Fat Bashing and Sizeism

The BBQ Pit
221

Personally, I weigh about 270-300 pounds. It sucks, and I do need to lose weight.

My favorite activities is usually sitting around playing on the computer all day. I am a teacher, I do walk around in the classroom. For exercise, I like to take long walks. I live in a foreign country, so walking is interesting to me.

Food is bad, because I live in a place where the diet is much different than America’s. Guess what I like to eat? Meat, chicken, pizza, salad, hamburgers, and anything else delicious. T Bone steak, potatoes (the other meat) Bacon, three eggs, biscuits with butter and gravy for breakfast.

Guess what, if it is delicious, it is bad for you. I love to drink beer and wine. I do not jog, play basketball or ride a bike. Thats too tiring.

I do fly occasionally and it is somewhat uncomfortable, and I do agree that the “skinnies” deserve not to have me in their seat.

I don’t care that I look liker Chris Farley. The reason I need to lose weight is that I am 36 years old and am concerned about by health. My wife complains about my snoring. My breathing bothers me sometimes. I am allergic to stairways.

I do not like the prospect of eating tasteless food and drinking water (as a comedian once said ‘I dont drink water, fish poop and make love in water’) .

222

Um, yeah- sure that happened. At what point did security show up? After this part?

Please. And what exactly does that have to do with someone’s weight infringing on your personal space?

FWIW, I’ve been following this thread closely, and it’s really been an excellent debate and a good education. Just wanted to note that. Most people have been really rational and informative.

223

You know,** tER**, I was going to excerpt the bs out of your post, but it’s so full of bald-faced lies, tripe, and self-indulgent fictional glurge that I just don’t have the time.

I hope you never, ever post here again after a start like that.

224

:::cough::: bullshit :::cough:::

225

Anyone made the point about planes and obesity in particular – a plane needs to burn more fuel the heavier it is, so bigger people cause the airline to price tickets higher as their flight fuel bills increase ?

This argument means that non-obese people already subsidise obese passengers as all cattle class tickets are the same (fuel use per passenger averaged out) price.

Never really looked at the argument in depth so can’t comment further. Just trying to cheer up the non-obese who already have their space invaded …

226

Shep, eating “tasteless” food is not really necessary. There are all kinds of great recipe’s out there.

Starving is not necessary either, I eat 6-7 times a day (far more than I ate when I was much heavier). I’m never hungry, ever. In fact when I first started the program I use, I was hard pressed to get past meal 4 of my daily 6.

I have a “free day” each week, where I can indulge in favorites (like pizza and ice cream) and the rest of the week I eat “clean”.

I work out no more than 45 minutes on my weight days, and 20 minutes on my cardio days. I’m pretty pathetic at math, but I think that’s around 4.5 hours? Not much time out of one’s week really.

If a person is “large and proud” cool, more power to them. But if they really are dying to lose fat? There are many good programs like the one I use, that ARE effective and not “tasteless” or starvation diet ninny undertakings nor require hours of useless aerobics.

Leanness Lifestyle is one, “Crunch” gym has one, Body for Life is another. Joe Wieder has excellent info, Hell even Jack Lalanne (sp?) has some good information (though much is a bit outdated).

The basics in all these programs are the same. Effective weight training, small evenly spaced meals of equal portions of complex carbs and protein, and high intensity interval cardio.

The basics have actually been the same for several decades, it’s the same programs that body builders have used (and been fine-tuning) since as far back as the 50s.

These “newfangled” programs like BFL aren’t anything new. They just take the basics that body builders have been using for such a long time, and make the information “user friendly”. They break it down and cut out the contest and industry jargon. They describe to everyday people how it can work for them and teach the ordinary and overweight how to do it at THEIR own pace.

Those in this thread that are interested can look these programs up. They do work, and they work well.

227

It isn’t true that people who are overweight are lazy. In fact the people I know who are overweight are far less lazy than I am.

They work long hours, they have stressful jobs, and when they get off work they are too tired to work out. I think the reason they eat junk food is largely because of the stress.

I, on the other hand, work part time in a non-stressful job and go to class, and I have time left over to go to the gym. When I get stressed out I might run a few miles instead of eating.

For a lot of people, if they want to lose weight they have to figure out a way to have more energy after work, and deal with the stress in a way other than eating. They have to do these things before “diet and excercise”, because diet and exercise will fail if you have no energy and are driven to eat by stress.

228

I feel for these people, not because they are fat and not because they work hard and are too tired to work out.

No, I feel for them because they haven’t been able to step back and look at their lifestyle and make the appropriate changes.

I used to work in TV news production, which had all stressfull things cited by Nightime. Got out of that racket six years ago and am now a lot healthier for it.

But, I lose patience with people who say they are fat because of their stressful lifestyle.

That’s just nonsense and is deflecting the blame. It’s a form of denial. You can change your stressful lifestyle … you can change your job/situation to fit a more healthy lifestyle. You’re just using that as an excuse.

Or, perhaps you have made the decision that your stressful job/situation/etc. is more important to you (maybe you get more $$$) than getting trimmer/more fit.

Either way, the choice is there, and anyone claiming that a ‘stressful’ lifestyle is preventing them from eating right and exercising more is in denile.

(You in this post is a collective you.)

229

… which is a river in Egypt, or so I hear!

:smack:

230

I get where you’re coming from Spiff, but this statement is flat out wrong for many people.

