I’m not trying to be a rude person, but the SDMB is a place that can answer this. By the way, the search engine is struggling to work, so please let me know if this has been asked and answered.
Though I am not overweight, I had a very good friend in high school and college who was over 320 lbs at 5’9 and I really felt for him when he told me about how difficult it was.
Anyway, my question has to do with going to the bathroom. How do people who are really overweight go to the bathroom?
Specifically, how do you/they fit your butt in the rather tiny hole of the toilet lid?
How do they/you wipe? It seems like it would be rather difficult. Is it?
I’m not considered obese or anything, but I don’t put my butt in the hole, nor does anyone I feel comfortable asking (large or otherwise). Generally, only the appropriate portions are over the hole, and the rest is sitting on the seat. I don’t think the appropriate portions would be all that much larger/farther apart, in general. As for wiping, I know that most overweight people are not overweight to the point that they can’t reach their rears. For the morbidly obese, I shudder to think, but didn’t they have some sort of wiping tool advertised on TV for a while? I know that the REALLY big people, like the individuals that can’t leave their beds, generally have attendants like mothers, nurses, or someone else who helps them with cleaning and bedpan use, etc.
Some oversized toilets are marketed for… oversized people, but you’d have to be pretty big to need such a thing, I imagine. As per the above, when you’re sitting on a toilet the only thing that needs to be over the bowl is the anus.
A more interesting question might be how much do overweight people poop. At rest, your body needs 12 calories per pound of body weight to maintain the same weight (the larger you are, the harder blood needs to be pumped, the more effort it takes to move, etc). Someone who weighs 180 pounds has 2,100 calories to play with per day, but someone who weighs 320lbs can take in almost 4,000 calories without gaining/losing. That’s a lot of dookie.*
Moreover, you need a deficit of 3600 calories to burn 1 pound of body fat, so if a 320lb person limited himself to 2,000 calories, he would lose 1 pound every 1.8 days.
I’m not an enormous person, but until a few days ago my BMI technically registered as obese (230lbs at 6’). Once I found out the above, I started a simple diet (just keeping track of calories) and have been losing weight like crazy (17lbs lost so far in just a few weeks). Overweight people lime me tend to think that they’re doomed to be like this because losing weight requires so much work and lifestyle change. Once I figured out that math, however, I realized how simple it could be.
Life can always be improved by math.
*Edit: Then again, maybe not. The average hamburger from a restaurant like Red Robin is well over 1,000 calories. Throw in their bottomless french fries and a soda and you can easily eek out 2,000 calories in one sitting, the way restaurants are these days. Eat a Denny’s breakfast and 4,000 calories wouldn’t be so hard. Some would see that as a challenge.
Its an awful site, but, BUTT next time there are sumo wrestlers on the tube your question, or at least part of it will be answered.
I worked with a wonderful guy that tipped the scale at 600 lbs. he broke more than one turlet! the wall hanging kind, took out blocks and all.
At that weight he lost control of staying odor free.
Our prayers are that he is floating free of his earthly body and I am looking forward to a great reunion!
Fatty tissue requires far fewer calories to maintain than muscle tissue- approximately 5 to 1 by weight- so a chunky person’s required caloric intake is somewhat self-correcting.
I cant remember where I got the 12 calorie figure, but I suspect it was one of the many TLC shows about insanely overweight people. Like, one about an 800 pound 17 year old. He definitely couldn’t use a toilet.
The fact that my heart is pumping all the time, and if it stops I die, occasionally freaks me out, so when I think about how hard an 800 pounder’s heart has to work to pump blood over that much area, I get a little light-headed.
IIRC, the 12 calorie figure is based on a 5’10" male with 12% body fat, which is right in the middle of the median range (9-15% for adult males). Since total muscle mass doesn’t vary that much between non-athletes, it’s a good rule of thumb.
On the other hand, you’ll see a lot of fitness types claiming that a pound of muscle burns 50 calories per day regardless of activity, which isn’t true- it’s under 10 with zero activity. Still, that’s a vast improvement over fat, which burns 2 calories per pound per day regardless of activity.
“Morbidly obese,” being a medical term for people with BMIs over 40, is not really meaningful in this instance. It isn’t shorthand for “really, insanely fat” the way a lot of people seem to think. For a person 5’10" in height, that would be about 280 pounds. That is hefty, yes, but it’s not circus fat person like I’m sure a lot of people picture.
I can’t find it. It was somebody asking for advice, because her mom would have these bridge parties or something at her house, and one of her lady guests had… used a guest towel, inappropriately. And hid it among the other towels. Like, more than once. I searched, but couldn’t find it.
Mahaloth, your question is rude and bigoted. Are you curious about pretty girls’ bowel habits, or vets who’ve lost limbs in war or little people? No, because it’s not ok to ask, but somehow fat people are fair game.
I believe the “tool” you’re thinking of was not from an ad on TV, but from an episode of CSI and the “tool” was for an little person. Who, BTW mentioned it because she was offended by a personal question.
Yes, I am obese. I mentioned pretty girls, because I was one before menopause. Are you curious about that? I’d be happy to tell you that.
God, I hope the advice given was “throw away towel”.
The OP admits that the question is crude right there in the title. In any case, no purely factual question is truly rude.
It makes sense to ask about the bowel habits of vets who’ve lost limbs. It makes no sense to ask about the bowel habits of “girls”, pretty or otherwise- unless you’re really ignorant about anatomy, of course.
No, it’s not. It’s a question to satisfy curiousity. Nothing about the question was disparaging about overweight people, and it seemed as if the OP framed it about as delicately as possible.
picunurse, there was also a product advertised with TV commercials. And it wasn’t, at all, a bigoted question - it’s an honest one, what’s wrong with that? (I assume that amputees and little people also use tools designed to assist them with tasks they cannot reach. I don’t see what’s wrong with sensitively asking about those tools.)
Oh, honk. People get curious about things. Big deal. He asked in about as friendly and open a way as is possible.
I’m a fat guy, and if I got offended by things like this I’d spend an awful lot of time being miserable (my answer, for the record, is “without any particular difficulty”).
It’s easy to imagine how “pretty girls” use the toilet – I’d assume it’s the regular way. Amputees? Now that you mention it, I’m somewhat curious.
…at my largest (340) I did not have a problem going to the bathroom. No matter how large my ass was my anus was still in the same location and much smaller than the toilet opening.
I also could either reach behind to wipe or between the legs to do the same.