For example???
I don’t think it makes you a “bad person” but maybe a person who doesn’t understand the psychology behind eating disorders.
Ben, I agree with almost all of your posts, but this
“…In light of this, I see little problem with the generalisation “The majority of fat people are fat because they just cannot be bothered to take the time and trouble (as you have done) to reach a healthy weight”…”
Honestly it is NOT the “general” problem that “causes” or maintains obesity. That the overweight “cannot be bothered” that is.
Those who believe that fat people are fat because they:
1.) Don’t care and do nothing about it
2.) Whine but still don’t do anything about it
3.) Complain that those who are in shape are just “lucky”
etc etc etc.
Are really wrong for the most part.
Most obese people DO care. What are they supposed to do?? If they get “caught” by slim people turn around and apologize?? Grovel at nonfat people’s feet and tell them how much they care, how sorry they are??
Just because these people SEEM to not “be caring” (and you would know this because???), by way of perhaps not looking at anyone, or perhaps having a neutral expression on their faces, does NOT mean that they aren’t feeling anything inside.
For a LOT of them, what’s going on is an ugly hell-spawned, and unfunny version of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on another.
Number two, how do the “fat bashers” KNOW that these people “don’t do anything about it”??? I’ve had a number of obese people in my classes who work VERY hard all semester and don’t show much change, one poor thing not only dieted, but worked out EXTRA classes and had lost a “whopping” 2 pounds after an entire semester. And my classes weren’t the only ones she was taking.
She didn’t give up, she came back the next semester, and had done a little better, but for her, and for millions of other overweight people it’s very slow going, sometimes it’s 1 step forward 2 steps back.
Number three ties into number two, if you are working out, but showing little or no success, and the person next to you IS losing weight by leaps and bounds, it can seem VERY unfair. My boyfriend loses first, and quickly, but once I catch up, I can knock his socks off with my improvement.
We have different body types.
Yes, of COURSE there ARE those people who whine and don’t do anything and expect something for nothing, but aren’t those types in EVERY walk of life?
If it WERE just as simple as “eat less, exercise more” don’t you think that everyone in the country would be saying “Oh, HEY, well I gotta try that”?
I mean the formula is pretty simple right? Maintenance is:
Calories in = calories out.
Even a very obese person should be able to cut say, one donut from their daily intake (250 calories), and add a ten minute walk (15-60 calories), without too much pain, and start losing weight, right? Right???
Okay, they’re “eating less, and exercising more”. AND they’ve changed the formula, now it’s
Calories in are Less than (I can NEVER remember which way the little thingies go) calories out, especially since you’ve reduced on the intake side, and increased on the outgo side.
The trouble REALLY is, that for a lot of obese people, they started on yo-yo type dieting early in their lifetimes. Not only does that screw up their metabolisms, it also creates muscle loss (sorry oldtimers, I know you’re getting tired of this from the fitness instructor).
Muscles are where calories are burned (about 50 per muscle, per day), add to that, the fact that as we age we start losing muscle, about a half a pound a year for women over 25, and far less and at a higher age for men (good old testosterone, also why more women seem to be more overweight than men).
Once a person GETS to that highly obese, and over 'yo-yoed" messed up stage, they need to carefully design their diet and their exercise program to lose FAT and keep muscle.
Too many people are married to the scale. OMG! “teenie boppers scream, I weigh 120 pounds!!! Britney Spears only weighs 105”!!! Many times this is where the yo-yoing and the spiral down into true obesity begins.
Scylla really hit the problem with his post saying it’s not the FOOD that’s the problem it’s the people eating it. I’d agree, and go one further.
It’s not WHAT they’re eating, it’s what’s eating THEM. For quite a percentage of obese people it’s NOT that they’re so hungry, or are too lazy to exercise, it’s what they are covering for and why they use the food to “self-medicate” in the first place. (yes, at a great cost to themselves, but why is that OUR business?).
“Eat less, exercise more” is NOT going to work IF and UNTIL a person gets to the “why” of it. And if they don’t want to, why is it any concern of the fatbashers/haters?
Again, for those obese people who DO complain and that you know for a FACT (they’re living with you, or work with you etc) aren’t doing anything about it, and whine for a solution that calls for them NOT having to exercise or diet at ALL, then yes, of COURSE those types of people are being ridiculous.
But in these threads, it seems that once someone says “why do fat people do this” and all the pile-on starts, there are at least 20 threads that seem to equate this attitude with ALL obese people, as if the two go hand in hand.
