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And for the record, I say only those who have absolutely never failed to keep themselves perfect in every way can afford to feel disdain for any other human being.
It’s not a “saying,” it’s a sentence I wrote. You obviously aren’t bright enough to grasp the concept of “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” “judge not lest ye be judged,” etc. Maybe you need to read more books, or hang out with people of more depth and intelligence than yourself. They shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Operating on the knowledge that stupidity is a contagious disease Scylla, I’m not going to bother responding to your posts in the future. I don’t want to catch what you have.
I haven’t read further than this, but someone, in fact many someones MUST have come down on you with both feet and a sledgehammer for this astonishingly ludicrous, ignorant, and entirely foolish assertion.
It is jaw-droppingly clueless, really it is. Just stunning. Mind-boggling. Wow. I’m in awe.
Thanks, Biggirl. I just didn’t have the strength. Scylla STILL doesn’t even see the fundamental arrogance in his statements, which he just piles one on the other… amazing.
Although I have to say this: Scylla, and others who think and speak as he does, and those who are much worse, do not hurt me anymore. They annoy me, they disgust me, they repel and irritate me, but that is purely because of what they reveal about themselves with their words and attitudes, not because they are revealing a single thing about me. It only hurt when I believed as they do about myself. I know my own worth now. And I know that my value is not lessened by the amount of fat on my body.
Yeah, I have to agree. I don’t understand all this contemplation over who makes better lovers. I think the original complaint was that there are nasty stereotypes. So someone replied by discussing those stereotypes like they were facts.
Men actually still approached me when I was overweight. I was the same person, and thus the same lover, then as I am now. Duh.
It occurs that we may be talking around each other.
The “fat” that I am talking about here, is not the person who could stand to lose a few pounds. I am talking about a seriously obese person.
Sexywriter talks about going to a gym, and developing strength and stamina, but not being skinny. Being skinny is current body fashion, and not necessarily what’s best for everybody. Probably the best conclusion that could be drawn about somebody who is healthy and happy but doesn’t conform to today’s unrealistic body standard, is that their smart and confident enough not to worry about nonsense.
Now that I’m 33 I don’t have washboard abs and truth be told , it’s possible that there might be some extra flesh hanging over my waistband. Right now though I am stronger, can run faster and farther then when I was 21. Having a really cut abdomen might be nice, but when measured against the amount of work and time it would take to get it, it seems an unnecessary vanity. I don’t bother. Truth be told, being that skinny might not be healthy for me.
I stand behind my original statment that somebody who is unnecessarily and seriously overweight has exercised poor judgement in becoming that way, and that I personally don’t think much of their choice.
Wrong. I quit smoking 6 months ago, after 26 years of two packs a day. I pretty much never think about it, except to marvel at the fact that I did it and I’m not a smoker any longer. I don’t have to smoke, I am not around smoke, and I can create my life so that I never am.
This is nothing like obesity, which involves regulating food intake one way or another. I MUST eat. I MUST eat every single day, best if I do so several times. I can GUARANTEE you that if I ** had ** to smoke ** one ** cigarette per day, it wouldn’t be long before I was smoking 20. Yet I’m still fat. If the two are equal, how can this possibly be?!?
This is the chasm between food addiction and all other addictions. No one requires pot, pills, heroin, coke, booze or cigarettes to go on living. All of them can be completely stopped forever. Obviously untrue of food. And almost no addict would be able to control their addiction if they were compelled to take in their substance on a regular basis for the rest of their lives, without overdoing it. I’d stake my life on that claim.
Hmmm… let’s see. Are you without personal flaw, Scylla? You don’t need to answer that, because I can answer it for you, from my own observation: not even close. Therefore, who are you, or anyone else, to be passing judgment on the crosses I or any other fat person has to bear and challenges we face? The fact is that our challenge is readily apparent to anyone who is not blind, and that is the only difference between us and the rest of the world. Yet the rest of the world, you emphatically included, speak as though you have some sort of right to judge us and expect us to be our strongest, most focused, disciplined, healthy (mentally as well as physically), well-adjusted selves…simply because you can ** see ** our challenge. And if we fail to be the best we can be, you all seem to suffer from the delusional belief that this gives you the right to dismiss us as somehow less worthy than people who don’t have visible challenges they have failed to meet. Others think that our obvious failure to rise to our own challenges gives them the right to conclude all kinds of unpleasant things about us: that we are stupid, lazy, smelly, gluttonous, etc, and treat us unkindly as a result.
