For this to make me so angry - obese teenager, todays Daily Telegraph

[foreverondiet]

link

Basically, she was funded by her local health board to attend a programme in the USA at a cost of over £4k a month for a 9 month period....

"She said: "I'd been following a programme of healthy eating in the camp where I'd been living in North Carolina, America, and I'd learned to enjoy low-fat foods like salads, bagels, yoghurt and even buffalo meat. "I was really looking forward to trying it all out back home but, when I arrived, my mum said she hadn't had time to prepare any healthy food so we had fish and chips instead.

"From that moment on, I had a niggling feeling that things weren't going to work out."

I think this girl needed the support she got at the camp to give her the belief that she could succeed in losing weight and the practical help she needed to learn about healthy eating and exercise.

She's been fat all her life. Not just a bit fat, really fat. It takes more than nine months to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits. Then she goes home to her mum who is clueless (willfully or not) about healthy eating and who seems determined to undermine everything her daughter has learned and achieved.

One of my friends has interviewed Georgia and her mum and it does seem like they have an unhealthy co-dependent relationship. Her mum apparently fed her condensed milk in a bottle when she was a baby and when Georgia's dad died (I think when she was about eight) they comfort ate together.

Not sure what the answer is, but she obviously needed more than nine months at a camp thousands of miles away from home to properly change her habits and learn to believe that she deserves more from life than being a fat freak (which is sadly what she has become). I feel desperately sorry for her.

This is quite a common thing actually;

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12566504
In 2009, the percentage of obese people was 23 %.

" do you think you could run or jog or bounce or jump around the room, or do dance routines or even step up and down the first step of your staircase, if you were carrying a load of 30 stone?? Because being 40 stone, as this girl is, is the equivalent of a person of a healthy weight of about 10 stone carrying a load of three times their own body weight!"

I understand how difficult it is for someone who is very overweight to exercise, and what a strain it is on their joints/heart etc. I'd just like to point out that when Georgia came back from the camp she wasn't 40 stone, according to the link further down she was 21 stone. I think people are saying that that's when she could have been a bit more imaginative about finding ways to exercise that didn't involve a gym, not that she should be able to do it now.

HHLimbo When I stopped Bfing DS2 in October I was 12 stone 5 lbs. Wearing 14-16 clothes. BMI of 30 which made me obese. Body fat was 40% so obese by that measure too.

I certainly looked a bit overweight but was still managing to go to the gym, and swimming etc.

So yes 23% of people obese, but I bet the percentage of people who were morbidly obese was much much smaller.

How tall are you foreveronadiet?

Why are you obese?

Pixel - I am 20 stone, and it's not easy at that weight. I am carrying the equivalent of one of my teenage sons around all the time, and jogging, running, bouncing, jumping and dancing are all very hard.

Strangely, if I am at the gym on a treadmill it is easier to walk briskly for 10-15 minutes, I suspect because the treadmill has a bit more 'give' than tarmac, so is easier on my joints and back.

Stayingdavdtennantsgirl - why do you think you are obese? What do you typically eat? I am just interested to find out how it happens.

HHLimbo I was 12 stone 5 pounds at 5 foot 4 inches. That's a BMI of 30. Obese. My fat % measured by tanita scales was 40%. Also obese.

I was overweight due to pregnancy and breastfeeding and eating too many cakes and ice cream.... (whilst pregnant & breastfeeding...). I have never been that overweight before, not sure why I was more with DS2 than after DD and DS1.

I was wearing size 16 trousers but size 14 skirts, so I wasn't HUGE. I have now lost most of the weight, just down to last 5lbs, lost at 2lbs a week since October, BMI now 23 and body fat now 28%.

If I started a thread on here - "AIBU to think that those wearing size 14/16 are obese" I'd be flamed, however that is what the scales said for me.

So when the article says 23% are obese, remember that the NHS considers anyone with a BMI of 30 or more to be obese.

HHLimbo Sorry you asked why did I become obese?

With my DD I was super careful in pregnancy, ate low GI food. But then put on one stone whilst breastfeeding as was constantly hungry. So ended up being 11 stone 5lbs, although lost in by diet as soon as I stopped feeding. I can't diet whilst feeding as I am always hungry.

With my DS1 I wasn't so careful in pregnancy and still ended up being 11 stone 5lbs when I stopped feeding.

With DS2 I thought, well it doesn't matter what I eat, I'll still end up being over 11 stone... so I ate whatever I wanted including loads of ice cream and ended up being 12 stone 5lbs.

I've only really been overweight when pregnant/breastfeeding and I've got to be that size as I have just been constantly hungry. Even waking up in the night hungry if I tried to have less for dinner.

Well done foreverona! That was quite big for 5'4", but as you say it sounds like it just built up during your pregnancies.

