To think why this is one of the reasons we have an obesity problem.

[Delamalama]

Friend on facebook has put about 2 stone on this past year. She posted a selfie the other day with a statement saying how she's finally learning to love herself, she may not be perfect but it's her body and she loves it!!! She's on the verge of being obese and suffers with chronic backache. Of course she had comments saying 'looking good hun' 'you beauty!' Etc.

I've noticed quite a lot of younger ones doing this 'be fat and proud' crap.

Am I wrong to think that this along with many other things is why we have an obesity problem.

I think that has something to do as well with general lack of personal responsibility tbh not just about eating. I see it often on people around

I find most people to be sensible and responsible, but then I don't judge people based on their body shape.

@Aloethere Please don't worry about having a BMI of 25 and focus on being healthy, fit and strong in mind and body. I've been trying just to get back to BMI 25 for more than ten years now and it's not easy.

Well I find losing weight extremely hard. I am intelligent and have a well paid professional career and have always been fit and healthy, yet still I'm BMI 28 and haven't been anywhere near BMI 25 for more than ten years. If it were easy, everyone would be slim and keep the weight off.

Losing weight is incredibly hard even if you have no eating issues.

I ate 1500 calories a day for over 2 years and lost 2 stone.

It was fucking miserable. I was hungry all the time. I never felt satisfied. It was so fucking depressing thinking about food all
the time and trying to get as full as I could for as little as I could calorie wise.

So last week I had 3/4 of my stomach cut away in surgery and now I'm not hungry any more.

@Russellbrandshair

The worst thing you can be is FAT and HAPPY because all the skinny wankers can't deal with it because is demeans their body currency. They work hard denying themselves treats and slogging away in the gym searching for that elusive self acceptance, happiness and popularity that comes with being body perfect and like the front of the magazines and movies. But then they see a fat person being happy EVEN WITH THE FAT and it depreciates and demeans their effort

You do realise the irony of this don’t you? On the one hand you’re arguing for acceptance of all weights, that you shouldn’t define people by their weight, shouldn’t assume anything about anyone purely via their weight, shouldn’t shame people for their weight etc?- then you proceed to call anyone slim a “skinny wanker” who is hateful, jealous and spends all their time feeling bitter at the gym.

Lmao you are no better than the fat shamers! You are doing the exact same thing and you can’t even see it!!!

Not all skinny people are wankers but all skinny wankers are wankers.

Those skinny people that are wankers have a self-righteousness that fat people just cannot have!

@Graciebobcat

Well I find losing weight extremely hard. I am intelligent and have a well paid professional career and have always been fit and healthy, yet still I'm BMI 28 and haven't been anywhere near BMI 25 for more than ten years. If it were easy, everyone would be slim and keep the weight off.

My bmi was only in the healthy range once when I was early twenties and ate one meal a day

@ComeOnBabyPopMyBubble

There's definitely an almost religious tone to it (having been brought up a strict Catholic), a paradigm that if you behave, do everything right, you are guaranteed great health and great health in longevity

Quality over quantity.

Is it, though, there's minimising risks and there's eliminating them. With religion, your death is a given, the core is a system by which to live to enjoy a good afterlife. With 'the science', which appears to have stepped in and filled that hole in the era of secularism, there appears to be a concerted agenda to avoid this at all costs. And whilst it's all well and good to subscribe to the belief that if you do X,Y and Z then the chances of A, B and C happening to you decrease, there's no real way to eliminate any of these. It does the same thing religion used to do, and that is bring a sense of security and comfort to its acolytes. That's great! If it works for them, fine. What's not is insisting it's the only way or even the best way. There isn't one.

And what's lacking is the spirituality of such a life or a seriously dedicated effort in cultivating this - and I'm not talking about doing a bit of yoga or some mindfulness, IYKWIM.

Having such a sense of spirituality makes you, in a lot of ways, much freer in the sense that you accept that life is not transactionary, and that things happen with no rhyme or reason no matter what you do. It can become much easier to accept so called 'bad' things happening to you and yours because these are just things, events. They just are. It means losing a lot of fear about life.

That's what's missing from 'the science', although of course, acolytes will disagree and are entirely within their right and reason to do so.

It's as fallible as religion, though, IMO. Religion, too, often has elements governing food and how it should be taken.

