to wonder if your loved one was very obese why would you feed them crap

[McHappyPants2012]

i watch alot of programmes about very obese people. They can't move or take care of themselves. So why do the people who are supposed to be looking after them continue to give them foods so high in fats and sugars.

why do you watch a lot of programmes about obese people? do you like the 'freak show' element?
the fats and sugars affect the way the brain works - fats particularly, i think. heard something about it on the radio. so if you're already overweight and taking in too much of those substances, you're going to want more, not want to give them up. and i'd guess you can get fat eating at any time of day, not just in the evening.

i'd want to check the anxiety levels of these people. i think constant over-eating is a form of self-medication, a tranquiliser.

msrantsalot, there are medical conditions where people feel hungry all the time. might be a good idea to get it checked out. (and carrots and apples make good fillers, as do satsumas).

Because the obese person is an adult and generally entitled to make their own choices about what they eat? Needing care shouldn't take away your human right to make choices.

As Kladdkaka said

We were watching some programme and I told dh if he ever got that big he couldn't move, I would only bring him healthy meals and water. If he wanted suggery drinks and snacks he would have to get them himself, if he couldn't, he wouldn't get them.

But then I couldn't watch dh do that to himself. If he goes up a waist size we both diet and exercise together, and he does the same for me. I'm no stick thin model, don't get the wrong idea, I have weight to loose ATM, but I just couldn't watch him do it.

I used to watch a lot of documentaries about obese people when I was in university when i used to stay awake all night with insomnia. they are always on at stupid o clock on those health channels. I even saw one about people gettting plastic surgery on their toes because they didn't like their feet. Once saw a woman get her nose bump filed away with what looked like an enormous nail file.

Gwendolin - IKWYM about your dad.

My parents are both diabetic and they have never really had a sweet tooth until recently (both 75 now).

TBH my dad does loads of walking, always has been very active. And my mum has lost weight in the last 10 years.(Dad has always been very slim)

If he goes 'off the rails' ask him why.
If he comes round to yours for cakes, you can find some low sugar/low far recipies. I make banana bread -very little sugar and butter. Or muffins.

If I cook a meal for them, I tell them to enjoy it and not worry about it. They don't go overboard and it's only once in a while.

And I work with a 90% diabetic caseload. I tell them they are cheating themselves but it's not like a diet where they can cut down the next day. I know my dad has to eat regulatly or he gets low blood sugar very quickly.

In one of the 'Look!! It's a 500lb Man!!' type shock-docs I saw, the morbidly obese person was also a terrible bully and his wife looked petrified. The fact that he couldn't move didn't seem to matter. He yelled for burgers or whatever and she brought it. Maybe she was hoping he'd just die?

Fanjo would you take alcohol to a bed ridden alcoholic? It is their choice to drink.

Wouldn't one feel pretty abusive and controlling if a partner was bedridden, and requesting things, and one was taking advantage of the situation to institute a forced diet?

I mean, think about it!

The bigjessie yes I am thinking about it and I would say you need to be cruel to be kind. If someone is so obese that they can't move to get their own food, then of course I'd make sure they didn't overeat. Once they lost enough weight to get their own food they could do what they liked.

At which point, one would still be like lots of abusive partners, who are convinced they are morally justified.

It's absolutely wunnerful to declare that you wouldn't do that, and you'd be cruel to be kind. But I bet it feels a lot more complicated when you're actually caring for a bedridden relative/partner.

Its one of the "unanswered" questions in these shows. The extremely morbidly obese person is filmed eating pizza etc, bed-bound and virtually unable to move.

Someone is bringing him/her food. Who? No-one knows, no one says. I have wondered about this too.

If a person is so obese they need carers to feed them how would they commit suicide if they didn't get the food? Genuine question.

Surely someone of that size needs to be forcibly fed a healthy diet and offered nothing else until they're in a position to make their own food. Is that not what hospitals do to anorexic patients, force-feed them?

@TheBigJessie... It's not 'abusive' to feed a morbidly obese, immobilised person a healthy diet any more than it would be abusive to deny cigarettes to a person hooked up to an oxygen mask....

Doesn't mean one wouldn't feel abusive. And while you are turning this moral paradox over in your head, I doubt the person in the bed is sitting there quietly, saying absolutely nowt to disturb your thinking process, eh? I think they'll be arguing rather vigorously for what they want to eat.

Thebigjessie, would you let an alcoholic drink himself to death by going out and buying the alcohol when he/she was incapacitated through drink?

By enabling a morbidly obese person (one who can't move off a bed) to eat him/herself to death is the same thing in my view.
Who is controlling who?

Are you in the position of being the obese one or feeding an obese person jessie? Because otherwise I can't understand how you could condone it

How ridiculous. It's not a moral paradox at all. The morbidly obese person confined to the the bed is entirely dependent upon their carer for their well-being. And 'well-being' is the operative phrase. If the carer, by indulging the whims of the dependent, makes them more unwell in the process then they are failing as a carer. As parents, if every time we said 'No DC, you've had enough ice-cream for one day' we were guilty of abuse or 'moral paradoxes', Social Services wouldn't be able to keep up.

Cognito you put it very well

I just don't know how they (I'm thinking about the programmes about the morbidly obese in the USA in particular) afford to buy that amount of junk food every day. I don't imagine they have very generous benefits in the US, and the people in the programmes and their families aren't able to go to work.

Are you in the position of being the obese one or feeding an obese person mirry? Because otherwise I can't understand how you could be so sure of yourself.

Cogito Sure, perhaps "moral paradox" is the wrong phrase. But in case you haven't noticed, people generally treat children and adults quite differently. People feel they have a right/duty to say "no more ice cream/" to their children.It doesn't generally follow that they will necessarily feel they have a right to say the same to an immobilised partner.

Thebigjessie I was asking a genuine question, because I thought maybe that was influencing your point of view.

No I am not morbildy obese and nor do I feed someone who is.
anywy i'm not saying put them on a diet of salad, what I think is that their excessive diet of hamburgers and other unhealthy food should be gradually reduced. Their stomach would shrin k, they wouldn't need to eat som much and gradually lose weight without realising it.
Nobody can be happy being bedridden. Surely?

If I had a morbidly obese, bedridden loved-one, I don't think I would have any moral wranglings whatsoever with denying them foods which were killing them. I daresay they would get angry and upset and that would make me very sad probably but it wouldn't be justification to continue slowly killing them.

Someone mentioned anorexia unthread- I would think morbid obesity would need to be treated with the same approach, ie as a mental illness.

Like other posters, I struggle to see how it can get so bad before people want to take action. I can understand someone putting on a stone or two before deciding to deal with the problem but reaching 30-odd stone doesn't happen overnight and surely if you find yourself having to buy larger clothes every few months, the cost (if nothing else!) might inspire some examination of your diet and activity levels.

It's a bit different perhaps for those with medical conditions where medication causes weight gain and /or sufferers are unable to exercise.

No I'm just speaking from the point of view that it's very easy to smugly proselytise on the internet, without appreciating that other people in any situation have emotions and associated reactions.

Thus, people in any given situation frequently fail to act like Data in Star Trek.

I think very obese people have very complicated relationship to food. For the most part they have an unhappy story behind all of it. It's a complicated thing and 'eat less' isn't going to work. Perhaps the people that care for them know that they are hurting and comfort the best way they can. It's not just a case of needing willpower.

"But in case you haven't noticed, people generally treat children and adults quite differently. "

Maybe they do but, at heart, there is no substantial difference between a dependent child and a dependent adult.