Quote:
Originally Posted by jammies
I'm not interested in shaming fat people, but I'm not interested in enabling their obesity either. Nobody (well - maybe SebC) is proclaiming open season for mockery, but feeling aggrieved because "nobody understands how hard it is" is quite simply wrong: some of us do understand, and what we understand is that your desire to be a healthy weight is less than your desire for food and disinclination to exercise.
I personally have chronic pain issues when I work out, and a long history of really crappy eating habits which had me around 245 lbs (I am 6'3"), yet somehow I've manage to stay in the 185-195 lb range for years. I know it's hard, but if you think you're a special case who just has it so much harder than anyone else, then you're very likely wrong. It's very rarely a case of people being incapable of doing it - like never being able to do calculus because you're just not mathematically inclined - but more that people don't see the pay-off as being worth the extraordinary effort.
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The problem is the tools and ways people go about losing and keeping that weight off.
People keep glossing over the mental side of this which is the BIGGEST problem for obese people. There is often a lot behind such massive weight issues and usually in my experience people have had issues with childhood issues, emotional eating, food triggers/addictions, and a host of other things.
We don't mock depressed people, well most don't anymore, we treat it as a serious issue that needs help. What people fail to acknowledge is that the solution starts with dealing with the underlying problems behind the weight, and I'm speaking again only to serious weight issues, there is a lot of difference between someone 10 pounds overweight and those with 100+. Of course how long you've been this way also has a massive effect on how hard it will be to lose and keep it off.
This society is far from enabling obese, its the opposite, it shames and ridicules them from a young age and often the response to this shame and embarrassment is emotional eating and bad relationships with food (think brain pattern/behaviors) which are no easy thing to change, especially when the overwhelming majority of people trying to lose weight are focused solely on diets (usually bad ones, fads, etc) and exercise which are important but only WITH dealing on the emotional side will you get any lasting success.
Sometimes tough love is needed, but ultimately each person has their own unique problems. I have been working on a program for the obese together with a health hotel and another contestant on the show which will focus on group therapy, the psychological side, and of course also give people help with diet and exercise.
But we cannot deny the MASSIVE failure of what we have been doing, the research keeps coming back with depressing statistics on long term weight loss and if you are one of the lucky ones to keep it off, great, but don't forget that while some of you understand the difficulty, most of those so vocal and often nasty towards the obese are people who have not walked a mile in their shoes.
I'm just stunned at these discussions at how quickly people are to be mean, cruel and say disgusting things at which is at its core a deeply emotional, psychological issue.
What really grinds my gears is how people forget that this stuff is read by children, they have enough bullying and shaming in their lives and its heartbreaking to talk to them. I have been approached on FB quite a bit since the show was aired and many of them are kids who have deal with so much bullying and they are so broken down daily that its drives me mad when I see people say such hurtful things about overweight people.
We need to work on solutions, not be so dismissive, mean and act like decent human beings to each other, especially because this problem is so pervasive and getting worse.
There is a lot of blame to go around, our food supply, food engineering, marketing to kids, TONS of bad information about diet and exercise, and a lack of any real successful science that can help us.
Thankfully the last 5 years has seen a ton of great studies and promise for ways to combat this epidemic and finally people realizing that no fat low fat, no carb, juicing, etc.. All these fads are not working, they shouldn't and people are hopefully starting to become more skeptical of the diet industry which has failed us massively so far.