You also keep equating being fat with having an unkempt home. WRONG. It is reasonable to equate being a dirty slob with having an unkempt home. But being fat is NOT THE SAME AS BEING A DIRTY SLOB. That would be a “stereotype”, something this thread is trying to address, HELLO.
More not true. Fat is metabolically inert. I probably outweigh you by 100 pounds or more, yet you probably burn twice the calories I do when we are both sleeping. Maybe three or four times as many.
Maybe if “who they are as a person” = “how easily or determinedly they diet and exercise”, which really isn’t so for most people. Most people, at least they ones I know, look to other qualities to determine “who” a person is. Are they intelligent? Do they seek to educate themselves about a wide variety of things? Are they kind? Open-minded? Compassionate? Understanding? Do they like to laugh? Are they a good person who chooses to do the right thing? Selfish? Mean? Arrogant? Do they know how to take pleasure in life, be grateful? Etc. etc.
But hey, if YOU determine “who” people are based on their ability to diet and exercise themselves to a thin body, that’s fine, that’s your value system. And it says the world about who you are as a person.
Not that it matters, (I don’t think this post was really directed at me specifically, I just like to talk about my progress) but I am talking about being pretty damn heavy. When I started my fitness freak out I was about 270 pounds. I’m 5’3". I was a size 24 or 26.
And to clarify the point I made earlier, when I got DOWN to 200 pounds I already had the same stamina and MORE strength than many of the others in my aerobics class. But of course…that didn’t keep some of them from looking down their noses at me as I tried to put my weight more in line with “normal.” THAT was my point. You can have “more than a few pounds” to lose and still not fit into those “lazy, slothful, poor self-esteem” stereotypes. And who defines “more than a few”? Who decides when it’s acceptable for you to be treated like a person and not a size?
When I encountered those assholes in the gym, it was a heart-wrenching struggle for me to see them as assholes. I went home from the health club crying every day for weeks, trying desperately to convince myself that I had every right to be there and attempting not to internalize someone else’s opinion. But since I was already uncomfortable in my skin, this was a very difficult task. I very much enjoy(ed) step aerobics, kick boxing classes, etc. but was nearly chased out of them by people with the attitude that it was okay to treat me as someone who didn’t have the same emotions of a fit person. Why anyone would believe your feelings are inversely proportional to your size is beyond me.
Now I weigh 132 pounds. Not “skinny”…and I have no goal to be that way. It doesn’t really interest me. I was built with tits and I’d like to keep it that way. Though I DO still have other fitness goals. And, while this is a gross generalization, I am still the same person I was when I was twice the size. I still have the same feelings. It’s been an interesting experience to see what how people treat you on both ends of the spectrum. I still get disgusted when people make disparaging remarks about how I used to be. “Wow, you were HUGE,” etc.
It gave me a better appreciation for being open-minded about someone’s reasons for being the way they are. And of course, for the fact that they don’t NEED a reason. It taught me not to be arrogant or ignorant about having the privilege of being treated like an attractive person. I learned more about my other sources of worth and value aside from my appearance.
And no, just for the record, I don’t think every overweight person needs to do what I did in order to “gain respect” from ANYONE. I did it because I was unhappy with myself. I only mention my experience in making those changes because I thought it was pertinent to the topic of not assuming things about people because of their size.
Finally! A little understanding about the “food as addiction” issue! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
This is also why people who are desperate to change their bodies end up starving themselves. It is MUCH easier for me (still) to not eat at all than it is for me to sit down to a meal and only eat a little. Of course, it’s not a logical, intelligent decision to fast. But that’s exactly my point…people are generally smart enough to KNOW this intellectually, but it’s the emotional areas that are more difficult to deal with. And saying that a person has “chosen” to look this way is very short-sighted. Considering them inferior for having done so is even more so.
And most people who are extremely obese are victims of this phenomenon. Which, if you look a the big picture, tells us that most extremely fat people have spent a great deal of time and energy suffering to be thin in this life. But not enough to earn your respect…that only comes with success. Trying and failing isnt’ good enough. More information to take into consideration when the rest of us are deciding “what kind of person” Scylla is.
Have you been lying all this time just to toy with us?
Hmmm. Sounds quite a bit different than the rest of what you’ve been saying.
