I was about twenty pounds overweight and what I saw in the mirror really bothered me. For over a year I tried hard to lose the excess poundage and absolutely nothing worked.
In July of last year I had a sudden onset of GERD - I lost forty pounds in two months.
All I was lacking was sufficient motivation.
Why does the fact that I judge someone based on choices they’ve made make me “ignorant”? What fact am I “ignorant” of?
"wasson is correct. [ :dubious: - rjk] Prejudice is a choice. And the fact of the matter is that a lot of people (me, for example) will assume a prejudiced person is lazy and/or unable to practice civilized behaviour. The people who make these assumptions are not going to change.
So if you’re prejudiced and you do not want people to assume you’re lazy and/or unable to practice civilized behaviour, then you should simply choose not to be prejudiced."
Sounds fair to me.
That will work fine. You go ahead and get a majority of people together who believe that people who are prejudiced against faat people are lazy and/or unable to practice civilized behavior. I think you’ll be waiting a long time to get a critical mass.
The milk of human kindness?
Sorry, but I am not going to go and pick out the numerous quotes that support this. I am surprised you missed it. The poster who struggles to keep his/her wieght below 200 and so gives up b/c it’s “too hard”; the other poster who claims to have persistent weight gain d/t previous surgery; the poster who cannot tolerate Optifast b/c of high cholesterol–Optifast is a crash diet: it’s not gong to work longterm. There are more. Every one of them deals with a “reason” to not eat moderately, exercise sensibly and NOT overindulge. And those reasons remind me of addicts reasons as to why they drink or drug–they can’t handle X and so need the “fix”. There is no personal agenda, in fact, I have been categorized as overweight at one time in my life. Ironically, I actually had hypothryoid. Strange, but taking thyroid replacement, eating sensibly and exercising—I am no longer overweight.
Many, many, many overweight people–IMO, the vast majority medicate themselves with food. They eat because they are anxious, sad, angry or even bored. They consistently over time, make poor choices in their intake and also live mostly sedentary lives. They find the closest parking space or get in the car to drive down the block etc. It all adds up and yes, small changes make a huge difference. Hell, everybody uses food as comfort etc at some time–it is the degree to which it is done that is the problem (that and some genetics, and the lack of activity).
Kimstu --I agree with you–hospitals and LTC facilities need to invest in heavy lifting equipment. I am just waiting for the first law suit claiming psychological/emotional trauma for being treated “inhumanely” on such a device. It’ll happen–so many of the family collude with and enable the MO. We do have Big Boy beds, thank God. But they don’t help with the lifting.
Several uses of “MO” in this thread, but no explanation of what it means. 
Oh-oops! sorry!
MO=morbid obesity.
A little more explanation about different types of obesity:
Mildly obese: 15% above ideal weight
Moderately obese: 30% above ideal weight
Morbidly obese: 80–100 lb. or more above ideal weight
The fact that all of those begin with “M” makes them kind of inconvenient for acronym use, but I guess healthcare people mostly talk about the “morbid” kind, so the expression “MO” isn’t ambiguous.
Civility and the respect for others that entails don’t depend on majority vote. Various kinds of bigotry were discussed above; does a majority vote make it right to oppress and abuse those of a particular race or religion? No. (Religion is a choice, isn’t it? Why not abuse Catholics or Jews?) Does a majority vote make it right to oppress and abuse those of a particular weight? No again.
And since there are people here who choose not to see that, I’m out of this thread.
I think we’re all guilty of being judgmental in this life. We all have internal prejudices that come from different sources, and that’s just part of being human. I know I’ve been judged because of my appearance, and also a variety of other things. I’ve come to expect it, even though I don’t always like it.
