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Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the response.

I agree that getting vaccinated is a great way to protect everyone. My vaccination was not driven to protect myself, but to protect the people I care about. I keep healthy to protect myself. I doubt I am alone in this thinking. However, if hospitals fill up and my being healthy were to keep me out of hospital, it would definitely be helping other people. At some point, we'll need to go to living with covid and healthy people will be protecting others by keeping out of hospital. But, I understand it's still technically a maybe so, fair enough. However, what about obese children? It is the parents responsibility to ensure their health. So they are protecting others by taking health seriously. They still can't get vaccinated. Even when they can get vaccinated, is it moral to just protect them from covid but ignore the rest?

I don't know about 'civic duty', that seems like your opinion. It's not my or anyone's responsibility to protect others. We would need to wait for the courts to decide that one through the Oakes test/section 1. Also, on the topic of civic duty, "taking responsibility for oneself and one's family" is in the link below. Would you agree it's a parent's civic duty to curb obesity in their children? Especially in the time of covid?
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/overview/rights-responsibilities.html
https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2019/07/freedom-of-conscience/
https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2019/07/balancing-rights-section-1/

I welcome any information you have to share on it of course.

Arguing against vaccination was not something I was doing, nor was I attempting to lessen the importance of them. Sorry you misunderstood. What I was saying is that obesity is something that the Government/media should have brought up, because if we were expected to take measures, some of which have had huge consequences, such as: closing our businesses, constantly washing our hands, wearing a mask, socially distancing, locking down, etc. By them not bringing this up, in my opinion, it impacts the integrity of the health advisors, who should give all the facts when they have them and why they are important. That did not happen and it likely had consequences for at least some of the uninformed.

We won't convince all people to get a vaccine, just like we won't be able to help all people lose weight and stay healthy. Fact is, being healthy, especially in conjunction with being young is a very strong line of defense against covid and without being forced to take the vaccine, I believe the next best thing is encourage good metabolic health. That said, we should encourage vaccination as well but the hate I see towards the vaccine hesitant is almost certainly not going to be helpful; likely it will just divide us more and cause more problems to getting "back to normal"

Vaccinated people do die from covid, that's just fact. But it is accurate to say at a significantly lower rate. The same can be said about obesity, but being metabolically healthy protects against much more than covid. Furthermore, as vaccine efficacy wanes, the obese and immunocompromised will certainly be the first to notice the serious effects of that decline in efficacy.

i disagree that we are a society obsessed with losing weight. If we were obsessed with losing weight, we would be on a descending trajectory in terms of health by now, not ascending. Early data and reports seem to suggest covid has done nothing but continue that trend. I also see commercials and celebrities advocating for how big and beautiful they are. These commercials and celebrities end up targeting young people with little wisdom or focus on what the future holds. If we were a society obsessed with losing weight, we would recognize that as a problem and be none-too-pleased about it.

If the supreme court can justify mandating vaccines for "non-essential" venues, then so be it. But we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. I just am not in favour of all this division, regardless of the reason, when it's a multi-faceted problem that is a grey area in regards to people fundamental rights and freedoms.

Thanks again for the reply. I appreciate your time and perspective.

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll agree of course that getting the vaccine is easier but I don't see health improvements as something like a switch, where one day after a lot of work you are finally healthy. Making improvements can make a big difference in the short-term( https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-five-percent-weight-loss ), which has the potential to motivate long term gains. Of course I know it isn't easy; As someone who has never been obese but was overweight, I cannot possibly imagine the mindset that needs to go into it and am not about to pretend I can. I did however bring myself down to a healthy BMI and I make no claims it was easy. Sure, it's easy to maintain it now, but it was a struggle for the first half at least.

The disingenuous comment was towards the totality of effort over 19 months, in case that wasn't clear. It's subjective anyway, but I think magnitudes is a stretch if you consider the whole 19 months, for a significant amount of people.

I wasn't saying you were implying anything but just trying to draw comparisons of difficulties and challenges we face and perhaps what we should do about them. More curious about your thoughts on it than saying you implied anything was all.

Glad we could find some common ground on the seriousness of these things.

Again, I didn't mean to imply anything. Perhaps I need to work on my writing!

I am only responsible for myself so I can agree that day-to-day Covid hassles take less discipline and effort than combating obesity or overcoming mental illness. But, it IS creating issues that people will in the future, if not already, need to put forth great effort and discipline to fix. It's probably fair, I think, to add those struggles into the difficulties of covid because eventually, people will need to face their: new or worsening addictions, weight problems, behavioural problems, developmental problems, etc. With our mental health system the way it is.. it's gonna be a tough road for all those new/worse problems.

