What makes you think the people who are living a healthy lifestyle at a young age are going to end up bedridden when they are old? If they have formed a lifelong habit of healthy eating and regular activity, they are going to enjoy a higher quality of life in their later years than the ones who haven’t. I have outfitted a couple well into their 70s for section hiking the Appalachian Trail. They are far, far from bedridden and certainly enjoying a higher quality of life than their peers who are overweight and not active. The ones who are left, that is.
How about bedridden without a leg wishing you’d put the cheesecake down? How’s that for quality of life?
It’s half and half for me, and complicated of course. Part of me is like “whatever, I got to be fit and hot, what difference does it make? I’ll never date again”. And part of me is like “I HATE this, what happened”?
Of course I know what happened, I nearly on purpose allowed this to occur after the break up from my former boyfriend. Ice cream was/is my “drug of choice”. I care and don’t care at the same time if that makes sense. And I’m sure there are “protective covering” psychological aspects in place as well (as in, keep my looks under wraps and I won’t have to deal with being approached by the “enemy” and possibly dating and having my heart broken again etc).
It’s truly moronic that people truly believe that obesity has only to do with lack of knowledge, or that it’s based on laziness. As in, they truly think that there are those who don’t know that carrots are better for you than brownies. For most people, it’s usually an emotional issue, rather than one of laziness or ignorance.
It’s just like any other addiction, it’s in place to help fill the emotional void. With those who drink too much, or smoke, or do drugs however, the “evidence” (except of course during actual intoxication or use of nasty cigs) isn’t as apparent or unattractive.
Okay, this is sad. I’m sure you know how uncontrolled diabetes wreaks havoc with so many body systems, and has extremely nasty long-term consequences, so I won’t lecture. But damn, dude. Don’t come running to me when they cut your feet off. 
Don’t worry, I have no intention of running to anyone for anything anywhere. Also It won’t come to that.
Sure it will. Although I agree that you won’t be running to anyone with no feet.
This reminds me, An Gadai, I owe you chocolates/sweets. Just send your address when you are ready!
I’m fat but I do care, I just can’t seem to get motivated to do anything about it. I would rather lose weight and take the strain off my knees and back and increase my chances of playing with grand kids one day.
Some people don’t live to eat. Some of us do not think a good life is being able to eat whatever you want, no matter how excessive. Personally, I’d rather take a walk than eat cheesecake. Take away my tongue and my stomach before you take away my legs and my hands, I say.
I like to exercise. I don’t like sweating at the gym and lifting weights, so I don’t do those things, but I do enjoy being active and moving my body. I like the freedom of knowing that as long as I live within five miles of a bus stop, I don’t need a car. And although it sucks having to be cerebral about what I eat (because my appetite is not good), I do get comfort in knowing that I’m not eating more than is necessary. It saves money, keeps me from having regrets and feeling bloated, and helps me to savor what I do eat. I find satisfaction in delaying gratification. Even with something as simple as food.
About living longer, I don’t really care about that. But I do care about my quality of life. Which to me means not being embarrassed when I look at myself in the mirror, being able to walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath, not being paranoid about “fat prejudice”, having a lowered risk for high blood pressure and diabetes and other “lifestyle” diseases, and not putting painful strain on my back and joints. If a person is fat and does not experience these things, then I say it’s all good. But if a person is harming themselves by their extra weight, even just a little bit, but then preach about how much they care about their quality of life, then I think there’s some cognitive dissonance at work. I would think physical appearance would at least factor into “quality of life”.
Doctor once told me not to kill myself because of the pain it would cause my parents. I asked her why I should care about living for their sakes when they don’t care about living for me. That’s what I think when I see them stuffing their mouths and not exercising their obese bodies. I see them killing themselves right before my eyes…and not caring how it affects anyone. My mother told me that at least she’ll die happy. She might die happy, but I won’t be happy seeing her blind and crippled…having to change a diaper on a two-hundred and fifty pound woman…before she dies in all that happiness. I suppose it’s selfish for me to feel this way, but it sure seems selfish for her to equate excessive eating to “happiness”.
Since when does obesity cause blindness or incontinence? I mean, I know you can go blind from diabetes, but there are lots of very effective treatments for diabetes these days, even for giant disgusting fat slobby obese people.
My mother, before she retired, was a person with diabetes who did not eat a diabetic-friendly diet. She would skip meals and then come home from work and pig out on deep-fried everything.
No amount of telling her to stop would make her change. She’d always say, “At least I’ll die happy.” All I could think about was her losing her legs, going blind, and whatever else. I wasn’t thinking of her dead. I was thinking of her dying.
That said, I have to give my mother props. She has trimmed down and is watching her diet. She seems to have health more on her radar now that she is retired. Now, if she could only influence my father. He’s so busy talking about my mother’s weight that he can’t see that he could stand to lose about a 100 lbs himself.
Diabetes can do a number on your kidneys, which I know does not equate to incontinence. But it does make me think of someone who is so sick that they will not be able to go to the bathroom on their own with ease. Especially if they don’t have feet or legs.
Well, then it sounds to me like you should be upset with your parents for not complying with their diabetes protocols, rather than being pissed off at them for being fat. Diabetes runs in my family. I have plenty of relatives that are overweight-to-obese and still faithfully follow doctors’ instructions, take their medications, and can expect to live reasonably long and healthy lives.