As a fitness instructor, at a university, I just don’t see it. I see people who aren’t educated, and who’ve struggled for years to lose weight, but since they don’t really understand that “starving to lose weight” creates weight GAIN, they’ve mostly been unsuccessful.
“Eat less, exercise more” is a useless mantra.
What will work is getting to the bottom of WHY people overeat, treating THAT and then teaching the basics of HOW to correct starvation and yo-yo dieting, from a standpoint of helpfulness, NOT condemnation.
YOU have the other part of my metabolism. The part that burns the calories. Share, please.
My dear smartass,
Atkins IS just another fad diet. Despite all the hype. It’s a diet which asks it’s participants to drastically reduce one or more types of foods.
I’m just all aflutter that the Atkins ninnies are now “allowing” soy etc., (which increases estrogen production by the way, and can interfere with fat loss in women who have proven to have to work longer and harder at losing their fat).
If it works for you, whoop dee doo.
AT any rate, my POINT was, NOT that I was against Atkins, but that even if you are following the Atkins diet (old OR new) I was agreeing with the poster who said (paraphrased) calories are calories, if you eat too many, you will gain weight.
Well, my fat ass is tired from sitting here reading this whole thing.
Let’s see…in the last two weeks, i’ve averaged about 700 calories a day. I’ve not lost an ounce. In fact, i’m up about a pound.
I’m in dialysis for a little problem of ignorance. The ignorant doctor at the emergency room at my cancer hospital decided that the abject pain I was in was from my gall bladder (Fat People have gall bladder problems, ya know) and he gave me pain meds for it. Pain meds with TYLENOL. Problem? Well, i’ve had a liver resection, at the same time they took out half my stomach, for a rare cancer called carcinoid.
But does this guy read the nurse’s notes? Does he read my chart? Nope, gives me meds with a liver toxic ingredient. Fat person eating all those fatty foods, of COURSE i’m having gall bladder problems. I had not eaten for 3 days prior to going to the ER. I didn’t eat for 3 days after. Lots of dry heaves, but nothing to heave. When I finally realized that I was taking Tylenol, it was too late.
So, calories in vs. calories expended, I got the expended thing going on, baby, and I don’t lose weight. I have a cancer called “a cancer of malnutrition”, it screws with serotonin levels like no other illness.
I’ve been seriously overweight since I was 6. Until I was 17, I never had a sugar sweetened drink or a dessert or snack food in my own home. What we ate was monitored by overweight, perpetually dieting parents. My younger brothers could not conceive of there being a cake and it not being someone’s birthday. My mother admits to putting tea with saccharine in my baby bottles so that I wouldn’t be fat. My eating habits didn’t change between age 5 and 6. My metabolism did.
I have always eaten less and weighed more that anybody I know.
Donut? I was 22 before I ever had a donut. Never developed a taste for them. The concept of bread with a meal or dessert afterward was so alien to me that my mother had to remind me that “other people” did have stuff like that, but I didn’t have to. I gawked at friends houses when they’d go to the cookie jar and get out cookies, just to eat. Not as a special reward for good grades or something, just to…eat them. Wow. And they ate potatoes. Rice. Bread. All the fattening stuff.
I’ve told my story before, about the no-weight-loss fasts. (I was doubted, but then I can’t pull up research from the 1970s if it isn’t on-line.) And now, i’m in the unenviable position of having every reason on earth to be losing weight, and it still won’t happen.
One thing about it. It doesn’t bother me a lot when people treat me like a freak. I was raised to be one. Holiday parties in elementary school…everybody else has punch and cookies. I get water from the hallway, and do not eat anything. Why? It would make me fat. Bible school. Grandma in the church kitchen. I’d get a glass of tea with saccharine and a couple of saltine crackers while everbody else had milk or Koolade and cookies. Why? Couldn’t have that stuff…it’d make me fat.
I realize that in the popular view, i’m either a liar or delusional, or a Very Rare Case. But ya know what? If I die from this doctor’s ignorance, it’ll be my fault because he just did what he assumed should be done for the fat pig. The truth, and my needs, were incidental.
I am fat. Nay I am obese. I am addicted to food. IT IS MY PROBLEM and my reality. I have absolutely NO willpower when it comes to food. But it is MY problem. There are only two things that bother me with the world of fatness:
-
That healthy food generally costs more than unhealthy food. I recently spent a year denying as many of my cravings as possible, no fast food, no desserts, no large portions of anything except veggies, and buying everything no fat or seriously reduced fat. It definately cost more money, eat less and healthier and it costs more. Great, that REALLY helps!
