Is being fat a choice?

[notevenamum1]

This has all been triggered from a post I read on here the other day that was based around how short men must feel how fat women do when it comes to dating. There was a comment made about how it was worse for the men because they had not chosen to be short. Now this blaze comment about how being fat is a choice really sent me down a rabbit hole.

I think this is probably easy to say if you are someone who has never struggled with weight before but if you are someone like me who has struggled and yo-yo’d with their weight their whole life then they would beg to differ. I am both tall and fat, I have in the past been slim(mer) but it was a hell of a battle to get there and was unsustainable to stay there. Even now I am 5ft8, 14stone and convince myself that I am a size 14...I have to be mindful of what I eat every day, and exercise regularly or I would be even larger than I am now.

Do people look at me and think I am fat because I have no self control? Do they think this is my “fault”?

Is being “fat” a choice?

This is so difficult!

I have battled my weight from being 15-50 - lost weight on weight watchers, slimming world, 5:2, through all that time, slowly gained it started again.

Since I was 24, I've been a member of a gym, classes, weight training, swimming, Pilates, I enjoy exercise and I'm still relatively fit. I love clothes and that has always been my motivation to lose the weight- start getting to be a hefty size 14 - go on a diet get back to a 12, stay there for a year, 2, 3 and then off again.

But then comes the bloody menopause, all my normal strategies don't work, the diets don't work, I'm tired of diets, I'm just tired! stick to it all week then a nice meal out and a few drinks at the weekend and I'm back where I started! Life feeling too short to skip the nice meal and the drinks at the weekend!

It's exhausting, I don't think I've got it in me to do it again! ☹️

Yes and no.

Every mouthful is a choice. But our choices are dictated by many many things - genetics, trauma, disordered thinking, hormones, self esteem.

So technically in most cases yes - but that doesn't mean they're easy to make.

I pass no judgement. I am overweight and tackling it. It was never a choice to become like this, for me. However, I had to accept the choice to make changes. That was a choice. It’s harder for me than other people because I am physically disabled, so very limited with exercise, and I’m on long term high dose steroids. However, it was a choice to tell myself “it’s harder for me but not impossible”. Nobody should ever be judged if they’re not in the right head space nor in the right life circumstances to make changes. It isn’t easy and the timing has to be right.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm painfully aware that my weight is my own choice. If I over eat, I put on weight. If I reduce what I eat, I lose weight. I have to make a conscious choice every day about the food I eat. Currently not doing so well, at least a stone over when I should be. But as I said at the start - I can't speak for anyone else.

@LaurieFairyCake it was 6 months ago. Lost 4 and a half stone so far. No side effects. Loving life. Feeling great and NORMAL

Well every gram of your body mass got there through your mouth

Unless you're being force fed you made the choice to put it there

@CorianderLord

Yes and no.

Every mouthful is a choice. But our choices are dictated by many many things - genetics, trauma, disordered thinking, hormones, self esteem.

So technically in most cases yes - but that doesn't mean they're easy to make.

Amazing how in in war torn famine stricken countries with poor healthcare and terrible education that trauma and lack of access doesn't seem to make the population obese though.

I wonder how that works

For most people it's a choice I think, but not an easy one. People want the results but often struggle to really dedicate the required effort. Same with financial/career success.

Binge eating to obesity is a mental health issue deserving of support.
A lot of people have very skewed ideas of reasonable portion sizes and what constitutes a healthy meal. I love eating interesting, nutritious salads with a variety of vegetables, cheeses, nuts and meats but the reality is we spend a lot of money on food. We both think it’s money well spent for health reasons but if you don’t have much disposable cash it can be hard to justify. A basic garden salad isn’t particularly appetising for kids or many adults so it makes sense to opt for something like a shepherds pie or lasagna which isn’t as good for you but you know won’t go to waste. Many people are raised to eat for comfort or eat too quickly so they consume more than they need before feeling full.
I don’t think it is particularly helpful to blame and shame individuals because it usually just causes them self loathing and more overeating. We have a massive problem with overweight and obesity in the western world. It is a problem that needs a public health solution rather than blaming individuals.

