Only in America would people be mocked and laughed at becaues they are overweight. I realize we are not in other countries, but you know, having food is very important to those starving people.
My BF is 6’3 and weighs about 220. I think he looks great. He’s kinda got a pot belly, but the rest of him is muscular from working all day. He thinks he’s fat. Go figure.
I used “metabolism” as a catchall term, not in reference to the exact chemical burn rate (which is only part of the picture).
Different people DO react differently to the same diet for a variety of reasons including:
A) Some people tend to expend more energy when more calories are consumed, whereas other people’s bodies tend to pack those calories away. If two people each consume a half-pound of sugar, you may see one fidgeting and bouncing off the walls while the other feels sluggish and gains weight. I think it is a bit simplistic to attribute the latter to laziness.
B) It’s much harder to lose weight once you have it. A skinny body is less likely to store extra calories than to use them. The dieter’s body has plenty of vacant fat cells waiting for occupancy.
If someone gains a lot of weight in puberty, she’s likely to have a hard time losing it later, even if she follows the same diet as a skinnier friend. Her body wants to store extra calories instead of producing spare energy, so whether she eats less or exercises more, she’s likely to feel much more tired – something that’s very hard to deal with when the rest of her life (work, kids, etc.) is moving at warp speed.
Now none of this is meant to suggest that being fat is healthy. However, it’s insulting to insist that someone could lose the weight very easily if she tried (just by eating less and exercising). Fat bodies often resist that and make life hell for the dieters – who don’t always have the energy to deal with it at that particular point in their lives.
And of course, second-guessing their decisions does NOT help in the slightest. Dieting requires a lot of energy and will, both of which are sapped by all the added pressure and negative commentary.
I don’t think the cruel treatment of some fat people is being explained here…in case you weren’t aware, QuickSilver…
It isn’t enough for many people to just constantly remind someone that they are fat - often a stranger will approach a fat person (especially a woman) and make “moo” sounds. I remember times when I was younger, dreading walking down the street, because of the harrassing comments I’d hear from passing cars. And do we need to go into the “No Fat Chicks” bumper stickers? (Or my personal favorite - “Save a whale - harpoon a fat chick”.)
Considering the living hell some fat people endure from people around them, if it were that easy to shed the pounds, don’t you think they’d be doing it? The crap some fat people endure is amazing. Maybe it’s a regional thing - my friends from other parts of the country have a hard time believing I was treated as bad as I was because I was fat. But I was. And, coincidentally, I am from the San Fernando Valley, not too far from the “real” Hollywood. Being fat isn’t just an undesirable, unhealthy thing in L.A. - it almost makes you a leper in some circles. Strangers feel entitled to tell you how ugly and fat you are. How is this “healthy”? And, is it hard to believe that some young people would rather be starving and anorexic than to be considered a virtual “leper” by being fat?
[QUOTE]
**
Let’s start with professional atheletes.
OK…
I must admit, I had that dream. I’ve skied against some of the best skiers in Canada. A few of them were good enough to eventually join the Olympic team. I was never much of a threat to them - much as I tried. As a result, my knees are shot. My back was out for a year after a particularly nasty fall.
I’m sorry about your knees and your back :(.
Perhaps we should not hold these folks up as an ideal? It’s a dangerous thing they do. No doubt, it’s a huge risk to their health and not a few have met with tragedy over the years. Same goes for almost any sport (except maybe bowling, curling, golf, etc…)
I’ve been an assitant to a horse trainer for three years now, and I would say that holding up athletes who particiapte in the more dangerous sports should NOT be held up as ideals. I would not forbid my child (if I had one) to help break horses, but I wouldn’t be thrilled either. I can also say from experience that “idealizing” something like these kinds of sports is dangerous simply because you get folks who say “that looks easy”, and then they try, often with disasterous consequences. I think the same can be said of someone my size (5"2 and 145lbs) trying to look like Callista Flockheart.
I first started to become overweight when I was an 8-and-a-half year old boy. I turned to food as a substitute for social contact. I acquired a pot belly within a year of this, and it has been with me ever since. (“It’s not fair,” I am sometimes heard to lament, “I have a beer belly and I don’t even drink beer!”)
