Obese Man to Sue NHS for letting him get fat.

[mistermack]

Got a tough one for you, mistermack. Could you please define 'addiction'?

You keep talking about it, but how does one know if they are 'addicted'? Is it diagnosable (by independant observers)? Or is it just asserted by those who claim to suffer from it?

What coito ergo sum says IS the answer. If a person ignores the answer, that doesn't change what the answer is.

Not tough at all. It's just, like many things, that there isn't a fixed definition.
Wikipedia says this, which I would go along with :

"Some psychology professionals and many laymen now mean 'addiction' to include abnormal psychological dependency on such things as gambling, food, sex, pornography, computers, internet, work, exercise, idolising, watching TV or certain types of non-pornographic videos, spiritual obsession, cutting and shopping".

I think if you find your thinking changes, when you need your substance, you are addicted. How much is just a question of degree.
Where I differ from Coito is that he doesn't seem to recognise anything as addiction, unless it's full-on all-consuming. I think you can be slightly addicted, like with cigarettes, or alcohol.
If the habit overrules your good intentions in any way, that's some degree of addiction to me.

[epepke]

Oh, and there's a clinical trial being started to study calorie loss in feces: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00414063

[mistermack]

Oh, and there's a clinical trial being started to study calorie loss in feces: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00414063

Ah. I'm amazed that hasn't been done years ago, by many organisations independently. It seems such an obvious question.
Surely 20,000 calories a day must be way past what the body can absorb? So if this guy cut down, it could have no effect at all, till he dropped below a limit.

[Coito ergo sum]

Where I differ from Coito is that he doesn't seem to recognise anything as addiction,

No - where we differ is that by your definition, everyone who is overweight is addicted. Frankly, your definition arguably includes everyone who eats as addicted to food.

unless it's full-on all-consuming.

No - unless it meets the clinical definition of addiction, and not some pop culture "we're addicted to everything" theory.

I think you can be slightly addicted, like with cigarettes, or alcohol.

Of course, but food isn't alcohol or cigarettes, and behavioral addictions to things like food and gambling are not the same as psychoactive substance addictions like cigs and drink.

If the habit overrules your good intentions in any way, that's some degree of addiction to me.

By the same token, just because something is hard to refrain from doesn't make it an addiction.

[epepke]

Oh, and there's a clinical trial being started to study calorie loss in feces: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00414063

Ah. I'm amazed that hasn't been done years ago, by many organisations independently. It seems such an obvious question.
Surely 20,000 calories a day must be way past what the body can absorb? So if this guy cut down, it could have no effect at all, till he dropped below a limit.

It is an obvious question, but it's something that is rather difficult to study.

[mistermack]

Oh, and there's a clinical trial being started to study calorie loss in feces: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00414063

Ah. I'm amazed that hasn't been done years ago, by many organisations independently. It seems such an obvious question.
Surely 20,000 calories a day must be way past what the body can absorb? So if this guy cut down, it could have no effect at all, till he dropped below a limit.

It is an obvious question, but it's something that is rather difficult to study.

I dunno. I would just take a group, give them exactly the same food to eat and drink for a week, and measure the total calorific value of each one's total shit production.
It would be interesting to see if there was any marked differences.
.

[mistermack]

Of course, but food isn't alcohol or cigarettes, and behavioral addictions to things like food and gambling are not the same as psychoactive substance addictions like cigs and drink.

What happens in the brain is actually remarkably similar.

And it doesn't matter if you don't want to use the word addiction. Food can change your thinking, alter your intentions. Using a different word doesn't change that.

Edit : By the way, what is the "clinical definition of addiction" ?
Is it real, or did you dream it?

[Ironclad]

I'm not making any kind of point here, just asking a question.
Do we shit any calories? Or does every human digest and use every available calorie in their food?
Some people seem to perform miracles. They eat like a horse and never put on weight.
Do they just lose more energy in heat? I can't see how they can do that, unless their skin temperature is much higher than others.
.

You could lay down on the floor and do sod all and still lose weight. Hippies do it allll the time.

[Coito ergo sum]

Of course, but food isn't alcohol or cigarettes, and behavioral addictions to things like food and gambling are not the same as psychoactive substance addictions like cigs and drink.