I’ll admit, I have a certain amount of disdain for obese people. Some of my friends are overweight, some of my co-workers are overweight, etc., but I would never ever say anything to them about it even though I feel like they should be doing something about their situation.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an overweight person tell me how “lucky” I am to be thin and in shape and that pisses me off. I have always been very conscious of my eating habits and my exercise regimen. If I didn’t do these things, I could very well be overweight. I see it as a choice. You can actively participate in your life and you do have control over your weight.
Yes, some people have slow metabolism or diseases that make them pre-destined for weight problems. But there are so many programs and options that these people can choose to help overcome their difficulty with obesity.
In my mind, I can’t help but wonder why obese people don’t make these choices and instead continue to be overweight, often bitching and moaning about it. I work with women who never pass up brownies and cookies or whatever other goodie is brought into the office. Then I overhear their conversations about how they “need to lose a few pounds,” etc. I can’t help but roll my eyes. They just don’t seem to get it.
Or maybe I just don’t get it. The only time I’ve been heavier is when I had a drinking problem for a couple of years and gained about 20 lbs. as a result. It took seeing pictures of myself from a friend’s wedding to wake me up and realize that I was not looking so hot. I immediately stopped drinking the Heinekens and got my ass on the treadmill and burned off the weight. I don’t see why others can’t do the same.
It’s hard to understand, and maybe that’s the root of it. I would never advocate making jokes at a fat person’s expense, or anyone else’s for that matter. But, in my head, certain thoughts occur. Does that make me evil? It’s hard for me to look at the girl in my office who has put on a good 40 lbs. in the last few years and understand why she has let herself go like that. She’s younger than I am and used to run in races and exercise. I can’t understand why she seems to have given up on herself. If she’s happy this way, ok, but I don’t think she is. She’s one of the people I hear complaining.
My manager is the same way. I hear her joke all the time about how hard it is to get to the gym, etc. Yet, she keeps a jar of chocolates on her desk at all times and grabs fast food for lunch most days. I just don’t get it. She’s my age, married with no kids. I’m a single mom, and I’m very busy with my special needs child, but I still manage to find the time to workout and eat healthy foods. IMO, it’s a matter of priority. If fitness is important to you, you’ll find the time no matter how busy your life is.
I can’t apologize for having judgmental thoughts in my head. As I said before, I’ve been judged on my appearance my whole life. It’s hard, if not impossible, for people to be completely non-judgmental about people they see. Still, it’s not an excuse to be outwardly mean.
Listen, you schmuck, if you think it’s unpleasant to look at a fat person in the gym or a restaurant or walking down the street, how horrifying do you think it would be to see one in the MIRROR?
Well, let me tell you…it’s humiliating, horrifying, shocking and gives you a panicky “desperatey to be thin” attitude that does nothing but destroy your health and your self-esteem.
It is 100% miserable to be overweight. At least at a certain level (which I have experience with) it affects your ability to MOVE, your comfort, your ability to buy clothes that you enjoy wearing, the way you see yourself in the mirror. It affects the way your frickin’ SHOES fit, the way your relatives react to you, the way you approach your work day, your interviews, the assumptions people make about your character, and your physical comfort level.
In fact, you can assume that past a certain point, the only time a significantly overweight person is truly comfortable is when he/she is asleep.
Now, I know this type of ‘handicap’ can and is often brought on by the overweight person’s own actions. However, taking into account that no one wants to be this way, can’t you find ANY empathy in your tiny little brain to understand how self-destruction takes over and the drive to eat is more powerful even than the drive to be comfortable?
It’s true, it makes no sense. And it makes no sense to the person who’s abusing food EVEN WHILE THEY DO IT. But for whatever reason, they feel compelled, they don’t care enough about themselves to take care of their health and comfort, and they simply can not resist as if they had a heroin addiction.