Many years later, at age 25, after one failed diet forced on me by my dad and a couple of later failed diets I’d imposed on myself, I was 6’0" and weighed in the 200-210 pound range. I decided to give dieting another try and THIS time make it work, really really for sure. I joined Weight Watchers [TM]. I got down to my Goal Weight [TM] of 167 pounds and continued all the way down to 158 pounds before the Weight Watchers [TM] lady ordered me to stop. And even then, at 9 pounds under my Goal Weight [TM], I still had the pot belly! Gah! What, do I have to do 200 sit-ups a day, too? I can barely do 10 without collapsing with fatigue! Okay, I figured, forget the pot belly. You’re stuck with it for the time being. Just concentrate on maintaining your Goal Weight [TM] for now.
Well, it didn’t work. When I was losing weight, I had a goal to shoot for. When I was maintaining this goal, there was no “reward” to go after. Every Weight Watchers [TM] meeting I went to focused on getting to your Goal Weight [TM]; only token lip-service was paid to the far-more-daunting task of staying at your Goal Weight [TM]. I fell off the wagon, and resumed my old unregimented eating habits again. And when my weight finally stabilized, I now weighed in the 240-245 pound range. Now, there may have been factors other than my stint with Weight Watchers that caused my weight to stabilize way up in the 240 range, but deep down I was sure, absolutely sure, that dieting had caused me to gain 35 pounds!
My weight has remained in the 240-245 range ever since then, until about a year ago when it shot up to 260-265. (I blame this last weight gain on my giving up chasing after women; it was April 1999 when I read that the Silicon Valley, where I live, has a far higher male population than a female one.) Lemme tell you, it ain’t no fun being 100 pounds overweight. It’s a challenge to put on your own shoes. It’s hard to get up wehn you’re lying in bed or sitting back on the couch. All that youthful energy you once had, even when you were only 20 pounds lighter, seems to have left you. Your motivation for facing new challenges has flown the coop, too. … Hmmm … I wonder if I should start taking Prozac.
(Hey, loss of appetite is supposed to be one of the possible side effects of Prozac. Hmmm …)
QuickSilver:
Conspiracy schmiracy, it’s simply good business practice: if what’s marketed as the ideal is closer to an extreme than to the average, more people will feel somewhat dissatisfied with themselves in comparison to that ideal. And dissatisfied people will spend more money than contented ones in order to fix their perceived problems. Diets, diet foods, clothes, makeup, beauty care, exercise equipment: people who are anxious about their appearance tend to spend a lot more money on all those things than people who are relaxed about it. And that’s a big advertising dollar to compete for! Nope, underweight is going to remain the entertainment industry’s standard, even if it’s not quite optimal for health or beauty, because that’s what will goad more of us into consuming more stuff, and that’s what it’s all about.
Kimstu
who really does need to lose ten pounds…
There is an underlying current on this thread. There seems to be this idea floating around here that since being thin is desirable both for health and cosmetic reasons, then it’s O.K. to not only promote an unhealthy esthetic, but to make sure fat people know how unattractive and unhealthy they are.
It’s one of the last remaining prejudices that can be voiced with almost no opposition. Fat people are lazy. Fat people should stay home and relieve all skinny people from the tedium of having to look at them. All a fat person has to do is eat what I eat, look at me, I’m not a big fat cow. Look at that fat person what a weak-willed, pathetic loser.
QuickSilver, the reason you got “jumped on” as you put it, is because you are couching your prejudice into concerns about health. I and everyone else who has been reading your posts can see right through it. And believe me Quick, if my fat ass really jumped on you, you’d remember it.
BigGirl -
Now let me respond in kind. If you’ve been reading my posts carefully you’d have noted that I too have been struggling with my weight my entire life. No it hasn’t been that extra 5 pounds in my love-handles. It’s been a constant and daily struggle to keep from becoming 70 to 100lb overweight. I know I have that potential. I know because I have been 70 pounds over my desired weight. I am now just 20lb from that goal and I have every intention of getting there and staying there. For you to classify me as unsympathetic or calous towards overweight people is grossly unfair. I don’t know how you managed to read any ill will or malice between the lines of my posts. But so be it.
Now let me tell you what I found to be the underlying thread in this topic. People struggling with a weight problem think that:
a) It’s easy for the non overweight to stay in shape
b) Weight loss and fitness should be as easy for overweight people as it appears to be for those that are fit.
Wrong on both counts. No-body ever said that weight loss was easy. No-body ever claimed that keeping it off would be simple. Do you think it’s easy for even the skinniest of people to control their hunger or cravings? Who said that a thin person has an easier time of saying no to a slice of a meat lovers’ pizza than an obese person?
