I just read through both pages of this thread, alternately nodding in agreement and rolling my eyes, and your post made it all worth it.
Brilliant. Thank you.
A quick google resulted in a BBC article on obesity. At the bottom is a nifty image that lists the states with adult obesity rates of 25% or higher. Michigan looks like it’s 9th with 25.4%, but an extra half percent would bump them up to 6th place.
On this board? I rather doubt that. I’d really like to see a link, because that’s just a bizarre accusation.
Folks, I’ve been following the thread from work but couldn’t post there, so I hope no one was offended by my absence.
So far my favorite reply has to be the “God eats a kitten” remark <evil grin>, but it’s no secret that here, as in society, this is an issue on which almost everyone has strong feelings in one direction or another.
Those who think there is no prejudice against fat people are either deluded or blind. I’m sorry, but I just can’t come up with a nicer way of saying it.
There are much more important things about me than my weight. But it’s my weight that I’m most often judged by.
You don’t know about prejudice until you go into a job interview and see the interviewer take one good luck at you, up and down, see his eyes glaze over, and know that you don’t have a chance in hell at that job, no matter how well qualified you are, because they’ve decided you’re just too damn ugly to work for them.
Or when you go to a doctor, and no matter what your complaint, your “cure” is always to lose weight. Hell, there might as well not be doctors, for about as much good as they do a heavy person. You go through doctor after doctor until you finally find one that will look at you and see a person and not a weight…assuming you ever do.
Or until you hear an angry parent whisper to their child in the grocery store, “Put that back this instant! You don’t want to look like him, do you?!?”
The prejudice is real, and I think most people at the end of the day will admit that if they are honest. But what is even scarier than the prejudice is the fact that so many people seem to think that, by being fat, somehow fat people deserve the prejudice, almost as a punishment of some kind.
Trust me, being fat in today’s world can be punishment enough, all on its own.
–James
Well, in your friend’s case, I do hope things change and she manages to get off some of that weight.
And eleanorigby, that does indeed concern me-that’s not healthy and if these types of patients are becoming more and more common, that is indeed scary and I hope something can be done about it.
But I’m talking about the hatred people have, the whole “damn fatties ah ha look at the fatties, they should just stay at home, they’re so gross, blah blah blah.”
I don’t get it. So you saw a fat person at the mall eating a giant sundae. Why does it make you so upset?
And Q. E. D., you obviously haven’t been reading the same threads I have.
I’ve seen plenty of bigotry towards fat people here. I’m not talking about “mere” bigotry, I’m talking about actual “throw them to the lions” suggestions that they actually be KILLED, as AFG claims. Have you actually seen that here? I refuse to believe that’s actually happened on the SDMB, trolling idiots notwithstanding. Do you have a link to an example?
I can’t remember any particular threads that advocated killing fat people here, but I’ve seen that sentiment in many Fark threads.
Fellow fat-guy here, woodflute. I’ve felt the prejudice, I’ve felt the heat, and I’ve puffed up the stairs, and I’m telling you right here and now that you’ve gotta toughen the fuck up.
There’s nothing new about this minority of yours. It may or may not even be a minority. The world is filled with people who look at guys like you or me and assume lazy/stupid/sloppy/sweaty. It has been filled with these kinds of people for a long long time now, and 100 years ago, it will still be filled with these kinds of people. Ranting about it on a messageboard ain’t gonna do jack.
That’s the bad news. Now for the good news. The world is also filled with people who were born with various kinds of setbacks or disabilities or traits that were seen as being setbacks or disabilities by the same kind of bigot who now serves as the target of your wrath. Many, many, many of these people have overcome this and led productive lives.
Hell, dude, look around you. People have been born blind, armless, eyeless, parapalegics, quadrapalegics, autistic, retarded, and southern baptist. People have been born with those nasty little personalities that guarantee they’re going to be dating Palmela Handerson until they’re 43 years old. Quite a few of these people have gone on to lead happy productive lives. You and I were born with slow metabolisms. I think we’re gonna pull through, OK? :dubious:
Yes, I have been discriminated against. Yes, I have been the butt of jokes. Most fat people have. What you’re doing here isn’t going to help anything. You’ve started out fat. You’re going to wind up fat and angry. Helllooooooooo, Palmela.
What’s going to see you through? Well, as near as I can tell, three things. One, you’ve got to learn to rise above this shit. Do they call you fat? Fuck 'em with a stick. Bullies are the same the world over, woodflute. Once they know they can’t get to you, they look for easier prey, particularly if you prove yourself able to kick their ass (I’ve always had a struggle with my weight, but before I lost, I was in the army. I don’t think of myself as particularly tough, but I don’t look wimpy, either.).
