Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
Where Have You Gone, Robert Earl Hughes?
Californians are fatter than ever, says a new study. Americans overall are even fatter than that, says another new study citing a 24.5 percent increase in the national average rate of obesity. While fat detectives look for the root causes, the obvious solution to this problem is simply to define fatness upwards. But more interesting than what's happening in the center of the bell curve is what this may portend for the outliers.
Simply put: Are we getting within range of producing a one-ton person? The goal may be nearer than you think. According to this list of fattest people in history, the current chart-topper, Flint, MI's Carol Yager (1960 - 1994), broke the scale at a peak weight of 1600 lbs. That's a mere 400 lbs. shy of the brass ring. With a larger and more receptive operating environment, more calorie-rich foods, and some cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs, is it possible for a motivated fatso to become history's first Ton of Fun?
Of course, this is just the short ton. You'll recall Austin Powers' description of Fat Bastard—'"He weighs a metric tonne"—a figure that, at 2,204+ lbs., is still beyond our reach. Nor should we forget H.G. Wells' warning against using "weight" as a euphemism for "fat" in his classic story "The Truth About Pyecraft." (I'm also a little skeptical of the above estimate for Carol Yager.) But what is America if not the land where everybody can dream big?
The real, anagrammatic, meaning of Robert Earl Hughes' name here.
|8.26.05 @ 3:18PM|#
That list of the fattest people is one of the saddest/most
hilarious things ever - "though the industrial scale broke in the
process of weighing him".
We're a competitive people and you'd think someone will hit that
mark sooner or later. Probably some genetic freak who was born to
do it like our star athletes and supermodels. Then he'll keel over
before he hits 33, and will then belong to the ages.
|8.26.05 @ 3:30PM|#
Re: Robert Earl Hughes' anagram: I have been told that I'm all
rear end.
..Of course that's probably in a different context. Or so I
hope.
|8.26.05 @ 3:35PM|#
Looking through those stories and photos reinforces a theory of
mine: namely, that talk about "America's obesity problem" is
actually something separate from these people. In every case, there
are indications that these poor souls ARE statistical outliers and
probably genetically incapable of not becoming obese. What's
amazing is how hard some of them worked to get down to the merely
morbidly obese weights in the 300s.
I just can't believe that these people's problems are behavioral.
Much different from the rest of us, who, may get to 20-50 pounds
overweight due strictly to overindulgence and poor choices.
|8.26.05 @ 3:40PM|#
Just so long as they don't start making bigger and bigger
Speedos...
Interestingly, even here in relatively-slim sunny SoCal, the Target
near my place no longer stocks jeans in my size. I'm guessing it's
because I was the only one thin enough to buy them. At least they
still sell 'em online.
|8.26.05 @ 3:47PM|#
Guess I didn't quite finish my thought, above. The heart of the theory is that 'normal' people can't get this fat, even if they really try. I think there's a limit to how much weight a normal person can gain.
|8.26.05 @ 3:55PM|#
Linguist--
I dunno. I can easily believe that something like a thyroid problem
could explain how some people pick up an extra fifty or even
hundred pounds, but to get into the Walter Hudson class of people I
think the problem is in the head, not the body. I remember reading
something about Hudson; apparently what made him dedicate his life
to food was the fact that the world made him sad, so he chose not
to deal with it, but stay inside and eat. And I'd guess food is
like a drug, in that the more you eat, the more tolerance you build
up for it. I remember reading just how much food Hudson ate in a
day (brought to him by his sister, who deserved to be slapped a few
dozen times for enabling her brother to become such a monstrous
thing) and I say this in all sincerity: if I ate four meals (not
three) a day, each time stuffing myself until I was too full to eat
another bite, it would take me over a week to consume what he ate
in one day.
