To still live my best life even though I’m fat

[Whatyagonnadokatie]

Many mnetters hate fat people. They dress it up as concern for health. But I think it’s something deeper than that. Something about us letting ourselves lose self discipline or something. Some people even seem to think that we shouldn’t have nice clothes (let me tell you, no one purposely gains weight to wear some lovely plus size clothes).

reading some threads on here break my heart when women dread going to social events because they are fat.

aibu to say, fuck that, get on with your life and be happy even if you are fat. Wear the nice clothes, go to all the social events. And hey, eat the biscuit if you really want to

I’m not blaming anyone for the NHS being in a mess. If you bother to go back and read it - you’d see that.

My point is that to say that it doesn’t impact the NHS is clearly wrong.

There are stats, easily Google about the cost to the NHS - from both PHE and the NHS themselves - talking now about how Costa of testing abs managing obesity are going through the roof.

More then 50% newly diagnosed with T2DM patients are obese. Go to DUK and look up those stats.

Be fat and happy, sure. But don’t pretend it is not without wiser societal impact.

What's with all the weight threads on MN over the last weeks? There have been a few a day, I swear. And they always go the same way.

Dear god.

Nowhere have I said I don’t like fat people - so just do one.

And if you think that PHE and NHS stats are comparable to which someone posts in the daily Mail, just to justify your eating habits, you need greater help than just weight loss.

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/england-2021

gh.bmj.com/content/6/10/e006351

I wonder if people think as much about other people as MNers think they do. Currently most people appear to be consumed by the cost of living crisis. I feel the same way about the cliquey women at the school gate. Most of them are not muttering and whispering about you.

Over 60% of U.K. adults are overweight or obese so I doubt anyone gives a shit how you look, you’re hardly unusual.

Oh dear, let's not go down that rabbit hole!

www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/childhood-obesity.pdf

I wonder about that too. If I were to take the time to be offended by the overweight I would be offended all day.

The threads about thin-ness (that word looks wrong) are just as bad. All thin people are apparently calorie-obsessed control freaks who subsist on a couple of lettuce leaves a day and trail around an aura of smug superiority while turning their notes up at anyone who is larger than they are. Then there are the ones who come on and say that a couple of lettuce leaves meets your nutritional needs; they only have one lettuce leaf and they're perfectly healthy. Then someone pops up and says, but protein!!

YANBU to live your best life and be happy.

YABU to try to shut down the conversation about obesity (which is the biggest public health crisis we face) by making out it’s an innocent lifestyle choice that only ‘judgemental’ people care about.

Just a few links for everyone who thinks anyone saying anything truthful about obesity (albeit not nice reading) must be a daily Mail reader!

Try DUK website when you have time too.

It’s all there in black and white, unless all the HCPs involved are fattist and stupid too.

Obesity costs the NHS £6.1 billion a year. Blame the government yes, but ignore the strain it puts on an already fucked NHS.

I would say the same if this was a smoking thread.

I'm a 'generous' size 14 (and pretty short as well so I do not carry it well), and am starting to feel the pounds more and more, maybe its just as I get older. I'm still really active and don't have mobility issues or anything, but I just 'feel' it more - I think that I am carrying around nearly 2 stone more than I was a few years ago, and if you were to lift a 2 stone weight on its own, its really quite heavy! I want to be a healthy weight not so much for looks (although I did prefer the was I looked when I was smaller) but just because I'm not getting any younger, I'm hurtling towards menopause and I just want to stay as healthy and active as possible. I don't want to be out of breath just doing my job.

I look at these 'body positivity' accounts on social media and see very obese women in their twenties in their gym gear or in lovely outfits and in one way I am really happy for them that they accept their body that way. But on the other hand I just think 'girl, this is all very well right now, but what happens when you hit 40, you've had kids, menopause creeps in, your bones start to go, your heart starts to go, and you are this size'? And I know the body positivity accounts were borne out of the toxic diet and photoshop industry, and young women have so much to content with, but surely there is a happy medium?

I remember lots of body positivity accounts talking about how the link between obesity and poorer covid outcomes was just 'fatphobic lies and scaremongering' etc as well. How does the reality denying narrative help anyone?

Completely agree.

Rhe biggest modifiable risk factor for Covid severity is weight.

Not ethnicity, age or sex (they incite more risk but clearly aren’t modifiable) - it’s weight!

Using this narrative to beat people up about their weight is wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true!

