Why would they starve? Are skinny students only capable of eating unhealthy, carb-loaded, crap? Most healthy skinny people I know eat fruits, vegetables, and moderate amounts of meat, dairy and carbs, or they run 20 miles a day.
20 miles a day? Surely you aren't serious? Someone check my math but at a 7 minute mile, that's a 2 hour run every day, plus warmup, stretch, change, cleanup time. That feels absurd for anybody with a job, family, etc. Maybe every other day would make more sense.
A couple specific individuals I've known. Both ran 15-20 miles a day. They'd just go for runs most evenings or mornings and run and run. At least every weekday for one, the other I know ran daily. One was a Catholic seminarian (ran in the mornings, no family, obviously). The other was a middle-aged, family man, working as an engineer. He'd run most of his life. Both were African, one Nigerian (the seminarian), I don't recall where the other was from.
That explains a lot. One of the true and tested recipes for libido suppression the Church takes to heart is to physically and mentally exahust their horny young men until they are not horny any more.
This of course is just my opinion, but an informed one. I went to a Catholic mid-school and highschool, and even when we were not 100% on board as a seminarist would be, sports was something the administration promoted very heavily. We'd also get to know lots of seminarists that would come to do field work there prior to taking their vows, and an almost universal trait of them was their passion for sports.
> He'd run most of his life. Both were African, one Nigerian (the seminarian), I don't recall where the other was from.
Now you're making sense. For someone who's not been doing serious long distance running since childhood, 20 miles in a week is quite good. From what I've read in running magazines, and personal experience, doing much more than 30-40 miles a week is not good for your body (esp. knees). 100+ miles per week is crazy.
Ah, that "or they run 20 miles a day." was an aside at the end. The first part was what I typically see of healthy, skinny people, the second part of very few (substitute other sorts of crazy levels of physical activity for the running if you want).
Two hours a day is not a crazy number at all for some endurance sports. If you do cycle racing 10 hours per week is a good starting point to build up endurance.
But that works because cycling isn't weight bearing, so after the initial exponential learning curve you can pretty much do as much of it as you have time and motivation.
20 miles a day of running, on the other hand, is absolutely not typical. Other than ultra-runners no professional does >100mi/wk regularly simply because the diminishing returns don't justify the linear increase in injury risk and aggravation (it's running, injury incidence is already crazy high).
Capable? No, people with the sort of metabolism I'm talking about need that (high carb/protein) on top of the healthy diet you described. Removing that dining option to keep fatsos from gorging themselves doesn't seem fair. High calorie food lets me get adequate energy from a reasonably-sized dish.
A brief skinny manifesto: I hate how the world caters to the obese. Thermostat kept at low temperature in all seasons because of fat insulation. Replace high calorie options with high fiber so their overworked/stretched system feels "full." All diet/nutrition advice biased towards losing weight. The list goes on... and things geared towards losing weight/being comfortable as an obese person naturally are useless or make life worse for somebody trying to gain/maintain weight.
It's a public health crisis, I get it, but it still sucks.
> A brief skinny manifesto: I hate how the world caters to the obese. Thermostat turned way down in the winter/up in the summer because of fat insulation. Replace high calorie options with high fiber so their overworked/stretched system feels "full." All diet/nutrition advice biased towards losing weight. The list goes on... and things geared towards losing weight/being comfortable as an obese person naturally are useless or make life worse for somebody for whom weight loss is unhealthy.
So the obese are oppressing the skinny? First I've heard of this. Please, tell me more.
More specific than oppression. As obesity and its effects are seen as acutely unhealthy, quality of life for underweight people is sacrificed for the health benefit of the obese. Clearly there is not some cabal of fat dudes stroking their bellies plotting ways to stick it to the skinny man.
That would be ridiculous. Obviously. I mean, why would fat dudes even do that? Ha ha ha ha... ha ha. Ha.
[whispering] Drop the thermostat another 2 degrees in zone 4-1831A/N and put 5% more cellulose powder in the cafeteria meatloaf.
/s
This sounds to me like yet another form of tribalism. I get that people may become annoyed when the world appears to be shifting its loyalties away from their tribe towards someone else's, but no good will come of deciding that the skinnies and the fatties are natural enemies, and are responsible for the others' ills.
Assuming access to quality foods, but activity and metabolism keep them skinny (that is, this is a healthy skinny, not a malnourished skinny), in what ways are below-average weight people's quality of life sacrificed?
That's fair, but in my experience (from when I was fat), buying clothes that fit may not have been hard. But buying clothes that fit and looked good was hard. They even have specialty shops for the particularly obese, it's not like they're finding well-fitting suits off the rack at Jos. A. Banks.
EDIT: Actually, clothes that fit could be hard. I wasn't terribly round, I ended up with a 38" waist at my fattest at 5' 10", but usually around a 36" waist. But my legs, thighs in particular, were not toned or thin. My option on pants almost always required me to go up several inches on the waist to get pants with large enough legs for me. My thighs, now, are well-muscled and toned, but I still have a hard time finding pants that fit them well now that I'm down to a 32" waist.
But I still don't think the problem is catering to the obese hurting the skinny. The problem is that being that thin is abnormal (from a statistical perspective). Consequently, it's a small market. It's hard to justify making off-the-rack shirts that fit a 6'2" 120lb man. Just as it's hard to justify making of-the-rack shirts that fit a 5'4" 250lb man.
If you're having trouble keeping healthy weight eating normal food, it may be that you have some digestive disease/problem rather than just "fast metabolism". (Or it could be an appetite problem.)
Consider this: if you had a fast metabolism, your body would be producing more heat than a normal person; where else would the extra energy go? This means you would prefer lower-than-normal room temperature. If you're having trouble keeping weight AND you prefer higher-than-normal room temperature, it means you're not getting all the energy you should from the food you eat, in other words, your system is digesting food incompletely.
I do have a digestive disease myself, and at my worst before surgery + medication, I was drinking glasses of custard every day just to stay above 155 lbs; I'm a pretty tall guy, ideal weight that I'm seeing now is around 190 lbs. I gained 30 lbs in one month after the surgery.