-
People who are skinny/at ideal weights constantly bemoaning how FAT they are. I have worked with many a coworker in the 5’ to 5’4" range that weighed under 110lbs. That CONSTANTLY complained that they were FAT. I have absolutely no problem saying I am fat, that I have a problem, that it is all my fault, etc. But Hell not everyone is a model and if you are not 20 lbs. passed your ideal weight, PLEASE don’t complain about being fat. YOU ARE NOT FAT, try something along the lines of I would like to lose weight instead of carping about being fat!
Yes I cost our healthcare system money, but so does anyone else with addictions, which include ultra exercise nuts who literally break their bodies because they don’t exercise properly - I AM NOT saying that there are many of them, but what is the difference between me going to my doctor for weight related problems and someone going to a sport injury specialist because they keep reinjuring themselves exercising wrong or when they are supposed to be healing? Oh yeah, I see a GP and they see a specialist, guess which costs more?
Or the idiots who do things like base jumping or other extreme “sports” and break half the bones in their body? Or the person who constantly speeds and tailgates on highways and gets into a traffic accident?
Almost everyone makes personal choices that probably are bad for our healthcare systems in one way or another. So PLEASE don’t use that excuse for why fat people offend you.
By the way congrats on all those people who have shared their stories of losing weight!
LOL, Excellent point 13thUnicorn! I AM a fitness professional, and I broke (no, shattered), not one bone, but two in my leg this late spring. I’m healthy and while I could stand to lose 15 pounds, I’m not obese, every “vital” in my body is optimal, my cholesteral, glucose, heartrate, cardiopulmonary, the whole nine yards, are all at rates that the doctor called “that of a 20 year old” and I’m 44.
I’m paying for part of it, but guess who is paying the rest? That’s right, our health care system, and that means everyone who pays into the insurance companies.
Another thing, perhaps not common to other states, but here in good ole AK, are the mountain climbers (never seen an obese one) who attempt to climb Mt. McKinley.
At least one group a year (usually more) have to be rescued from the mountain (10s of thousands in search and rescue costs) and given medical care, depending upon their injuries and level of exposure their medical costs can also range into the 10s of thousands. These guys are made well on the medical community in Anchorage’s dime, then they waltz on home occasionally they’ll pay a few pennies on the dollar for their rescue and medical tab, mostly they pay nothing.
“Obese people burden the health system and cost too much”, it’s just a ridiculous attitude.
Look. All the people that are getting offended are being silly. I have one point. It’s not about how hard it may be for someone to quit eating. It’s not about how difficult it may be for someone to lose weight. It’s really fucking simple - If you eat less calories than you use, you’ll be thin.
Zoe - while I still have the strength to respond to your idiocy, - shut up ! This is not a discussion about the “pain” and “difficulties” of being fat. It’s about simple bodily functions. I’ve probably forgotten more about this than you will ever know. It actually doesn’t get any simpler, so at the rick of repeating myself - If you eat less calories than you use, you’ll be thin.
Oh, so you tell this “simple” thing to thatDDperson. I’m sure it’ll transform his (her?) life…
And don’t go tellin’ Zoe to “shut up.” Sheesh. The nerve. This may be the pit, but you have to do better than that when rebutting someone.
I did do better - I pointed out that I was right and she was wrong. The “shut-up” thing was just a helpful hint. You know, “the closed mouth catches no feet…”
Not sure why you’re ripping on me, Bird-man - I don’t think our views are disparate. Scylla’s right about needing to make the choice to deal with an addiction. And you’re quite mistaken about my background. I do have some knowledge of nutrition - all former bulimics/anorexics do. Back when calories alone were considered enough information, I knew the caloric content of virtually everything.
In fact, I just read a piece the other day on an experiment concerning apples vs. oatmeal cookies of the same caloric value. The group who ate an apple each day lost significantly more weight than the ones who ate the oatmeal cookie. I’m sure it’s not the only study to show that the issue is more complicated than calories in = calories out.
A book I read recently on nutrition and managing perimenopause discussed the balance issue extensively, to the point of explaining that it’s a bad idea to take a calcium supplement at the same time as your multi-vitamin because the magnesium interferes with absorption (I loaned the book to a friend and can’t recall the name, but it was written by a licensed nutritionist). She also discussed the simple carb and fat intake issues - I suspect that for a lot of people, those issues are key. You, Mockingbird, may have been able to tackle your whole problem through managing fats alone, but I don’t think that’s enough for everyone. Personally when I cut my fat intake too low I get the jitters, serious shakes; and I never eat donuts, as they always give me a huge headache and enormous thirst.