I really don't think that the majority of overweight people have binge eating disorder... Just like the majority of skinny people don't have anorexia nervosa. Simply eating too many calories and making poor choices causes people to be overweight, they don't all have binge eating disorder and to suggest they do is kind of invalidating to people with actual binge eating disorder...

@Elsewyre

‘ Amazing how in in war torn famine stricken countries with poor healthcare and terrible education that trauma and lack of access doesn't seem to make the population obese though. ’

I think you may have cracked why in the first line - ‘famine stricken’...

Also African countries such as Ghana are now experiencing rising levels of obesity as fast food companies make inroads.

To be fair the majority of people with a BMI significantly under normal (below say 17) either have an eating disorder or medical problem. Even if its a choice if you are chosing to not eat everyday then people would class that as an eating disorder.

So maybe BMI 25-30 not an eating disorder. But if we are saying its a choice, then you are chosing to essentially damage your body, surely that is a disorder?

In general, no I don't judge individuals (and 14/16 is not so big, OP.) It IS hard to keep weight off sometimes.

I do hate seeing really overweight kids though (I'm not talking a bit of puppy fat, I mean seriously overweight.) Childhood should be spent running madly round the park and if your 8 year old is so fat that they get out of breath walking between the swings and the slide, that's heartbreaking.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

‘Are anorexics told they need to eat to be better and not to die early?
Yes. It's not cruel. It's truth’

People don’t tend to respond that way though ‘eat or die’ (thank god) as it’s acknowledged as a mental health condition and thus treatment can be very complex.

I think the point the poster above you was making is that obesity is often treated as a simple choice unlike other conditions such as anorexia, drug addiction, alcoholism. Obesity is as complex and multi factor as these - and we need to approach it and talk about it differently, offering solutions and policy that might help individuals without attaching blame. As we do with other conditions.

And no one is saying there is nothing overweight people can do, it’s looking at what we as a society can do to support them as some people have the cards stacked against them . The blame culture I’ve seen from a few on here certainly doesn’t help
How about we look at what has actually been done? Nutrition education introduced in primary schools. Clear labelling on supermarket foods. Calories introduced on menues, multi disciplinary teams introduced that GPs can refer direct to. In some areas, GPs can refer to local gyms. Main gyms now offer weight loss clinics. Surgery in the nhs for the very obese. Weight loss apps, videos available online.

Its frustrating when people just focus on what is not available to avoid facing the fact that they need to take responsibity for their situation rather than relying on external factors and blaming the lack of them for not moving forward.

I don't judge fat people, there are many factors that lead to people being fat and it could happen to almost everyone. I do judge those who look for anything else to blame for not managing to lose weight.

Acceptance is always the first step to any recovery.

The below posts do sum it up very well and haven't been acknowledged much. My previous post mentioned secret eaters which covers all of the points made in the below posts and many seem to be completely disregarding it. The choices are not easy and always obvious to the person losing weight, the truth may be very hard to face and as the previous posts mention and the show proves many people are just not honest enough with themselves , coupled with a real lack of understanding about true portion size, hidden calories and how much effort exercise should be.

Yes dome mental health issues and medical reasons do contribute to some but not everyone, a huge amount of people dont fall into these categories.

Newdaynewname1

Behavioural nutrition researcher here (i.e. I spend my days observing what people eat).
To me the top reasons are

• loads of ignorance/lack of education. People just don’t check calories
• massive portion sizes (too much healthy food makes you fat as well). starting with kids being given adult portion sizes. Getting smaller plates helps.
• demonisation of some foods, glorification of others (portion size is more important than what you eat for your weight)
• not counting “small stuff” lime dressings and sauces. a salad drowned in dressing is fairly bad for you
• if you don’t want to eat it, don’t buy it
• bad habits, i.e. people don’t even realise they snack a lot (my favourite case was a lady who ate 200g of chocolate a day - without ever noticing)
• choice - yes, its hard. Being healthy means conscious choice for healthy options and healthy portion sizes
• overestimating activity. 10 minutes walking a day isn’t an awful lot

Best post on here, yet only one person other than me bothers to acknowledge it. At all.

