Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think you can be fat and happy and have no need to lose any weight

158 replies

nickiredcar · 21/12/2018 22:00

My friend is a secretary, she met her boyfriend at school amd has been with him almost ten years. They own their own home, regular holidays and have a land rover - all they want.

She is one of the happiest people I know. However she's annoyed that several people have suggested she should loose weight. She's classified as morbidly obese and is her mid 20s. No health conditions but she does breath very heavily.

She says that everytime she goes on a diet she's misserable so would rather just be happy and eat what she wants.

So really aibu to think how she is is probably the best for her? And people meaning well shouldn't say anything.

OP posts:
KC225 · 22/12/2018 02:58

I don't believe any morbidly obese person is truly happy. I am not buying it for a second.

And I need to loose a few stone

Shriek · 22/12/2018 03:10

I think yabu to draw a link between being morbidly obese and being happy that being happy is as a result of extreme over eating.

This is every day putting extreme pressure on her heart, liver, kidneys, all her organs and her joints, including massively increased risk of diabetes, which is also a killer in itself as well as a major contributing factor to cardio-vascular disease, strokes and heart attacks.

I think shaming people is gross full stop regardless of the what for, just nasty and pointless.

Your headline though would seem to discount all the very happy people that have a positive and healthy relationship with food, plus love keeping fit and being active.

I think its very sad that she's morbidly obese, well anyone at any age, but while she's young she should be far more active and I suspect it is already restricting her activitiea considerably, especially if, as you say, she's already getting labourdd breathing ...shocking at her age...

I can only guess she would be in denial and uses excessive eating as a comfort/prop, and it distresses her to remove it (reduction by diet), just like any alcoholic or any addiction.

I really hope she can get some help before she starts to need serious ops and lifelong medications.

NonExistentFox · 22/12/2018 03:38

Bliss3333 more forgiving body chemistry? I think that's a bit simplistic and ignorant, yes some people have faster metabolisms, but some people do just over eat. Obesity isn't naturally occurring (in most people) there's a reason it's on the rise..

They haven't just lucked out with not having 'forgiving body chemistry.'

Yes they have, but it's not about metabolism, it's about appetite. They have body chemistry that makes "control of their food intake" easier. They are less tempted. A fat person may not be "just over eating", they may be trying ten times as hard as you and still fail, if the "self control issues" you talk about are biologically mediated and not antiquated ideas of moral fibre and will power.

JosephineBucket · 22/12/2018 03:57

I was overweight in my 20s and obese in my 30s and it didn't affect my health so it kept creeping up. I found out I was morbidly obese at 41 at the booking appointment with my midwife and it scared the bejesus out of me. I couldn't crash diet being pregnant but it made me rethink my eating and I lost 3 stone in a year and a half by changing my eating patterns.

I'm still obese but feel physically so much better, I've got about a stone to go before I'm "just" overweight. As for metabolism, look at the function of ghrelin, the hunger hormone. It's said it takes a year to reset and I found this to be true. After a year I was so much less hungry it was unreal.

I was perfectly happy with my weight but I wasn't healthy and the risks associated with being pregnant and morbidly obese were just too great for me to accept.

RhiWrites · 22/12/2018 03:59

She diets because she wants to lose weight, she fails and it makes her miserable. Being in denial and giving up isn’t happiness. I’ve been there, I know.

If she genuinely were happy as she is, I’d say no problem. But clearly she isn’t.

To anyone in this position I’d say, weight loss is completely doable, and even enjoyable. I did it and I’m happy in a way I never was before, not just because I’m slimmer but because I’ve come to love my active lifestyle.

BusterGonad · 22/12/2018 04:21

It's a good job job she's got a Land Rover!

Loobyloo16 · 22/12/2018 04:27

I don't believe you can be fat and happy. I was on obese throughout my 20 and early 30 and was miserable. It's uncomfortable, jars to buy nice clothes and people treat you differently.

On another note she has a land rover so that's good Grin

WereYouHareWhenIWasFox · 22/12/2018 04:34

I never thought I was not happy when I was fat, but since losing the weight (healthy BMI and waist is under half my height) I realize just how much more I can enjoy life. I am healthy, I look good and best of all, I have tonnes of energy.

SpeckledyHen · 22/12/2018 04:43

No health problems? The clue is in the phrase ‘ morbidly obese ‘ .
Being dead is a bit of a health problem...

LadyRochfordsFrostedGusset · 22/12/2018 04:47

goo.gl/images/FGaQTx

AgentJohnson · 22/12/2018 05:25

The health conditions associated with being morbidly obese will catch up with her in the end. Now is her opportunity to do something about it.

