I don’t get this.
Why would you need to eat large amounts of a given food to “enjoy” it? Is the 99th bite of ice cream really better than the 10th? Is it more fun or delicious to eat the entire bag of chips?
People who eat well enjoy food, too. But they focus on the first bite and the last bite and don’t try to cram too many in the middle.
No, he is right this time because of the qualifier, as established in the op: those who don’t care about the fact that their nutrition and exercise habits (of which being fat is but a potential symptom of) are likely going to result in their very premature deaths and that others may have to pay the bill as they get there. The issue is the not giving a shit about that, not the obesity. The op is not an obese person who has worked at developing healthy lifestyle choices and is now still fat (if a bit less so), in moderately good health, and not worrying about the scale so much as maintaining the healthy behaviors. (S)he is a person who does not care. Not caring about those facts earns my contempt (as if anyone cares) whether it be smoking, riding a motorcycle unhelmeted, doing heroin, or making no effort to eat healthy foods and stay physically active.
Everyone assumes that we all eat entire gallons of ice cream in one sitting or something. Seriously, it doesn’t always work like that. I eat three meals a day. Normal portions, no double orders or biggie sized anything. I don’t snack during the day and I am actually not a big fan of sweet things. Meat and taters for me.
If you saw what I eat, I don’t think you’d be overwhelmed by the quantity or quality of it. More interestingly, I doubt that you would get fat eating the same things I do.
Evidence? I know the say the same thing about smokers, but they die young and don’t use all that “last six months” care. My heavy smoking colleague was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was 64, was operated on and died about 8 months later. Much lower cost to the health care system than I am likely to be.
Just to respond to the OP, I used to claim I was happy with my weight. I was lying (to myself among others). Now that I am 70 pounds or so (probably 72) and counting below my top weight I feel much better. Last March, I dropped below BMI of 30 and I am now 10 pounds below that (BMI = 28.5). Will I ever get to 25? Well, I am not planning to change my eating habits, so at some point, I guess I will just stop losing.
I suspect many people are fat for the same reason I am fat. An extra 100 calories a day can mean 10 pounds gained over a year. Do that for 5 years running and you gradually gain 50 pounds.
That extra 100 calories a day is not due to stuffing 99 bites of ice cream in my mouth at one sitting. It’s due to saying yes to a scoop of ice cream when I already had my maintenance calories for the day. Or a couple of pieces of pizza at a work meeting that runs through lunch instead of eating the turkey sandwich I brought from home. Or an extra glass of sangria or a pint of the new seasonal beer offering on Saturday night when out with friends.
This is a silly statement. You can gain 10 lbs in a year by eating an extra hundred calories a day. That’s an extra couple of coffees with cream, a small serving of pretty much anything, or a little butter in things here or there.
It does not take stuffing one’s face like you see on TV to watch the pounds creep up. People can eat pretty well and have an extra bit of wine or a dessert more often (not even every night unless you know a ton of 100 calorie desserts) and still gain weight. It requires watching the scale all the time and cutting accordingly to keep one’s weight under control.
I fully understand why people don’t do it, and I say that as someone who’s lost quite a bit of weight recently. It’s a bloody lot of work.
/edit Motorgirl beat me to it.
Cf. “I don’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or spend too much money.” WTF else is there to fill the void but cupcakes?
Must . . . not make . . . Richard Simmons . . . joke . . .
Yes, I’m fat. Do I care, sort of.
My BMI is about 48. I’m about 200 pounds overweight. I am ashamed, embarrassed and guilty at what I have done to my body (this also includes not taking care of my teeth, I have dentures). I have tried to lose weight, but have failed repeatedly. This is due to a combination of mental health & economic situation. I have never blamed my hormones, genetics, or claimed to be big bone. My weight is all my fault, I know this (though there was that time a chocolate cheesecake attack me, it was very messy).
As far as health care cost the hard working American tax payer has paid more for my mental health treatment than anything related to my weight. I was on medication for diabetes (definitely weight related), but I stopped take it about a year and half ago when I stopped going to doctors and taking my other meds. So there are no longer any cost cause by me, medically speaking.
Do I plan to do something about my weight, not really.
The body of scholarly evidence establishing the link between rising health care costs and obesity is not even remotely in debate. Take your pick from one of many of these scientific articles.
To those of you who said I was reducing a complex situation to one variable, I did not say that obesity is the ONLY factor in rising healthcare costs. I feel equally angry towards people who drink excessively, smoke, engage in risky driving behaviors (drunk driving, texting while driving, etc.) who don’t care. Stop trying to claim I was claiming something that I wasn’t.