A single mother with limited education and 3 school aged children to support is very, VERY limited in what sort of work she can get.

Not every person thats got a stressful job has it because of monetary benefits, or career aspirations or loads of power - many have the stressful job because it’s the only one they can get.

Certainly, someone who’s an investment banker working 15 hour days making $150,000+ a year can afford to cut back to focus on “lifestyle” changes. However, someone working 3 part time jobs making $15,000 per year doesn’t really have that option if s/he want’s to feed her kids.

You’re not being sizest in your post - you’re being classist - the options you have are not available to everyone.

231

You’re right, alice_in_wonderland, I was not considering the folks who have limited ability to make changes in their lifestyles based on their socioeconomic situation.

I should have qualified my statements by referrring to “most people” instead of “all people.”

So, I think that people who have the ability to change their situations – but who continue to blame their situations for their obesity – are looking for anything to lay the blame on … anything but themselves.

232

Just how are we defining stressful? It’s been my experience (admittedly limited) that stressfull jobs are usually higher paying jobs. (i.e. ones that would require some specialized skills and long hours) Typically, not ’ the only job they could get’ type jobs.

233

I don’t know about that, ** spooje**. When I was working as a clerk in a grocery store in my early 20s, it was the only job I could get, and because of that it was a very stressful job. After working 30 hours a week on their odd and ever-changing schedule for 10 cents more than minimum wage for three years and knowing that there were NO other jobs was the most stressful job situation that I have ever been in.

It’s not the responsibility that causes the stress in a case like that. It’s the dispair.

234

I worked as a clerk too, in my youth. I thought it was stressful then.
I look back on it as a relaxing, no worry job now.

235

Gravity is correct. Research has pointed to lack of control as a major source of stress, not responsibility. The stereotype of the executive falling victim to a stress-related heart attack is a false one. The poor sap on the assembly line is much more likely to succumb. Also the recently-retired, who USED to have control over many and now has control over nobody.

236

For me, it was hell. I still occationally wake up from bad dreams where there was some turn of fate and I had to pick up slack by going back to that store. Really. I’ve woken up crying from them.
The lack of control, the lack of choices, the lack of vacation time and insurance. I’m not talking about working at this job for spending money. I’m talking about trying to keep a family on it. That was where my stress came from.

Now, I’m the PA to a very busy executive-type. I have to juggle schedules, plan and coordinate meetings with 50+ atendees and do all the little things that keep an office going. This job is a walk in the park compared to that.

237

Rubbish.

More bloody excuse making. Goi to Europe or come round here for people making far less supporting far more (but not starving mind you) and you do not find the patterns of obesity that one does in the States.

There is nothing classist at all in Spiff’s observation.

Bloody excuse making culture.

238

Collounsbury, I don’t think alice was saying that it was impossible to become healthier/slimmer/whatever if you’re harder up economically. I think she was saying it’s just harder when you don’t have the freedom to make your own schedule, cut back when needed or wanted, etc. My wife is a professional, and she’ll willingly admit that one of the luxuries is being able to basically plan her own schedule. Not totally, no, but she doesn’t punch in at 8 and punch out at 6. If she’s an hour later than usual, no big deal. If she feels the need to take off an hour earlier, again, no big deal. She can make it up whenever. When I worked my previous job, however, (for a hellish computer manufactuer that won’t be named–change the H in Hell to another letter and you’ve got it) I didn’t have such freedom. If my schedule was 8-6, it was 8-6. Only in dire emergencies could I reschedule. So I think it is harder. To be fair, though, my wife is a therapist that deals with folk’s mental well-being. I delt with effing computer parts.

:slight_smile:

239

WTF? Clearly, we’re not reading the same thread.

Spiff said that those in stressful positions should just quit them and do something less stressful.

I pointed out that’s not always an option.

His observations WAS classist. Your observation is totally unrelated.

If I’m buying fruit in Whichita, I don’t give a lick about the price of autos in Siam.

While you may be uniquely qualified to speak of living conditions in the middle east, you really can’t say jack about the living conditions of a single mother in Philadelphia 'cus you just don’t know.

240

Saying “hey, I’m heavy and I got here because I spent X years in a stressful job, and now I want to change but don’t know how” is STILL not making excuses.

It’s saying yes, I know. I’m too fat. Here’s how I got here, but I don’t know how to get past my long workday and stressful patterns to change.

Besides all that, GEEESH Coll., what do you WANT them to say? “Oh, God Great Coll. (and the rest of the skinny world) PUH lease forgive me for having gotten fat, and PLEASE forgive me for the two years I spent aerobicizing and starving that didn’t work, I know, next to you I’m a mere worm (a fat one)…”

And so on…

It doesn’t matter if it’s that a person is fat, or if they’re a bad driver, or if they are a packrat, or whatever. No one wants to be seen as some sort of subhuman “thing” because of their faults.

Being fat just happens to be a very visible fault (so is being anorexic or bulimic).

It’s natural for people, in ANY life circumstance where they are “at fault” to try and downplay so as not to feel so stupid and worthless. That doesn’t make how they GOT fat any less true that they “use” it as an excuse to stay that way.

IF these people had support and kindness in their journey rather than “OH, you bloody excuse makers, you deserve to Die,” it would be MUCH more helpful.

Maybe it won’t make them change their ways, but it makes the person confronting them a much better person.

Whereas instead of passing judgment, and getting all down on them for merely being human, perhaps a bit of info leading them to a solution that might work for them would help.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.