I prefer Bruce Lee's 'No way is the way'.

I think its more about whats normal/common, not what people are actually saying.

People in the UK are generally overweight and so this becomes normal and the new base line, then we creep on a little more and that becomes the new base line and so on and so on.

For example, many people will say being a size 14-16 is fine. Well. Its normal. Its not actually an ideal size though for your average person. Sure this may be different for a 6ft woman who needs the extra width, but a woman of average height will be somewhat over weight at a size 14-16.
And BMI is widely criticised because it doesn't work for everyone (e.g people who workout and gain muscle which is heavy) but generally it is a good measure. Once people got wind that it didnt always work though this information was spouted as meaning it didn't work for anyone. Denial, because overweight is normal. So it must be ok.

Men are even worse. Unless a man is morbidly obese its like any size is fine!

Shaming and negativity isn't right or helpful but i do think we need to start being realistic. I'm not where i should be but i get away with it because i don't look that out of place.

Not only unreasonable. but a little unpleasant too.

@45TheSkyFalleth
It's not about being proud to be overweight. It's about loving yourself.
Which is step 1 in positive mental health
But gradually getting fatter isn't loving yourself, it's the opposite of that. I speak as someone who really struggled to maintain a healthy weight, but I know that I feel look and am healthier at a normal weight.

Being "skinny" is what most people used to be! When I was a child we had one or two overweight kids in the whole school! Fat is definitely the new normal now

I agree there's a lot of seriously dodgy advice out there.

@NotMeNoNo did you do home ec at school? I first learned about food groups and nutrients via home ec and human biology lessons, but mainly home ec.

I'm aware those around a decade or so younger onwards often DIDN'T get these very informative and valuable lessons.

My ww experience definitely showed it's NOT as simple as "eat less move more" we all had weeks/months where despite rigidly sticking to the plan which is basically a simplified form of calorie counting, we not only didn't lose but gained!

I can see people on thread giving it "ah but they might have cheated and not said" but I KNEW whether I had or not and it really knocks your resolve when eg you do 3 weeks of having zero "extras" even those allowed under the plan, do loads of cardio/exercise and still gain! And NOBODY can give you an answer as to why - and I asked my hcps too not just ww leader. Bit rich of them to have a go when they don't even know why their supposedly simple "eat less move more" hasn't actually bloody worked!

A friends daughter is currently on a long weight loss journey against really tough odds in order to get an op agreed to, and she's documenting on sm and her utter frustration the weeks she's consumed min cals and done loads of cardio and she's gained are heartbreaking. She's getting there slowly but the lack of support and even on occasion criticism from hcps some of which has been very rude and unprofessional imo is shocking!

When I look at how and how much I ate and how little exercise I did in my 20's in theory I should have been huge then, I was a size 6 throughout. My now exh used to get people making comments querying if I was eating "enough" and he - a fairly solid squaddie - would retort - she eats more than me! And I did!

Some piece of knowledge is getting missed somewhere!

No, I don't believe the vast majority of people who say stuff like that actually want to be overweight. If they could drop the excess weight overnight they would, imo.

I don’t think society is at a point where “it is fine to be fat” as you put it. Everyday I see a flyer for some slimming club trying to profit off of the weight loss desire that seems to be so inbuilt in us.

Is it healthy to be morbidly obese - no probably not, especially not long term.

Should people be ashamed of themselves and not post pictures of Facebook because of their weight - no let them live their damn lives! If she’s happy and feeling good about herself then surely it’s no one else’s business and I hardly think she’s promoting obesity or suggesting everyone gains 4 stone to be happier. She’s just accepting herself as she is currently.

"Being fat is just one aspect of who I am. There is a lot I do and have done that I am proud of. I don't think I should nor is is heathy to hate myself because I'm overweight. I can be proud of who I am at any size and weight. Is being fat really the worse thing a person can be?"

As far as MN is concerned, yes. It doesn't matter how much of a good human being you are; if you have the audacity to be fat and not apologetic about it then you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to hate yourself and be constantly embarrassed for even daring to exist.

Yes, we wouldn't celebrate anorexia, nor should we celebrate obesity.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Why is everyone going on about shaming. Op hasn't suggested shaming. Nor did anyone else as far as I've seen. Not being on the "you gawj" wave isn't shaming. Discussing obesity, isn't shaming.

