[Brandon]

Originally Posted by dancinfool

...and while there are many adverts advocating eating and cooking there are very few advocating being overweight as a lifestyle choice or as a 'good thing'.

Most of the food commercials you see are food from fast food restaurants. Because it's a commercial, it's trying to convince you to eat the food. Studies show that fast food is addicting, and arguably more addicting than cocaine or heroine.

http://www.thatsfit.com/2010/03/30/f...-studies-find/

So the commercial is indirectly telling you to "buy this product because it tastes good and will convince you to buy it again, therefore giving us a profit." You have to keep in mind that it's not always what the commercial says or does, but what the commercial doesn't say. No, commercials don't advocate being overweight, but they DO advocate buying those products that have been proven to be addicting. And if it's addicting, you're more likely to have that food again, thus increasing your calorie intake, and unless you exercise a shitload more, you'll essentially gain weight and therefore become overweight if you continue to gain weight.

Originally Posted by dancinfool

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness (or so I read in the times yesterday..) and persuading someone with a mental illness that they should make themselves worse, or encouraging impressionable teens/adults to develop a mental illness is abhorrent.

You're kind of manipulating what I said and making it into something worse. I never said that you should "persuade" a teen/adult to develop a mental illness. I agree, that's abhorrent.

persuading someone with a mental illness that they should make themselves worse is abhorent. If someone wants to become anorexic, then no persuasion is necessary. If someone wants to make the conscious decision of becoming anorexic, I can't do anything about that. It's their body, it's their mind, and if we allow people to become obese and deal with the consequences, we should allow anorexic people to to make that decision and suffer the consequences as well. Encouragement isn't the same thing as persuasion. They're distinct differences. So let's not twist words around. If they make a conscious decision to become anorexic, then they've made that decision and there's nothing that we can say or do that can change that decision if they don't want to change. People make their own choices, and sometimes they'll make choices by any means necessary. If someone wants to make that conscious decision, then there's really not a whole lot I can do about it. Sometimes people just need to learn for themselves. Just take a look around in TH: we can offer advice to people all day, but that doesn't mean anything is going to change for those people. If someone wants to commit suicide, or anything else, I would suggest otherwise but would provide information on how to do those things if their decision was already made. Of course, I'm one of the very few THers who have this sort of mentality. I'm not immoral, by any means. In fact, I'm very respectful, and a handful of people actually appreciate my advice that I give them. I certainly do care about people. So I just wanted to clear that up. There is nothing that people say that "sounds strong," you hold a strong opinion, just like I hold a strong opinion, and I respect that regardless of what you call it. I don't care if you called me the devil, as long as you have legit evidence to suggest that I'm the devil.