The second thing? Work your chubby ass off. Study yourself to death and then study some more. Work twice as hard as those tofu-and-salad-chomping bony-assed pissants. Beef that resume up. If you get good enough at your craft with whiz-bang additional esoteric skills, they’re gonna forgive you sweating all over their office furniture. If you get good enough to design your own space shuttle on the back of an envelope and you still can’t get a job, then feel free to complain.
The third thing? After you rise above it and get what you want out of life, let it all go. Don’t stay mad, not even if they deserve it. I tell myself that whenever I feel like it, I can put down the hot dog and go train for the next Boston marathon. Maybe just a half marathon. I tell myself that if I turn it around, I at least have the possibility to get into shape. That’s more than you can say about that blind kid. He could run his ass from here to Yazoo City, but in the morning, he’s still gonna need a seeing eye dog.
Someday, I just might get back into shape. But I’ve got things to do now, so I’m just going to have to fight my lard ass for space on the couch.
Life doesn’t appear to be fair for you, woodflute, but as others have pointed out to you here, it doesn’t appear to be fair for a whole hell of a lot of people. Tough people can take care of themselves, and they tend to get what they want out of life, so you’ve got two reasons to toughen up. Now stop complaining, get out there, and get what you want!!
Well, what is said here about prejudice may well be true–especially the bit about the jobs.
But forgive me if I dont’ jump on the pity party band wagon for obese people. To me, it sounds periously like, “no-one’s problems are ever as grave or hurtful as a fat person’s.” And that just ain’t so. Especially since the solution lies within the individual.
For all I know, in 50 years they will discover some gene or virus that causes some people to not burn off enough calories. But for now, I have seen too many people successfully lose weight by exercsing more and being cautious and conscientious about food choices. No-one here says it’s easy. But the formula IS simple. Yes, there can be extenuating circumstances, but those don’t explain the explosion of obesity. Some, but not all, of this problem can be solved by changes in eating habits and increasing activity.
So, while I have no problem with the obese people at the mall eating an ice cream sundae, I do liken them to smokers, in a sense. It’s hard to whip up sympathy for someone with emphysema when they’ve smoked 2 packs a day for 40 years. It’s hard to provide a shoulder to cry on when you need lower back surgery because you are 100 pounds overweight.
Obesity does indeed lie at the bottom of a lot of pathologies. Or let me put it this way–many diseases and their symptoms are ameliorated by weight loss. I don’t undestand how that connection is not made. Health does not exist in a vaccuumm.
FWIW, I don’t think AFG meant that literally, at least not here. Maybe I was wrong. I’ve certainly seen some very nasty and hateful threads.
I have no sympathy for people who are fat/overweight/obese/whatever. Oh, you got judged based on appearances when you walked into a job interview? Big fucking deal - it means you need to be intelligent and eloquent enough to blind them. One time when I was interviewing for a retail job they told me that a major concern was that I wouldn’t be able to reach any of the higher racks and displays (I’m five feet tall.) Yes it sucked, but I got over it, because A) I can’t change my height, B) I don’t really want to work for someone that stupid, and C) I knew I could find a better job.
You think being judged because you’re fat sucks? Yes, it does. The majority of people can lose weight, and those who can’t have a choice: You can bitch online about it, or you can deal with the fact that we do not live in a utopian world. You’re ‘different’ from both the ideal and the mainstream, therefore, you’re going to get shit about it. If it means that much to you you’re in a position where you can try to change yourself or society, or both. Grow up.
And as Linty Fresh said: there are a lot of people who are a hell of a lot worse off, and we’re still at a point where no one even talks about that discrimination. You think comments in restaurants are bad? How do those murmured idiocies compare to that time I was at a restaurant with a friend who uses a wheelchair, and the waitress turned to me and said “What’s wrong with your friend?” How about the times I had rocks thrown at me as a child, because I had serious speech problems, and was short, and needed glasses, and was Jewish? How about a guy who’s life was saved (literally) by two classmates of mine in a parking lot one night a year ago, because the guy had the nerve to be seen in public with his boyfriend, and was getting beaten by a group of five guys?
So, yes, I can imagine that being fat sucks. So does the shit a lot of people go through. Stop whining, and do something about it if it pisses you off so much.
Someone I know lost 100lbs several years ago by doing strict Atkins, she was also diabetic and pretty much cut her insulin requirements to zero. She realxed the diet a bit, and started going to Curves (womens’ exercise place). She gained about 20lbs back, but has held at 80 lbs lost for - three years, I think.
Linty Fresh Clap clap.
