I agree. I have to say the insinuation that people are fat because their loved ones enable them by telling them they look good has got to be the funniest thing I've read in a while. I don't know any overweight person, actually very few "fit" people, that don't think they have a weight problem.
I am fat. I carry it well because I am large all over and my weight is evenly distributed. I have always been a larger size but I've not always been fat. When I was just hitting puberty I was a size 7-9 and was actually a stick with a C/D cup. But because my Mother struggled with her weight her whole life and because she was horrified by the size clothes I was in (not how I looked but because of my actual dress size) I was made fun of, forced to exercise, and every morsel I put in my mouth was monitored and controlled. My siblings were allowed mac & cheese. I had salad. etc... I always had comments about how cute I would be if I were smaller. Not just from my Mother but from my Grandmother, Great Grandmother, etc... As a result I have always had an abnormal body image and no self esteem.
and let me tell you, forcing your child to lay off the sweets and work out can and will backfire unless you make it fun and interesting for them. I snuck food. I hid when I should have been out riding my bike. It wasn't hard to stash sweets at all. My Mother meant well but in all honesty she is the reason why I am fat.
And as the years went on I gained some weight. I was solid but a big girl. I was a size 14 in high school with DD breasts. I didn't look fat - I would say with my frame I would be compared to an average size 10 at that point, but I wasn't the cute petite little thing I wanted to me. I thought I was a whale. I had a knee and rotator cuff injury and had other problems that caused me to be on steroids for several months. Coupled with severe depression, emotional trauma, and the freedom of being away from my controlling mother I gained close to 100lbs my freshman year of college. It took months for me to really notice how big I was getting because I all ready thought I was huge. Kind of like how an anorexic can't tell she's so thin because she thinks she's obese when she looks at herself.
I've gained and lost about another 75lbs since then. I eat fairly well with the occasional splurge. I walk. I exercise at the gym doing weights and cardio 3 nights a week for about an hour. I have to fight for every ounce lost because of an inherited metabolic condition that was exacerbated by my weight gain on prednisone and being depressed. It's disheartening and it's depressing.
I gave that information, which is probably something no one else cares about, to show you kind of where I'm coming from. People could tell me all day long until they are blue in the face that I look good and I wouldn't believe them.
If I've learned anything from the disparaging posts on this thread is that many people have no idea what it's like to be severely overweight. I don't mean because they are thin. I mean they have no concept of what it's like to be looked at like we are and to have gone through what many of us have gone through. I know few obese people that are fat because they eat horribly and because they are lazy. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that and it's insulting to us to assume that if we worked out more and dropped the donuts our problems would be solved.
Food is an addiction. The emotional issues that cause someone to become emotional eaters, which most obese people are, are not easy to fix. Do you think I like how i look? Do you think I like not having any photos of myself on display in my parents' house because they are embarrassed to associate themselves with me? Do you think I like the dirty horrified stares I get from people? I would sooner crawl around Disney on my hands and knees than rent an
ecv and be subjected to comments that have been posted here. My self-esteem is low enough. Of course I want to be thin. Of course I aspire to be thin. Of course I'm doing more than just eating yankee doodles and wishing for the thin fairy to come visit while emailing Dr Phil and begging for a free gastric bypass.
Maybe some time spent sitting in at an overeaters anonymous group would do some people here a lot of good and might help them be a bit more sympathetic. Especially the disparaging poster that is going into nursing. With a little bit more sympathy it might actually help people like me a lot more and who knows - we could all win in the end.
Especially since I get really tired of telling people that it's almost never as easy as eating grilled chicken and salads and joining the gym. If it were there would be a lot less fat people in this world
