The body positivity message is “others shouldn’t shame you for your body”. You may still decide you want to change your body through whatever means are available to you. And the policies the meme refers to are about regulation on food production and distribution.
If by policies you mean neoliberal economics, then you’re correct.
The body positivity movement did jack shit compared to economic factors, so it frustrates me to no end when people talk about it more than the incentives to be unhealthy. Shaming and blaming not only doesn’t work to dissuade unhealthy behavior, it makes societal failures into personal problems, refocusing the conversation away from the real culprits.
We hang ourselves, but capitalism gives us the rope and few alternatives.
The body positivity movement did jack shit compared to economic factors
I really disagree with that. No one is forcing you to go out and eat a 1500 calorie super value meal for lunch. McChicken and small fries is reasonable and cheaper if you really hate yourself.
Part of it is addiction to sugars and carbohydrates. Sugar strongly stimulates the reward centers in our brain, so companies pump everything with it to hook customers. People eat that shit to deal with stresses, often caused by other economic externalities, and eat too much of it thanks to low nutritional value. Some children are both obese and malnourished, because their food is so shitty. Companies don’t care about the health consequences; they only make stonks go up.
Body positivity doesn’t necessarily say being overweight is good, just that you don’t need to hate your body if you’re overweight. Shame can easily turn maladaptive, so not dwelling on self hatred is often a good idea. People do take it too far, as health consequences of obesity are real, but that isn’t representative of all body positivity. Body positivity isn’t always good, and isn’t always bad. Black and white simplistic thinking will often lead you astray.
I mean, it is the fault of the person buying the food. Healthy families don’t eat fast food 5 times a week, and they don’t shop in the middle aisles for all of their food. That being said, most Americans don’t know how to cook or feed themselves properly and that’s a failure of the education system. Well, it would be a failure if it wasn’t part of the actual plan to dumb down Westerners.
Edit: holy shit, some of these comments. Yall are fucked. Eat a goddamn vegetable and look up a recipe once in a while, why don’t ya?
I handle all the meal prep for my wife and I. You’re not wrong about the middle isles, we hardly touch them anymore, we go from produce to meat to dairy/eggs and don’t go much further in save for the occasional party. It’s several hours out of my Sunday to make sure we both have enough meals to get through Friday, she’s kind of helpless in the kitchen and depends on having something to quickly heat up.
This arrangement works for us.
I have no fucking clue what we’ll do when we’re feeding a child. A kid, who if is anything like me, will be incredibly picky to the point of regurgitation when something with an off texture touches their lips. I work nights, and my wife works days. We’re both sensitive to carbs, which as adults is manageable but kids actually do need some.
Don’t get me wrong, we’ll figure it out. But we’re fortunate enough to have decently paying jobs. We earn more than most do at our age, and when it becomes important we’ll have access to childcare that most Americans don’t.
Someone on even the median income in our area is going to struggle to eat the way we do. Someone working two jobs is going to really struggle to not hit the drive through several times a week. Someone feeding children is going to struggle even further.
My point is, you’re fucking dense.
People need cheap food. Cheap food isn’t healthy. People need food that doesn’t take much time. Fast food also isn’t healthy. Sure, there’s a decent size of the population hitting the drive through exclusively due to laziness. That’s not everyone, I’d argue it’s not even the majority.
I get it, it’s easy for you to stay home and cook when you’re single living in your mom’s basement, most of us moved out around college.
One big issue is that many poor families don’t have much time to cook. Yeah, there are things that can be prepared quickly and in bulk for later, but that’s harder than some frozen meal or fast food. There’s many socio-economic factors at play that need to be addressed.
I’ve found that 9 out of 10 calls for “individual action” to solve a societal ail is only solvable by regulating large companies and industry. Most of the time, the companies themselves are the ones funding the campaign for individual action and awareness. ReMEMbEr tO ReCYcLE!
Taking a carrot and eating it is faster, easier and more convenient that “fast” food. It can also be thrown around in a bag all day and still taste the same. Same with apples and…
It is really easy to simply make the decision to not eat shit. You don’t need to be an 8th degree vegan to be healthier.
Getting a child to brush their teeth (or do it for them) is also a constant effort. So what? Just let them rot? Raising children well is not easy, we know that.
