To think that the worst thing you could be in life is fat.

[Dylaninthemovies1]

It just seems that no matter how successful a woman is in life, none of it matters, if she isnt slim (and preferably pretty too)

And, Online forums seem to be full of fat haters who are very smug and judgemental

(Though I take your point that it's carrying the weight for longer than a typical exercise session)

@ekidmxcl

The worst thing for a person to be is someone that hurts and upsets other people.

^This!

@JoysOfString

worraliberty yes but no one moves around 24/7, people sit down, relax on the sofa and sleep so you do get a rest.

Yes but if that person is obese, their heart and lungs can still be very much affected.

Plus, they'll probably still be consuming too many calories on a daily basis, so the weight will be constantly added to.

When I'd just graduated I had a job interview at a property development company, I thought the interview was going quite well until she said "there's an image here that we like to maintain" as she pointedly stared me down and then nodded to the rest of the office behind a glass wall, who were all noticeably a lot thinner than chubby 21 year old me – I did not get the job!

I went to a wedding last year where I was on a table with the bride's school friends, all of whom were size 8's to my size 16. They spent the majority of the night talking about how bloated they were and how they couldn't possibly get up and dance or be in any photos after they'd eaten. I felt so embarrassed that I wasn't joining in with their "oh god I'm so fat" talk but the food was amazing and so was the music and I just wanted to celebrate my friend.

I don't necessarily enjoy being fat but I'm so sick of it being such a terrible 'sin', especially for women. I hate the conversations about weight/diet in the office where I'm the fattest by a mile, I hate being judged for what I eat and how I look. I've definitely missed out because of my size but I refuse to hate myself for the way I look. I'm still worthy of respect. A lot of people do act as if being fat is the worst thing in the world.

@Delbelleber

The "worst thing" get a grip OP there are worst things in life than being fat. CF

Sweet Jesus #BeKind

Bloody hell that's awful about the job interview "feelingsomewhatlost*. And the thin women moaning about their weight as well - how fucking rude. I'm glad you've felt able to rise above that crap.

Actually the constant weight/food moaning (combined with the cake culture) is one of the reasons I became self-employed and work from home. And that was without being overweight myself, at the time. I just couldn't stand it and wanted to yell "FFS talk about something more interesting!"

After all lifting weights is very good for you, exercise is good for you, so why doesn't extra weight benefit your heart, lungs and muscles in some way, as well as presumably burning extra calories?
Really? For starters you need to be fit for weight training, even the best weightlifting champions would not do it for 16 hours.
Fat surrounds your organs on the inside as well as the outside. When you lay down it squashes your intestinal tract, lungs, heart, not only is the fat around it but the weight is resting on top of the person.
Weight lifting and carrying the weight does very different things to the body.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05psf4l This was a good show. I was shockingly surprised when Dr Saleyha Ahsan who isn't obese had an internal organ fat scan her organs were encased with fat.
It was frightening.

Yes but carrying a lot of weight over a long distance is used for fitness training, eg in army recruits. So I still don't see why there isn't somer benefit - for example stronger muscles that then help with metabolism.

Again I'm not trying to be arsey or stick to my view for the sake of it - and these answers explain it to an extent, but I still also think there should be some kind of benefit!

Yes but carrying a lot of weight over a long distance is used for fitness training, eg in army recruits. So I still don't see why there isn't somer benefit - for example stronger muscles that then help with metabolism

Again I'm not trying to be arsey or stick to my view for the sake of it - and these answers explain it to an extent, but I still also think there should be some kind of benefit
Yes I don't think so. I don't there is any benefit to carrying a few unevenly distributed stones around all day. It probably makes you physically more powerful though your heart will become tired easier every organ has to work harder.
The program I linked will explain it better if you had the time.

@Delaberge I personally am obese because I have eaten and drunk far too many calories over a period of years. I am one of the fortunate ones , where the answer is to simply reduce the number of calories I consume. I don't eat emotionally, I don't take any medication, I don't have any chronic health conditions that I am aware of, the only physical issues that I have could be significantly reduced with diet and doing the exercises the physio recommended.

I do not think of myself as lazy though. I work equally as hard as my colleagues, I don't have more time off sick than my slim counterparts, I do all the tasks they do, I just carry the equivalent of another person around with me when I do them.

[quote frumpety]@Delaberge I personally am obese because I have eaten and drunk far too many calories over a period of years. I am one of the fortunate ones , where the answer is to simply reduce the number of calories I consume. I don't eat emotionally, I don't take any medication, I don't have any chronic health conditions that I am aware of, the only physical issues that I have could be significantly reduced with diet and doing the exercises the physio recommended.

