Counter-Currents
Statue of Mars in the Forum Transitorium in Rome
1,017 words
We live in a time of artificial hysteria over many things, including the supposed murders of innocent black criminals by white “racists.” But a much more serious problem is obesity. In 1960, less than 15% of Americans were obese. Today that number is 42%, with a full two-thirds overweight. This is not simply because of high rates of obesity among blacks or Hispanics; according to CDC data from 2017-2018, 42% of non-Hispanic whites are obese. How did this happen, and how should we address the fat question?
Historically, it was taken for granted that being fat was not attractive. Although some primitive cultures may have worshipped obese goddesses and seen their size as a sign of wealth, white people at least as long ago as ancient Greece have recognized that the ideal human form is a fit one. We can see this in their art, which used athletic men as models. Female forms were not athletes, but were still far from obese. Christians did not have a higher opinion of flab than their pagan predecessors; gluttony is traditionally considered one of the seven deadly sins.
The Antikythera youth, a Greek bronze of an athletic young man circa 340–330 BC.
There are several culprits for our alarming plumpening in recent generations. One factor is that as our society has become wealthier and more globalized, fewer people need to work in physically demanding fields such as manufacturing and agriculture. One study concludes that while half of jobs in 1960 required moderate physical effort, less than 20 percent did in 2011.
Freed from the obligation to exercise, surprisingly few people continue to do so. A survey conducted in 2011 concluded that only 21% of Americans meet the recommended CDC guidelines for weekly exercise.
Even walking is not as common as one would hope. A 2010 study suggests Americans walk about 5,000 steps per day, far less than the Swiss, Japanese, or Australians. A study published in 2004 dealt with a community of Old Order Amish in Canada, whose lifestyle today is similar to that of many Americans in the 19th century. Researchers found they walked approximately three times as much as Americans. Only 9% of the women and 0% of the men were obese.
Diet, of course, is also a factor. The total number of calories the average American eats has increased by 23% from 1970 to 2010. Sugar is part of this. Drinks sweetened with sugar do not give the same feeling of fullness that food normally does, making it easier to consume large quantities. A high-sugar diet can also cause insulin resistance, meaning that more of the body’s energy is stored as fat, and leptin resistance, meaning a greater appetite. Americans have been eating large quantities of sugar since at least 1970, but the amount of added sugar adults consume increased by approximately 30% between 1977 and 2010.
Thanks partly to the widespread use of plastics, pollutants known as endocrine disruptors have become common in our environment and can be found in many packaged foods. These interfere with the normal functioning of hormones in the body, causing various health problems including weight gain.
Being fat is a threat to physical health in numerous ways, including increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. However, it is also damaging to the spirit, specifically to masculine vitality. Average testosterone in men has declined dramatically in recent years, even among adolescents and young adult men (15-39). The average concentration among this group in 2015-2016 was only ¾ what it was in 1999-2000. About 20% of these men now qualify as having testosterone deficiency. There are other factors, including the above-mentioned endocrine disruptors. But an increase in obesity is both a cause and an effect of this hormonal problem, with lower testosterone meaning less ability to burn fat, and excess fat leading to lower testosterone.
This hormone affects not only physical masculine characteristics but also our mental state. Those with lower testosterone tend to be more depressed, less competitive, have weaker memory, and may be more anxious. Research has shown that lower testosterone in old men is connected with weaker cognitive abilities and even Alzheimer’s disease.
Is this the type of people we want to make decisions for us? Outside of their hatred for the opposite side, no one wants to be ruled by a confused old man like Joe Biden. The same goes for the obese, and for similar reasons. A healthy society does not allow the unhealthy to dominate.
Artist’s interpretation of a man overcoming obesity
We should consider making fitness a condition for the franchise, as well as for holding political office. Just as felons have traditionally been disenfranchised due to the bad character implied by committing a felony, the obese should be disenfranchised due to the impaired judgment implied by obesity. Not only is their testosterone low, but it is hard to become obese without an obviously unhealthy lifestyle. If they could not take their own lives seriously enough to avoid becoming shoggoths, why would they take the good of society seriously?
Unlike other possible limitations on the vote, this would not permanently disenfranchise any class of people, but would instead encourage aspiring voters to improve themselves. Losing weight may be difficult, but it is not impossible. If diet and exercise are not sufficient, testosterone replacement therapy is an option.
This would also work against rule by a complacent elite. Authorities who become old and flabby could not be re-elected indefinitely. Anyone who “lets themselves go” would be required to let go of power.
