fat thursday

[moominmolly]

From Junkfood Science, via the_xtina, an article on the Minnesota Starvation Study (about the effects of dieting on healthy adults) that I found quite interesting.

EDIT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD: What I found interesting was: the mental effects of this deprivation on the healthy, normal-weight patients; the idea of patriotic conscientious objectors in a medical study; and the attitudes surrounding the study in general. The whole article was chock full of interesting attitudes toward the world. The general tone of the article and the obvious bias of the author are not my own.

Comments

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Ultimately this discussion reminds me a lot of when gay rights groups go on at length about how homosexuality is genetic, and not a choice. The underlying message is "We don't deserve to be abused for this feature of ourselves, because we have no choice." Which...kinda sucks for people who have abusable features that ARE a choice. What, it's not okay to gay-bash someone but is okay to Mormon-bash them?

I don't believe that the origins of either weight or sexual orientation are as simple as either "choice" or "genetics", and that both fat and gay people have a right to freedom from discrimination and abuse regardless of the extent to which choice plays a role in their condition.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

US Constitutional law distinguishes between matters that are of choice and matters that are not. If it came to be accepted that homosexuality is not a matter of choice, it pretty quickly would be protected just as race (or maybe gender) is.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Religion is a matter of choice and constitutionally protected.

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

Well, it's expressly listed.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

religion is special-cased.

thank god.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

True and good catch. But a big chunk of the list is involuntary