To want to offer up to all the fat shamers...

[WichitaLineman]

... On mumsnet who peddle the old "fat people are lazy and lack will -power" or proffer their simplistic formula of "eat less, move more" an incredibly succinct description of food addiction by Marcus Brigstocke. I will admit that that sentence isn't quite so succinct

"Eating is different [from drug addiction]; it's dirty, it's horrible - you do it on your own and you wear it. [With] alcohol and drugs, you have moments of sobriety, [but] you don't stop being fat. You wear it; everyone can see it - it is a brand… an overcoat of shame for everyone to see.

"You despise yourself, you make promises to yourself, you say 'I had a bad day, that was bad but that means this is baseline and I can start', then you go and break those promises and do it again, and worse.

"Eating disorders are more pervasive and subtle [than alcohol and drugs] and availability and acceptability are much higher... the ”high“ comes from the totally full-up feeling ”It is an anaesthetic. You lie like a python digesting what you have, it slows your brain down and you are physically inert. Numb and dull, that is the feeling you get."

Whilst I am not saying that every obese person is a compulsive overeater, I wold wager that most are, including myself. This has resonated with me and is the best description I have read of the self-loathing involved in compulsive overeating. It is a faulty mechanism to deal with emotional pain and the fat shamers can't cause any more shame than we already feel for ourselves.

Whilst there are many people on mn who are understanding, I am always appalled by those who aren't. Please think on this when those threads come up. Thank you.

YES Goodness - absolutely! You'd never get anyone on the MH threads saying "cheer up, love it'll never happen" etc. And an ED board should demonstrate the same empathy.

Its the idea that if someone is overweight they are lazy which really annoys me.

Yes, of course I've read the thread. I'm a binge eater with a weight problem too. I just don't make excuses for myself. Obese people are like drug addicts, always saying they like themselves as they are, moaning about prejudice etc. etc. saying they can't change. Sorry, you can, it just required steel will and determination. There are times when I don't have it and if someone in a bus queue looks at me in disgust then I'm afraid I deserve it.

So you have read the thread but you just don't understand it. God bless you, don't worry your pretty little head about it.

There are all kinds of things people can be judgmental about. Personally I can't help judging willful stupidity, we all have our cross to bear.

I don't profess to know what goes on for other obese people - I only know what goes on in my own head!

We certainly won't with people like you around Higgle.

I would also suggest that although 13 stone is overweight it doesn't put you in a position to properly understand what it is like to be obese and the challenges which come with that.

Certainly doesn't allow you, or anyone, to judge someone.

I agree with higgle. I eat too much and don't excercise enough. Why do I need sympathy from people. The remedy is in my own hands. That is speaking for myself. If some people do this with weight clubs and so on then fine. If they can't then they should approach their doctor. People are quite kind and tell me I look fine so I haven't really met with this nastiness. I worked with a very very overweight colleague once. And nobody was in any way nasty only saying her health would be affected which it was already and she was only in her mid thirties.

actually at 5'3" and 13st Higgle would be clinically obese with a BMI of 32.2

Not obese? Of course 13 stone at 5'3" is obese. healthy weight is 8 stone 2 to 10 stone 1 I think, so 3 stone over top end of normal. At that weight I'm tired, snore all night, look terrible and am verging on a size 18.

I'm just over 9 stone at the moment, but it is a lot of hard work to be there.

I don't want sympathy from anyone I just want them to know that my weight is none o' their god damn business!
Your personal opinion might be that you find bigger people unattractive but don't speak for the rest of us. I know I fancy some big men. And I also know a lot of overweight people in happy relationships. Clearly someone finds them attractive! It's bullshit to say fat is unattractive, we'd all be single if it were true!

Do you want a round of applause Higgle?

