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[pisskop]

What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/what-housework-has-to-do-with-waistlines/?src=recg

I'm interested in responses.  I think they stayed fairly objective, but I especially want to say that this is a sad society we live in when walking up a few flights of stairs and doing basic housework is considered exercise.

[Flying Dice]

There wasn't much bias, true. I certainly have to concur with you insofar as that it's laughable that folding laundry and playing fetch with a dog are considered to be activities worthy of mention in a list of housework which is also exercise. Though perhaps that's slightly hypocritical coming from someone who stays in shape by walking everywhere and taking the stairs (or tones himself by... going to work, which admittedly is almost all manual labor). But still.

[Vector]

Housework is hard fucking work.  Don't knock that shit until you've spent two hours scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees, and spent the day picking up and putting down 70-pound children (who will likely be half your weight or more).

I'm not sure what the concern is about women's bodies.  Why weren't men in the 60s fat, then?  They had TVs and desk jobs, and someone to do the housework.  The underlying logic is fundamentally flawed.

[Max White]

Were men in the 60's not fat?
I'm 99% sure that as a very general trend, you would be able to show a relationship between time spent sitting down doing paperwork and obesity.

[Vector]

That's the question, isn't it?  If the men in the 60s were fat, then the real "obesity trend" is only that women are getting fat on par with men, and that's what we have to have a national scandal over.  If the men in the 60s were not fat, then this article is entirely lacking in foundation.

[pisskop]

Also the food, imo.  The fast food was there back then, but it was fdifferent and not a lifestyle (or was it?)  Either way we walked more for sure.

Even our leisure was different.  Sitting around the tv was a social event moreso, and outside was not a place that required sunglasses.

[Truean]

Nothing?

This is the real problem with statistics. The crazy academic term is "spurious correlation aka correlation does not equal causation."

It is a fallacy.

Otherwise ice cream would cause murder. It doesn't.
Rather, violent crimes of all types, including murder increase in instance in warmer weather, which is when ice cream is consumed most often....

One of the most frustrating things I deal with on a daily basis is people who cannot grasp basic logic. Perhaps worse, those who can, but only when and if it serves them/they can't see other possible/probable outcomes from the same line of logic. They are over confidently convinced they are right and only want to hear what they want to hear....

I do not presume to know the motives of those who wrote this study, but I imagine their conclusions align with their motives.

I am thankfully, not fat. Being fat is a mixture of genetic, emotional, nutritional, physical, and activity measures.

I also blame the abundance of inexpensive fattening food and the scarcity of inexpensive healthy food that doesn't taste like somebody already ate it.

[Flying Dice]

Psh, everyone knows that ice cream causes shark attacks, Truean.

Also the food, imo.  The fast food was there back then, but it was fdifferent and not a lifestyle (or was it?)  Either way we walked more for sure.

Even our leisure was different.  Sitting around the tv was a social event moreso, and outside was not a place that required sunglasses.

This has a great deal to do with it. Fast food has become less novelty and more staple, routine activities require much less physical exertion, and sedentary entertainment activities are more common.

Were men in the 60's not fat?
I'm 99% sure that as a very general trend, you would be able to show a relationship between time spent sitting down doing paperwork and obesity.

I CBA to dig up statistics, but this seems likely. The increase in average female weight is due both to increased presence in the workforce (with sedentary jobs) and labor-saving devices, alongside the dietary and social trends that have pushed weight upward more generally.

[Max White]

It seems pretty simple to me.
Good diet + exercise = fitness.

House work is hard work, so if we know objectively that women used to do more house work than they do now, they would be a single contributing factor to an increase in obesity. I don't think anybody is suggesting it is the sole cause or that the only solution would be that women have to live their lives as solitary servants to their overlord husbands. It is just pointing out another small reason for what we already know, that some people need to go for a jog every now and then.

It isn't like saying ice cream causes murder, because we can not only show correlation, but causation.

[PanH]

If the men in the 60s were not fat, then this article is entirely lacking in foundation.

Not really. Their point is housework is easier, so it's less an excercise, so weight gain.

[Vector]

If the men in the 60s were not fat, then this article is entirely lacking in foundation.

Not really. Their point is housework is easier, so it's less an excercise, so weight gain.

Yes, and if women are now living like men in the 60s did, then they should have bodies like those of the men of the 60s.  In which case my argument remains intact.


ETA: Please consider looking at this response and its comments, which I think do a far better job of arguing my point than I do.

[PanH]

It's mainly about women not working and doing only housework.

American women not employed outside the home were burning about 360 fewer calories every day in 2010 than they had in 1965, with working women burning about 132 fewer calories at home each day in 2010 than in 1965.

If their mesure are accurate, it decreased only at ~1/3 the rate of housework 'exercise'.

[Truean]

Americans used to be skinnier on average when the USSR was around.

Therefore:

Less communism causes obesity.


We're getting too fat, quick, start the CCCP back up again!

[Frumple]

We're getting too fat, quick, start the CCCP back up again!

I thought the CCCP was still doing its thing, though...

So... ramp up FOSS development and support? That stuff's basically communism insofar as a lot of folks are concerned, right? Free software makes you slim!

[Max White]

Americans used to be skinnier on average when the USSR was around.

But... You can't show how the USSR was making people thinner, so it isn't a certainty. The fact that the two happened at the same time is irrelevant.
You can show how less physical exercise causes an increase in weight. The biology is very well known.