Oddly, you DO have to exercise vigorously to avoid fatness. Because once you get into the whole cycle of eating less and less to lose weight…once you get tricked into spending literally thousands of dollars on Jenny Craig, L.A. Weight Loss, and various other diet plans that simply DO NOT WORK you’ve screwed up your metabolism and your appetite so much that you need to do an outrageous amount of work in order to simply stop GAINING weight. Your body is so screwed up and your appetites are so whacko that they don’t properly recognize when you’re full so your fight is twice as hard as a normal person. You’re so out of touch with what a normal person has to do that the standard “advice” found in manuals, commercial diets, and people like YOU, simply don’t apply to you any more.
I’m sure the dopers are sick of hearing about this, but in order to break this cycle and get my food intake under control once and for all, I had weight loss surgery which involved completely rearranging my digestive system. My stomach is now the size of a walnut. At the point I made this decision, after SERIOUS research and knowing that I could die during surgery, I finally understood that it was the only way for me to become “normal.” I understood that I’d tried everything else and that if I was going to lose weight without surgery I would have done so by now.
I’m not lazy, I don’t lack willpower. In fact, I very much enjoy physical activity and am thrilled that I can get back into it now that I’m small enough. So I have always craved the ability to do things like play volleyball at the gym and go swimming and biking. I missed it terribly while I was unable.
Looking at an overweight person doesn’t trigter my ‘unpleasant’ sensors. It triggers my ‘empathy’ center. I feel horrible for these people who can’t find a way out. And if you think they aren’t trying EVERY minute of every day to get OUT of the mentality that keeps them that way, you are SADLY mislead.
They only real mystery is why they want acceptance from cruel, selfish people like you.
I would never say this to anyone, so I just wanted to ring in as agreeing with you totally. The person you assume is “lucky” may work out for three hours a day, may be on a strict diet, or eve more, may have had problems at one extreme or another.
As a person with an overeating problem, my sister has been hospitalized for anorexia. These are both probably psychological difficulties and I never consider that she’s LUCKY for having to struggle to maintain a normal weight any more than I am.
Similarly, I don’t feel that the women i work with who exercise 5 times a week are “lucky.” They just work hard and should be commended for that! Good for them…they’re tough!
The only caveat I want to mention is that the comment that you “do have control over your weight” is not the same for every person. Because of what I basically consider mental illness and other problems not everyone is really “equal” in this endeavor.
Yes, but there is help out there for those who seek it. That goes for mental illness as well as obesity. Really, there are options for people who have any problem. It’s a choice to go out there and get it. It sounds like that’s what you did with your decision to have the weight loss surgery. I hope it works out for you.
Very true. There IS help. It’s just that like other mental illnesses it’s difficult to find that help and even to recognize which type of help you need.
I’m proud of myself because I would NOT settle for a half of a life no matter what. But I also recognize the difficulty in making that determination and I understand that not everyone has the capability to make it. Do you have any idea what it COST to have my surgery? My insurance paid more than $35,000. What if you don’t have insurance? What if you have insurance that won’t cover this procedures.
What if you have insurance that won’t even cover 10 visits to a psych expert? I’m very privileged to be able to take this route. Others are not so lucky.
Just chiming in randomly here, because I recently posted this as part of my “People who are just plain sorry” rant in The Pit:
As an unsvelte person myself – never been obese, but no one would call me “fit” or “thin” – maybe I have precious little room to talk. And when I started reading this thread, I recalled that post, and had some stings of guilt over my language.
But I think there are circumstances when you just can’t help blaming a person for being overweight, and (in the context of the Pit thread) setting an example for their kids. It’s hard to be sympathetic when you see a grocery cart laden with highly processed (and expensive) fattening, low-nutrition foods.
But still, thanks to the OP for the thread. It’s made me think, and re-think.
Part of what woke me up was something a college aged friend said to me. He was a little overweight too, and we were discussing the problems of having a slower metabolism, greater difficulty getting exercise because of a busy schedule, etc. He said, “Lots of people have a tougher time in life because of inherent difficulties they have that others do not. People with lower IQs are going to have to work a lot harder in school. People who are not socially graceful are going to have to work harder to land a new account or close a deal. Society in those cases says, ‘It’s your problem, suck it up and work harder.’ Why should having a slow metabolism, etc. give you any more of an excuse?”