Both office-holding and the right to vote are forms of political authority, and authority should only be held by the responsible: those with the agency and discipline to stay fit.
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20 comments
Unfortunately, most Democrats seem downright skinny, due to their obsession with ‘saving the planet’ by not eating animal protein., up to and including fish, eggs, milk and butter. Lack of protein also causes depression, confusion and weak bones. I am guessing it adds to their hysteria over ‘all the social ills caused by White people’. So, if you know any of these poor, bedraggled souls, buy them a decent hamburger and seriously think about finding a way to keep them from voting, for reasons as outlined in the above essay.
Maybe so but think of all the RINOsbit would get rid of. Plus Jerry ”Jaba the Schumtz” Nadler. Win-win!!!
In all seriousness, the author is 100% onto something. Excess fat (particularly belly fat in men) and endocrine disruptors are DEFINITELY having a deleterious cumulative effect IMHO.
As men and women of the REAL RIGHT, this is one way that we can connect with our people (see Greg J’s essay “Goodbye Mr. Trump”). One of the MANY, MANY ways in which the Globbies have denigrated our people is with this trash profitfood which so readily available and the madison ave media blast into their consciousness incessantly. A well formed and led revolt against Big Food would be way better for us (and way worse for them) than raping a few hedge funds caught with a big short position.
How can we do it??? Could we get this onto Trump’s post-presidency radar???
As someone who spends 8-10 hours a week at the gym or riding my bike, I have to comment:
First of all, every health screening I’ve participated in for the last 5 years has counted me as “obese.” I am 5’9 and weigh a little north of 200 lbs.
Yet, I deadlift 350 lbs, squat 250, and bench 225. I’m almost 50. My body fat percentage is under 20%. I’m not lean, but I’m in the healthy category, not fat.
I ride my bike on trails a couple of times a week. I’m not a big cardio person, but I do more than most people my age.
My point is, there are a lot more weight lifters and body builders today vs 1960, so at least SOME of that obesity data is skewed by muscle weight.
Having said that, there is a fat epidemic for certain. 80% of this coronavirus BS is due to obesity and health issues related to it.
Otoh, far leftist shitlibs in blue states do tend to be wealthier and have access to better, more expensive foods. Red state working class America on a budget is consuming cheaper calories that go to the waistline. There are idealistic reasons for me to be OK with fat normies voting against 6 year old trannies and drag Queen story hour as opposed to lean, fit childless California wine aunts who vote to flood the country with Somalis.
Otoh, far leftist shitlibs in blue states do tend to be wealthier and have access to better, more expensive foods. Red state working class America on a budget is consuming cheaper calories that go to the waistline.
Indeed. It seems the Right can’t get enough of intraracial fight-picking.
Pagan v. Christian
Men v. Women
Straight v. Gay
Fit v. Fat
As you say, the fit are generally more prosperous and content with the status quo. They are not our likeliest recruits.
You’re fat bro. You need to cut. At 5’9″ and 200 you should be benching way more than 225. Try to get your bodyfat down to the point you look like the sculpture. Then you’ll realize how fat you were at 200. You could probably lose 30 lbs of fat at least.
If people stick to red meat, eggs, real butter, organ meats, and avoid sugar and highly processed carbs, they won’t be obese (unless some other medical issues are at play). Even if they don’t exercise all that much, they won’t turn into into the kind of ham-beasts we routinely witness in our society. They also won’t get diabetes because animal products don’t spike one’s insulin which causes the body to store its fat. Contrary to what the intellectually dishonest Ancel Keyes and the establishment nutritionists have told us for the past 50 years, saturated fat is not the enemy.
The problem is that when the average American does eat meat, it’s often in the form of a hamburger coupled with bread and French fries. Sugary drinks are also a real health danger which people consume in boatloads.
I also think a good percentage of the mental problems that Americans suffer from are the direct result of not getting sufficient quantities of healthy fats in their diet (all the psychotropic drugs that people take doesn’t help either). Our bodies need fat, and when they don’t get it, it shows in our mood and thinking processes. It should surprise no one why so many people suffer from depression when their diets consist of highly processed carbs, lots of bread, sugar loaded drinks, and seed oils (e.g., canola oil, vegetable oil).
Just wanted to take one aside RE: your comment.
Healthy vs unhealthy foods is a spectrum, not a binary.
E.G., free-range hamburger meat is healthier than CAFO meat (McDonalds sets the standards for everything you buy), *but*, a Dave’s Triple from Wendys, Double Quarter Pounder from McDonalds, or Double Whopper from BK, if you don’t get it with a side of sugary pop or french fries, isn’t a bad dietary staple in the Current Year, all things considered.
