feminism and social progressivism thread

[SteevMike]

keep in mind that 2000 cal of fibre is gonna be waaaaaaaay more filling than 2000 cal of pure sugar

gonna argue for societal/class factors being the big player here

getting 2000 'bad calories' (e.g., refined, easily digestible carbs) is gonna be:
-easily accessible
-cheap
-not very filling

getting 2000 'good calories' is going to require time (preparation, finding, planning) that a lot of people don't have

[IsaiahSchafer]

[okayfruit]

In the Ridaura article it mentions how both obese and lean mice were fed the exact same diet that was low in fat and high in plant polysaccharides, indicating that the difference in weight between the mice is not due to a significant difference in diet. People who are predisposed for this can have very healthy diets and still be overweight, and with only very drastic changes in their diet (such as strictly controlling what they consume) can they lose weight. People who are genetically predisposed towards gaining weight w/o the difference in gut microbiota generally have a really fucking low BMR and are more efficient at absorbing nutrients (their small intestinal lining might have significantly more folds than your average person).

To be honest I think simply calorie counting is kind of a dumb way of losing weight. Consuming less calories required for your BMR+calories expended will *always* lead to weight loss, but your average person's going to have a super difficult time figuring out their BMR and how efficient their body is at absorbing calories. I'll emphasize yet again that this by no means goes against the laws of thermodynamics. Everybody's body requires different amounts of energy to keep shit going, like your organs and stuff. This varies from person to person. Additionally, you can eat 2000 calories but only absorb 1500 (this is kind of an exaggeration though), and the other 500 calories you will poop out.

What if you ate 2000 calories (determined by ones measured by a calorimeter) but only expended 1800 calories a day? First, let's just forget about "oh fiber's more filling" by pretending that by some magic we've managed to make the two into equal volumes. You're less likely to gain weight with 2000 calories of pure fiber because it takes a ton of work just to break down soluble fiber, and you'll end up pooping out a good portion of it because that shit passed through your GI tract before you got the chance to break it all down, making the net # of calories gained by your body less than if it just at 2000 calories of sugar, because it's super fucking easy to just absorb all of the sugar at once with minimal effort expended by your system, and you'll only poop out a very very small amount of it.

I think point you missed in my last post is that not all calories in a single item of food are available for you to use or absorb, so I'll do my best to illustrate it. Let's take a potato, for example. It's got the same # of calories when it's either raw or boiled have the same # of calories, which is about 280. Let's just pretend for the sake of making my life easier that this potato we're talking about is purely made of carbohydrates, and consists of 0 bean energy and 0 lipids. So you have 280 calories worth of starch that gets broken down into glucose and then blah blah blah. So Jim eats 10 raw potatoes and Manfred eats 10 boiled potatoes, 2800 calories each, and these two dudes are physiologically identical. Despite this, Manfred's gonna get more glucose in his bloodstream and his body's going to tuck away more glucose in his fat deposits. Jim is going to poop out most of those potatoes. It's because the glucose is less accessible in the raw potato due to it being compacted into starch granules, which loosen up in the process of cooking. These two dudes can continue their diet of potatoes and Manfred, after a certain period of time, is going to be way bigger than Jim. Even if Manfred starts to eat 8 potatoes, he's still going to be fatter than Jim if Jim's gut can only get 7 potatoes worth of glucose. This, I will repeat yet again, does not go against the laws of thermodynamics because Jim's still pooping out those 3 extra potatoes. A bomb calorimeter gives the same # of calories for both potatoes because it incinerates those potatoes and doesn't give a fuck about chemical bonds, but your body only has so many enzymes and a certain amount of time to break stuff down.

I'm not going to go into depth about the different pathways that stuff is stored because I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear me drone on and on about biochem and count ATP/NADPH used at each single step, but please at least just take my word when I say certain macronutrients (I've listed the 3 above) makes your body spend way more energy to convert them into usable or storable energy, and the amount of energy expended still varies with the same macronutrient.