It’s really funny because I happen to be pregnant right now (with twins!egad!) and I’m amazed at the extent to which all of the medical sources, ALL of them, acknowledge that each pregnancy is different. Each woman is different, and each of her pregnancy experiences is different. How is it that obstetrics is the only field of medicine that allows for individuality?
Ok, so they hook small children. Last time I check, small children didn’t drive and control money. In other words, the parents aren’t parenting. Simple as that.
While my parenting experiences are limited (7 1/2 month old girl), Fin_woman and I plan on limiting her junk food/fast food consumption (and this coming from a guy who used to eat McD’s BigMacs every day for lunch and now can’t remember the last time I was in a McDs)
Hello. Long time reader, first time poster. uh, yeah…
My understanding is that in Mexico, people are considered more attractive if they are of bigger girth. Something to think about…
Hi **verbigerate ** welcome to the boards.
Yeah - bigger is better sometimes. (The old “fat chicks and mopeds” joke springs to mind).
But we’re not talking about large. We’re talking about face-stuffingly, ass-lardingly enormous. That’s way unattractive. Even in Mexi-coco
Tarantula, there’s a quote in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a book about poverty among immigrants living in New York City at the beginning of the century, that I thought of when reading your posts. You stated earlier that you were previously fat and managed to overcome it through much hard work. This quote is from a moment when the children in the book have to get their immunizations in order to go to school (which terrifies them, as they’re not accustomed to medical care), and it so happens the nurse providing the shots had grown up in the same slums, although she’s loathe to admit it:
“A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot-strap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb. The nurse had chosen the forgetting way. Yet, as she stood there, she knew that years later she would be haunted by the sorrow in the face of that starveling child and that she would wish bitterly that she had said a comforting word then and done something towards the saving of her immortal soul. She had the knowledge that she was small but she lacked the courage to be otherwise.”
I’m fucking sick and tired of people acting as if all overweight people do is stuff their face 24/7. You know what? You can get way overweight without eating obscene amounts of food! It’s insulting to me and every other overweight person who orders so-called “normal” portions, but gets fat off them.
Yes, I know why I’m fat. It’s not because I’m constantly stuffing my face (I’m not), it’s not because I sit on my ass all day and can barely be bothered to walk to the fridge to stuff my face (I don’t - in fact, I work a job that has me on my feet constantly and walking fair distances just to get there). You know why I’m fat? Because WHAT I eat is so bad. That’s right, the staple of my diet, the thing my body wants most often, the thing which will least upset my stomach when I’m feeling ill is: the cheeseburger. I’m sorry, but I fucking hate lettuce and I will get full to barfing on salad without ever feeling satisfied. Which means I will eat more. But one damn cheeseburger and I’m set for the meal. Yes, it’s bad for me.
Now would probably be a good time to mention that I’ve hit a maintenance weight. I held at 218 for two years… and for the past several months have been holding at around 214. Why? Because rather than binge dieting, which all the fat-bashers seem to wish I would do, I’ve been slowly changing one thing at a time about my diet in order to create healthier habits without creating an emotional “hole” in my diet. First thing I did was change my fry habits. One day I discovered that two Burger King cheeseburgers was less fat/calories than a cheeseburger and fries. That turned me off fries. Not completely, but enough. So I set a new rule - I get to taste a couple fries, but then I have to finish my entire burger before having any more. Oh, and I only eat fries that actually taste good, I do NOT eat fries just because they’re there. (This works because by the time you’re done with the burger, all but the absolute freshest fries will be cold and no longer taste good, removing the incentive to eat them). If it didn’t cost damn near as much to just order a Big Mac and a Coke as it does to order a #1, I’d forego the fries altogether most of the time. I still do, in my way - most of my fries end up in the trash.
Done that for the last few years. Whoopee. Now I’m on to Coke. I drink a lot of Coke. Each can of Coke contains 140 calories. My latest thing is to occasionally substitute a can of Coke for a can of Diet Vanilla Coke (thank you Coca-Cola for finally making a diet drink that doesn’t make me gag!). Think about it. If I drink, say, the equivalent of 5 Cokes a day (Assuming that fast food Cokes are much bigger than a single can), then wouldn’t substituting two of those make a HUGE difference in my calorie intake? Could that perhaps account for my ever-so-slow-but-stable loss of 4 lbs from my average weight? We’re not talking losing 4 lbs once, in a week and gaining it back the next here. I’ve weighed between 211 and 214 since April.
