Here's a bit of something I wrote for somewhere else regarding this topic:
"Which is the other part of the problem. Losing weight is a CONSTANT battle. And it’s one that you will never really win. Even if you lose all the weight that you ‘want to’, you can’t let up. You have to keep working at it and keep it off. You can’t go “Well, got to my target weight, go me!” and start eating all the bad things and sitting in front of the tv again. Nope. Your reward for hitting your goal weight is...a continuation of everything you’ve done to get there to maintain it. And if you slip up at all, it’s SO EASY to pack on a few pounds, which depresses you, which starts the whole damn cycle again. The slip up might not even be your fault. Getting sick for a week. Letting yourself ‘graze’ at that party. Going out for a couple beers with the friends. It all can quickly add up again.
While I don’t like to speak for many people, I know that myself, personally...I like rewards. But I like rewards that matter. Food is a matter of instant gratification. I do X, and I get Y. I know what Y tastes like, and I like the taste of Y and all is good! Yay, reward. But a reward like weight loss...well, it always feels like a lot of work for the reward of....more work. That’s not appealing at all. And it’s not even like I want to be some sort of bodybuilder. I’d like to really just ‘lose’ the belly and tone up most of the rest of the areas. I’m not looking for a six pack. I don’t want to outdo Hulk Hogan’s Pythons. I just want to be healthier. The problem for me is that “Healthy” just isn’t reward enough in itself to motivate me to do the work required to get there. My requirement for short term gratification is (only currently, I hope) able to beat out my long term wishes."
One thing I didn't bring up before was that the people I have met in my travels, be it OA or other weight loss support groups I belong to.... many did gain the weight later in life. The idea that it is their fault and therefore deserve no empathy for their plight is just wrong.
The reasons people turn to food are as varied as the reasons people turn to alcohol. Abusive relationships. Losing a loved one (spouse, a child). Financial instability. Many people use food to dull emotional pain. And yes, there are a few people that just overindulged and got hooked on pizza, pop and pie instead of on Jack Daniels. No matter how you got there, you deserve compassion. Typically we don't look at an alcoholic and say "You got yourself into this situation... get yourself out". We call it a "disease" and help the person get the support and services they need to treat that disease. And I would hope that we would do the same for obesity.
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A good part of any nutritious internet diet is to never, ever read the comments below the article.
Well, in this case, the comments below the article were indicative of things I have heard repeatedly. Particularly now that I can blend in with the thin people. I was invited out to a bar by a friend who was meeting some of his ball hockey buddies. One of his buddies points out the overweight woman a couple tables over. "What a porker. If I were that big I'd never leave the house!"
So whether the voice came from the comments section on an article or not, these opinions commonplace. I have heard all of these, some from the posters here:
- it was their CHOICE to become obese
- it is their CHOICE to stay obese
- it is simply a matter of willpower
- it is easy to lose the weight if they would just stop being lazy
- it is okay to disparage the obese because it will coax them not to be lazy slobs
How many of those would we apply to alcoholism?
- It was his choice to start drinking excessively
- It's his choice to continue drinking excessively
- If he only had some willpower he would quick drinking alcohol
- It's easy to stop being an alcoholic. Just stop drinking.
- It's okay to disparage alcoholics because it will coax them to stop drinking
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The problem for me is that “Healthy” just isn’t reward enough in itself to motivate me to do the work required to get there. My requirement for short term gratification is (only currently, I hope) able to beat out my long term wishes.
Oh, being healthy is definitely reward enough for me. The thing for me is that I didn't know what it felt like to be healthy. Now that I know how much energy I can have, how many things I can do that I couldn't do before, the freedom that you get from losing the weight - freedom to physically do the things you could only dream of before (ran my first marathon last month), freedom from being constantly scared of health issues, freedom to stop being a bystander in life and start participating.
Whenever I go to conventions to speak, I always put up this slide:
I know from experience just how hard it is to lose the weight. I also know how good it feels to have lost the weight. Which is why, despite my body screaming to put the weight back on, I refuse to do so. Which is why I developed bulimia (not the finger down the throat kind, the exercise 4 hours a day kind). Which is why I am spending a kabillion dollars on an eating disorder doctor (why the hell isn't this covered by our health care plan?!?). Which is why I have been joining support groups to hold the constant cravings for food at bay. Now that I know what it feels like to have a healthy body, I don't want to let it go.
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There is this almost disgust and anger by a lot of healthy people towards those who are obese. Its socially acceptable to be so cold and mean to these people, and you see this all the time in threads like these from what are otherwise good people.
Its this stand in judgement of others, and these people not grasping what its like to stand in the shoes of those struggling with this. They cannot fathom how these people are so big because "they would never let that happen."
You will find almost zero obese people who have lost all their weight judge and be cruel to those struggling with their weight.. The ones who are cruel and insulting are people who have never had to deal with losing a vast amount of weight.
Considering how horrible our food supply is, and how unhealthy cheap food is pervasive we are not going to see much progress anytime soon, and this is a health epidemic in the first world. Do not understand why people have such a hard on for being upset at this being called a disease.
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I don't believe that guy in the video... mostly because anyone who did lose that kind of weight would never be so condescending.