Not unrelated. I’ve been doing typically “male” work for almost 30 years. (Painting contractor, OTR trucker.) You don’t think there’s stupid, dumb bigotry in trucking and construction against women??
I learned many, many years ago to either shrug off minor idiocies, or get loudly, profanely and publically pissed off at someone who went way over the line. It’s served me very well. You have to earn respect, not expect the world to hand it to you.
I’m 25 pounds overweight–nothing at all like someone who just came from a Nazi work camp, and believe me, I’ve got some meat on my bones–and everyone treats me just fine. I just started a new relationship with a beautiful woman and we both get a lot of compliments. Also, as a Jew, I highly resent your analogy and suggest you visit a Holocaust memorial to reevaluate it; I’ve been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and it’s excellent. There happens to be a pretty highly acclaimed one in our nation’s capital, too.
I’ve found that as a general rule (with lots of exceptions) fat people have low or no confidence in themselves, and that is both a result and a cause of their utter inability to function socially. I don’t have the personal time to spend on people who can’t have an engaging conversation with me. Does that mean that I won’t let a fat and unkempt driver into my lane on the freeway, or that I won’t let a fat classmate copy my notes, or that I won’t help a fat person with their hands full who drops something? Of course it doesn’t–I give them my politeness, but that’s all they’re entitled to. It took me a long time, relatively speaking, to learn the rules of polite society. Once I stopped feeling bad about myself, got off my ass, lost some weight and gained some knowledge of how to deal with social situations like a normal person, I became a socially acceptable individual, and I don’t feel like I had to sell out to the Man to do it. It was rough, but I took my licks and did what I had to do and got it done. Do I still commit some social faux pas? Sure do. Am I still overweight? Sure am. But I’m acceptable in highly-polished, image-conscious Southern California society not because I have some chiseled supermodel body, but because I have a couple ounces of confidence in myself. You can see the absence or presence of this confidence in anyone easily, and there are people who I don’t even notice are overweight because they’ve got that confidence. A couple of times I’ve had people I’d known for months tell me they were overweight and been genuinely surprised to give them another once-over and see that, yes, they were significantly chubby, ie skin flabs etc. I care a lot more about that confidence than I do about peoples’ weight–and honestly by and large people who are significantly obese don’t have the confidence, which is again IMO both a cause and result of their shying away from social behavior to down a pint of Haagen-Dasz or however you spell that crap. Is society to blame? Well, I’m sure we are, to an extent. But as someone who got over my social problems and now gets treated just fine by everyone–I get fantastic grades, have a lot of friends, have a sweet and loving girlfriend and a healthy sex life, I’ve never been turned down for a job or internship–I don’t have much patience for people who would rather sit around and cry about their problems.
If you’re 25 pounds overweight as calculated by the current height / weight charts, I would actually call your weight on the low end of normal.
If you actually see yourself as overweight, then I would consider you very much a victim of the war on fat, because it’s destroyed your ability to perceive your body accurately.
–James
Depends-if those 25 pounds are a detriment to one’s health, that’s definitely overweight.
FTR, I neither need nor ask for sympathy. Whatever problems I may have gained from being a chubchubchee are pretty much expected. Not desirable, of course, but expected.
And I’m with Linty Fresh. There’s a lot of disabled people out there that can do little or nothing about their ailments.
As for confidence, yea, I think that’s key too and that may be why I myself don’t seem to face the same problems other fat people do. But, for me, even if I lost the weight, my solitary personality wouldn’t change. I’d pretty much be the same person either way. Some people who’ve lost weight have said the same thing.
Slam my intelligence all you want. It’s how I know you care. 
I got a bit pissy on that one. No harshes.
The fact that the government continually lowers the bar for what is considered “fat” doesn’t help matters any.
So?!?
I hate it when people discount someone’s misery by comparing it to the misery of others. That’s a stupid and insensitive way of saying “Your problems don’t count.”
You don’t like the fact that blacks got lynched? Oh yeah? Look what happened to the Jews! They got treated far worse! Are you saying that the Jews had it easy? Fuck you! Go cry somewhere else, Sambo! Ya pussy!
You’re complaining that you have to live as a quadraplegic? Well, I know people who don’t live at all! They’re dead! DEAD, I tells ya! Are you telling me that you’re worse off than a DEAD person? “Ooh, look at me. I can’t walk.” Well, neither can a DEAD person! DEAD! Get a job, ya slacker.
They’re dead? Awww, let’s have a pity party. Some people are zombies, for chrissakes. Imagine being a reanimated corpse, with an unending hunger for brains. Screw the dead, the zombies are the ones to feel sorry for.
BTW, I mean screw the DEAD, not SCREW the dead…