This is a weird argument. My kids eat carrots. I cut up the baby ones. They also eat chicken nuggets, hot dogs, corn dogs, grapes, apples, butter pasta, and a variety of foods. Simply saying eat a raw vegetable doesn’t really fix the issue.
You’re getting down voted because you’re suggesting eating the occasional raw fruit and veggie and writing like that’s a replacement for eating fast food. Maybe if you provided a recipe or a meal idea people would be more receptive.
While I did not write that, yes, people seem to think that. Replacing part of what we eat with something healthy is easy and cheap. Not a solution to everything. Not a complete vegan lifestyle.
Anyway, a recipe etc. is not going to change people. This is a more fundamental issue.
I never liked this suggestion. Sure, dry beans and rice are cheap. When we tried to make beans, they came out tasteless and gross no matter what we tried. No matter what recipe we followed, they never tasted good. Rice is also cheap, especially when bought in bulk, but there’s only so many seasoning or sauce sauce combinations until I’m sick of eating the same thing. Even if it’s every other day, there’s no way I’m eating the same thing. We did that with overnight oats because they are cheap and easy to prepare ahead of time. We did it so much, it makes me gag now and I’ll never touch it again. On top of all that, I’m tired of cheap eating being reduced to the simplest possible foods imaginable and acting like people will eat them every or most days.
So look for a recipe then. Chicken is cheap as hell. Pasta is cheap as hell. Rice is cheap as hell. Veggies are cheap as hell. Recipes will tell you how to cook it and make it taste good.
they came out tasteless and gross no matter what we tried.
You tried wrong then, buy dried beans, leave them on water overnight, change the water, put them on the pressure cooker with new water for 20-30 minutes(the bean should easily be crushed between your palate and tongue if not, add more time)
open the lid, the water must barely cover the beans(remove or add water), low the fire and start adding chopped tomatoes and onions, SALT(salt is probably the most important ingredient, start with a little bit, add until the water tastes salty but edible) thyme and turmeric, same process as the salt, not too much just enough that the water tastes good, leave in a slow fire for 5-10 minutes(more if you want the beans extra soft),
bonus: extra taste secret, chop bacon and fry it with little oil, put it in with the oil, but don’t put much, max two oil spoons in, do it when you put the tomatoes and onions.
Serve with rice, or add more water and make a soup.
Oatmeal: boil the oatmeal in water with cinnamon until it’s cooked, then wait for cooling, put in the blender with milk, add fruits, and some drops of vanilla extract. Put in refrigerator, enjoy.
acting like people will eat them every or most days.
People do eat them everyday, rice+any grain+meat+salad+etc
You know how many tasteless and even gross things that came from animals and plants humans have learned to eat? Boil it, fry it, use every seasoning available until it tastes good.
Edit: add the salt before, when you put them on the pressure cooker, not with the tomatoes and onions, that way the taste gets inside the bean when its pressure cooked.
Yep it’s total bullshit. What people are really saying is they’re too lazy to prepare foods. Stir fry is cheap. Soup is cheap. Beans (refried, chili, black bean, etc.) & rice is cheap. All healthy.
Making lentil tacos tonight. Again, filthy cheap. Stupid simple. But tons of protein, complex carbs, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
It gets much more efficient time-wise when you meal prep. Every improvement requires “conscious effort.” we’re just accustomed to bad habits because nobody taught us better.
Edit: I was a bit harsh on the laziness accusations. People are products of their environment generally and there are fair points regarding societal pressures. The body tends to take the path of least resistance and, well, this is the outcome.
People are “lazy” because it’s takes 2-4 incomes to support a household instead of one. Everything is rushed for a reason. Convenience isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity for many people, especially the hardest working.
The majority of healthy eating working class families are eating healthy because they have a retired grandmother or grandfather helping out cooking old school dishes etc. isolated small households with two working parents are going to feel compelled to get cheap and quick food otw home from work.
Untrue. Americans get paid like crazy for the jobs they do. In Canada, the average income and CPI ratio is so much lower than in America and we have a fraction of the obesity problem.
