High-Calorie Diet Fattens Gitmo Inmates

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/10/03/international/i134745D60.DTL

A high-calorie diet combined with life in the cell block — almost around the clock in some cases — is making detainees at Guantanamo Bay fat.

Meals totaling a whopping 4,200 calories per day are brought to their cells, well above the 2,000 to 3,000 calories recommended for weight maintenance by U.S. government dietary guidelines. And some inmates are eating everything on the menu.

One detainee has almost doubled in weight, to 410 pounds, said Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for the detention facilities at Guantanamo, a U.S. Navy station in southeast Cuba.
Human rights groups attribute the weight gain to lack of exercise. They cite accounts of released detainees who complained they were allowed to exercise fewer than three times a week outside their small cells.

But Durand said detainees are simply served a wide variety of food and are expected to choose what appeals to them.

"The detainees are advised that they are offered more food than necessary, to provide choice and variety, and that consuming all the food they are offered will result in weight gain," he said.

[pooja]

1. hmmm.... and why is America getting fat.... high calorie diets, little

exercise. Bet they are served the best modified foods that Monsanto wants to test out.

[louis-t]

2. Huh? Is this propaganda? So, they're all sittin' around

eating Lemon Chicken all day?

[SoCalDem]

17. Don't forget the TWO fruits

:eyes:

[Avalux]

3. Better to make them fat than to make them gaunt -

then people will think we're treating them well. :eyes:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. Fast-food detainees?

I wonder if Wendy's got a contract...

[peacebird]

5. ok - stuck in a cell for years on end with nothing to do but eat...

Depressed, scared, hopeless, despondent and only FOOD for solace.

Anyone shocked that they gain weight?

[Orangepeel]

6. As Barbara Bush would say, "they were underprivileged anyway"

so this is working out very well for them.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Maybe they're fattening them up for

Thanksgiving ?

[slackmaster]

9. It puts the lotion in the basket

:argh:

[readmoreoften]

14. That made me

:spray: LOL

[antonini]

8. Obese and out-of-shape prisoners

pose less of a physical threat, might be less likely to successfully escape and -- if they went on a hunger strike -- would have that much longer before it became noticeable.

If it's true about this fattening diet, I'd say it's pretty obvious it's deliberate.

[NYC]

11. I agree that it's deliberate.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[readmoreoften]

15. Of course it's deliberate.

Weren't there tales of force-feeding inmates a short while ago? Everything at Gitmo is deliberate and a complete psychological assault.

Welcome!

[RamboLiberal]

16. This quoted idiot is proud even the forced fed prisoners

are at 100% ideal body weight.

Even two detainees who have been on a hunger strike for more than a year are at "100 percent ideal body weight," from nutrients fed through tubes inserted in their noses, Durand said.

[Roy]

10. See.. all the bombing worked!!! Mission 'obesity' accomplished

NOW... can we have those nearly 3,000 soldiers back. Will the wounded grow back the lost limbs.

[patrick t. cakes]

12. and who says

we treat our prisoners inhumanely?

[NorthernSpy]

13. "Let me have men about me that are fat...

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

(William Shakespeare -- Julius Caesar)

The richly-fed are more placid. It's a serotonin thing, apparently. I've read of jail wardens who like to give newly-arrived prisoners doughnuts at intake. It seems to make them calmer, and less likely to "try something".







(edit: html tag)

[Javaman]

18. Combine that with the depression these people are experiencing

and you have are very serious problem indeed.

Personally I look upon this as a form of torture.

Depriving them of a proper diet with out exercise to me is just as bad as long list of other injustices foist upon them.

It's truly an amazing thing when everything, from the moment moron* was born to this very moment, has gone completely and horribly wrong with everything he* touches, breaths on or looks at.

Read my tag line.

[Brian Stevens]

19. What's the big deal on that?

At least they are eating. Quit being food police.