But the point is the question has been raised in this thread. So people are saying what they think. Yes your weight is your business but if you ask people what their opinion is then they give it. In hopefully not an unkind way. Being overweight isn't healthy. And no amount of preference this way and the other changes that. And this argument some people are attracted to fat people is not a good path to go down. IMHO,

I think I am going to ask for this thread to be pulled, and I too would love to have a supportive thread on eating disorders.

The tone is becoming increasingly unkind - I am not the only person who has posted who is vulnerable and has a very real mental health condition. In no other medium except an anonymous internet forum would it be acceptable to demonstrate such prejudice and contempt towards mental illness, and some (not many) of the remarks on here are bullying.

To imply that it is dangerous to argue that people can be attracted to fat people is downright cruel - it is labelling people who may feel (like me) fundamentally worthless as even more unlovable. And it is patently not true - I am one of those people with a conventionally very attractive husband who does find me attractive. He would like me to lose weight for my health.

I have not presumed to know what is going on in every obese person's head, so please, I beg you, stop stating categorically that diet and exercise are the panacea for everyone. It is simply wrong to make that assumption - as has been explained many, many times on this thread, there are so many other mental and emotional mechanisms at play.

Sleepwhenidie, you have been immensely supportive to many people on this thread, and I look forward to joining an eating disorders topic and offering support to others.

I think the big mistake, is you want a discrete discussion on these issues was to post it in AIBU. I have a vested interest in this topic and whilst you may not agree with my views (which are genuinely held) the question you pose in this section is AIBU, to which, if I was less long winded I'd simply say "Yes" .

Perhaps you should start it again in "Health" ?

The laws of physics still apply though!

I'm sorry if I was unkind. I'm sure your husband loves you very much whatever your weight is. I was meaing that is somebody told me not to lose weight because they are attracted to fat women then it would ring alarm bells. I'm very sorry I have upset you.

Whitchita, Whilst I am not saying that every obese person is a compulsive overeater, I wold wager that most are, including myself.

Im sure you have thought about this but wouldn't a gastric band solve the eating issue and give you time to deal with the mental issue.

I think once the habit of eating is taken out of the equation it will be easier to deal with the issues surrounding food.

whitichita you have done a great thing starting this thread and potentially opening a new discussion in an ED board

Good Lord Higgle. I'm not sure I'm going to continue to engage with you but I imagine you tell people with depression to "Pull yourself together" and "if you don't get up and sort yourself out you might lose your job" and other "helpful" comments.

Gosh - is being overweight unhealthy?! Why didn't no one tell me before? Oh thankyou for that insight... now I will return to dealing with my issues, to which those kind of "insights" really really don't help.

I think you should read up on dealing with people with mental health issues/eatind disorders. THey are painfully aware they are fat/unhealthy/don't meet the norm for attractiveness. Why on earth do you think pointing it out/judging them would helP!?!?! What helps is dealing with the underlying issues (often self esteem/ trauma (there's a high link with sexual abuse in childhood and eating disorders)) Just heaping on more guilt MAKES IT WORSE, so next time you're thinking you're "just helping". Don't.

Yes thankyou OP for starting the discussion, and I guess posters like HIggle just point out the ignorance that is out there, and alogn with other posters the bullying/abusive fat shaming goes on and that people with eating disorders have to deal with AS WELL as trying to sort out their issues.

And yes a supportive environment with help from those "revovered" or with skills in the area, such as sleepwhenidie would be fantastic.

Thanks Vivienne - I actually tend to agree with you in the sense that fat fetishism is not healthy and I would be very suspicious of any man who had a vested interest in keeping someone fat.

Higgle, I don't believe I asked AIBU for judgements about obese people - or my body, or even my behaviour. I did expect some disagreement, and people have rightly pointed out to me that I cannot speak for every obese person, but your contribution has been singularly unhelpful and actually quite offensive to anyone with a mental health issue, as goodness has pointed out. Your posts also seem to have spectacularly missed the point.

You obviously don't have an ED in the same way that many of the people posting on here have or you simply wouldn't make the comments that you have, so please do not assume that you can speak for me and lots of the other posters on here.