What happens in the brain is actually remarkably similar.

And it doesn't matter if you don't want to use the word addiction. Food can change your thinking, alter your intentions. Using a different word doesn't change that.

So can obsessive jogging, cunnilingus and flying in a hot air balloon. It doesn't make calling them addictions helpful in any way.

Look - the difference is this - "not eating" is not anorexia. "Throwing up" is not bulemia." And, likewise, "eating" is not "food addiction." You're leaving out all the factors that go into a diagnosis of these obsessive disorders.

[Ironclad]

Surely 20,000 calories a day must be way past what the body can absorb?

You'd think it so, but simple sugars are very easily absorbed. So easily in fact they are already in the system from the mouth onwards. And this guy is munching doughnuts like he's an entire famine-stuck town, in one.

Sugar is a parasite, a highly successful human parasite.

[mistermack]

So can obsessive jogging, cunnilingus and flying in a hot air balloon. It doesn't make calling them addictions helpful in any way

Well, I'd say the exact opposite.
It's hard to get an alcoholic to fight his addiction, until they admit to themselves that they are actually addicted. Once you get your head round the fact that you are out of control, you stand a chance of beating it.
While you keep kidding yourself that you can lose the weight "if you really wanted to", you don't stand much chance of making a change.

I'm not offering addiction as some sort of excuse here. That picture in my avatar isn't actually me, you know!
(it's my little brother)

[Pappa]

So can obsessive jogging, cunnilingus and flying in a hot air balloon. It doesn't make calling them addictions helpful in any way

By definition and addiction is an obsessive behaviour that also causes harm to the person doing it.

[Feck]

I don't care if food is addictive ,would this guy have even found a lawyer to act for him if his addiction was Heroin and his attitude was just to keep taking it and demand that the NHS fix his problem for him ? When I get Ill do you think I will try suing the NHS because they didn't stop me ?

What is needed to cope with addiction is will power ! if you can't show ANY then it NOT up to anybody else to sort your problem out .

[mistermack]

I don't care if food is addictive ,would this guy have even found a lawyer to act for him if his addiction was Heroin and his attitude was just to keep taking it and demand that the NHS fix his problem for him ? When I get Ill do you think I will try suing the NHS because they didn't stop me ?

What is needed to cope with addiction is will power ! if you can't show ANY then it NOT up to anybody else to sort your problem out .

I agree with all of that. But it's not purely willpower. My sister and her husband were very overweight for many years, with him going up to about 300 pounds.

They eventually went to weightwatchers, and over about a year, they both lost the lot, and are actually quite slim now, and have kept it off for another year at least.
They didn't suddenly get willpower that they didn't have before. It was the whole thing that worked for them, and the fact that they did it together.
That willpower can be lying around, but sometimes works better with a bit of help.

If they weren't so fuckin smug, I'd be happy for them!
.

[epepke]

Oh, and there's a clinical trial being started to study calorie loss in feces: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00414063

Ah. I'm amazed that hasn't been done years ago, by many organisations independently. It seems such an obvious question.
Surely 20,000 calories a day must be way past what the body can absorb? So if this guy cut down, it could have no effect at all, till he dropped below a limit.

It is an obvious question, but it's something that is rather difficult to study.

I dunno. I would just take a group, give them exactly the same food to eat and drink for a week, and measure the total calorific value of each one's total shit production.
It would be interesting to see if there was any marked differences.
.

OK, so how are you going to do that? Entirely apart from the expense of controlling the behaviors of a large sample of people, how are you going to measure the calories in shit? It isn't an easy thing to do, nor is it obvious which way to do it.

Estimates of calories in food come from burning various food components in calorimeters, calibrating from particular foods that are known to be high in one thing or another (dried egg whites, for example, are almost entirely protein). Shit, however, is a mixture of so much stuff that it's very hard to tell how much of it is not only calorific but consists of calories that could have been digested in other people. At the very least, you'd have to have some fairly massive and meticulous processing of large quantities of shit.

You might be able to control for this somewhat by giving the people a diet extremely low in cellulose, but since such a diet is viewed as extremely unhealthy, how are you going to get your experiment reviewed and passed?