Okay, confession: I’m not drinking two diet sodas a day - yet. I’m subbing them in occasionally, when convenient. But the plan to do so has caused a small psychological change that inspires me to think hard each time I get a real Coke - still reducing the number of Cokes I drink daily. And at 140 calories a can, that’s a pretty damn nice thing to cut out of my diet.
So for those of you who laugh at fat people getting a diet Coke with their value meal: Fuck you. They’re saving over 200 calories by doing that. It doesn’t mean they won’t gain weight, but at least they’re doing something to mitigate.
Someday I’ll teach myself to think “chicken” when I’m hungry instead of “beef.” But until then, fuck all you judgemental assholes that see an overweight chick eating a burger. You don’t see my table piled with 3 burgers, 2 orders of chicken wings, and 3 apple pies, so where the fuck do you get off talking to me as if it is? A single fucking burger, just like you get to eat. Here, have the rest of my fries asshole.
By the way: it IS more expensive to eat well. For singletons, it’s also more expensive to cook at home than it is to go through the drive-thru. Unless you’re fond of PB&J. Plus, at the drive through I only waste fries. At home half my food spoils before I get to it because I’m so f-ing busy I don’t have time to cook. (There goes the assumption that all fat people are lazy)
Do not discredit what you know nothing about, as is evident by your post. There are quite a few people in this world, for health reasons, that HAVE to drastically reduce one or more types of foods. Carbs are death for diabetes. If you aren’t diabetic then you have no idea what this means. You would be absolutely shocked to actually ‘know’ what people living the low-carb way of life get to eat. But you are right, that’s neither here nor there. Just another shot at fighting ignorance.
Y’know, the price differential between the way I eat now (no white carbs), and the way I used to eat (LOTS of white carbs) used to bother me. Whole wheat pasta costs three or four times more than white pasta; whole wheat bread costs two or three times more than white bread, etc. But I’ve changed my attitude. I now think of it like this: if I was shopping for a new table, and I looked at tables at Wal-Mart, then looked at tables made by a hand-craftsman, I would expect the better-made table to be more expensive, wouldn’t I? I know more expensive materials went into it, and I know it’s a better table. I wouldn’t mind it costing more. Same goes for my food. The healthy stuff costs more, in part, because it’s more expensive to make! And I don’t mind paying more, because it’s better food! White pasta is a nutritional waste land. Whole wheat pasta is not. Why would I be unwilling to pay more for actual nutrition vs something that I just put in my mouth that goes straight to my waistline?
Morrigoon - you’ve got to be kidding me with that shit.
You readily admit that your fat and you want to lose weight (hence the diet). Eat some fucking fruit.
Two cheeseburgers has less calories than a cheeseburger and fries?? You’re talking like a fucking arse-hole. I doesn’t matter a damn if two cheeseburgers have less or more than one - both should be off limits. Eat a salad - and if you barf - jut eat another one.
fessie - I get your point about sympathy and all that. It’s a stupid point made by someone who never experienced the situation. All the nicely nicely shit means just that - shit !
I was called a “fat fuck” one day by a passer-by, and with that decided that it was time to change. No need for looking for inner reasons etc. - you just eat healthy and move.
Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade.
Tarantula:
It’s not quite that simple.
People have different shapes. Some people are short, stubby, pear-shaped or have bone structures outside of contemporary ideas of beauty.
For example, every time a run a road race around here of more than 5 miles I inevitably get passed by these two women. To glance at them you’d think they eat nothing but cheese fries.
They are short, wide-hipped and thick and probably have squeezed out a couple of puppies along the way.
They look chunky, even fat. The fact is that they are rocks and paragons of physical fitness.
Starve them to death and they will never appear thin. They’re not built that way.
If you run a lot of road races your concepts of “thin” and “fit” will change. You will find a lot of people who do not appear to be fit who in fact are incredibly fit.
Our conceptions of what thin and fit mean by appearance do not gel witht the reality.
Not everybody is tall and long-limbed. Some are short and squat. The latter group wears their muscle differently than the former.
Those ladies as they cruise by me chatting easily at every race, annoy the crap out of me. They don’t “look” like they should be able to do what they are doing. They “look” like they’ve spent too much time at the donut shop.
They will never be thin or even average looking in girth, but the last thing they need to do is consume less calories than they expend.
Just because you don’t appear to be fat doesn’t mean you are healthy or have a pass to eat donuts.
I have seen people who are “thin” because they are basically bone and fat. There’s no muscle. These people are not fit.
Yet, take a fit muscular person and apply the same amount or percentage of body fat onto their frame as the thin/fat person and this person will appear large or obese.