And yet if I continued eating four huge meals a day, over time I'm
sure my stomach and fat cells would stretch out to the point where
I too could spend my life in bed and washing myself with a rag on a
stick. But I would far rather be dead.
|8.26.05 @ 3:55PM|#
Could be. A lot of the really huge people (not just 100 or 200 pounds overweight) seem to have enablers who will feed them even when they're immobilized. Maybe "normal" people don't and thus bump up against the weight gain limits that are possible if you're still walking around somewhat, having a job, etc. So maybe to be a landwhale you need a combo of genetics and enablers.
|8.26.05 @ 3:58PM|#
MA�TRE D:
Ah, good afternoon, sir, and how are we today?
MR. CREOSOTE:
Better.
MA�TRE D:
Better?
MR. CREOSOTE:
Better get a bucket. I'm going to throw up.
...
MA�TRE D:
And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
MR. CREOSOTE:
Nah.
MA�TRE D:
Oh, sir, it's only a tiny, little, thin one.
MR. CREOSOTE:
No. Fuck off. I'm full.
MA�TRE D:
Oh, sir. Hmm?
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groan]
MA�TRE D:
It's only wafer thin.
MR. CREOSOTE:
Look. I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger
off.
MA�TRE D:
Oh, sir, just-- just one.
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groaning] All right. Just one.
|8.26.05 @ 4:00PM|#
would stretch out to the point where I too could spend my
life in bed and washing myself with a rag on a stick.
ROTFL! Stop. I need to get some work done. My face hurts.
Drew,
What are you referencing?
|8.26.05 @ 4:02PM|#
Smacky--
You've never seen Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life?" You are
deprived.
|8.26.05 @ 4:13PM|#
This
Washington Post article is a look at an obese man and his bad
habits. The guy was unable to get out of bed for years. That means
an enabler brought him food and disposed of his turds. That's love,
baby!
I'm going to try to eat a doughnut while looking at the photo
gallery. Wish me luck.
|8.26.05 @ 4:27PM|#
Speaking of love, some of these guys were remarkably successful
with the ladies:
Naaman is the father of 21 children by five wives.
Then there's this poignant bit:
Hudson died in his sleep after years of intermittent starvation
dieting, a few weeks after announcing wedding plans.
|8.26.05 @ 4:28PM|#
So am I a terrible person if I feel no sympathy, but only contempt, for those people who are so morbidly fat they can't even get out of bed, and do nothing but wait for their enabler to bring them enough food to feed seven or eight regular people?
|8.26.05 @ 4:29PM|#
If Joe's here, I know his vote will be "terrible." But I'm wondering what the rest of you think.
|8.26.05 @ 4:32PM|#
The bigger the cushion
The sweeter the pushin'
That's what I said
The looser the waistband
The deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I like to sink her with my pink torpedo
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about bum cakes
My girl's got 'em
Big bottom, drive me out of my mind
How can I leave this behind?
I saw her on Monday
'Twas my lucky bun day
You know what I mean
I love her each weekday
Each velvety cheekday
You know what I mean
My love gun's loaded and she's in my sights
Big game is waiting there inside her tights
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about mudflaps
My gal's got 'em
Big bottom, drive me out of my mind
How can I leave this behind?
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I like to sink her with my pink torpedo
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about bum cakes
My girl's got 'em
Big bottom, drive me out of my mind
How can I leave this behind?
|8.26.05 @ 4:36PM|#
Nah, my vote would be "a little harsh but utterly sane". It can't be a picnic to be 1000+ pounds (no pun intended...oh, hell, it was thoroughly intended) but yeah, you don't get there overnight. "Life got away from John," my ass.
|8.26.05 @ 4:37PM|#
Twba
That photo gallery reminds me of one other advantage of being that
fat: you spend your whole miserable fat-ass existence nude.
|8.26.05 @ 4:41PM|#
They call me they call me the Fat Man
'Cause I weigh two thousand pounds
All the women they love me
'Cause I throw my weight around...