Being fat and not caring is selfish. It’s selfish to your own body and health, it’s selfish to your family and friends who are going to probably outlive you, unfair to your children who want to see you live to a ripe healthy age, and it’s unfair to society who is having to foot the bill for choices I feel are selfish.
Stop trying to say that I hate fat people. I do not hate fat people. I do not hate people who drive drunk, smoke a pack a day, or murder babies. I do not hate anyone, anywhere. I have a lot better things to do with my time than hate individual human beings. The things I tend to focus my hatred towards are ideas, such as the idea that it’s ok to be fat and not care about it. I do not respect that opinion, as it is destructive and expensive.
You can be overweight and healthy, and actually, I’m sure there are some overweight people here who may be more healthy than I am in some ways. The correlation between being overweight and being unhealthy is not 100% perfect. But if you don’t CARE that you are overweight, you are probably not living a healthy lifestyle. The people who actually care are probably eating right, and exercising, and they are probably healthy people who just happen to carry extra fat. I’ve got no problem with that.
But when you come on here and say “I’m fat and I don’t care who pays for it” then I just can’t respect that opinion at all. Just as if you were going to come on here and say “I drink and drive and I don’t care who pays for it” I’m going to call you out and let you know that you are engaging in a selfish, destructive behavior. This is not hatred, this is CARING.
I call bullshit. First of all, I am overweight by about 30 pounds. I have lost those 30 pounds before and I was costing you more in health care expenses (since it required so much energy to keep it off, I caused myself ulcers and nearly had a nervous breakdown).
So you can take your CARING and shove it. If you really cared about people as individuals, you would see that almost every fat person out there:
At some point, you choose your mental health above the body image that you are supposed to have.
Well, one would certainly want to avoid any wand-waving in that case.
drewtwo99 was responding to the OP, who said
So a smoker who cares is ok? A junkie with a societal conscience?
I am pretty sure ther’s at least one study out (I’d have to dig one up) showing that overweight people who exercise and eat well don’t really have increased health risks compared to thin people who don’t. I wonder if anyone’s done such a thing with smokers and junkies.
Glad we can can have a civilized debate without resorting to being rude.
I am aware that fat people are aware of their size. To those of you who work out regularly and eat healthily and are still overweight, you are doing fine and I respect you just as much as I respect anyone else. Sounds like you fit this category, at least at some point. It’s not about working out to lose the weight, or eating healthy to lose the weight… it’s about doing it to be healthy. If you are exercising regularly and eating well, and you are still overweight, then you are not who I am addressing.
But if you stopped working out, and stopped eating well because you couldn’t handle it anymore… then you are unhealthy. And I believe that it’s a selfish decision, and you are robbing yourself and others of many things.
I dunno if I look “fat” or not. I fluctuate between a size 14 and 16, and 14 is pretty much the cutoff for plus sizes, so I guess maybe I am. But as long as I can comfortably run at least a mile, I don’t worry about it.
This is a great mantra to go buy. People getting caught up in the body image, and not the health image is the problem. You can be a skinny rail and be unhealthy as fuck. But yeah, if you are overweight, but you can still run a mile, lift a decent amount of weight, enjoy some light hiking, etc, then you have the right mindset.
Too many fat people say to themselves “well it’s too hard to get skinny and stay skinny, so I’m just gonna stop trying all together” and THAT’S what I have a problem with. I also think skinny people who say “well I don’t need to work out because I’m thin, and I can eat whatever I want” are just as selfish.
I really like this post.
There are people out there that really cant help it, or at least dont have the time and resources to manage it. When I was at my absolute optimium physical condition I weighed 235 lbs. Without the need for all the strength and muscle mass, I’m happiest at around 200. My body was so used to being 230-240 that I was having a real hard time slimming it down.
I also have a mood disorder that has been a blessing and a curse. One aspect of the curse involved total self-loathing if I wasnt a perfect physical specimin. One aspect of the blessing was that I had enough intensity and focus to achieve my goals.
I have a couple of very close friends and family members that struggle with their weight. Some of them go out of their way to appear happy and well adjusted, but have confided in me that they are in fact quite miserable. One particularly heavy friend told me that she hears snide comments behind her back, and it hurts. She also says she feels invisible when out in public. I feel pretty bad about anyone with such a burden catching even more shit from some sanctimonious dude on a message board.
Did you read the OP that he was responding to?