Let me use Tracer’s post as an example:
In a word… yes! Yes you are supposed to do 200 situps a day too! Yes, simply eating better is not enough. Yes, exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Yes, it’s hard to discipline one self to diet and exercise on a regular and perpetual basis. No, it should not be viewed as a form of punishment.
As a personal note to Tracer - Dude… I’m sorry you fell off the wagon. I’m sorry you feel like hell right now. But you did it before and if you put your mind to it, you can do it again.
So you see BigGirl, fat people make the same incorrect assumptions about fit people and their lifestyles. They think that being fit is easy and comes to all fit people naturally. They think that a healthy lifestyle requires no thought or concious effort. They assume, while wallowing in self pitty, that no amount of diet and exercise will help them achieve their goal. I know how comforting it is to believe that - I used to think that myself. What a perfect excuse for not doing anything about one’s extra weight.
…and as for your fat ass jumping on me… well, you’ll have to get it off the couch first and catch me! 
… kidding, alright… kidding!
Nobody has mentioned a key factor 9in my opinion) as to why so many people are overweight-that is the American attitude toward food. Besides the fact that we are a largely sedentary society, we have relegated eating to a rushed activity. We have large numbers of fast food joints-each one dispensing foods high in fat, salt, sugar, and devoid of nourishment (or good taste). I deriously doubt that people would consume this crap if they had a better alternative-but people have no time to make good meals at home. My GF’s sister babysits for some yuppie career women-they bring their kids McDonalds stuff (no time to cook). Clearly, if you are working 80-hour weeks, it is easiest to drive down to the golden arches-but this stuff is really the root of obesity!
Time to weigh back in on this one. (Ha!) No, I don’t assume exercising is easy for people that are at the proper weight. My mother is at the “correct” weight for her height, and has a hard time exercising. BUT! It is STILL easier for her to get up and exercise for an hour than it is for me. You know why? Because I carry around over 150 more pounds than her. Which is harder to begin with. You try running with that much weight on you. I get out of breath after 20 minutes. Exercise for an hour a day? Not bloody likely. I have to split it up into two sessions, or I would get a heartattack. (I’m not kidding on that one either.)
Also, you accuse Biggirl of reading into your posts (which apparently everyone here has done, since most of us have posted the same general thoughts), and then read into hers. I don’t see ANY of us saying that “a healthy lifestyle requires no thought or concious effort.” Bull! I know that it takes a TON of effort, and I would guess the same goes for every person who has posted here. It’s an effort I will be making for the rest of my life. And to say that we wallow in self-pity because no diet has ever helps us is rude. And condesending. No diet HAD ever helped me. Because I had other issues that I was masking with food. Depression, for one. And an eating disorder.
One would expect more compassion from you, seeing as you claim to have lost a lot of weight. Then again, who knows. I have a gut feeling we’ve been around the block on this topic before with you. I don’t need your compassion, your pity, or anything. I’m sure you see me walking down the street and think how lazy I am to “let myself go.” But you know what? You saying that does me, or anyone on this thread any good. You think we don’t KNOW that? You think it’s easy to look at EVERY model and actor and see that Kate Winslet is called fat, when she’s a lovely woman? How do you think that makes us feel? Or do you even care.
I’m sure you’ll say that when I’m at my goal weight, because it’s over the “correct” weight for my height. (I’m 5’7", and I’m shooting for 165 pounds.) Why am I aiming for a higher weight? Because I know I can stay at that weight without being on a “diet” for the rest of my life. Which NO ONE should have to do. Work on eating healthily. The rest will come.
QuickSilver wrote:
I know I can lose the weight again. Losing weight is relatively easy. The problem keeping it off. Every time I impose an eating regimen, I eventually fall off the wagon – and every time I fall off the wagon, I end up heavier than when I started. The last time I fell off the wagon, I gained a net 35 pounds. If that happens again, instead of being 265 pounds like I am now, I’ll be 300 pounds, and that much closer to clogged arteries and adult-onset diabetes.
Luckily, I’ve traditionally had a superb cholesterol metabolism, and as far as I know my LDL cholesterol is still in the lower part of the “normal” range. But I doubt even a body that can have normal cholesterol at 265 pounds could hold out at 300 pounds.
Incidentally, one reason I’m overweight is that I don’t eat vegetables or fruits. At all. I’m a complete vegephobe. I’ll eat grains and grain products, like rice and wheat and oats and corn-that’s-not-on-the-cob, and I’ll eat meat and meat products, and I’ll even do mashed potatoes, but forget about getting me anywhere near a salad <cringe>.