-Antoine "Fats" Domino, circa 1949
|8.26.05 @ 4:43PM|#
If Gina loves him so much, why the hell did she keep giving him
so much food?! Isn't "I'm too heavy to sit up" a sign that maybe
you need to cut back a bit?
After looking through that picture gallery I now feel a TINY bit of
sympathy for these people, but the fact remains they got their own
selves into it.
|8.26.05 @ 4:43PM|#
Did anybody read "Skipping towards Gomorrah" by Dan Savage? Great book! He's got a chapter in there about Gluttony. He goes to a fat person convention where enablers(mostly men), known as "feeders," hook up with large gals for sex. There's also a great chapter on pot and how it makes americans more productive.
|8.26.05 @ 4:52PM|#
Is it just me, or does #6 really look like Jabba the Hut? Just askin'. Not trying to be mean, but I'm seriously asking. I don't see any legs.
|8.26.05 @ 4:56PM|#
Keitz was able to sit upright for about 20 seconds before he
collapsed. (#16)
Baby steps.
|8.26.05 @ 4:57PM|#
if I ate four meals (not three) a day, each time stuffing
myself until I was too full to eat another bite, it would take me
over a week to consume what he ate in one day.
And yet if I continued eating four huge meals a day, over time I'm
sure my stomach and fat cells would stretch out to the point where
I too could spend my life in bed and washing myself with a rag on a
stick. But I would far rather be dead.
Here's why I don't think so: first off, you wouldn't be able to
maintain a "diet" of 4 heavy meals a day, day in, day out. Not many
people could, even ones with mental problems. Second, I really
think there's also a limit to the amount of weight you would
gain.
Second, if you read these stories, you find 2 interesting things.
One is that many of these people were abnormally huge from a very
young age (which to my mind removes a lot of the "mental" stuff
that you're speculating about) and the other is that in several
cases, these people were surprisingly healthy despite their
size.
Third is that even on diets of 460-1200 calories, they didn't seem
to be able to get under 300 lbs., and it was the dieting that seems
to have killed a lot of them, rather than the eating.
My real point in bringing this up is that there is something
abnormal about these people from day one, and whether it's physical
or mental I'm convinced it's genetic. Therefore, the fact that the
rest of the population is starting to carry those extra 20-50 lbs.
is unlikely to have any affect on the weights of these people. They
are anomalies that have always been in the popultion and always
will, and they are detached from the median of the
population.
That's my theory, anyway.
|8.26.05 @ 5:05PM|#
Well, Linguist, anyone who thinks the world is too depressing to deal with, and can't figure out how to get any sort of pleasures in life other than from food, isn't wired quite properly.
|8.26.05 @ 5:13PM|#
Jennifer,
Not necessarily. That description would fit many 'normal' people at
least some of the time. But even people who do have eating
disorders and eat all the time don't get to the 1000-pounder stage
without something else going on in their biology.
There's a, um, humongous difference between weighing 300 lbs. and
weighing 890.
|8.26.05 @ 5:14PM|#
sage,
I meant to compliment you on your haiku about boobs on one of the
other threads. Nice job. Brought a tear to my eye.
PintofStout|8.26.05 @ 5:28PM|#
#12 was from Struthers, OH, that is right next door to me! Alas, something to be proud of!
|8.26.05 @ 5:36PM|#
The point about enablers is right on because food costs money and many of those people are incapable of working. But I've seen some pretty large people on food stamps and welfare.
|8.26.05 @ 5:52PM|#
Well, Linguist, anyone who thinks the world is too
depressing to deal with, and can't figure out how to get any sort
of pleasures in life other than from food, isn't wired quite
properly.
Isn't it funny when people who spend all day posting on the
Internet think that their lives are so much more fulfilling
compared to those who are spending their lives doing something
equally pointless and non-productive?
Oh, I take that back. At least the fat people are producing organic
compounds. But hey, Jennifer, you go, girlfriend. You are
just sooo much better than those fat people! Spending your
days with your ass in a computer chair all day -- my God, woman, I
can't believe there isn't a statue of you in the town square
yet!
|8.26.05 @ 6:17PM|#
"At least the fat people are producing organic compounds."