And that’s exactly it. The people I work for don’t give a damn if I don’t pick something up quickly enough on the job because I’m not as smart as they are. That’s an excuse. Lots of people overachieve, reaching results beyond their intelligence and natural ability through hardwork and determination. The general system is that we all have certain things that we need to work hard at that comes a bit easier to others. No one says, “Little Johnny is a relatively normal functioning human being, but he’s in the bottom 50% IQ-wise, so let’s just give him a break and not make him work a little harder to make it good.”
To me, fat people who call other people lucky to be thin are akin to someone who would say that a successful entrepeneur of average intelligence and ability (or perhaps even below average) is “lucky” to be successful. It’s just insulting.
So what about the reasons. Why does anyone have the right to spew vitriol at overweight people? Does it matter why?
I’m not a Christian, but I believe in the example that was set by the simple phrase “love thy neighbor…” There is just too much hate being spread around here, by people who should know better.
The OP asked why, and every reason give is a form of snap judgment against the overweight person. It’s as if that person needs to show a notarized excuse for their condition to avoid being discriminated against.
A truly civilized society would adrress the core reasons for obesity in a humane, caring, and concerned manner. Our society treats differnces as something to fear and ridicule, and the PC train hasn’t made it to this point yet, so there is no backlash.
One of the other posters had a good point- no one wants to be obese. Unlike any other form of discrimination, the obese person is predisposed to agree with the attacker on the point that it’s not ok to be obese, and they do not defend themselves the same way an African-American, a gay person, or almost anyone else who is the target of ridicule and prejudice.
Great point, Mad Hermit, and the one I was asking about. Reasons aside, why are so many people so casually hateful of fat people, as if the fact that there are fat people makes them angry. That’s what I didn’t get.
As for whether or not it’s a person’s choice, and/or “simple”, I happen to think that the answers are yes, but the actual implementation of the solutions is very difficult.
In theory, atomic bombs are “simple”. In practice, making them is still a very difficult endeavor.
I suspect that many fat people may have some kind of problem that if it isn’t an eating disorder, it’s damn close. I mean, if someone doesn’t eat enough and is anorexic, that’s an eating disorder, right? Why isn’t the exact opposite? I mean, anorexic and bulimic people can just eat and not puke, right? It’s a matter of willpower, I say. </sarcasm>
If it was simply a matter of willpower, obesity wouldn’t be the huge issue that it has become. People would just buckle down and lose weight. We don’t see that happening very often, so I have to figure there’s more to it than just willpower.
My heart goes out to the people who are just absolutely huge. I’m sure they have no wish to be that way, and just don’t even know where to start, or how to lose weight right. I also empathize with those people who, for whatever reason, can’t quit drinking, smoking or using drugs, even when it’s destroying their lives. I’m pretty sure they don’t like it much either.
SlyFrog: To me, fat people who call other people lucky to be thin are akin to someone who would say that a successful entrepeneur of average intelligence and ability (or perhaps even below average) is “lucky” to be successful. It’s just insulting.
I don’t see it. It would be insulting to tell them that their thinness or success was only the result of luck, sure. But let’s face it, every thin person, no matter how laudably they work at keeping fit, is also lucky not to have an uncontrollable eating disorder or a disability that makes exercising excruciatingly painful for them, etc. If they did, they’d be much more likely to be fat. Similarly, every successful entrepreneur owes something to good luck as well as to ability and hard work.
It’s certainly more charming to compliment somebody on their efforts rather than their luck, and we should definitely give people credit for their hard work. But that doesn’t mean that calling a hard-working achiever “lucky” is intrinsically insulting. We all owe some of our success to luck, no matter how hard we worked to achieve it. IMHO anybody who would resent being reminded of that risks coming across as conceited and pompous.