Anyways, apologies to everybody else for clogging this thread up with boring science talk. I really do think obesity is a serious health issue, but weight management would be a little bit easier for everybody if we focused on eating better, not eating less.

TL;DR: Calorie counting isn't great because net calories gained = calories listed + calories pooped out + calories expended for digestion. Last two variables differ greatly based on the type of food you eat. Take 2 foods (x1, x2). For calories listed, x1 = 100, x2 = 90. Calories pooped out & expended (x1) = 30, and for (x2) = 10. Net calories (x1) = 70, (x2) = 80. Laws of thermodynamics still apply.

[blankinput]

This thread is being closely monitored.

[bueno]

(@okayfruit, i made a few errors in my rep comment - was on mobile and i'm bad at typing on it - replace the 1st "on" with "in", replace the 2nd "on" with "of" and replace "it" with "you're".)

[okayfruit]

and

The point I was trying to make is that it's possible to eat the same # of calories per day and still lose weight. Of course if you eat like 3000 calories of bananas (if you don't die of potassium overdose first) you'll gain weight compared to someone who only eats a single mcdonalds meal. That should already be really really obvious to everybody.

Let me give you one last example of eating the same # of calories, this time with something unhealthy, and something healthy. If Jim eats 2000 calories of greasy deep fried escolar and Manfred else eats 2000 calories of fat free grilled tofu, Jim's going to poop out waaaay more calories than Manfred because your digestive system just says "fuck it" after it absorbs a certain amount of oil and makes you excrete the rest out. Which is why people shit themselves sometimes when they eat escolar. In this example Jim ate something significantly unhealthier but had a much smaller net gain of calories.

Starving yourself obviously always works to lose weight. There is not a single at least mildly educated person in the world who doesn't accept that as fact. However, if you simply just reduce your caloric intake without combining it with additional exercise, your metabolism will adjust itself and slow down accordingly. If you go from 2200 to 1100 calories a day, yes there is still a calorie deficit and you'll lose weight until you get to a low enough mass where your body can maintain itself at that many calories. However, for people who try to moderately reduce their intake from say 2200 to 1900, eventually they're just going to stop losing weight a lot earlier. Additionally, the guy who cut down to 1100 calories is going to experience a lot of terrible physical side effects from ketoacidosis and the like.

There's a reason why nutritionists try to avoid just simply calorie counting. Hell, even weight watchers has dropped this program. First, with most foods, it's super difficult to accurately determine the number of calories your body actually gains from the food itself. As I mentioned with my potato example, and with the escolar/tofu example, the calories you put in your mouth isn't always going to be the calories your body absorbs. While the counts on nutritional labels from large companies that have more money to spend are going to be significantly closer to the actual value than the ones you obtain by addition or the ones a small sandwich shop can give, those values will always have a margin of error, and can't account for how long something passes through your digestive tract. Calorie counting by itself sucks because I've pointed out and explained in detail for like the 4th time now that it's pretty inaccurate, not to mention incredibly time consuming.

It's so much harder to control your eating habits when you're hungry, and while I'm not really qualified to talk about the psychological impact of hunger as I am the biochemical reasons for it, I'm pretty sure that you're far more likely to break your diet if you consistently feel the pangs of hunger, and you'll generally be more grumpy and less productive. Foods with simple sugars are broken down super quickly and don't stay in your digestive tract for very long hence why you get hungry more quickly after eating a handful of caramels vs a few apple slices. bean energy takes a really long time to break down, and foods with tons of fiber slow gastric emptying so you'll have food in your stomach for a longer period of time, hence why you won't get hungry very often. Someone with a tummy full of chicken breast and brown rice is less likely to reach out for more food than someone who ate a meal consisting of mostly lipids and sugar.

