Feeling uncomfortable after sharing a seat with a very obese passenger

Fine if you are happy with your weight. Not so fine when it impacts on other people.

So what is the overweight person supposed to do?

It's the transport companies fault. There is no option on most buses, trains on planes to purchase larger seats.

My overweight brother doesn't fly at all as he knows he won't be able to fit into an aeroplane seat.

People can be any size they wish.it becomes an issue when it affects others and public transport is one of those times. The person affected doesn’t just have to take it on the chin. They are allowed to be annoyed.

I wish I was thin. Ive been trying for a long time.

The worst thing I find is my breasts- they are so heavy to carry around when I am overweight

It's also much much harder to LOOSE weight than it is to maintain weight.

Thin people can eat quite a lot and maintain the weight that they are at.

Overweight people need to get into a calorie deficit to lose any weight. So this means that they need to often eat less than thin people, and do more exercise at a time when their physical health is not really great. It's really hard work

So you weren’t in calorie deficit at all? If you read the published science, EBM vs CIM is pretty vehemently contested. The truth is the correct model is probably somewhere between the two (to my mind)

Yes many people try to lose weight. Then they go through a stressful time, work, children, etc and they reach for food to comfort them.

But not being able to do it properly is the problem

Being able to follow a diet is complex for many people. Its like saying to someone with adhd, you just need to concentrate

You're spectacularly missing the point.

You think that telling people to "eat less" Is all they need to lose weight.

People are NOT ABLE to eat less. They are psychologically addicted to food. It often happens as a result of trauma

I wake up, I start thinking of how I was raped as a child,

and I'm in so much mental pain, I reach for sweets and chocolate to comfort me. I cannot seem to break out of the cycle.

I’ve never called planes public transport before but I guess they sort of are.

I’d be annoyed if my seat was being encroached on or there was a sweaty smell, but those things would annoy me regardless of size.

Let’s face it, “nothing worked” because you didn’t do it properly.
”I couldn’t lose weight” is not the same as “nothing worked” and it’s ridiculous to claim it is.

Or, we could be less unpleasant and just accept that we don’t own other people’s bodies.

I do agree that if I was spilling into another seat, I should get two, but outside of that - how someone looks or feels in their own body is literally none of anyone else’s business.

There's a temptation for responses that encourage shame. Shame is linked to over eating for many people

I've lost a bit of weight. When I was very heavy I felt so shameful about being fat, I felt irredemable, disgusting and like I shouldn't be taken up space. I caught comfort in food and used it as a form of self harm because I was so gross it didnt matter. I was eating in secret because I felt like I couldn't tell people what I was actually eating because people would judge me, so id shovel down stuff in my car out of whole packets

Ironically self love and being more confident in taking up space lead to more weight loss for me.

Feeling like I could wear certain clothes, go to the gym, eat a normal meal in a break room socially were all things that really helped to regulate my eating habits, that i wasnt something to hide away. Working with my body vs against it.

That's a naive way of looking at it.

So can people just stop taking heroin?

Why do they often relapse then and are in and out of rehab?

I've tried to lose weight for 6 years. Do you think that fat people want to be fat? I'm very uncomfortable. I would love to weigh less and not carry around my huge breasts

I'm really sorry to read this. In a decent world, you'd have loads of support to look after you mother, so that you wouldn't feel like this. I hope things get better for you, somehow. Are you getting all the practical help you can? Is there a charity you can contact? You deserve support.

Put them in a hotel, they are only allowed to eat the 3 healthy meals a day served to them and they have to spend time walking round the grounds every single day, 15 minutes after eating. You will be amazed how the fat melts away, once the excuses have run out.And the enablers. I have been extremely slim/underweight (naturally) and morbidly obese. I now have associated health problems, but they didn't cause the weight gain, I caused them by being a lazy glutton.If I decided to stop stuffing myself today, I guarantee in a year I would be slim again.Most people (not those with endocrine disorders or medical treatment causing weight gain) who are obese are so by choice.

Yes, I realise that. But my advice was that if you care not to offend or upset people you should read the thread before posting.

To clarify, that advice was to you specifically.

Please don't ask me questions - that is very lazy. If you really want to know about the subject, you can read up about it, maybe beginning with reading this thread. I get the feeling you would rather remain ignorant and say "eat less move more" and "too many calories tsk tsk" while patting yourself on the back for managing tour weight, despite needing medical intervention to do so. Which btw, there is no shame in. There is shame in your willfull ignorance, but I think you are too obtuse to feel it

I think the OP's musings are completely fair, given that she (I assume she) has been squashed and squished by an obese adult on public transport.I'm a fat bastard, and if I have to share a seat, I deliberately perch on the edge of the seat, to avoid imposing my bulk on the nervous passenger who glances at me before shrinking as close to the window as humanly possible.😱😂

I agree.

I am healthy weight, a bit above average height for a woman and I don't feel comfortable. There is nowhere to put my elbows, especially in the middle seat.

It's the airlines fault, that the seats are so tiny.

When I was thinner, I was squashed on airplanes by overweight people.

Now I'm bigger, I'm squashing the thinner people.

The seats are too small.

Blimey the apology wasn’t to you it was to another poster who has clearly gone through some terrible things.
But are you actually saying 2 out of 3 people in the country have gone through immense trauma which affects their eating?
Surely most people put on weight because they eat slightly more than they actually need on a daily basis?
If you eat an extra 100 calories a day over 10 years that’s a lot of weight. Just denying it doesn’t help.

Is it wrong to be disgusted by someone else’s flesh entering your personal space down to their obesity? Surely that’s pretty grim?

It's over eating yes. But it is not as simple as that.. It is also a psychological addiction. People cannot stop eating food.

It's the same as addiction to drugs. People want to stop. They can't stop. It can take a lot of time and psychological interventions

There's a lot of ignorance.

I always notice on these threads there seems to be a marked trend for correlation between the people who seem to be the quickest to judge and those who have the worst spelling and punctuation. Scroll back through and have a look ,,,

ETA though actually it doesn't even take education to correct the lack of knowledge. A bit of empathy will do the trick in this case.