Never got Denis Leary. When I try to explain the INCREDIBLE draw that I have to food, I often ask if people have ever seen "Rescue Me" and think of his character's draw to alcohol. Even though he knows that it will destroy his life and cause even more disfunction in his family, he still is drawn to the drink. On one hand he tries to portray how hard addictions are to break and on the other he pokes fun of those with addictions.
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I don't believe that guy in the video... mostly because anyone who did lose that kind of weight would never be so condescending.
Never got Denis Leary. When I try to explain the INCREDIBLE draw that I have to food, I often ask if people have ever seen "Rescue Me" and think of his character's draw to alcohol. Even though he knows that it will destroy his life and cause even more disfunction in his family, he still is drawn to the drink. On one hand he tries to portray how hard addictions are to break and on the other he pokes fun of those with addictions.
Man, it was not a serious video, it is making light of the situation. I understand you have had a tough time with this but you need to stop being so defensive about it. We all applaud your efforts but stop lettin it be a negative thing, laugh at it, make light of it, and beat it as best you can. Life is too short to be angry about things you are doing your best at.
I don't see how it made light of the situation. I thought it was condescending and insulting. It's like "There is a simple cure to alcoholism - PUT DOWN THE BOTTLE". Suggesting that it is that simple is insulting both to those that have struggled to stay on the wagon and to those that are trying to get off the bottle. I think videos like that do far more harm than good.
It always very sad to read the not so nice things people say when topics like this come up, considering the pain and struggle most obese people have. People often seem to think losing 10-20 pounds is equivalent to those considered obese when your talking about losing 100 to 100's of pounds.
Its not a cut and dry issue, its filled with so many factors and its why its the biggest health epidemic facing modern society, and why so many people are researching this issue trying to find solutions.
No matter your opinion, many of you could stand to use empathy in this issue, considering how emotionally charged it is for overweight people, especially the obese.
Sadly I think empathy is becoming extinct in today's society.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Man, it was not a serious video, it is making light of the situation. I understand you have had a tough time with this but you need to stop being so defensive about it. We all applaud your efforts but stop lettin it be a negative thing, laugh at it, make light of it, and beat it as best you can. Life is too short to be angry about things you are doing your best at.
If you didn't notice, often fat people use humor to survive to deal with it so to speak. Its also kinda stupid to tell him how to feel about it
Where are those numbers from? IIRC doesn't the UN set figures for that sort of thing?
I think its dependent on each country, there probably is a standard by some bigger world wide organization, but I think each country ultimately decides this on their own.
I think its dependent on each country, there probably is a standard by some bigger world wide organization, but I think each country ultimately decides this on their own.
Thanks.
Quote:
Key facts
Worldwide obesity has nearly doubled since 1980.
In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults, 20 and older, were overweight. Of these over 200 million men and nearly 300 million women were obese.
35% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight in 2008, and 11% were obese.
65% of the world's population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.
More than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011.
Obesity is preventable.
I hate, HATE, that they use BMI:
Quote:
What are overweight and obesity?
Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.
Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).
The WHO definition is:
a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight
a BMI greater than or equal to 30 is obesity.
BMI provides the most useful population-level measure of overweight and obesity as it is the same for both sexes and for all ages of adults. However, it should be considered a rough guide because it may not correspond to the same degree of fatness in different individuals.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Corporal Jean-Marc H. BECHARD, 6 Aug 1993
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BMI is total bs. My BMI rates me as currently "Overweight" even though I have less than 10 pounds of excess weight before I look skeletal, which would put me at the very high end of "Normal".
However, the rough guideline, as flawed as it is, is an improvement over nothing.
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This is such a complex issue. Food addiction is a real issue and cannot simply be blamed on those addicted. I guess I have a conflict of interest as I write this because I can say that I struggle with food addiction and have battled against it for almost a decade.
Food isn't simply a nutritional concept in our society. There are social and economic factors that need to be considered. People can't simply stop eating in the same way that you can stop smoking and stop drinking. Imagine, as an alcoholic, every single day having to shop in a liquor store and having to have a drink three times. However, you can only have one or two drinks. For a non alcoholic this seems easy...for an alcoholic, it is an impossibility. This is the situation that someone who has a food addiction faces every day. So much of what we do revolves around food...business lunches and dinners, family celebrations, hanging around with friends.
We are bombarded with commercials everyday that advertise the cheap and unhealthy food that is laden with addiction feeding sugar, salt and fat. Our government sends mixed messages when it cuts physical education from the budget and in the US, considers pizza to be a vegetable when it feeds children at school.
Eating is an instinct and a requirement. Fighting against an addiction like food addiction takes sensitivity and education about what food addicts face. Classifying obesity as a disease will hopefully force people to reconsider their biases and force the government to reassess the way that they encourage children to eat and exercise.
Btw, I am a 160 pound male and have lost 70 pounds but I am still an addict.
Last edited by ben voyonsdonc; 06-20-2013 at 08:18 AM.
I think we need to start publicly shaming people who don't practice daily hygiene, obese or otherwise.
Million dollar idea: Large industrial showers for the morbidly obese, with 12 rotating shower heads, and those felt flap things like they have in the car wash.