An actual behavioural nutrition researcher as well!

I guess it proves my point that weight is a hugely emotional issue and a lot of people aren't ready to hear ANYTHING on the subject that might help their lives.

Instead it's far better to pile onto anyone who uses the wrong terminology, or is perceived as being insensitive. It's easier to blame hidden, immeasurable factors because we once had a skinny friend who was able to wolf a takeaway.

And that is great that those changes have been made but we still have the biggest childhood obesity problem in Europe so clearly there is more that needs doing unless we want this to get worse. Let’s be ambitious for peoples health and keep improving education, keep researching, and make our all environments support healthy choices. There is really bad health inequality across the U.K. for instance so more work needs to be done there.

This is something I think about a lot.
I think a major reason for obesity is comfort eating, due to unresolved emotional issues (abuse, stress, trauma, low self-esteem etc) Plus the fact that food is so much more accessible than in the past (an abundance of cheap snacks, addictive low-nutritional foods high in carbs and sugar).
Food gives an instant hit of pleasure. Much easier to comfort eat than get counselling or self-examine why you have no off-switch when it comes to eating.
When I get home from work or DD2 is stressing me out, I strongly want to eat chocolate as a form of stress-relief.
Obviously, lack of exercise plays a part here too.

What I have really noticed is how much slimmer women were in the past, pre 1980 anyway. It’s the advent of fast food, takeaways and convenience food that has caused the problem in my view. People stopped cooking from scratch and portion sizes everywhere became bigger an a bigger, as we followed American ways of eating. The massive buckets of popcorn and enormous containers of coke at the cinema are just obscene.
Lots of trans fats, loads of sugar in everything, processed food everywhere you look. People eating lots more meat.
I remember when a salad was some lettuce, a tomato and some cottage cheese. That was a meal. Supermarkets have also contributed as people buy much more in one shop, where previously shopping would be done daily at the local shop. The whole snacking culture is to blame too. I was brought up having three meals a day and no snacks. I ate fruit in between meals.
Children are brought up to snack continuously these days.
We don’t know what being hungry really is, we eat all day non stop, and much of what we eat is high in fat and sugar.
We move less generally because we sit at computers and housework is far less labour intensive. If you go to the gym for an hour and sit around all day the rest of the time, it has an effect. Our lifestyles are killing us. Add a load of stress into the mix and it’s a disaster.

Also eating out used to be a rare treat. It’s now a common occurrence. You don’t know how the food had been prepared or what is in it.
Women also drink a LOT more than they did thirty years ago and alcohol is full of calories.

I have to say that I feel bit iffy about the term "food addiction". No one is addicted to food overall. Sugar, maybe yeah. But never heard of anyone being addicted to cucumber...

Of course, in the main, it is a choice, but much more complex than that and once the myriad bad choices have come to roost it is so difficult to deal with.
I have to work really hard to keep my weight to just into the overweight category. I choose to eat what I consider to be very little, much less than I would like. I had a takeaway in the 3rd week of lockdown, have drunk alcohol twice since lockdown began. I’d love to have a great big dinner every day and alcohol at least once a week.
My trouble is, making that bad choice takes seconds or minutes. Scone with jam and cream? No problem! Large bar of chocolate? The work of moments! Dealing with the extra weight it brings takes me weeks to deal with. I sometimes think my metabolism is completely shot because I’ve dieted my whole life and rarely been a normal weight.
The idea that women should be having 2000 calories a day is nonsense, imo. For me, to maintain, it would be about 1200.
If I ate what I wanted I really would be huge. I absolutely sympathise with anyone struggling with their weight, it is very, very tough for some of us,

Oh and bread is shit too. Full of additives and rubbish, with GM wheat crops. No wonder there’s such a lot of gluten intolerance.

@KatherineParr4

Oh and bread is shit too. Full of additives and rubbish, with GM wheat crops. No wonder there’s such a lot of gluten intolerance.

🙋 I can't deal with white flour products like white bread rolls etc for last 6 years. Never had that problem before. I think it's the bleaching of the flour as well.