you cannot lose weight, probably not even with surgery. It also requires, not eating in moderation, but practically starvation. Starvation responses occur in different people at different calorie levels, but the effect is the same. That's too much to glibly expect from someone, especially someone who is extremely obese. And sustained maintenance of greatly reduced weight is very, very rare.

It just goes to show that you don't have to agree with someone to know they've got the point. It's not really about weight loss, its about lowered calorie intake and increased energy expenditure. "Physical capacity" is really susceptibility toward anorexia. That is in itself a large spectrum. From someone like Debra to someone like me who is pretty much dietproof.

And I'll have no nonsense about how its "insulting" to call strenuous weight maintenance that, it's the way we are made. This is obscured by the malevolent Gothic melodrama of what we usually think of as AN, the one where the system is taken over by or implodes into it. Rather than this where a conscious and sustained effort of will is the drive.

I've almost given up trying to explain the ability to do even this goes on top of (and probably overlaps) that susceptibility. You need both to get on to that register and according to Debra, that's about 3% of people who lose weight.

Anorexia has been of course classed as a mental illness, but that has always felt as much about politics as illumination. It is effectively the prescribed remedy for 'obesity' is this, too much identification with anorexics makes that more obvious. Neither anorexics or medical authority wishes to draw attention to the link.

And the idea that its too much to expect from someone who's fatter than most is bullshit. It would be cruel if it worked and it can't even manage that. The ability to diet does not follow the weight scale.

There are plenty of thin and slim people who could do it at gunpoint. They don't have to worry about that. If they become fat, that's that.

The former fattest man in the world was thin in his 20's which was going the second decade of fatness for me.

In the main its clear, most people simply cannot become anorexic seeing that is probably what those defences are there to prevent. Apart from succumbing to a real famine. If calorie restriction worked, it wouldn't be necessary.

We've decided not to accept this. The belief invested in the myth of WLD efficacy could move mountains. And fat people are so erased as meaningful in anyway in this area, that it actually prevents many from coming to the above terms with clear facts.

It's this refusal that's sidelined any other possibilities.

The anti humanism of fat phobia becomes intellectualism of a kind most ferocious.