Obesity is a very serious problem and it's one that's generally super difficult to control since hunger satiety is pretty damn low on maslow's hierarchy of needs. People who generally live in worse off areas with food deserts don't have the luxury of cutting down calories by visiting their local whole foods and picking out healthier lower calorie versions of foods they like to eat, nor can they just whip out their smartphone to check how many calories the lunch their wife packed for them or the sandwich they just bought from a local shop has. Telling those people that as long as they eat less they'll lose is really really dismissive because it overlooks the socioeconomic and psychological factors of why they're overweight and why it's so difficult for them to lose that weight, not to mention irresponsible because it's pretty damn easy to hurt yourself on a low calorie diet. Unfortunately, since I'm not a nutritionist, I am by no means qualified to suggest an easy way for these people to adjust their diets, but I seriously believe there's a much better yet accessible method for weight management. Even for those of you who are more affluent, losing weight will be so much easier if you stopped making sure your total calories consumed adds up to less than a specific number, but instead arm yourself with the general knowledge of how specific types of food will affect your nutritional intake and satiety.

I don't think I'll manage to change either of your minds, which is absolutely fine. However, I'd really like it if either of you could at least take the time to fully read through what I've just written. Despite this, I really seriously hope that someone else reading this thread was able to gain some knowledge from the excessively long posts I've written because so many people are still dieting in inefficient ways that could possibly cause lasting damage to their bodies, and I don't want that to happen to anyone.

[bueno]

I do understand what you're saying and of course I can't disagree with your points because you are not wrong so I don't think there is really anyone's mind you need to change. The examples you used are obviously very extreme, but for the majority of people who eat a relatively balanced diet with a healthy mix of carbs, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins etc, the simplest way of losing weight is to simply consume fewer calories (obviously this doesn't need to be a huge amount per day as long as it's consistently below expenditure) than you expend, which really was the only point that I think I (and amikrumpingnow unless I have misunderstood something) were making/defending. I just think that because there isn't really a huge variation in resting metabolic rate between the population the simplest way to alter your weight is by controlling what you consume and despite other factors which you have brought up i still don't disagree with. Obviously that's just comparing resting metabolic rate and doesn't account for exercising/whatever other people do during the day and also isn't accounting for the type of food they eat which you highlighted.

Never really considered the point about nutritionists avoiding calorie counting (possibly because food manufacturers themselves will mislead if they can leading to inaccuracies on labels?) but with Weight Watchers do you think it's more that they are avoiding calorie counting because it's inaccurate/ineffective or because it's more likely to induce an eating disorder if people are obsessively counting calories and it could also lead to less healthy food choices being ignored and instead people only judging foods by the number of calories it contains? By changing that policy and instead making their clients choose healthy foods instead even if calories are the same they are promoting a lifestyle change which would then be associated with Weight Watchers? I could see calorie counting being pretty controversial with a company like that.

Aside from that, regarding the point about hugely reducing calorific intake, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment is a pretty interesting topic to read about if you never have.

[okayfruit]

I used extreme examples so I could simply explain my point with a single variable rather than having to account for the various different factors at hand, but I'm also 100% sure nobody in the world eats like the people I made up do. An efficient diet of course means that you would consume less calories if you have a balanced diet, but there's a lot of people who struggle with weight issues due to the fact that they don't have the access to healthier foods or lack the time to prepare their foods. For them, simply telling them to reduce their caloric intake isn't very helpful because it fails to address the many different issues that led to obesity. Additionally, this doesn't work out so great for people with a predisposition towards obesity, whether it's due to shitty gut flora or an underproduction of leptin. In cases like these you really need to find a way to overcome these issues that still remain unresolved with the method of simply eating less food.

I think with calorie counting there's a lot of possible dangers with it, aside from the issue of inaccurate labeling. Most people usually don't know how many calories they need to consume to maintain their weight, and while amount needed generally goes down as people become thinner, there's other biological and external factors at hand. Therefore it might be likely that people are reducing their intake to amounts dangerously below what they should be eating. Additionally, people are more likely to reach for stuff that has the lowest possible number, thus avoiding foods that might provide better nutritional benefits for them. A woman on a diet might pick the grilled tofu instead of a small steak because it has far less calories, but she could possibly have an iron deficiency due to menstruation or w/e and would benefit way more from the steak. Someone with an unhealthy body image is also very likely to obsessively keep track of their caloric intake in order to micromanage their consumption and keep the numbers as low as possible, which might then lead to an eating disorder. So to answer your question, I think it can cause both.