It's actually really interesting to watch where the derogatory comments here come from...

I think that we can all agree obesity is harmful.

Totally agree!!!! It should be possible to have a discussion about obesity without people getting angry and aggressive and calling OP names. She was definitely not fat shaming or trying to pull anyone down.. I think normalising / glamourising bodies with BMIs that are over the limit medically defined as overweight Isn’t helping at all.
It will mean more and more people think there isn’t a problem with their weight, when there is.
I come from a country where people are very slim generally - in the uk I feel underweight, when I’m back in my home country I feel a bit big and actually I exercise more...Conversely, I’ve had friends who moved from the uk to the states, and put on a few stone as everyone in their town is generally bigger and portion sizes are enormous.
Also, I think we made a lot of progress when the fashion industry banned size 0 models as they glamourise very underweight body types .. it’s unhealthy so that’s great. But why are we able to accept and agree with that, but not able to see being extremely overweight is also not healthy , especially as there’s a lot of medical evidence supporting this

It's really none of your business OP. You don't know, she might be full of self-loathing and desperately trying to find some validation. My friend died of obesity last year, leaving behind a young child. It is not easy for some people. Hating on them really doesn't help.

When people like something, they take better care of it. The same goes for bodies. When we feel ashamed, or disgusting, we tend to fall into bad habits or use unhelpful strategies to cope with our feelings in the short term. When we decide to accept or love ourselves regardless of what shape or size our body is, it frees us from negative emotions which then tends to enable us to nourish and take care of our bodies. Body positivity and body acceptance, while slightly different, can both have really great outcomes for a persons mental AND physical health. Anything less than acceptance is harmful.

Hmmm, while I agree that we should be able to discuss obesity, the op did not come across as wanting to talk about it in a productive or helpful way. Essentially her op is "unhealthy fatty gets more likes than me on social media!! Unfair!"

What I think we all should bear in mind is that no one's worth is dependent on their weight and everyone should be allowed to feel good about themselves, whether they are morbidly obese or underweight. Encouraging shame, anxiety and criticism is certainly not going to result in healthier eating habits. Quite the opposite. Resenting someone receiving compliments because they are overweight very much suggests that fat = undeserving. That is why people are pissed off with the op imo.

@SweetTeaInTheSummer

Hmmm, while I agree that we should be able to discuss obesity, the op did not come across as wanting to talk about it in a productive or helpful way. Essentially her op is "unhealthy fatty gets more likes than me on social media!! Unfair!"

What I think we all should bear in mind is that no one's worth is dependent on their weight and everyone should be allowed to feel good about themselves, whether they are morbidly obese or underweight. Encouraging shame, anxiety and criticism is certainly not going to result in healthier eating habits. Quite the opposite. Resenting someone receiving compliments because they are overweight very much suggests that fat = undeserving. That is why people are pissed off with the op imo.

When did I say I resented her receiving compliments?

Your entire post is you reacting badly to the fact that she firstly had the temerity to post a picture of herself having gained weight, and then secondly had the audacity to receive compliments on her appearance from others. Your post is dripping in resentment. Kindly don't pretend otherwise.

@Hairychinchin

Your entire post is you reacting badly to the fact that she firstly had the temerity to post a picture of herself having gained weight, and then secondly had the audacity to receive compliments on her appearance from others. Your post is dripping in resentment. Kindly don't pretend otherwise.

That's not true at all, OP is simply pointing out the more and more common occurrence of celebrating obesity. The whole 'body positivity' movement is focused on fatness. I've never seen anyone using body positivity for a genuinely positive (healthy/fit) body type. It is exclusively used for morbidly obese people and I just can't see how it is considered 'positive'.

So what you saying that if your overweight you can't post a nice selfie and feel good about yourself be told you look nice.... Really

@Delamalama when you posted your OP stating that your "verging on obese" friend had posted she loves herself (followed by exclamation points suggesting you find this ridiculous/ odd / wrong) and then others had "of course" responded with nice comments which is a "problem" re obestity; again, suggesting that not only do you disagree with the positive comments your friend received, but that in general overweight people shouldn't be getting them.

^ exactly.