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I'm sorry, but I don't understand how the rising cost of education and state troopers has anything to do with people getting fatter? I'm trying to think up scenarios in which the one thing could have to do with the others, but so far I've got nothing.

I have a feeling your assumption may have something to do with the idea that fat bodies must be the result of costly overindulgence. If my assumption is incorrect, please let me know. If it is correct, then I wonder, do you realize that the socio-economic class most likely to be obese is those living near the poverty line? That doesn't really parallel with your possible fears that overconsumption of food is causing a budget crunch in the areas of education and law enforcement. Furthermore, there are many ways that our consumerist society overconsumes, with fuel being one of the big ones. Poor people, who are statistically fatter, use far less fuel that people with the means to pay for it. Also, there is the throw away attitude we have toward all of our toys and gadgets, which end up in landfills a few months after we buy them. That's not a habit of the poorer, fatter class of people, because, again, they don't have the means. Lastly, the consumption of food contributes to the economy, and to public funds; the more food people buy, the more taxes they pay on it, especially fast food (my city doesn't tax groceries but it does tax prepared foods). It is actually beneficial to the economy, and to the state of public wealth, even if not to personal health, for people to consume more food.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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anotheropinion, and also, to anyone else who is so sure that it's all about choices and excuses and whatever else you have come up with to moralize at fat people:

I find it interesting that you all speak of reasons vs excuses, the idea of being fat as "okay" or "not okay", and I have to ask myself, Who appointed you the guardians of the human condition? I am fat, but I don't share your obvious viewpoint that I don't deserve to fully participate in society or in my own life unless I am thin. I have so much else going on in my life that I rarely take the time to entertain arguments like this one, but I do find your moralizing quite interesting. Why do you think I need to make excuses for my body? It serves me well; I walk, I ride my bike, I run, I play, I have an active romantic life, an active social life, and active religious life, a successful career, a college education, and a happy family. My body is the vessel for all of that, and I love it, all 300lbs of it. I don't feel the need to justify my body to anyone, and those of you who assume I make excuses for my size are assuming that I ought to. I don't see the need. Making excuses implies that someone else has the power to excuse you. I don't see where I am accountable to anyone else for the shape or condition of my body, especially when the shape has so very little to do with the condition.

I also know that there are those out there who don't love their fat bodies. I ache for those people. You all talk about making positive choices which will lead to loving one's body, but I know from a long, hard journey of coming to love myself that it DOES NOT work that way. You have to love your body FIRST, and treating it well follows. That means loving it exactly how it is and wanting to treat it to exercise and nutritious food. Weight loss may be at best a side effect. Do you want to know why 95 - 98% of dieters fail? It's because they are focused on the wrong thing. They are focused on the result that they have very little control over, not on the process itself. For example, two dieters weighing the exact same amount may consume the exact same number of calories and do the exact same amount of exercise and lose very different amounts of weight. It happens in clinical studies all the time, which is why I know that calories in, calories out is far too simplistic a formula to be of any real value. The dieter who loses little to no weight on the plan will feel, or indeed be labeled, unsuccessful, because of a failure to lose weight, whereas the dieter who loses weight with the identical effort will be labeled a success. If, however, those dieters were instead focused on the process, by eating the healthy diet and achieving the healthy amount of exercise prescribed in the diet, both dieters would be labeled successful. It is far easier to continue a successful behavior than a failed one; if dieters would focus on the health benefits of eating well and exercising, REGARDLESS OF WEIGHT CHANGES, then that 95 to 98% statistic would disappear. Furthermore, if as a society we shifted the focus from weight to habits, then all of the thin people out there who put off worrying about their exercise needs and eating habits under the delusion that they don't need to concern themselves with it until they start gaining weight (many of whom never will) would finally get the message, which is this:

1. EVERYONE needs to eat healthy and exercise, regardless of size.
2. Size is not an indicator of health, HABITS are an indicator of health.
3. Thin people are not immune to any of the so-called weight related disorders. This is because they are not weight related, they are lifestyle related, and it happens that the lifestyle corresponds with fatter people because fat is a SIDE EFFECT of the lifestyle that CAUSES the problems. Do you get that? That's the difference between saying that no matter what I do, until I weigh 125 lbs I am doomed to die from a diabetic, arthritic, cancerous, sleep apnea-induced heart attack, and saying that as soon as I create a routine of exercising and eating healthy, I will avert most or all of my risks. The inverse of that is, just because the SYMPTOM of fatness is not present does not mean that your unhealthy habits of avoiding exercise and eating nothing but pizza and Pepsi are not endangering your health. Thin people get high cholesterol too, for example (cholesterol is essentially a hormone, FYI, and having high levels of it has little to do with the fat safely locked in their storage cells in the human body, and far more to do with the foods you take in, or your genetic disposition to produce higher levels of cholesterol. Eating cholesterol-laden pizza is bad for EVERYONE'S arteries, no matter what size person the heart resides in).
4. Research shows that it is more dangerous to be 5 lbs underweight than 80lbs overweight. It's true; being too thin is dangerous, too, moreso, in fact, and that underscores the need not to focus on weight loss and instead focus on healthy habits, through which your body will naturally stabilize itself to whatever weight it is capable of and comfortable with carrying while performing all of the functions your active lifestyle demands of it.
5. Your body's shape and sIze is NOBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS. Really, it isn't. It's not public property. Believing that in your bones is the healthiest first step you can take toward treating it well for its own sake and not for the approval of others.