I was a bit plump prior to adolescence, but mum said it was puppy fat and would go when I grew taller (this was when I asked her for help to lose weight). Sadly at age 10 we moved to a little village and I was miserable there, and then was bullied for five solid years at senior school, leading to terribly low self-esteem and depression. I didn't like myself, so had no motivation to look after myself. The weight gradually crept on and on, until I got to where I am now.

I am in therapy, and am starting to forgive myself, and may even like myself one day - so maybe then I will be able to stop creating a barrier of fat that I hope will protect me from the world.

HHLimbo no all from one pregnancy, lost weight after each pregnancy. Was under 10 stone at start of DS2's pregnancy. As I said I did try to be careful but I was always hungry and had zero willpower.

Was 11 stone 5lbs 6 weeks after giving birth but put on a stone in the next 4 months....

Only other time I was over 10 stone (other than pregnancy) was when I was diagnosed with both an underactive thyroid and PCOS both at the same time.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl I hope you get the help you need. Small steps at a time... Why does fat protect you from the outside world?

StayingDavidTennantsGirl , sorry I wasn't having a go if that's how it sounded. I'm a couple of stones overweight myself and I know how even that makes a difference to the old aches and pains. It just seems such a shame as Georgia was exercising at the camp so she was obviously capable of doing something. Perhaps the people at the camp (or whoever organised for her to go there) should have prepared her better for her return home. They could have discussed with her ways to keep motivated when she came home to the inevitable anti-climax (it's bad enough after a normal holiday, imagine coming back from all that encouragement to her selfish unhelpful mother!), how to set herself goals etc. It's such a waste of all that effort if she was sent home and then effectively abandoned. However, I also think that she seems to have thrown in the towel remarkably quickly, given the speed with which she put the weight back on. I'd have expected her to be buoyed up by her success to start with and a bit more determined to keep on with it, at least for a while.

Pixel - I didn't think you were having a go - sorry if I made you feel that I did. You're right about Georgia being able to do some exercise at the camp, and it does show how, if properly supported, she could have gone on and lost more weight, or at least maintained the weightloss she'd achieved. I suspect that struggling against her mother's negativity was one burden too many for the poor girl.

Forever - I'm not sure why the fat protects me from the outside world - perhaps because I think it makes me (strangely) less visible. I can't explain it any better than that, so I hope you can see what I mean. I suppose it physically keeps people at a distance too.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl I think the fat protecting you is all in your mind... as I said before, I hope you get the help you need. Even though I have (only) lost 2.5 stone recently I feel so much better, both health/fitness wise and also self confidence wise.

Foreveronadiet, there are women i know who deliberately made themselves fat to make themselves unattractive so they won't get raped or abused anymore/again.
Of course there are many other reasons why people get fat, but this is a serious reasoning for some women that become fat.

Forever - you are absolutely right - it is all in my mind. I am hoping that, as the depression lifts, I will be able to tackle my weight issues, and get to a healthier and happier weight.

I like you StayingDavidTennantsGirl, lots of people here do, and you will like yourself soon enough.

Thankyou Buzz - that means a lot.

(sorry if this has been mentioned but...) people with depression who go on ADs often end up piling on weight, which the doctors always gloss over/deny because I think they consider it the lesser of the two evils and they want you to get well in the head. Which is fine, but if your depression is linked to low self-esteem which is linked to self-image and weight issues it can just compound the problem. I don't know what the answer is (rubbish doctoring skills) but have a big hug and a SDG. We love you!

Actually I do know what the answer is - it's to keep having the therapy. All the best people have had some you know. ADs are great as a short term fix but you need to get to the root of it.

I've got a friend who has an active outdoor job, and although she had a terrible habit of snacking all day on chocolate and crisps, she got away with it and was skinny because she was burning off calories all day long. She doesn't drive so walks quite a long way to and fro work.
However, she is also bi-polar and was having a few problems so the doctors changed her medication. The weight piled on amazingly quickly and when she mentioned it at her next appointment she was told "Oh yes, that's a side effect of the medication". She's so livid that they didn't warn her beforehand so she could have changed her eating habits to compensate as she's now really struggling to lose the weight.

Just to illustrate/agree with FellatioNelson's point about certain drugs affecting weight gain, even if they are necessary drugs at the time.

It is or should be well known to anyone with a physiatric/mental health problem that anti physcotics make you gain weight.

I put on 3st in 1 yr on olanzapine.
Went on very quickly, but is taking its time to come off.

Still i would rather be fat than hallucinating and scared to go outside.
judged either way really arn't we!

I don't understand comfort eating. It's like hitting yourself in the face with a brick because you're depressed about being ugly.

Are you even interested in learning how to understand depression and the million ways it can affect people Robot, or are you just being rude?