Be at a buffet line, pot luck or just a family dinner with a fat relative I have discovered a disturbing behavior. I can not help but find it utterly repulsive. It almost ruins my appetite.
While picking out my food and getting my plate full I am suddenly disturbed by a god awful sound. The sound of high BMI individuals heavily breathing. I have no idea were to post this. I do not want to be entirely offensive, although the sound is terrible so no Pit. It seems to start right about the time they pick up a plate. I can not say that all obese folks do this but I have only noticed only obese ones doing it.
What is going on? It seems so uncontrollable. Like they are out of breath for some reason. Just from picking up a plate. For real. I do not want to be mean but I just need to know biologically what is going on?
Why are they breathing harder than a smaller person? A combination of reasons. Being bigger, they need more oxygen. Carrying around a lot of body weight is an effort (you’d be breathing harder if you had a hundred pounds strapped to your chest). And the extra weight makes it take more effort to breath.
I have a very obese family member. He breathing is increased significantly right before a meal. And I noticed it at other potluck, self serve, type events. Right about the time of plate pick up.
I’m be willing to wager I’ve been in more buffet lines than you and the only people I’ve seen do this had respiratory problems. Obese people as a rule don’t breathe extra hard unless they are exercising. If someone is mega insanely fat and has respiratory problem (not an uncommon combo) then you might have a point, but fat people don’t normally start huffing and puffing in a buffet line.
If you’re claiming this is commonplace you’re just being a drama queen.
Living in the buffet capital of the world, Las Vegas, I have never noticed this to be a major problem.
More annoying in buffets:
The otherwise attractive woman who, for some reason, cannot possibly wait two minutes until she gets back to her table and has the need to use her fingers to pick things off her plate and smacks her lips loudly while continuing to roam the lines.
People who don’t seem to get the concept that you can indeed go back for more. They fill their plate as if they were trying to feed a family of wolves. Piled high with meat, potatoes, pasta, and rice - all smothered with gravy and a piece of apple pie tilted sideways on the side…I have seen dumpsters that look more appetizing than their plates.
Parents who allow their children to go through the lines unattended, and these kids put their grubby little hands on everything and then put the food back after they sniff it and decide they don’t like it.
I once saw a woman take a plate of shrimp that was piled so high, it was almost falling off the plate. She sat at her table and, thinking nobody was noticing, wrapped most of it in a couple of napkins and put it all in her purse.
Trust me when I say an obese person breathing loudly is hardly the worst thing you will see at buffets.
I’ve never noticed this to be true, but as a plus sized woman I can tell you that people are a lot more likely to attribute things to your weight if you are heavy than they are with smaller people.
I once started to feel really ill at work and a coworker thought it would be helpful to mention to me that," maybe if you ate less you wouldn’t feel so sick" despite the fact that all I had eaten that day was a chicken sandwich. Turns out I was coming down with the flu and ended up missing the next two days of work because I was throwing up every hour like clockwork, but he insisted that my poor diet (he assumed I have a poor diet despite never having seen me eat anything) was the reason I felt bad.
I’m thinking you’re just hearing their breathing because when you are in a buffet line you are in very close proximity to other people. They probably always breathe like this but you normally aren’t that close to them to hear it.
I haven’t noticed this particular behavior, but then I am rarely in buffet lines.
I have, however, noticed the loudly chew with your mouth open while breathing heavy when people are standing up eating. Say at a party with chips. They don’t have to be fat, either.
We just breathe that way to steal all of your oxygen. evil
I can’t eat around nose-whistlers. You know who I’m talking about… those individuals whose booger placement is JUST SO each breath is like a tiny steamboat whistle. Agggh. I think if I had one of these people follow me around all day, I likely wouldn’t be fat anymore.
Obese people tend to be in poor physical condition, so they are more likely to breathe heavily when standing up, walking around, etc. You notice it in the buffet line because you’re standing next to them.
Anyway, if you find the sound of breathing that offensive, why do you associate with other human beings at all?
You have an aversion to obese people (probably the morbidly obese and super-morbidly obese), so you notice everything they do that bugs, disgusts, or repulses you.
As morbidly and super-morbidly obese people have a higher rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and have to work harder to stand, walk, and do other daily activities than the rest of the population, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that the proportion of them who breathe heavily at any one time is larger than in the general population.
And, speaking as a borderline morbidly obese person, thank you for the care you took in composing your post.
I have a friend who does this. He can’t seem to stop with just one plate, either–he always comes back from the buffet line balancing a plate in each hand, each one piled with as much food as he can manage within the limits of his physical strength, the size of the plates, and the placement of ceiling fans and light fixtures.
He’s not obese, though–thin as a rail. The bastard.
I don’t know about the buffet places you go to, but at the ones I go to, the sequence goes like this: walk in from the car, stand for a second until seen by the host, get shown to a table, then while still standing at the just-shown-to table, tell a waitperson what you’ll have to drink, then walk over to the buffet, then pick up a plate.
Is it possible that you’re under-estimating how much physical exertion these people might have just been through?
BTW, thanks. Now I really want some Chinese food for lunch.
It’s because they’re losing their minds, like they always do in a buffet line. They held it together getting through the door and getting their seat, but the anticipation of the gorge-fest is just too exciting! Their hearts pound, their chests heave, the adrenaline surges…plus when they breathe hard it gets you the hell outta their way!
Ok…I got nothing. Just the mental image from the OP and I just had to share it.
Indeed, but not only that, when someone talks about choking or suffocating, or someone can’t breathe on TV, I find myself trying to take a deep breath.