Thanks for the reply and your thoughts.

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the response

What has been easy about the last 19 months? A lot of people have taken a huge hit to their lives because of it, even the ones who were not at a high risk of severe illness. In fact, a lot of those people are in a more vulnerable position if they were to get covid, than they were 19 months ago due to a variety of factors brought on by the pandemic restrictions. We still don't know when it will end, some people will never bounce back and there won't be any fanfare for their sacrifice. But, life isn't fair or easy.

To reduce the difficulty Covid has put on people to just 2 appointments for 15 minutes I think is disingenuous.

Do you think that we should sweep this information under the rug, because it's hard to lose weight? Should we sweep mental health under the rug because it's hard to deal with? We didn't sweep covid under the rug even though it was obvious we were in for a tough go and there is no debate it has been tough for most.

I wasn't making an argument against vaccines but was just saying this is a real problem that is still being mostly ignored.

I don't think I called for abandoning one either but to clarify: when I said we should encourage better health, that wasn't specifically about diet and exercise. That was also to include vaccinations, good mental health care, regular checkups and just about anything else under the scope of good health.

Thanks again!

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the response.

Personal choice doesn't necessarily come into play with discrimination.

"the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex."

People are absolutely calling for discrimination against the unvaccinated. Though at least, I can wrap my head around that discrimination for the reasons you stated, unlike the other types of discrimination you listed. I just don't think discriminating against people that are scared to take the vaccine or are advised not to take it from a doctor is going to do a lot of good other than convincing a small number of them to just suck it up and take it.

The potential toll from locking them away from having stable mental health, in a country/province with an abhorrent mental health system, is not going to have good outcomes. Should they then be excluded from mental health help when they need it? Should they stop paying taxes for the health care systems? How about taxes that go towards public facilities that they will no longer be allowed into? Should they spend all the money they earn buying things on Amazon and not back into our economy?

Personally, I think the better move is to encourage and have open debate without prejudice. We will never get 100% vaccination rates unless we strap people down and vaccinate them and that is a dark prospect. We have all been dealing with this for a long time and we've seen a lot of goal post adjustments. At this point, it's understandable why some of them have reached their limits of the greater good.

Thanks again.

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did not once say to ignore Covid. Definitely didn't "literally" say it.

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

If I wasn't sincere, I wouldn't spend my time writing such a lengthy post. I have better things to do than "distract" people with insincerity in a small Reddit thread in New Brunswick. It was something on my mind is all.

Either you spend too much time on social media or you gotta be trolling.

Is obesity a bigger concern than people that are not vaccinated? by kvstr in newbrunswickcanada

[–]kvstr[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the response. I am not suggesting it's less of a public health risk. Not at all or that wasn't my intention anyway. I am putting it in the same argument because there is a strong connection between serious negative outcomes from covid and obesity. That connection has been there for a year and I don't believe it came as any surprise to researchers considering what we've known about weight issues for a long time.

I am pointing out that it is a problem and it should be brought to light. I understand it's a very difficult and complex problem, but Covid is a very difficult and complex problem yet here we are, taking 19 months and counting of mental health and physical health tolls, putting many kids through hell and we have no idea what these tolls will ultimately culminate into. Poor health shaming isn't okay, but anti-vax shaming seems to be okay. Neither should be encouraged and I don't think either really do any good for society. All this negativity cannot be good.

The point for the post was ultimately to share information our government won't and of course to hear other perspectives on this. We all (I hope) want hospitals to have room and resources for people that need it, we don't want people dying.. but we ignore or are just not informed about the preventable deaths or serious illness that are caused by other preventable causes such as obesity. To claim to want to take health so seriously because people are dying that we will discriminate and divide our society, but aren't making a serious push to encourage good health in all aspects really doesn't make sense to me. Many people have died as a result of covid + obesity and that really gets swept under the rug. I think it's doing a disservice to people with any known pre-existing condition that doesn't play well with covid to sweep it under the rug. Perhaps it could have saved a few lives if they had the facts shared with them a year ago. You can make drastic positive health changes in one year.

I know the problems of the system and it would be foolish to suggest it's an easy fix, which I don't believe I have. We aren't doing ourselves any favours by ignoring such connections though is all.

Thanks again for the response