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January 6, 2007
Why Are People So Hateful About CR?
The contest isn't closed yet, and thanks so much to all who have submitted comments! It's probably going to come as no surprise that I'm publishing Robin's. Keep 'em coming, and I'll publish more! All the original submissions are saved in comment form for all to review.
Here's Robin's answer:
Fear is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can feel. It can be a great motivator for change. It can also lead people to behave in the most inexplicable and inexcusable ways. Out of fear, people can become unkind, insensitive, overtly hostile or even cruel.
When you are afraid, it actually takes courage to recognize your fear and give it its proper name. For some reason, it's more socially acceptable to express anger or even hatred than it is to admit your fears. In the end, there are only two responses to fear: fight or flight.
Those of us who have started down the CR path are admitting that we fear death and disease, and we want to do everything in our power to avoid those things as long as possible. We are the fighters. Those who attack us are also afraid of death and disease. But instead of confronting those fears, they reach for anger and hatred - emotions that are apparently easier for them to feel than fear.
This does not apply to everyone who disagrees with CR. There are many scientific and moral issues surrounding CR that deserve proper consideration and debate. If this is done honestly and with respect, I think everyone wins. But the folks who resort to personal attacks and pronounce death wishes on those who practice CR leave no room for discussion. These people only pretend to be fighting. What they're actually doing is running away from their own terrors.
Posted by april at January 6, 2007 9:19 AM
Comments
April: I’ve been following your website for my short blogging history and want to ask a favor. I’m well versed in nutritional science and know some of the research behind caloric restriction; however, the one thing I come back to is semantics. How is CR any different than those of us eating by the book (nutritionally speaking)? I understand the basis of CR: eat low calorie diets with adequate vitamins and minerals, lower body mass and live longer. Who wouldn’t want that? I guess I didn’t know there was a movement out there practicing it.
In addition, what criticism of CR has been leveled in the past and who’s heading up that criticism?
Posted by: WG at January 6, 2007 3:12 PM
Greetings, my friend! I have very much enjoyed your blog, and your comments on the Rudd Center blog! Welcome!
Nutritionally, CR is a lot like those folks who are getting their RDAs in a healthy diet. However, unlike folks who want to maintain a medium healthy weight, many CR practitioners lower our calories well below what it would take to maintain a middle of the road weight in hopes that like the animals in the many animal studies of CR, we may slow our biological aging process. Any decrease in calories (while maintaining nutrition) seems to improve health, as you point out. We just decrease even further than most would, in hopes of actually adding years of youth and health. That means we end up cutting out most empty calories, and some of us get quite thin. I am 6 pounds "underweight" for my height (though I am very lucky that I look quite normal! No one would confuse me with a supermodel!) My partner was quite thin eating all the oatmeal he could pre-CR, and now he's very, very thin. There are as many ways to practice CR as there are CR practitioners, and many moderate CR practitioners enjoy fabulous health benefits and decreased disease risk while eating a fairly normal looking diet and maintaining a low but normalish weight.
You might be interested in the CR Society website at http://www.calorierestriction.org.
CR practitioners aren't much concerned with weight... it's the calories that seem to cause the life extension benefits, as opposed to simple obesity avoidance, which lowers risk of pre-mature death but does not actually increase max lifespan. Weight loss is a side effect: some love it, some hate it, but it's not the point.
As to the critics, they fall into two camps. There are scientists who think that CR won't work in humans, or won't get much in the way of years of health. Aubrey de Grey, my partner's boss, is one of these. I'll put up a citation of his paper on the topic once I locate it! I totally respect these scientists... they have evidence to back up their view, just like we have evidence to back up ours. Intelligent, responsible people, as you know, can read evidence and come up with different conclusions.
The haters come from the snark land of the media and the blogosphere. I think the best example of this is Rebecca Traister's article in Salon.com (linked in my previous post where it says "Goose Fat" at the end). People who know nothing about science, but decide that they are offended by the fact that someone, somewhere, eats fewer calories in an attempt to slow his or her biological aging. The letters on that Salon.com piece are really scary. One was downright threatening. I found it disturbing because I have never met or spoken with Ms. Traister... she just read Julian Dibbell's New York Magazine article and decided that she hates CR practitioners. It was very upsetting for me to be attacked in a national magazine for my food choices... I mean really, who cares? That's why I pose the question of my essay contest: I find it quite bizarre that folks will waste their typing time, especially writers in danger of repetitive stress injury from typing too much, to attack folks who choose to eat less. Doesn't the world have real problems?
Check out that Salon.com article and you'll see what I mean.
You might also be interested in my entry entitled CR vs. Obesity Avoidance. If you'd like more info on the specific differences, I can send some more links.
Hope you're well. I really enjoy your thoughts! Please visit again!
april
Posted by: April at January 6, 2007 3:33 PM
Robin has a blog! I found Robin's CR blog! She just started it! I figure I'd better ask her permission before telling all of y'all what her address is, but ROBIN HAS A BLOG! I am so excited.
I have just loved reading her comments on my blog, and many times MR and I have said, "Robin needs her own blog." We are so excited! I can't wait to keep up with her thoughts. I hope to meet her soon in person!
CR Girls' weekend needs to get into the works, don't you think, ladies? Let's plan something. Good food, low calories, good wine, and lots of time to talk. We could all use a little vacation.
a
Posted by: April at January 6, 2007 7:27 PM
I hope to get invited to cr girls weekend.
Sheila
Posted by: sheila at January 6, 2007 7:53 PM
Busted!
Yes, I am skinnybitch.
Here's my blog:
http://crskinny.blogspot.com/
So far, my posts haven't been all that inspired so don't expect too much at this point.
I love the idea of a CR Girls Weekend! And if anyone ever makes it up to Boston, let me know you're coming and we can definitely get together. It would be so cool to meet some CR sisters.
Posted by: Robin at January 7, 2007 6:21 AM
I love your blog! It's fab!
And Shelia of course you are invited when we get together our CR girls' weekend!
We really must get this together... at the very least, we must all meet up at the next CR Society conference. In addition to being a great place to learn the newest info on CR and life-extension, it's amazing to hang out with fellow CR'ers. The men would probably really appreciate some gender diversity too!
a
Posted by: April at January 7, 2007 7:06 AM
Just to let you know, the negative Salon.com article about CR was actually what got ME into it in the first place. I'd been in the market for a dietary way to address my health concerns--which threatened to end my life early and unpleasantly--and reading that article is how I became acquainted with the whole subject. And it was easy to see right through the hating, as it always is.
“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” (Coretta Scott King)
Posted by: Chris at January 7, 2007 2:09 PM
April,
I've just been reading an article in the Washington Post re: a group of people who decided to not buy anything for one full year and couldn't help but think that the below paragraph, which I've cut and pasted here, provides the answer you are looking for re: why people are so hateful about CR:
"And people hate us for it? Like it drives them nuts?" This is Shawn Rosenmoss, an environmental engineer in the original San Francisco group. Some have called the Compactors un-American, anti-capitalist, eco-freak poseurs whose defiant act of not-consuming, if it caught on, would destroy the economy and our way of life."
The full article can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/17/AR2006121701122.html
*Just struck me as right on about what's going on with folks' reactions re: CR, as well.
Posted by: Cori at January 10, 2007 8:57 AM