I thought everyone did that.
|8.26.05 @ 7:00PM|#
Zero Entitlement--
With a name like yours, I'm surprised you're so sympathetic to
those whose behaviors suggest they feel entitled to do
nothing except lie in bed all day while someone else
brings them enough food to feed ten people.
|8.26.05 @ 7:13PM|#
Oh, and also to let someone else earn the money to support them, and pay their bills for them, and literally wipe their asses for them. I could see doing it for somebody with an actual injury, or an intrinsic or unavoidable problem, but not if the problem could be solved by simple measures like not consuming twenty pounds of food each day.
|8.26.05 @ 7:31PM|#
I think I'm better than most people, and I also wonder why there
isn't yet a statue of me...probably should be in DC or something,
alongside Lincoln...or maybe I should have my extremely handsome
face carved into Mt Rushmore.
But Jennifer? No, she should not have a statue. :)
(Just playin' around, ya'll. I'm really not a megalomaniac.)
|8.26.05 @ 8:21PM|#
So am I a terrible person if I feel no sympathy, but only
contempt, for those people who are so morbidly fat they can't even
get out of bed, and do nothing but wait for their enabler to bring
them enough food to feed seven or eight regular people?
That depends. How much contempt do you feel for other mentally ill
people? I can see feeling a bit contemptuous towards the
enablers, but crazy people are, well, crazy, you know? It's how
their brains came out. Not that people have to be slaves to nature,
but nature can be a difficult thing to fight.
Of course, no journey is too difficult to make for the person who
doesn't have to make it at all, so I'm sure you'll just dismiss
that with a, "Get off your ass, lardass" or something.
By the way, most dieticians recommend eating six to eight small
meals per day rather than three major meals. As long as we're
slinging around advice.
|8.26.05 @ 10:48PM|#
I think a statue of Jennifer would be pretty cool.
And if it came in a lifelike plastic material and was poseable, we
could sell them. Lots.
|8.27.05 @ 9:57AM|#
How much contempt do you feel for other mentally ill
people?
That depends. Is it something completely uncontrollable, like
chemically-induced schizophrenia? At my last job I had a friend who
was utterly miserable--she was in her fifties, and once upon a time
had had a great, fulfilling job with an impressive salary, but she
had been downsized over and over again until she was now stuck
working at that underpaid hellhole of a place. And she had no
family and few friends in Connecticut--what she really wanted to do
was go to central Pennsylvania where her family and old friends
were.
But get this: for all her low salary and nonexistant savings
account she could have easily afforded to do so, thanks to the
Connecticut housing bubble--her small, unremarkable house was worth
something like $850,000, whereas in the part of PA where she wanted
to live houses are still only $100,000.
"Sell your house!" I told her. "Sell your house, pay off the
mortgage, pay the capital gains taxes, and you'll still have enough
money left to buy four or five houses in Pennsylvania--live in one
and rent out the others. Or hell, buy ONE house, put the rest of
the money in the bank and live off the two-percent interest you'll
get. You won't have a mortgage payment to worry about, after all."
But she claimed she couldn't. Why not? Well, because her husband
didn't want to move. And her husband hadn't had a job in
umpty-squat years because, you see, he was just too depressed to go
out and find one.
I don't and didn't buy that at all. The reason he was able to get
away with being too depressed to do anything was because he had
someone who made it possible for him to do nothing. I told her that
I'd read about some director in Hollywood--I think David Lynch--who
claimed he absolutely could NOT abide the smell of food, so he
built his kitchen in a building separate from his house. Now, he
has enough money to indulge this quirk, so more power to him--but
if he suddenly lost his career and all his money and had to make do
with one of our salaries, I think he'd discover that perhaps he
COULD stand to be in a house where food is cooking, especially if
the only alternative were starvation.