Perhaps, in retrospect, it was unwise to post in AIBU, but I was trying to illustrate to people who have no idea what goes on in the head of someone who compulsively overeats what it can be like. I have obviously failed with you, which is ok.

Coming late to the 'party' here but it seems to me that people who claim to know all about what it is like for everybody to be fat, just because that is what it is like for them, show an amazing lack of empathy and an inability to put themselves in another person's shoes. Just because they felt a certain way about being fat, does not mean that everybody should feel exactly the same way. Is it so very hard to grasp that this is an incredibly complex issue and that the causes and effects of being overweight and obese vary massively from person to person. The fact that some people can get their weight under control by 'eating less and moving more' yet fail to see this is not the wonder cure for everybody says more about them and their lack of understanding and/or intelligence than anything else.

I'm fat. I know why but I also notice that whatever has affected me in my life and made me what I am is completely different to what has happened to others and I wouldn't dream of thinking I know what it is like to be them or to understand the problems they are facing. I could offer suggestions about what might make them feel better based on what makes me feel better but I wouldn't for one minute assume that I had the answers or that there was a simple way of doing things if only they tried hard enough. I can only empathise. Perhaps the fat shamers even those who are fat themselves but think they have all the answers should have a go at empathy too.

Wichita - I don't think you are being at all unreasonable to want to shame the fat shamers.

OP, to go back to your original post you say "Whilst I am not saying that every obese person is a compulsive overeater, I wold wager that most are, including myself. This has resonated with me and is the best description I have read of the self-loathing involved in compulsive overeating. It is a faulty mechanism to deal with emotional pain and the fat shamers can't cause any more shame than we already feel for ourselves. "

You say that those who oppose you on this thread should not seek to define what you feel, but you want to label most of the obese as "compulsive over eaters" with faulty mechanisms - i.e. people who are either not able or are struggling to change. I'm saying that this is not the case for me, that I can change but with difficulty and I don't want to be labelled as a no hoper. it is such a negative but no doubt very comforting view for those who are are very overweight or obese. A complete justification for their behaviour that lets them off effort, dieting etc. etc.

I don't name change and hide behind a different identity for every view I espouse. Those who know me on here will be aware that I was a criminal defence solicitor for most of my career, and I now run a care service. I have met a lot of drug users, shop lifters and other offenders who all wanted to say "its not my fault, I can't help it, I feel terrible about it." Of course those who laboured away trying to help and support them could only say that positive changes had to be made.

The gastric band arguments have been conveniently ignored. The apologists ignore the wide spread success of Weight Watchers and Slimming World ( one of my colleagues who has been telling everyone who works here she couldn't lose weight for years has recently lost 10 stone at Slimming World)

I did actually qualify that I was talking about the morbidly obese with a bmi of over 40. Ie not you. But I'm not sure why I am engaging with you tbh.

Do you know what I have done today, off the back of this thread? Binged for the first time in 4 weeks.

I am not blaming you. I feel disgusted with myself. But it is a reality. Call me weak. Call me greedy. I don't really give a fuck. But that is the reality of my life.

I really think you need to learn some compassion Higgle and stop being so goddamn arrogant and, frankly, smug.

I'm off to the supportive thread when it starts. Thanks all you lovelies on this thread.

Success?! I thought that documentary "the men who made us fat" demonstrated that by most measures WW and SW are complete failures? For anyone that actually does lose weight it goes back on again within a few years (and so keeping you back in their money making clutch). They aren't dealing with the underlying issues

I don't think I'm a no-hoper. The opposite in fact. I've met many that have recovered from an eating disorder, and its a proper understanding of the issues that gives me hope I can recover. Not yet another attempt at a diet. (which then fails, feeds the low-self esteem, cycle repeats)

Things like slimming world and weight watchers rely on the fact they cause people to "yo-yo" diet and keep going back again and again.