Man… My wife and I I support my mother, our 2 young kids, and my sister under a 2-income. These kids don’t go to daycare or school yet (which we plan on homeschooling) so no breaks. People definitely can make time but oftentimes have their priorities out of whack. No cooking contribution and a net-negative in terms of chores, mind you.
Yes, it’s easy to order quick food and we’ve all been there. I won’t lie and say we don’t occasionally. I completely get that. But I truly believe it’s a matter of bad habits across generations as opposed to being that confined on time. Besides, you’re going to lose all that time in less productivity / efficiency, especially when you’re sick more frequently and have to go to urgent care or hospital because of a poor diet.
It’s a wonder Americans can actually get any good health advice when everything is a marketing gimmick or flat out lie. But when our own government is just rolling over while businesses legally poison the majority of the population is just insane to me. We don’t have to stop individuals making their own choices to fight back against some of this insanity. And proper information is a good starting point. No more deceptive advertising. No more saying your cheese when you’re not. No more “Wyngs” or other bullshit naming only designed to deceive.
I think the FTC should crack down on deceptive advertising too.
No more saying your cheese when you’re not. No more “Wyngs” or other bullshit naming only designed to deceive.
But these are not the most pressing issues. Call your product whatever name you want, I just want to know exactly what’s in it.
I agree that calling something “cheese” when it’s “dehydrated oil shreds” or something is deceptive. Saw that today at Whole Foods. No, it’s not healthier; it just doesn’t have dairy.
Lack of dairy or gluten doesn’t make things healthier. Those ingredients aren’t replaced with air. They’re usually replaced with something that sounds disgusting. But food companies don’t want to put that on the package so they list what it doesn’t have.
Jamie Oliver as well in the UK. People STILL hate him for trying to feed their kids better than they could. The strength of the desire in people to make life worse for themselves and everyone else makes me hate this fucking country.
The problem with wealthy influencers like him is they always promote expensive food items with meaningless qualifiers. Local, organic, free range, natural etc don’t mean shit when you are broke. Teach people how to make healthy dishes with conventionallly grown foods you can buy at Walmart or whatever because that’s where the people who need help the most shop. Familiar foods, Vegetables. Beans. Rice. Lentils. Chicken. Nuts. Etc. not EVO, spaghetti squash, and “organic” chanterelles.
The upper middle class people who shop at Whole Foods don’t need a Jamie Oliver. And that’s what his target audience was/is.
Then don’t buy the organic free range stuff. Jesus Christ, that’s super not the issue. Every single chef promotes organic and free range because it tastes better, but Jamie Oliver always disclaims that you can get regular stuff too.
I remember having an argument with a friend about algebra in schools. Her kid was struggling, so she said why does he need to learn it, he can just get a job like hers where it’s not needed. Every other post of hers on Facebook was complaining about her crappy job.
There’s a strange mentality here that we’re all struggling, but nobody should be doing better. If someone does try, they get called out for it and shamed.
They saw Jamie Oliver as elitist for trying to get kids to not eat shit. Did you ever see his program? It was abysmal what they were serving British schoolchildren in schools.
Healthy school meals, making healthy food cheaper, taxing junk food, but I think the most helpful would be to heavily limit advertising of junk food, especially advertising to children.
I really feel like heavy restrictions on advertising would genuinely help with a range of different issues in the modern world.
I love the advertising idea, the tax idea idk. Havent they tried taxing junk food and it’s never worked out? Either through general outrage or people circumventing it
Maybe taxing junk food to specifically and directly subsidize healthy food? Feels like an obvious idea now that I think about it but I can also imagine junk food companies absolutely throwing a fit. Bet it would be popular with the average person though.
Make healthy food cheaper and tax junk food heavily. My dad recently moved to Ecuador and he’s eating like a king - fruit is like a 5th of the price there than it is where I am in the US.
Now I’m not expecting fruit at a 5th of the price lol, but making it reasonably priced at all would be a welcome change.
We have to hold the big monopolistic food industries accountable. Look at Hershey’s, they have a ridiculous amount of lead in their chocolate and no one doing anything to push them.
This meme is saying instead of using shaming as a tactic to help make healthier choices to actually do something and change policies to help everyone achieve a healthier diet. Obviously it won’t reach everyone it’s not perfect, but that’s how I understood it
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