So when you're talking about people who are prone to weight gain,
and who are blue enough that the only real pleasure they find in
life comes from eating--yeah, I can sympathize. But even these
people don't get fat to the point of immobility--the acts of going
to their jobs, or going to the kitchen for food, or walking to the
bathroom to take care of business, burns off at least a few
calories. They'll still be fat, but they can get around. But to
decide to do NOTHING but lie in bed and let somebody else do
EVERYTHING for you--that's your own damned fault.
That thing I read about Walter Hudson said that one reason he was
able to lose hundreds of pounds once he started trying was very
simple--he started eating roughage, which stimulated more frequent
bowel movements. Before that, he average one BM every six
months. The fecal matter in this guy's intestine, the day
before a bathroom activity, probably weighed twice as much as I do.
No wonder he couldn't move--I'd find it hard to get around
too, if my lower belly were weighed down with over 200 pounds of
pure shit.
|8.27.05 @ 10:29AM|#
I don't know if that actually answered my question, but OK. I
just find there's enough actual evil in the world that I find it
difficult, to say nothing of pointless, to waste contempt and
hatred on crazy people.
I certainly do admire you, though, for not only never having
challenges in your life that you feel you couldn't possibly meet,
but having the answers to how everyone else should live their
lives, too.
Depression is chemically induced also, by the way. And if you've
never suffered from actual, chemical depression, congratulate
yourself. It's a real ball-breaker.
|8.27.05 @ 10:48AM|#
Five things Walter Hudson reportedly ate for breakfast every
day:
1. 1 lb. of bacon
2. 2 lbs. of sausage
3. Dozen eggs
4. Loaf of toast
5. Coffee
I'm surprised he lived so long on that diet.
|8.27.05 @ 10:49AM|#
Phil-
I'm not advocating that the government or anyone else force these
people to change their lives--I'm just saying that with all the
people in this world who are victimized by things completely beyond
their control, I'm not going to waste any mental energy
sympathizing with people who got themselves into their own bad
situations, and could get themselves out with just some
degree of self-control.
|8.27.05 @ 10:56AM|#
Oh, and Phil--you couldn't possibly know this, but I find it extremely funny, your implication that the reason I'm so unsympathetic is that I've led such a charmed and sparkling existence. I've had major setbacks before, and I know what it's like to feel so discouraged and depressed and miserable that the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning feels harder than the labors of Hercules. I've been on the edge of the precipice several times in the past--but I had enough pride and sense of self-preservation that I never threw myself over. And if I had, I damned sure wouldn't have expected anybody to feel sorry for my stupid, self-destructive self.
|8.27.05 @ 11:03AM|#
Or, to put it another way--if something happens and you find you cannot walk, I'll gladly do my bit to help carry you. But if you just don't feel like walking then fuck you, you're on your own.
|8.27.05 @ 11:18AM|#
Forgive what may well be a fourth-consecutive post, but I just
figured out the distinctions:
Hatred--for someone who deliberately interferes with an innocent
person's ability to walk.
Sympathy and the desire to help--for someone who simply cannot
walk.
Contempt--for someone who doesn't feel like walking, but expects
someone else to do it for them.
|8.27.05 @ 1:02PM|#
I wonder if it has occurred to some of you that there may well
be a physical cause (e.g a bacterium) for the malady that expresses
itself as obesity and diabetes. Twenty-five years ago people with
ulcers were advised to make all sorts of dietetic and behavioral
changes to alleviate their condition, and, to varying degrees, were
held to be responsible for their condition. We now know that most
ulcers are caused by bacteria, the principle exception being
gastric ulcers caused by NSAID's, itself a physical (i.e.
measurable, observable) cause.
Suppose in 20 years, we have discovered that diabetes and
obesity--the endocrinological syndrome--is similarly caused. The
best we can do right now is treat the symptoms, but treating the
symptoms can undermine the process of discovery of the true causes
of a disease.