After reading (and reading and reading) this thread I have only one thing to ask.
Why can’t society as a whole, leave “fat” people alone?
Don’t people realize that we have doctors to frown at us when we step on a scale? We have commercials touting every diet fad from here to Timbuktu and every possible piece of exercise equipment to go with them? The only radio station I can get in my cubicle has DJs paid to give hourly “testamonials” about how much weight they’ve lost on a particular diet pill. Between the images on TV and those in the magizines, is it any wonder that being overwieght is seen as such a negative thing?
I am overweight. There, I’ve said it. Deal with it. I’m overweight for two major reasons and they ARE NOT lack of exercise or bad nutrition. My reasons are depression and thyroid imbalance. When I’m depressed, I eat. I still have the presence of mind to grab fruit instead of chocolate but even too much of a good thing will gain pounds. Plus I have an under-active thyroid. That chemical imbalance makes it nearly impossible to lose weight. My last diet had me nearly starving myself for a month. My reward? 5lbs dropped. NOT worth it.
The point of this rather rambling post is this. I doubt there is anyone out there who is 200+ pounds and DOESN’T know that they’re overweight. We know it. We are trying to do something about it. Leave us alone, already.
BTW: My current role model is Elle, the host of E!'s Fashion Emergency show. Now there’s a large lady who’s beautiful and knows it.
Chrisbar
I assume you’ve tried iodine supplements to at the thyroid problem, then.
BTW, why don’t any links to the 2nd page of this thread show up?
Ah! That’s better. I guess the thread just needed a little coaxing.
Jeez, get off of the guy’s ass. In the OP he made a fair observation, right or wrong, and you guys have all just jumped on his ass with both feet. While his OP is a little bit blunt, the logic is there - the government has all kinds of rules about smoking and drinking on television, ostensibly to try and reduce the prevalence of such unhealthy activities - so what’s the difference with fat people? If being overweight is bad for you, then the same logic says that the absence of fat people on television should be having a positive effect…
I have to disagree with all of you about how “hard” it is to lose weight. If you really, really, really want to lose weight, you can do it. I’ve done it. I am 6-3 and played college football at around 300. I got out of school and quit exercising everyday and BOOM! I was up to about 330 in a matter of months. So I started exercising again and got back down to about 270. About 3 years ago I decided that I was tired of having a belly and rolls of fat under my arms, so I resolved to do it. And now I’m down to about 220 and look and feel great. I have a large frame (I still wear a size 52 coat) and I have a small little paunch to my belly, but I don’t consider myself fat anymore. And it’s not hard to stay there either - I gave up a lot of unhealthy eating habits and made exercise a regular part of my day. I don’t eat meat, I eat a lot of vegetables and fruit every day, and I run on the treadmill. Sure it’s hard - I go to a barbecue and the steaks and the chicken smell great - and the potato salad and ice cream look awesome - but I also know that such foods are bad for my health - including my weight - and I have the willpower to stay away from them. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible, either.
It’s quite simple, really - it’s all chemistry. Your body is like a machine - it needs fuel to operate. If you put in more fuel than is necessary, it is stored away. If you don’t want it stored, then you need to either put in less fuel or use more of it. That’s it. If the number of calories you bring in exceeds the number of calories you burn, you gain weight. If the number of calories you bring in is less than the number of calories you burn, you lose weight. If they’re equal, you stay the same. The body eventually finds an equilibrium weight based on your normal eating and activity levels. And if you’re gonna be sedentary for most of the day, you can’t have a net intake of calories and keep a lower weight. Period. You might feel hungry late at night, but you don’t need to eat. Yes, you need a quick lunch, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a burger and fries. I don’t understand why this is so hard to some people.
I don’t want to get into the arena of whether fat people are just lazy or can’t help it, but I will simply say that I’m on the side of making the choices. You have to find time to exercise and you have to make the right choices about your diet. I mean also pisses me off to hear people bitch about their weight and then see the hoards of people -with big 'ole flabby bellys hanging over their waistbands - standing in Wendy’s line in the food court during lunch. Jeez, have a little pride and little common sense. Small stuff like that makes all the difference… You know what? There’s a subway right next door that makes a delicious turkey (or veggie) sub for about the same price with half as many calories and about 90% less fat. Common sense. Drink water instead of a soda. Common sense.