Essentially, my point is this: None of the fat people out there are accountable to your condescending opinions of whether or not they have an "excuse" or a "reason" for their size. The public health argument is ridiculous given the large numbers of people who engage in unprotected sex, don't wear seatbelts or helmets, or engage in any number of other health risking behaviors, including thin people who don't exercise or eat healthy and put themselves at risk for all of the same diseases that are supposedly reserved for fatties. The fact is, living together in a society inherently includes spreading the impact of one segment of society's behavior across the entire group. That is true of the paraplegic on public assistance who was able-bodied until he rode his motorcycle without a helmet just as it is true of the diabetic on public assistance who ate too much pizza and ice cream and caused his pancreas to shut down. You can't pin it on one group, or you have to pin it on all of them. If you don't want a sensor in your car emailing reports to the government or your health insurance company every time you don't buckle it before pulling out of the parking lot, then don't expect me to have to justify my private behaviors publicly, either. Especially since you haven't got the first clue what they actually are, you just have your assumptions based on my size.

If we want to talk about behavior justification, what gives you all the right to judge, criticize, condemn, and mistreat other people around you? I don't know about you, but I was raised to treat other people with respect, and making snap judgments and condemning people for something I understood very little about was considered disrespectful and is something I was trained not to do. You talk about fat people making excuses for continuing to be fat; I wonder if you realize that you yourself are making excuses for being rude, intrusive, judgmental, or downright mean toward a group of people that you don't approve of? A core American value is live and let live, and your behavior transgresses that value; do you realize that you are using the justification behavior you're condemning us for (it's ok to be mean/intrusive/judgmental/condescending toward fat people because they're stupid/lazy/weak/morally inferior to me)?

The fact that you believe it your duty to police my body does not mean I owe you my obedience to your body policies. I wonder if you can understand that?

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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Being fat is like being the beloved main character in an incredible book that too few people have read. It's being invisible and too visible all at once. It's being a punchline when you make a much better storyline. It's being intelligent, educated, compassionate, creative, considerate, charming, and funny, and knowing that far too many people in the world would only care to know that if it came wrapped in a package they found acceptable. It?s being the best audition and knowing the skinny girl will get the part. It?s being the best candidate and knowing the skinny guy will get the job. It?s being the mascot in your high school clique. It?s being left out of all the cliques. It?s scary fad diets that could kill you and only take off four pounds. It?s deadly surgery. It's eating healthy and being active and having people assume you don't. It's eating an ice cream cone in public once in awhile and feeling the heat of disapproving stares on your back, on your neck, on your fat belly and thighs. It's secret flirtations and sly requests for phone numbers from men who would love to take you for a spin but are too afraid to want you out loud. It's dubious expressions when you tell people you're a vegetarian. It's waitresses setting your friend's dessert in front of you and your salad in front of her. It's waitresses setting your dessert in front of your date and his salad in front of you. It's waitresses asking if your thin date is your brother, or asking if your fat brother is your husband. It's shopping in special stores with higher prices. It's diet advice from random strangers. It's diet advice from friends and family members. It?s diet advice from dermatologists and opthomologists and podiatrists. It?s knowing your body is public property, to be criticized, objectified, vilified, exemplified, dehumanized. It's never passing a single day without being told in some subtle or not so subtle way that, despite your college degree, successful career, happy marriage, active spiritual life, and fulfilling hobbies, your weight is the single most important thing about you and discounts all the rest to the point that you will never be acceptable to others, never a full member of society, until you can fit in the seat next to a thin person on the subway without some part of you touching them. It?s knowing that day will probably never come, no matter how little you eat.

Being fat is also like being another face in the crowd. It's eating fruit and vegetables and cheese and donuts. It's taking yoga classes and dance classes and riding bikes or hiking. It's paying bills and setting the alarm clock and hating Mondays and loving Fridays. It's watching Grey's Anatomy and wanting to reach in and slap Meredith for being so wishy washy. It's making birthday party plans with your best friend, and going out for drinks with coworkers. It's paying too much for gas, and car insurance, and your cell phone. It's getting your oil changed 5,000 miles later than you should, getting a pedicure you really can't afford, paying the minimum payment on your VISA even though you know better. It's smiling at random strangers when you're in a good mood and being too grumpy with the salesgirl when you're not. It's loving and laughing and crying and hoping and dreaming and sharing and giving. It's also petty and greedy and foolish and selfish sometimes. It's knowing you only have eighty or ninety years to make a mark on the world and coming to terms with your insignificance at a cosmic level. It's family and friends and pets and children and boyfriends and girlfriends and marriage and divorce and sex and laughter and settling for less and holding out for more.

Being fat is just like being thin, from the inside. I am you and you are me and we are all living subtle variations of the same life. Mine is only different from yours in the places that you draw the lines. When you draw the line at size sixteen in your stores, then I am different. When you draw the line at 175 lbs for health insurance, then I am different. When you see me and believe me different than you, then I am different. I am not intrinsically different. I know that is the part that scares you, that makes you angry, that makes you lash out with meanness like jokes about sinking boats and lofty rhetoric about caloric intake that we all know to be false by now. I don't know which part scares you more, however; that you might end up like me, or that you might find out that your moral superiority is a sham. I don't know whether you worry more that my fat might infect you or that my happiness might. I wish you could see it through my eyes. But you would have to see me first, and I don?t think you can.

Being fat is knowing that you?re invisible, and learning to live as if you weren?t.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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