Of course we don't know what the cause of obesity and diabetes is.
But since most people find it disagreeable to look at a fat person,
the tendency to moralize about the causes undesirable weight gain
is hard to fight. This attitude reenforces the intellectual
lethargy that inhibits researchers from even conceiving that it
might be worthwhile to look for a physical cause.
You can dismiss this idea as merely a hunch, but here is why I
believe this hunch to be worth serious consideration: first it is a
matter of belief for me that everything that we experience can be
explained physically. Behavior (such as why I would choose to watch
a baseball today) is so complex that it is not worth the effort to
study it. If you want to invoke the idea of "personal
responsibility" for chiding me for watching he game and avoiding
housecleaning or a hundred other socially approved ways of spending
my time, go right ahead. But the functioning of my pancreas and the
apparently related disorders in metabolism and resistance of cell
membranes to the effects of insulin seem way way down on the
hierarchy, at a level sufficiently fundamental that at least the
possibility of some underlying biological or environmental cause
ought to be investigated.
I speak from experience on this because I have watched my body
decay out from under me as I have aged. Every attempt I make to
lose weight and to control my glucose levels seems to elicit a
response from my body that moves the goal further away. The doctors
shrug the shoulders in resignation: "well, it is a degenerative
disease", but go on to remind me in what often seems to be thinly
veiled contempt, that I have brought this all upon myself, and that
I am not doing enough. When a disease is characterized by its
symptoms, and the symptoms are cast in behavioral terms, then you
are caught in a circle. Because your symptoms are still there and
because the symptoms are themselves the cause, by not alleviating
the symptoms you have not cured yourself and you are therefore
morally responsible for your disease. Though you may have tried
hard, the outcomes are insufficient. End of discussion.
Combined with the obvious social disdain and moralizing about fat
people, it can make for a very unpleasant life. But, to pound the
horse again, it gives people a psychological investment in
resisting the idea that obesity might actually, in point of fact,
be a disease, and thereby undermines any serious attempt to examine
the truth of this hypothesis.
|8.27.05 @ 2:10PM|#
linguist,
I kind of think that too - that these people are anomalous, and the
physical/mental/genetic causes of their obesity don't necessarily
bear much resemblance to the average run-of-the-mill obesity we see
all the time. I have some doubts about some of those listed calorie
amounts though. The details are often a bit vague, but I wonder if
in some cases the weight gain is more than physically possible
given the extremely small reported caloric intake (in other words,
that many calories couldn't translate into that much fat, even if
the person's metabolism were perfectly efficient). But it's just a
hunch; I don't know enough about it.
My theory is that they've evolved the ability to photosynthesize,
so they can gain weight just by sitting in the sun. I'll await my
nobel prize as I over-indulge at a barbeque tonight.
|8.27.05 @ 2:13PM|#
Yea, I have some contempt for the morbidly obese person and even more so for the enablers. I guess I've just witnessed the same dynamic at work only with drugs rather than food. And as for such people ever being self supporting .. forget about it.
|8.27.05 @ 6:47PM|#
Jimmyboy,
Because of the conservation of matter in the universe, there is a
point for everyone where calories burnt will exceed
calories consumed, causing weight loss. Your body cannot pull fat
cells out of thin air, unknown stomach bacteria or not.
I agree with your point that all behavior seems to stem from
physical causes. If you take this to the logical extreme of
materialism, which I often do, that means your inhibitions to eat
also have physical causes. If this is the case, the
closest thing that we can define as our 'free will' to not eat is
the myriad of personal and social restrictions that exist as
physical causes in our minds. The cultural push to blame weight
gain on personal responsibility may ultimately be unfounded, but,
without that push, obesity may very well spiral out of
control.
|8.28.05 @ 3:33AM|#
Big bottom
Talk about bum cakes
My girl's got 'em
Big bottom, drive me out of my mind
How can I leave this behind?