The minnesota starvation experiment pretty much proves why eating significantly less than you normally do on a regular basis is a terrible idea. Nearly all mental changes marked in the participants were negative, and certain participants also experienced negative physiological effects as well. I think that the psychological changes are in part due to the effect of feeling consistently hungry, since the foods fed to the patients were easily digested root vegetables and simple carbs that are quickly emptied out of the stomach.

[frogosaurus]

@lee3jm thanks for the ideas. i'm looking for more strategical type ideas, issues that we can focus on and make a somewhat sizeable impact on.

[raags]

on sexual harassment and being a good male ally:

[IsaiahSchafer]

http://www.kmbc.com/health/540-mcdonald ... 14#!bz1bWJ

[BobbyZamora]

I think we need a separate thread for nutrition and diet discussion

[Runningshoes]

I'll admit to not really understanding feminism. Can I get a condensed version?

I'm prochoice and think women should be able to wear w/ever and fuck whoever they want (obviously not the case in a monogamous relationship but this goes for guys too).

[wiggly--woo]

i could be way off base here, but i would have thought that it's pretty difficult to give a condensed overview of something like feminism as it's too broad and multifaceted - more like a 'movement of movements' than one singular movement. i guess that in terms of common discursive themes there are the more simple and populist ideas like promoting equality between genders, and then there are more complex and interesting things like examining patriarchal forces, power relations, representations etc

one of the more interesting issues within feminism is, at least from my point of view, whether or not feminists should be emphasizing (material and/or constructed) differences between the male and the female in order to better represent the latter as an oppressed group in the fight for equality, or whether feminists should be looking to examine the construction of gender (and the construction of "biological" sex too) with discourses of gender performativity, heterosexual hegemony, materiality of the body and so on, which is where gender studies, queer studies, linguistics and the like come into the picture.

i'm sure someone else has something more useful/accurate to say as i can't claim to be particularly well versed in any feminist literature beyond a passing interest in performance, performativity, performative utterances and so on.

[Stingray Sam]

What is up with "feminist" publications and groups calling male feminists allies? Feminism is not exclusive to women. In the LGTBQ they use allies to denote that you may not be LGBTQ, yet you still support their rights. Anyone on the other hand can be a feminists. >:[

edit: what is wrong with discussing social progressivism on c-t? If you don't like the thread don't look at it

[nevergreen]

[nevergreen]

: Women themselves face different degrees of privilege though, is a poor black woman more of a feminist than a rich white woman?

the thing about is that if they are both feminists (granted the white woman isn't in favor of white feminism) and they both want to dismantle the system that men have setup so it's different than comparing a man to a woman in terms of privilege/feminism. i also could be completely wrong so if i am someone should tell me but this is what i know on the subject

[Stingray Sam]

Well under the current system some men face a small or even rarely a large (transmen, sex workers etc.) degree of oppression. Usually from being outside the norm in terms of gender identity, sexual preference, working as a sex worker or any number of things usually associated with femininity (this is by no means an exhaustive list of what causes gender oppression). So they too would have reason to dismantle the system put in place by men. Would experiencing this sort of oppression make these men being a bonafide feminist versus an ally reasonable? Is there degrees to how reasonable it is to claim that you're a feminist? For instance I am a bi male who is interested in a number of hobbies outside what is considered masculine. However, I also have a number of hobbies that are considered very masculine and from my own experience I would say that the degree that I experience any sort of gender based oppression is very low. Does this mean it's harder for me to say that I'm a feminist than say a F2M sex worker? Someone who very obviously would experience a great degree of gender based oppression. Or is saying that there is an experiential component to whether or not you are a feminist a valid statement at all? Is the desire alone to dismantle or modify, through whatever method you ascribe to, the current patriarchal system in place enough for you to be considered a feminist? I would agree with the latter, though I can see the possibility of the former being more correct.