Let me just put this to you:
You’ve admitted that genetic factors play a role in who gets fat. Yet you still insist on judging all kinds of things based on somebody’s ability to * overcome* their genetic baggage. What about intelligence? What if someone is born with a really low capacity for learning. They try and try, they study and study, they WANT to be smart, they WANT to know and understand things better, they WANT WANT WANT it….but it doesn’t matter. Their brain is programmed for a certain maximum level of ability, and that’s it. They can do no better. They are genetically programmed to be stupid.
Do you assume they are lazy, because anyone so stupid couldn’t possibly have tried to be smarter? Are they just insensitive jerks because in their lack of intelligence they just blurt out what comes into their heads and fail to understand the nuances of social intercourse? Do you figure they deserve to be poor because being so stupid they can’t earn better than a meager living?
God, I just re-read this post and I can’t believe how over-simplified and narrow-minded this is. “Exercised poor judgement”? You make it sound like a person sits down and DECIDES to be overweight? “Gosh, I have nothing else to do today, I think I’ll eat myself into oblivion! What fun!”
This is NOT what happens. What happens is that a person has problems that make them unaware that they’ve MADE such a decision. In my case, I shut myself in my home, gave myself no social outlets, lost interest in physical activity, used food for comfort, etc. I didn’t realize the physical affect it was having on me until it was too late. And once it’s “too late” the struggle is infinitely more difficult.
You “don’t think much of their choice”? Well, I don’t think much of the way you refuse to consider that it might not just be a matter of making a simple decision. You seem like SUCH a smart man…such a good writer and so witty. I don’t understand why you can’t understand how there can be complex factors involved in weight gain that mean that it’s not simple matter of making a clear “choice.” Yes…it IS ultimately everyone’s responsibility to take care of themselves. But there are complex reasons why that might be difficult or impossible for them at some points in their life.
God, this is a frustrating conversation!!! Why do I feel like I’m not making myself clear?
You are making yourself perfectly clear. It’s just that Scylla is on a position of judgment about fat people, and he has no intention of getting off of it.
I suspect, from what he says, that he is like many people: he does not have any significant challenges with food or weight, so he really has no clue what that’s like. But he knows two things: when he gains a few pounds, he can do what it takes to drop it, and he knows that he finds fat very unattractive.
I’m sorry that people at your club were such assholes. It wasn’t that way at my local Y. I know of and participated in several instances of encouragement. I truly wish you’d had a positive experience.
I am well aware of how complex a scenario can be, and how difficult it can be to change behavior.
I smoked for ten years, and quitting was one of the most difficult things I ever did. I tried a whole bunch of times, and rationalized, etc. There were always lots of reasons not to quit smoking. What finally made me quit was when my wife got pregnant. I wanted to be around and active to see my grandchildren.
At that point, I made a nonnegotiable and absolute choice not to smoke.
The point is that every instance is complicated for every person involved. Yet, when all is said and done, it comes down to a simple decision. A choice, and the will to make it stick.
Sometimes the best way to look at these things is simplistically. Cut through the gordian knot, and reach the bottom line.
I would not presume to judge your personal circumstances, or the reasons why you were overwieght. For all I know, a lesser person might have crumpled irreparably under what merely caused you to put on weight.
However, at some point you must have decided that enough is enough. Things have to change. You had the perception to see it, and the strength of character to follow through.
Some people find neither. Some people are not capable of such a thing. Some just haven’t, yet. Maybe others would with a friendly and supportive boost.
I keep coming back to smoking as an example, and nobody addresses it.
Smoking is a stupid choice, that requires strength and difficult choices to overcome. In light of the overwhelming evidence that smoking is terribly unhealthy, those that continue to do so are acting foolishly. I think little of their choice, and it reflects poorly on them that they have made it.
How is this different from somebody who is unnecessarily significantly overweight?
Someone did address this actually. You must have missed it. The fact is, you don’t need cigarettes to remain living. You can escape from them and never have to look back. Not that it’s easy to do, but once you put them down you don’t have to have one a day. Or one three times a day as with meals.
Food, on the other hand, is a different story. You must eat to survive. I suggested that this conundrum is why so many people “foolishly starve themselves” as you put it in another post. It’s not that these people are foolish dolts, but rather that they find it much easier to not eat at ALL rather than eating only a small amount. The same way you find it easier to not smoke at all than to have a toke now and then. It can also be because they see food as the enemy, because it makes them feel guilty when they eat, and numerous other reasons.
Should you be put in a position where you are forced to have a cigarette a few times a day, you’d be addicted again in a hurry. Similarly, an alcoholic who has to have a drink now and then would be hosed. I am never able to completely rid myself of dealing with food.