And I’m also not saying that Courtney Cox et al are healthy, either. They’re probably at the low end of the spectrum, but I think that being slightly thinner than the optimum weight is still more healthy than being overweight by a larger margin. Yes, the Roman and Greek statues are all plump, but very few have rolled over love handles and big plump thighs. There is a difference between being overweight and being obese.
OK - I am flaming a lot more than I planned to, but there goes. I couldn’t stand to see the poor guy getting hammered without offering a defense.
Hmm I see alot of people using target weights. Well if you start excercising you should gain weight. Because muscle weighs more than fat.
If you’ve ever been to other countrys youd know that no other country has fat people like America does. Diets wont help you do anything except lose weight and the weight you lose will be muscle.
Additude is everything, not thyroid problems or whatever(unless they affect additude:)). Excercise isint that important either, moving around all day with more energy is.
.
i hope i dont post this twice:)
The OP wasn’t just about how fat was unhealthy, it was about how HOLLYWOOD was projecting a somehow “healthy” message by showing us this super-thin ideal. And that is what is getting us up in arms.
Want to inspire people to lose weight, be more healthy? Fine. But to make them feel like lepers, to make them want to starve, to look the other way when some jerks harrass and insult a fat person, that is NOT healthy. And that is a lot of what Hollywood (and these fashion mags) are responsible for. The little bit of supposed “good” it does by making people aware that fat is bad is overshadowed by the unhealthy too-thin attitude it also conveys. (Plus, do we need Hollywood to tell us fat is bad? Isn’t that what doctors are for, and our mirrors and scales?)
Hey, when people can write articles and say publicly that Kate Winslet is fat, (and that girl from “Third Rock from the Sun” - can’t remember her name - Kirstin something?) than that is sick. That is unhealthy, and wrong. To think that these lovely women have to defend their weight, and be considered “large” is sick. But that is a major issue here. It’s warped to think that the miniscule bit of “good” that Hollywood might do is anything compared to all the bad has done in this area.
Asmodean wrote:
C6H12O6 + 6 O2 --> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O
And guess where the C6H12O6 comes from!
Cite? This is a pretty extraordinary claim.
johnny:
Hardly. Amidst the maelstrom of emotion, we also pretty much sliced, diced, and dismantled QuickSilver’s argument, such as it was.
And if you really, really want to earn a Ph.D. in math, you can do it. I’ve done it.
It’s common to feel at one time or another that we’re either completely and remarkably unique in some way, or that our experience is wonderfully representative and emblematic of human experience in general. Regardless of which illusion has us in its sway, we’re usually wrong. This is an example of the latter. Absent some strong supporting evidence, there’s no reason to believe such a claim simply because it’s asserted.
I believe we’ve dealt with this somewhere above.
Hey, I’m on the side of making choices, too, rather than being roped into the non-choice of putting one’s weight at the top of the to-do list by every health vigilante that pops out of nowhere with a ‘why don’t you lose some weight’ line. As others have said, ‘yeah, like I didn’t know I was fat’.
You don’t know the choices that are facing a person at any given time. One can really only deal with a handful of major issues at once with any sort of energy and tenacity. Doing something about one’s weight can’t always be in the short list. When life blind-sides us in the ways it does, often the weight issue either gets pushed too far down the list, or doesn’t seem important at all. But you don’t see that the overweight person you’re looking at has all of a sudden developed panic attacks, and has no idea what’s happening to them. You don’t see the person whose brother killed himself last month. You don’t see the person who’s putting in such long hours on the job that they barely have the energy to go through the drive-through. You just see their weight.
Yup, that’s a flame, alright.
To get back to what people have been saying in this this thread since the beginning, overweight people would bitch a lot less about their weight if the rest of the world didn’t constantly make it an issue for them. Then they wouldn’t have to piss you off so much.
And then they’d be able to deal with their weight in their own way, at their own time, as a health issue, rather than being perpetually tired of being made to feel like shitty human beings because of their extra weight.
RT, I think I love you.
But in all seriousness…thank you for pointing out that there are only a few things a person can deal with at once. Until about…3 months ago, I was battling depression with everything I had. Now that that’s (somewhat) better, I’m moving on to my weight. Because of that, and the work I need to do on it, I’m not applying to grad school. It’s all a chain, folks. Ya work on one link at a time.
As so many of us have said…we know we’re overweight. Quit freaking rubbing it in. You think it helps? In my case, people telling me I was overweight made me depressed as hell, which actually made me eat MORE. I would imagine that’s not that uncommon a response.