[Prae]

The only problem I have with that comic is that it negates how many of the scenarios could just as easily have the genders flipped. I definitely agree with a lot of the ideas and problems of the comic and I see how it's a bigger problem for women, but it seems to be more a problem with 'assholes' rather than men.

Some few examples:

"Do you see the way she treats him? He's so whipped.": This also goes the other way, I (and most of the people I know) will call out relationships on both ways if one part is way more controlling than the other, it just seems that it is more normal to see girls being overly controlling, at least in the relationships I've seen.

And for the frame two down ("only way to stop them is saying I'm taken, and some find that a challenge") it's very universal and up to peoples personality. It's definitely something girls also do and also gay males (trying to 'convert' straight guys and seeing that as a challenge), something which I've been the "victim" of myself.

I could go on with many of the frames, but that would just be a repetition.

This is not to deny that women in public spaces can experience problematic issues, but instead of chalking it up to the "patriarchy" and pretending that males have the same characteristics regardless of their culture or upbringing, I think it should just be more about calling out assholes who engage in this behavior. On the flip-side I also think that the only way these notions will enter into the public consciousness is through dialing it down. I accept that I might be a part of the problem, but I doubt I'm anywhere near the worst of them. The thing is that the people you want to change are the ones that are the 'worst' and I doubt any of them would change a thing after reading this. It has to be a small gradual change in society, nothing this drastic can just become a part of society overnight.

Hope I made sense without sounding too much like a shitlord.

[raags]

the fact that you put patriarchy in quotation marks speaks volumes, and instead of trying to deny or minimise these experiences and absolve yourself of blame you should actually try listening to women on this topic rather than coming in argumentatively. i don't really want to address your points individually and derail this a comic about sexual harassment women face again into basic 101 level "what about the men" stuff

[Prae]

I mean I totally get your point, but I guess my main point is also that the language feminists use needs to change if they are ever to have any real impact. It's super evident how there is a general exclusion of anyone who doesn't fully agree with the points put forwards. I just can't see how it is expected to change real chauvinists ideals when all there is done is calling them rapists and shitty human being who needs to change to be worth anything. I mean I might be a shitlord, but I'm not groping women in the streets or cat-calling, if I'm already feeling excluded, how on Earth are you supposed to get through to the actual perpetrators, do you think they sit and evaluate their life while reading tumblr?

But also, I'm from Denmark, which I would regard as being more gender-equal than the US, so I guess it's hard for me to see the real impact of patriarchy when the affects aren't very apparent for me.

[UnwashedMolasses]

If you think feminist language consists of calling men rapists and shitty human beings you have a very skewed idea of what feminism actually is.

[can-]

when girls are getting cat called upwards of 10-15 times a day you have to realize it is not just a bad sampling of 'assholes' but a systemic issue in how people are socialized.

[raags]

i don't think you get my point at all dude, and you clearly know very little about feminism. "if [feminists] are to have any real impact?" - you have heard of women's suffrage, right?

seriously, where do you get off thinking you have this super informed opinion on what feminists should do and how the movement can go forward when you clearly don't even have a 101 grasp on basic concepts? because you read some tumblr posts you thought were too 'radical'?

you are not willing to even earnestly read a comic about not sexually harassing women without trying to mansplain away every point in it. i don't think anything will get through to you, and anyone engaged on this topic (ESPECIALLY WOMEN) does not owe you their time to repeatedly explain super basic concepts that you are being presented with and pushing aside. i can't even imagine how infuriating this conversation would be for a woman trying to argue with you as for me its at least just an intellectual exercise and doesn't directly and significantly impact my quality of life.

congrats on "not groping women in the streets or cat-calling", i guess.

[Syeknom]

What a great idea bringing this thread back to life was, now everyone's happy and engaged in fruitful conversation that adds something positive to the atmosphere of the place.