Also, cigarettes don’t affect your physical appearance in the same way that food does. They don’t put you into a downward spiral whereby the more you eat out of depression, the worse you look, the more you eat out of depression, the worse you look, and so on. Similarly, if you don’t have a cigarette in your hand, no one makes assumptions about you based on your “smoking status.” Whereas a fat person, even in a HEALTH club has to put up with other peoples’ stupidity.
Other reasons this isn’t a valid comparison? Once you’re past the nicotine withdrawal, your body doesn’t fight to hold on to excess smoke the way mine reluctantly gave up fat. Basically, this analogy isn’t much better than the “house cleaning” one. Someone had some good comments to make about it…you should go back and see if you can find them.
Actually, I think the analogy is still good. I have to deal with my smoking friends all the time, and let me tell you, every whiff brings it all back. So it is a continuing struggle.
Quitting smoking altogether was a lot harder than simply reducing my intake to 3-4 cigarettes a day.
You can still eat food. Giving up cigarettes is like saying goodbye forever to a great friend.
I could argue that losing weight then is no more difficult than switching from Marlboro to Merit Ultra lights, or that maybe quitting smoking is harder because of the physical addiction.
But I won’t.
In both processes it’s a matter of changing one’s psychology and habits. Both can be excruciatingly difficult.
Do you wish to suggest that losing weight is more difficult than quitting smoking?
When I quit, I thought about cigarettes a lot. There are lots of reasons to fail. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin. The need to smoke is like the need to drink water, a constant thirst. When you try to quit, your body punishes you. You get a constant headache, you sweat, you feel nauseas and weak, and the craving is constant and worse than hunger, (IMO) I had a job and a life to live. I couldn’t afford to be at less than 100%. I needed a cigarette.
You’ve posted a lot of good reasons why somebody should, or might fail in a diet, or remain significantly overweight. Any of those things could be used as a rationalization or an excuse.
Yes, it is really fucking tough. I agree. Stop telling me that I don’t understand.
There is no escaping the very simple bottom line that one either does it, or doesn’t, and all the excuses and rationalizations don’t mean squat if you don’t.
If one fails at an attempt, are they a lesser person? No.
If they work to understand their failing and do better next time they are a better person for it.
If they make excuses and rationalization for their failure, than yes, they are the lesser, but at least they tried.
If they put on blinders and never recognize that there’s a problem, than that’s even a worse.
Worse still, knowing there’s a problem, but refusing to address it.
Should such a person be mocked or demeaned? Of course not.
Who would you want holding the end of a rope you dangled from:
The person that makes excuses for their failing and blames the unfairness of life’s circumstances?
The one who grits their teeth and gives it their all?
Us fat folks have apparently gone from being simple slobs to being weak and undependable, likely to drop our friends off cliffs (should we ever find ourselves in such a position.)
Good heavens…how does anyone bear us at all? No wonder we are so despised! Apparently my inability to rid myself of these fleshy thighs in a timely manner is evidence for a character so feeble as to render me nearly unfit for human society…gosh, who knew?
I’ve been drinking a rather large quantity of sweet wine tonight so please bear with me. I, too, according to the weight charts am overweight. I always will be, if I take that much stock into those charts/graphs. As of late, I finally figured out what makes ME happy and it’s NOT a scale. If I look in the mirror and know I look sexy…I could give less than a rat’s ass if the typical 20 year old male thinks I am hot or not. Sexy and/or attractive is whole LOT more about attitude and you perceive yourself and hence carry yourself than the size you wear. I’ll never see a size 5 again unless I get chronically ill… and guess what? I’d rather be healthy! Besides, the average amle does seem to be impressed by cleavage/and or tits, and it’s up to genetics/chance or expensive so get those if you are bone thin!
:Sidenote, I have a vanity keychain that reads “Yes,This is What a Brick Shithouse Looks Like” and have been told I am far too skinny to be a brick shithouse…made me think, and appreciate!):
Some of us fat people don’t have unhealthy relationships with food. Some of us are just fat. Two of my great-grandmothers were as fat as I am. They lived until they were 89. My grandmothers are still alive, and healty. I am active and generally healthy. I do not have high blood pressure and I do not have high cholesterol. I do not have any health problems that have manifested themself after I became obese, by the medical definition of obese. I can not only touch my toes, but I can also palm the floor. I have terrific stamina in lovemaking, which I do daily.