I think a lot of people are turned off from making healthier eating decisions because of the way its framed: an all-or-nothing proposition.
My general diet is as follows:
BREAKFAST: non-starch vegetables, or glass of whole milk with cream, and a zero-sugar energy drink.
LUNCH: big hamburger
DINNER: non-sugary carbs.
Dave Asprey (look him up, he knows his stuff) basically recommends a similar regiment. Save the carbs for before-bed– they make you groggy, which isn’t a problem if you’re finished with your day.
There seems to be a generational difference regarding political slant and fitness. Older liberals are significantly more fit than older conservatives, whereas younger people on both sides are generally unfit, but younger right wingers work out more. Probably doesn’t have a lot to do with income levels — instead, liberals are just smarter and make better lifestyle decisions.
The fit already rule the fat and the fit ain’t us.
Good observation RE: older fat conservatives vs older thin liberals.
This is an area where-in American politics is fundamentally… well, weird, compared to the rest of the world. Our fake “right-wing pro-corporation” folks vs “left-wing anti-corporate” fellows.
I think a lot of it has to due with different types of intelligence manifesting in different sorts of people, which leads to political-tribal clustering.
Most of those who hold to right-wing positions come there from the POV of intuition and gut instinct, whereas the latter, the “leftist intellectuals” got there through midwit-tier “ideology” that the rank-in-file conservatives aren’t “smart” enough to grasp– its why E.G. most African-Americans are de-facto “conservative” with regards to culture (e.g., homophobia, trasnphobia, etc), even though they vote solidly Democrat / left-wing.
I’m sure the media has a role in this as well, the “educated, sophisticated” Whole Foods shopper vs the “uneducated, blue-collar” Walmart shopper. Politics, in the popular conception, is largely a “package deal”. If you’re a white collar worker who goes to yoga classes and buys organic non-GMO foodstuffs, you’re likely to just adopt the political opinions of your fellows without giving it much thought, unless you’re specifically into politics and above midwit-tier IQ.
I wonder how much of the association between male homosexuality and far-right politics circa the 20th and 21st centuries is due to the more visual nature of men?
Men (homo or hetero) judge more by appearance when sizing up a partner, whereas female attraction… well, a whole book could be written on that topic.
Consider the physical appearance of men who supported the (then) new-right of the 1920 & 30s, in the form of fascism and NS, with the old guard conservatives who supported Hindenburg or Emmanuel II. I can easily picture the former as being full of youth and vigor, more fashion-conscious, whereas the latter comprised more flabby old men who read whatever the century-ago equivalents of today’s “The American Conservative” (*yawn*) or listened to the likes of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh were. The Evolian warrior vs the Guenon-ian priest (a big point of contention between the two thinkers– Evola was only nominally a capital-T traditionalist, far removed from the thoughts of most others associated with the Trad School of thought).
Think: Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, likely more athletic than the Brahmin priests. Have to agree with Evola’s preferences of a warrior aristocracy here. An athletic male, while stereotypically a grug-brain gym-bro, could make for a great spiritual teacher if given the proper guidance, but don’t try to sell me on the idea of a fat guru. If one doesn’t even have the discipline to manage their own physical manifestation in space-time, what makes you think he’s in possession of a deeper, more metaphysical discipline?
[INSERT HOMO-FASCISM MEME HERE]
In all seriousness though, male strength and fitness is more important than female, especially considering the gender-dynamics and sexual-preferences of circa 2021 US women, to say nothing of the outcomes of an actual street-fight involving a shadowy figure in a dark alleyway. A morbidly obese woman on any random dating site will get exponentially more messages than Chad Sexington himself will even get in replies. Those on our side (e.g., Andrew Anglin) who constantly fat-shame women, while I can understand where he’s coming from, are promoting a sex-standard that’s, let’s be frank, kind of unrealistic in the Current Year, especially given the 4Chan demographics of those in that scene (i.e., less cultured, culvicated) as opposed to the higher-brow essays of Counter-Currents. “Fat acceptance” de-facto = “fat female acceptance” and is predominantly a result of increased female “sexual market value”– most fat women prefer to date thin or fit men. Next time you’re out in public, compare the ratio of fat women with thin men vs the inverse (in Russia, “opposite land” of the USA, the other trend will appear).
Even I myself, when out in public, tend to hold much more negative opinions of obese men than women, with the aforementioned paragraphs likely having some basis in what the HBD nerds call “evo-psych”. You’re not going to “have White babies” if most women are instantly disgusted by your appearance. Whereas, an overweight female is more likely to offer to go on a diet or do something to improve her appearance if the male she’s being courted by is fit and she feels he’s “above her league” and wants to prevent him from philandering or dumping her.