You can be polite and not offer her unsolicited advice but I wouldn’t play along with her denial. If she insists on discussing a subject where you hold an opposing view, then she risks hearing the articulation of that opposing view. Her weight should simply be a subject where you can agree to disagree but don’t get sucked into being allied to a behaviour that will cause her and probably already does, physical and emotional harm.

People seem to think that they have some divine right to expressing their unsolicited opinions and I would be irked by that type of rudeness too.

Tidy2018 · 22/12/2018 06:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Babygrey7 · 22/12/2018 08:07

Tidy, that is almost a novel Grin

To OP: of course you can be fat and happy, lots of people are.

I always think someone's weight or life style habits are non of my business and I would never comment!

NonExistentFox · 22/12/2018 08:14

Tidy, that is almost a novel Grin

She's sworn over and over again to herself that she'll stop. But the fattopian prose keeps flowing from her fingers like chocolate fondue.

knittedjest · 22/12/2018 08:20

I've never met a happy morbidly obese person. Met plenty who say that they are happy but their actions say otherwise.

Doggydoggydoggy · 22/12/2018 08:22

I think there is a middle ground and I hate how no one ever hovers there!

The reality is you cannot be fat and healthy, you just can’t.
Fat and happy, perhaps.
Fat and healthy, no.

But we seem to only have two camps.
Camp I hate fat and will do anything I can to make fat people feel shit and camp I love fat, it’s just another body type, curves are beautiful blah blah blah.

Both are very wrong.

We should not be doing anything to encourage or normalise obesity but at the same time we should be remembering that we are all people with feelings and it is unacceptable to deliberately upset others.
Which many people have no problem at all doing if the victim happens to be fat.

roundaboutthetown · 22/12/2018 08:33

Well, sorry, but if someone is clearly anorexic, or clearly morbidly obese, and is thus killing themselves slowly and painfully, and they tell you they are happy and they think there is nothing wrong with their behaviour, you don't agree with them if they are truly a friend of yours. You tell them you love them and are worried about them, because that's the truth...

FlashByReputation · 22/12/2018 08:42

I think there is a cultural backlash happening with some parts of society. People have been forced to go along with other people delusions for too long, and frankly can't be bothered anymore. Facts are facts.

It's not taking the moral high ground, fat shaming or reducing people to how they look to say that being obese is not a good idea and should be addressed. I for one am sick of it. Obesity is THE most dangerous eating disorder and I'm sick of seeing kids too fat to run around and play with their friends, looking and feeling self-conscious and unhappy, and nothing is done for fear of fat shaming them or their parents or "giving them an eating disorder". NEWSFLASH; They already having disordered eating if what they eat and their attitude to eating is having a negative impact on the quality of their life.

Branleuse · 22/12/2018 08:42

I think shes quite right. Sometimes you just need to accept who you are, and try and enjoy life. Perpetual dieting is miserable and often doesnt even work. Good for her. Fat and happy is fine

knittedjest · 22/12/2018 08:47

branleuse

Do you know how much calories you would need to consume on an every day basis just to maintain a morbidly obese BMI? There's a difference between not dieting and literally eating yourself to death. You'd have to be pretty unhappy with yourself and bored in life to eat that much every day.

masterandmargarita · 22/12/2018 08:51

But in general how do over weight people become over weight in the first place? It's usually from over eating isn't it? So when you're eating so much that you feel completely stuffed are you actually happy then? Isn't that like someone drinking too much and drunks are mostly definitely frowned upon on mumsnet.

FlashByReputation · 22/12/2018 08:53

@knittedjest finally! Someone else talking about facts. I went out with a PT and one of our biggest rows was about the fact he maintained that it is actually harder for the body to gain significant weight than it is to lose it. I thought this was bollocks, turns out he was right Confused

SerenDippitty · 22/12/2018 08:54

Each to their own, but she will eventually get arthritis in her knees. Plus very likely to have high blood pressure and possibly heart disease.

I have just been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my knees and I’ve never been obese and am currently a healthy weight.

Racecardriver · 22/12/2018 08:59

How long is she going to be happy though? Until she develops more serious health problems? When she’s told she’s too unhealthy to have children? When she looses mobility? When she realises she is going to die very young?

CookPassBabtridge · 22/12/2018 09:02

I totally get her, I've been obese at one point in my 20s and then again in my 30s.. It didn't negatively affect me at all the first time but now at 33 I'm seeing all kinds of aches and pains surfacing which is driving me to lose it. She needs to come to the decision herself and if she's happy as she is then leave it.