I eat when I am hungry, and I do not eat more than my thinner friends and co-workers. I do not eat quicker than others, in fact I am often the last to finish even given the exact same meal. I do not eat because of emotional distress. I have nearly starved 3 times in my life. Once dieting following doctors orders and twice when I made decisions to pay bills rather than buy food. I know what hunger really is.
I am not unhappy with how I look. I dress neatly and attractively, and I take care of my self. My partners are pleased with my appearance. I can’t remember the last day that went by without someone telling me quite sincerely that I am beautiful.
I am intelligent and hardworking. I got through college, earned 2 degrees, all while living in poverty working 3 minimum wage jobs. I did not get help from my parents. I got through on scholarships and loans. I now hold a job with great responsibility and my judgement is valued.
People who make a judgement about me that I lack will power, am weak, or am lazy make a grave mistake. One that could cost them their job or many thousands of dollars in business.
I’ve just read through this entire thread, I have seen the numerous arguments on one side citing different reasons why one cannot lose weight, whether it be biological or environmental. On the other side, we have the argument that fatness is an indicator of a plethora of poor mental qualities, from weak-willedness to laziness. To Scylla, it seems that being obese is a “stupid choice.”
From reading all of this, it seems to me that the sides can be characterized as a cost/benefit type of problem. All of the people debating here place a different value on being obese, from what I have read. Some value activities with their family more than doing the exercise required to be thin. Others just have to give up too much in order to be thin, thus making the value of being obese greater than the value of being thin.
I think that some of you are missing the point here. You argue that the health benefits of being thin are positive as opposed to being obese. True. But, what are the costs to become thin? If those costs are greater than the value of being thin, as they obviously are for some people, then isn’t it wiser for some people to be obese, even though it does have its drawbacks?
To come back to the value question, it’s obviously Scylla’s point of view that the value of being thin is high. I tend to agree with him, but that is inconsequential. This can be looked at as any other value that any of us might hold. We accept that people have different values upon things, but I don’t believe that we should translate that onto the character of an entire person. To take the smoking example, I may disdain the activity of smoking, but I still value the person who smokes as a friend. I just wish they wouldn’t smoke.
Likewise for an obese friend. I may think it is unhealthy for them to be overweight, I may find it unattractive even, and I may wish for them to exercise to become thin. However, it doesn’t translate to the rest of their personality. Some of you are making a mistake; it’s not because obese people are weak-willed, lazy, etc… that makes them choose to remain obese. It will just cost them too much to become thin, and thus is more beneficial in the long run if they stay obese. It’s their choice, and I cannot know the values they place on things, nor should I judge them for what they choose.
My point, actually, was that it would be EASIER for most people to give up food entirely than to cut back to eating less. Your answer to that was the “marlboro to merit lights thing.” You’re suggesting that eating less or eating different things is a better option than not eating at all, based on the analogy that smoking different cigarettes would have been easier for you than smoking no cigarettes at all. But…umm…my point was that people with a food problem find this MORE difficult. That if I could give up food entirely, I wouldn’t have the same struggle that I do at LEAST three times a day.
I didn’t intend to suggest that losing weight is any more difficult than no longer smoking when you’re addicted. But it does seem with this analogy that you’re trying to suggest the opposite. The fact that “you can still eat food” does not make it easier. It makes it harder. It’s not the same as switching from Ben and Jerry’s to Edy’s Light. Switching from chocolate to celery is every bit as difficult as switching from cigarettes to celery.
You still have cravings when you have contact with your smoking friends? That blows. Seriously. How often do you see them? Once a week? Twice a week? Or do they come over and blow a puff in your face every morning when you get to work? Because you damn well better believe someone offers me a donut every morning (I’m going to kill that asshole, by the way). Does someone come around at lunch time to offer you another hit?
Actually, we have some common ground here. I believe people who are unhappy with themselves owe it to themselves to do something about it. Note that I said IF they’re unhappy. Learning to like yourself the way you are is also a valuable option. I mean, honestly…I think you’re a brilliant guy and I don’t mean to sound like I’m disparaging your opinion. My point wasn’t really that it’s not their responsibility if they should choose to change. But rather that it’s not up to you to decide based on physical size whether they’re capable of “holding the rope you’re dangling from” and treating them accordingly. As evidence for this, I’ve postulated that an overweight person could very well be doing everything they need to do to change. In fact, at 210 pounds…or even maybe 240…I was probably your better bet on that whole rope thing. You would have made the wrong decision. I hope those sharp pointy rocks didn’t hurt you TOO badly.