Gag me with a spoon! Thin is beautiful. Yeah, only my opinion for
sure, but here's what's not so subjective; thinner is healthier.
Also, less carb in take means less insulin production, a huge
factor in good health.
|8.28.05 @ 12:44PM|#
...I shoulda said, "less carb intake means lower insulin *levels*, a huge factor in good health."
|8.29.05 @ 2:01AM|#
Ok, but except for the dying part, how didn't it work for
her?
But seriously, what I meant was that; generally, thinner is
healthier. Which is not neglect the fact that anorexia and bulimia
are unhealthy to the point of being deadly.
|8.29.05 @ 6:17AM|#
Ok, but except for the dying part, how didn't it work for
her?
For others at least, it made carrying her coffin easier.
|8.29.05 @ 10:58AM|#
i know, rick, i was just yanking yer crank. platonically, of
course.
the fat acceptance people scare me quite a bit, but they have a
smidgen of a point...somewhere between absurd advertising and
glamour and walter hudson-esque gluttony there's a range of happy
mediums. or at least healthy mediums.
|8.29.05 @ 12:51PM|#
Not to rub salt in their miserable, waterlogged wounds, but I was looking at the line waiting to enter the Superdome yesterday, and I have to say, New Orleans is one fat city.
|8.29.05 @ 1:26PM|#
NRH--
So long as they're capable of getting their own selves to the
Superdome, they're fine. Compared to what would have happened if a
Walter Hudson had to go there--how many able-bodied people would
have been denied the help they needed, because the National Guard
was too busy hauling in a land whale?
|8.29.05 @ 1:29PM|#
I know this thread is all but expired, but hey, I'll post
anyway.
if the problem could be solved by simple measures like not
consuming twenty pounds of food each day.
You know, spinning off of what complexisomorphism and jimmyboy were
saying about physical causes: I read at least one study a few years
ago suggesting that a part of the brain (I believe the
hypothalamus, but can't remember if that's correct) creates the
chemical determinant of how big a person's appetite will be and
"decides" (or sends a signal) when the person has had enough to eat
and is "full". I read that possibly this brain function of knowing
when you are full is defective in some people who drastically
overeat. I think that that research may be making a correct
suggestion, at least in that perhaps these super large people's
sense of fullness cannot be achieved with a meal typical for a
normal human stomach.*
I think it's either in this brain abnormality, or otherwise there
might be some sensor defect in their stomach-muscle tissue that
either doesn't send the signal to the brain or else allows the
stomach to expand to a much greater size than normal. Just my
hypotheses.
Five things Walter Hudson reportedly ate for breakfast every
day:
1. 1 lb. of bacon
2. 2 lbs. of sausage
3. Dozen eggs
4. Loaf of toast
5. Coffee
* I can sympathize with this to a lesser extent. And how! Mo is
probably passing the same judgement on me after meeting me. (I was
eating off the poor boy's plate during breakfast yesterday in
Chicago.) For what it's worth, I fall in the category of "women who
don't eat like birds". I don't know if it's genetic or not, but
after a battle with borderline anorexia throughout my developing
teen years, I don't really care about the cause of my appetite
anymore either way. Now, if I'm really hungry, I eat with
unapologetic abandon, much to the dismay of many a date. The only
point I would care would be if I started to get unattractively or
inconveniently, disruptively fat. That doesn't look like a distinct
worry to me, which also makes me believe that these morbidly obese
people are outliers, as linguist and others suggested.
|8.29.05 @ 4:06PM|#
Depending on how you define outlier.
They aren't exactly one in a million. And there are more of them
all the time.
|8.29.05 @ 4:49PM|#
I was eating off the poor boy's plate during breakfast
yesterday in Chicago
What a nice ending to a meeting that started Saturday night! Whoo
hoo.
And I realize I was wrong when I talked about how hard it would
have been to get Hudson to the Superdome. He wouldn't have been in
danger of drowning anyway--fat floats.
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245