I do not think of myself as lazy though. I work equally as hard as my colleagues, I don't have more time off sick than my slim counterparts, I do all the tasks they do, I just carry the equivalent of another person around with me when I do them.[/quote]
I'm a bit confused though why you would ask...

I wonder how a very slim person would feel about how lazy a morbidly obese person was if they were made to wear a 70kg fat suit for a day?

All the day to day tasks you do as a slim person, I do, whilst carrying that additional weight.

Why would they feel anything? You're all employed to wok hard and do your jobs.

If you're doing yours with additional weight, why would they want to be made to wear a 70kg fat suit for a day?

Thanks Emerald I should watch it. tbh honest I was put off as I didn't want to be frightened by thinking about visceral fat! 😱

I think some of you are being a bit deliberately obtuse. Surely frumpety was just pointing out that being obese and carrying on with life, work etc. is hard physical work, therefore it's not right to think of obese people as lazy. If people had to wear a 70kg fat suit for a day they would realise how hard it is. I'm not speaking from personal experience but that's what I took from frumpety's post.

@JoysOfString

I think some of you are being a bit deliberately obtuse. Surely frumpety was just pointing out that being obese and carrying on with life, work etc. is hard physical work, therefore it's not right to think of obese people as lazy. If people had to wear a 70kg fat suit for a day they would realise how hard it is. I'm not speaking from personal experience but that's what I took from frumpety's post.

Far from being obtuse, I'm trying to get to the bottom of why anyone would want/need to do that when frumpety has said...

I personally am obese because I have eaten and drunk far too many calories over a period of years. I am one of the fortunate ones , where the answer is to simply reduce the number of calories I consume. I don't eat emotionally, I don't take any medication, I don't have any chronic health conditions that I am aware of, the only physical issues that I have could be significantly reduced with diet and doing the exercises the physio recommended.

She then goes on to say that she does her job just as well as everyone else.

I'm genuinely not sure what she's getting at here. She's choosing to do her job with the added weight. So why would anyone want/need to experience how she feels, if she's actually chosen that?

It kind of reads like her colleagues should admire her for it but I'm sure that's not what she's getting at.

This is surely first and foremost about you and your own health and well being and both physical and mental.

Of course people subconsciously have unavoidable judgements. You do as we all do! Each of us have to make constant judgements and decisions daily. There is the concept of preference and taste. It would be futile to argue you would rather opt for a less attractive option given the choice. What is attractive will have different personal variations.

Online tends to be a place where beauty prosper as most viewers would simply be attractive visually first subconsciously before a deep dive into the rest of the context. Put simply if you were into marketing and promotion would you rather use a model or an average riff raft (jest!) off the street to sell your wares?

In the real word you see all sorts. In desirable wealthier locations you tend to find a certain type of local - beautiful insta-able setting with well dressed well presented ladies that lunch media savvy crowd. Likewise in a rough and social economically challenging locality you may not necessarily find the same type as locals may sport another set of general aesthetics with a different look and vibe altogether. Some may indeed prefer this look.

Nothing wrong with the way you are (unless you are unfit or wrong weight) hence the meaning of unfit and over weight or under weight. That is just biology and medical science and may lead to long term further medical issues and lower Covid robustness.

So moral of the story is don’t judge yourself too harshly as we all subconsciously judge each other all the time. Real world is full of all sorts but online and media world tend to favour the more attractive. Just by way of comparison check out Latin media channels (Italian and Brazilian etc) and you would think everyone was either born beautiful or is married to a top plastic surgeon! So if you are drop dead gorgeous then yes arguably you may get away with murder!

average riff raft

is this a typo or similar to chester drawers?

After all lifting weights is very good for you, exercise is good for you, so why doesn't extra weight benefit your heart, lungs and muscles in some way, as well as presumably burning extra calories?

In a way, it does. When fat people start losing weight and moving more, the weight rolls off quite quickly. It's possible to lose 3-4lbs a week on a fairly sensible diet, because of the lugging around of extra weight.

But if you're not setting your mind to working out, it's so easy to let someone else answer the door/shout up the stairs instead of go into the room of the person you want to talk to/drive down to local shops etc because the weight is so tiring to lug around that it stops you from taking the kind of basic exercise that thin people do without thinking.

Yes but carrying a lot of weight over a long distance is used for fitness training, eg in army recruits. So I still don't see why there isn't somer benefit - for example stronger muscles that then help with metabolism.