Those who aren’t Eastern Orthodox, and are overweight, may benefit from adopting the EO fasting regiment. If Christ came to Earth in a physical, Human body, it follows that one’s physical presence is an important aspect of their striving towards the divine– see: theosis / henosis.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Fasting
Anyhow, apologies for the long, rambling comment. The TL;DR takeaway from the OP article is that politics exist downstream from culture and physical realities– show me a man who claims to be a Christian or pagan, and is obese, and I’ll show you a faker. No religion tolerates gluttony.
No religion tolerates gluttony.
Of course, vanity is also frowned upon.
There are a large number of things that would be considered unhealthy, but I’m sure you and the rest of the brain trust here are not guilty of even a single one of them. Your thesis also rests on the interesting assumption that democracy isn’t a sham and that voting makes any difference.
@uh huh. You’re right: why vote anymore, anyway. Look where it gets us.
I can think of other physical qualities other than fatness which are also symptomatic of overall weak health or inherently poor constitution, including baldness, early graying, eye bags, crooked teeth (removed and replaced nowadays), bow legs, and a dozen other imperfections. Some of these may indeed be related to lifestyle.
This entire article avoids the obvious: that excess fat on anyone’s body is a symptom. The reality is that is not an illness in and of itself or indicator of inferior character. Mr. TwoNames make it sound like all a fatty has to do is lose weight (one way or another) and all will be well. However, testosterone replacement therapy will not make anyone a better human. Just skinny, energetic, and hot-to-trot. Wisdom, experience and intelligence be damned.
Strange to see, on a prowhite site, no mention of genes, heredity, etc., which we usually hear no end of in these parts. All of a sudden, if you’re fat, it’s all due to your own behavior and your porky ancestors have nothing to do with it. You’re fat, that makes you a moral weakling, and therefore you don’t deserve to hold political office or vote; end of story.
Genetics only means you have a PROPENSITY toward obesity. Anyone who thinks genetics dooms him to obesity need only look at photos of his ancestors. They were all thin. That’s a lame excuse for the lazy and undisciplined.
On one side of my family, the average weight was about 300 pounds. Two were more like 350. (I escaped this, mind you.) It would be an insult to call these people lazy and/ or undisciplined. They were the most physically active, hardworking people you could imagine.
Now, what you say about propensity to obesity could just as well apply to people who have other imperfections. Swollen nose, early graying of hair, bags under the eyes, and on and on – these are not unrelated to bad behavior and lack of discipline. Why the fixation on fatness?
Evidence from twin studies make it very clear that obesity is highly heritable, and it doesn’t matter that our ancestors were thin. The relevant question is whether they would be thin today, working long hours at a sedentary job with an hour commute both ways and no cigarettes to suppress the appetite.
Identical twins (one zygote) are more than twice as likely to be concordant for obesity as fraternal twins (two zygotes).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2008.240
All this is not to say that the dissident right should treat obesity as normal. Rather, it should be seen as a systemic problem that requires a national response, e.g. more time off from work for exercise.
Thanks for replying! Glad you mentioned those facts about twins and heritability of fatness. As to whether it could have been different with a different way of life, unfortunately there is no parallel universe where we can prove this one way or another.
a systemic problem that requires a national response, e.g. more time off from work for exercise.
There’s more here than meets the eye. IMO it is not a simple matter of “get more exercise”. There’s serious underlying metabolic/hormonal/nutritional issues at play that can go back generations.
By the way, does the dissident right need to be making policy on obesity? I imagine that some, who are lurking in the shadows, may have magnificent contributions to make, but if they are fat, why would they want to openly join a crusade if being mocked is what they have to look forward to? I am not saying you are doing this, but the author of the article certainly is (” impaired judgment implied by obesity”). Yet if they are slender but bowlegged, baggy-eyed, and baldheaded (while still young), why, step right up and come on down!
It’s a difficult struggle for millions of people out there. Here’s how I got better:
https://rainbowalbrecht.wordpress.com/2016/09/17/fitness-and-diet-part-1/
Thanks! I can relate to the part about thinking something must be wrong with your blood sugar because your metabolism feels so off when you aren’t fit.
Interesting that the article did not mention the high fructose corn syrup that’s in most food packages. And none of the comments mentioned it either.
High fructose corn syrup is largely responsible for obesity in America. It’s supposedly cheaper than real sugar, which is why it’s in most food packages.
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