Her diabetes is not independent of the obesity. Stopping the excessive eating (and getting some exercise) would improve both the obesity and the diabetes.
The important thing with regards to reducing diabetes complications is excellent blood sugar control, and you can have that even if you’re a big fatty fat. Trust me.
I’m trying to imagine how I would react if one of my children said to me, “Mom, you have to stop cramming your face full of food because I don’t want to wipe your ass when you’re 90.” I think I’d tell them that they were way too worried about potential future ass-wipage and should go live their own life and mind their own business. If I need my ass wiped when I’m 90, I’ll have the nurses in the nursing home do it.
Not fat, but could loose ten pounds and DO care. Because when I’m ten pounds heavier than I should be my knees hurt more. I’m at that age where my body is starting to creak and groan and it does it more with “extra” weight.
How about:
Me: “Mom, I want you to have a nice future ahead of you. Please think about your diet and taking better care of yourself.”
Mom: “Honey, just know that when I die, I’ll die happy.”
Me: “You are barely in your 60s. If you changed some of your ways, you wouldn’t be thinking about dying, happy or not. You’d be think about living.”
Mom: “We all have to die one day.”
Me: “True, but we don’t all have to die blind, legless, and wrapped in Depends. And I don’t want to see you that way. Especially prematurely. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to take care of you.”
Mom: “So I see. You’re going to put me away in a home when I get old, aren’t you?”
Me: “So not only do you not care how or when you die, but you don’t care about being an emotional and financial burden either? I’m a big meano for wanting you to live healthily, and I’m also a big meano for not wanting to be responsible for your bad decisions…decisions that you’re making right as we speak? Is that the kind of guilt trip you’re taking me on?”
Is that the kind of guilt trip you’re taking me on, MsWhatsit?
I’ve been fat ever since I was six or so. The two times I’ve ever beem somewhat less fat (but still 30-40 pounds overweight) was when I was a teenager and could walk and bike miles every day; and when I was able to stick to a radical low-carb diet. I’m convinced that I am the human equivalent of an “Easy keeper”- someone who gains weight on anything but the lowest-density carbs. Now, once more I’ve been cutting back for the last few months and it’s starting to show on my waistline, but it’s been really rough; what one commentator on low-carb diets called “the dietary equivalent of a Hanoi reeducation camp”.
What? I have no idea. Is that an actual conversation you had with your mom or are we still speaking hypothetically, or what? All I’m saying is that your mom’s fat is her business, and you are choosing to make it your business. That is a choice. I have the sense from other posts that you’ve made about food issues that you really resent it when people get shirty about your own diet, so it is weird to me that you are so far up in your mom’s grill about what she’s eating.
It’s a real conversation. Fortunately, it was a one-time conversation but it has stayed with me.
And no, her fat isn’t just her business. Not when your children are expected to take care of their elderly parents in this society.
If she weren’t diabetic and she was in perfect health, her fatness wouldn’t be on my radar. But because she does have the ills associated with obesity, then yes, I do care. Because I don’t want her to die. Is that so wrong? And I don’t want to have to care for a heavy-ass 70-year-old who can’t walk or go to the bathroom and has a doctor’s appointment every other day. I don’t want that responsibility to fall on another sibling, either. If we can’t avoid it, that’s one thing. But if we can, then why the hell shouldn’t we try to? Again, is it wrong for me to want the best outcome for my mother and for me? Why?
Yes, you are trying to make me feel guilty by saying that I should say nothing about how she takes care of herself. If she were just a stranger…or someone I’m not culturally obligated to care for…then you’d be right. But those two things are not in play here.
And I’m not “all up in her grill”. This was a single conversation a couple of years ago. As much as she likes to talk about other people’s, I don’t say anything about her waistline. And as I said earlier, things have gotten better over time. My father’s health does concern me greatly (he’s not diabetic, but it seems like he’s got everything else :() and yet he’s still living large and not trying to change. I guess he’s thinking about having a happy death as well. But even if he does die happy and he doesn’t care about the children and grandchildren he’d be leaving behind, he does have a wife who’d miss him a lot, who would be all messed-up financially and emotionally if he left. So yes, their health is my business because whatever happens to them affects me, whether I want it to or not. I don’t get in their business and they don’t burden me with the sordid aspects of their health, but how they treat their bodies does affect me.
But I usually don’t say anything to them because I don’t want to be the mean bad daughter pointing out the obvious. No way.
OK. I’m not trying to guilt trip you, I’m just saying that you deciding that you are going to be responsible for your elderly parent’s future care is a choice you can make or not make. Society expects a lot of things but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to respect those expectations. Additionally, you have constructed a fairly specific fantasy of your parents’ future health based on some not very accurate ideas about how diabetes works, but I’m actually not invested enough in this to have a big argument about it. 
Back on topic, something I forgot to respond to from a few posts back in this idea that in life you must make a choice between either eating foods you like, or depriving yourself and exercising constantly. To that I say pffff. One of the reasons I like distance running is because it allows me to eat pretty much anything I choose without gaining a huge amount of weight. I still try to eat a balanced and healthy diet for overall health reasons, but I don’t count calories or worry too much about my food intake in general.