Fat causes chronic inflammation which is the basis for much disease. Exercise causes temporary inflammation (which is why too much can be bad) but chronic inflammation is bad news.

Fat people are typically a little stronger and need more calories than smaller people, but none of this can overcome the insidious effects of chronic inflammation, especially heart disease and metabolic illness.

It kind of reads like her colleagues should admire her for it but I'm sure that's not what she's getting at.

@WorraLiberty good lord no, I was trying to explain badly that carrying around another whole person's worth of weight is hard work, it doesn't necessarily mean you are lazy

Ahh I see frumpety, yes I imagine it is hard work.

I think how an overweight person's colleagues feel, might also depend on the work.

For example having an overweight office based person on your team, might be different to having an overweight person on your team in say a warehouse or somewhere that involves a lot of physical activity.

That's not to say the overweight person would automatically struggle but I can imagine if they did and their colleagues had to work harder as a result, that might piss them off a bit if they declared they simply don't want to try to lose weight.

I look at the contents of supermarket trolleys, and at the bodies pushing them, and sometimes I see a woman trying to feed a family for a week on a low income, and sometimes I think that's a bit over-indulgent. But it doesn't alter what I put in my trolley.

@XingMing how do you Know she’s on a low income? How do you know she’s planning to eat the indulgent products herself?

I had an interesting video call with numerous friends globally and discussed this obesity issue saying how it's now trending in he UK. This is in part because obese Boris's recent recognition that he nearly departed because of Covid and not being fit enough to fight it. Plus of course the worldwide Covid obesity correlated fatalities statistics.

I also mentioned this particular thread and others similar on UK based Mums Net. The general concern about basic health and safety particularly related to food and exercise. If we are all being factually correct - most/many threads with forum posters and their imaginative explanations and excuses. These basically boils down to lack of food knowledge, lost basic culinary skills, temptation to go convenience junk ultra processed highly marketed route (despite long term health costs), or just plain old no self control not self respect for the basics of food input and energy output. Not only the quantity of calories in but also the quality. I mentioned too how so many obese people were essentially claiming lack of time and energy but in reality it may be lack of motivation and unideal time management as per solutions including economic batch scratch cooking of raw ingredients sourced seasonally and locally at affordable costs. In contrast to ultra processed heavily promoted "value added" addictive junk with limited nutritional benefit.

Some observers in the Middle East gulf states and USA/Mexico where obesity is norm and majority has suggested there has long been an unspoken resentment against regular sized people. One went on to describe how she was essentially bullied because she was apparently a skinny b*! Call it a sort of medically recommended normal body size ism. Mind boggles as this is still hate and discrimination picking on the minority in a particular setting who don't happen to be fat. I personally knew in Hawaii and SoCal years ago how there was a massive divide between the ripped to shreds toned beach bums doing their insta cool workouts and others who felt very uncomfortable probably carrying up to 50% excess baggage above their recommended weight even for a short beach stroll needing to pace themselves. Indeed sources confirm that in LA the local Pacific Islanders are struggling most with Covid partly due to their preexisting obesity medical factors.

I think we need to not only get on our bikes as Boris suggests but take a serious hard look and address the obvious before we become just like these obese nations and not like most other regular fit and healthy developed nations. You are only finding excuses to kid yourself as that freshly delivered junk washed down with fizzy pop or excess alcohol will cost you long term big time and not just because of Covid survival! Wake up and start with simple gentle steps but make sure you are heading in the right direction! Only you made yourself unhealthy and only you can fix it back to your former fit self!

Oh by the way I was slim then fat but now just about okish despite obvious UK dress size inflation etc. Spent Covid lockdown rediscovering the art of experimental cooking thinking enough of fine dining how about giving it a shot at home. No matter if results are far far from Michelin standard but better than excessive screen time and waiting for food to be delivered! Young family seems intrigued so win win family time learning together as a family and eating the fruits of our labour. Seems like the normal thing done in Italy, France etc.

These basically boils down to lack of food knowledge, lost basic culinary skills, temptation to go convenience junk ultra processed highly marketed route (despite long term health costs), or just plain old no self control not self respect for the basics of food input and energy output. Not only the quantity of calories in but also the quality. I mentioned too how so many obese people were essentially claiming lack of time and energy but in reality it may be lack of motivation and unideal time management as per solutions including economic batch scratch cooking of raw ingredients sourced seasonally and locally at affordable costs.

For some it is far more complex than just what you have stated.