Any burying your head in the sand doesn’t change that.

@pd339 Lots of people find it hard to loose weight because food is a go too way to deal with stress and distress. Once that’s ingrained as a habit it’s really hard to get shot of it.

@Whatyagonnadokatie I agree with going out and living your best life, but a lot of fat people don’t enjoy every bite, it’s an addiction and it’s unpleasant. I am glad that is not the case for you.

Yep

Well I'm fat and I'm just living my life, some days it's my best one and others it's a complete shit show, and I imagine that's the same for most people too, regardless of their weight.

I think though, that there's things that are 'in fashion' and things that aren't, and being overweight is not fashionable, with people commenting on the cost to the NHS as a reason for their worry.
I was slim and fit in my younger years, but I drank a lot of alcohol. I now have a bum knee because I injured myself whilst drunk, but that was funny, I was such a one, no one was telling me that I was out of order because I'd cost the tax payer money with my choices, but being overweight people naturally assume that it's because of that, I would agree it's not helping, but it's not the cause, the cause is an injury and a predisposition to arthritis, but because I'm overweight it's all about the strain I'm putting the NHS under.

I'm losing weight steadily and it's helping, but even if and when I hit my ideal weight, the problem won't go away.
Alcohol costs just as much I'd guess, if not more than obesity, but you can't generally see the results of over indulgence in alcohol immediately as you look at someone, and drinking alcohol is 'fashionable' even though it costs health wise, it costs society wise. Things like wine o'clock and the way people behave when it's restricted (for health and social reasons) tells you that - and I'm not just talking about a bottle of cider in a brown paper bag. It's in every layer of society yet mention it and you're met with cries of 'anyone who drinks more than a thimble full of sherry at Christmas is considered an alcoholic on MN'.

I've yet to see a fight break out because people ate too much cake and lost their reasoning skills, I was never shouted at through a car window for being a piss head though I have been shouted at for being overweight.
Restricting what someone can do because they're overweight is seen as concequences, restricting someone because they've had too much alcohol (refusing entrance, further service etc) is seen as being over controlling and power hungry.
Both cost the NHS and other services money and time, the difference is that overindulgence in alcohol is 'cool' and so doesn't attract the same level of criticism as overindulgence in food.

There are some posters on MN who express strong negative views about overweight people. Some seem particularly extreme and offensive and I don't understand the motivation, as its entirely possible to be concerned about health issues without becoming so enraged. I can only assume that its personally triggering for them perhaps.
In real life you don't get people sitting around debating how fat people should be allowed to be. For one thing, most people don't care, for another, most are overweight themselves.
I think the exception is extremely overweight and obese people, who can be judged harshly and treated poorly. Interestingly, often by the 'I know I could lose a few pounds but I'm only a size 14' overweight people, who are maybe trying to feel better by comparison.
As for 'living your best life' that depends on definition and how important weight is to you. I think its probably fair to say that a lot of people would feel better, happier and more confident if they were slimmer and that it's extremely sad that lack of these things leads to restricting activities. But whether this comes from external barriers to participation or internal ones, I'm not sure.

@Whatyagonnadokatie would you say the same if someone was drinking really heavily and damaging their health? As long as they are happy pass the vodka! Being overweight affects peoples health a lot, cardio wise , risk of cancer , diabetes, put pressure on the health service like people who drink and smoke loads do too.
I definitely hate the idea that people feel shamed or that they can’t go out , that’s awful if you really feel like that. I definitely don’t judge overweight people , I’d just worry for them and their health. I absolutely hate it though when I see overweight parents with overweight children , if a child is malnourished looking people would rightfully worry. My friends son is overweight and his mother is overweight too and at 10 he was out of breath walking and I thought that was awful for them as it limits him and is bad for his health.
I don’t really get how you can be happy carrying all that extra weight around as it must be tiring and make things like hot weather really difficult and uncomfortable.
I’m in Ireland and there’s a big problem now with obesity and I do think it’s a problem like people drinking too much or smoking loads etc.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/425181/response/1030297/attach/2/FOI%201094540%20McConnell%20reply.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

FOI request (with link of obesity , alcohol and smoking) with information contained within.

Haven’t read the whole thing, no doubt some will summarise though.

I am slim through very very hard work. I would never want to be fat but if you want to be it's fine by me.

The fact that OP had to come here and tell us she "Iives her best life" indicates to me that she's probably bothered.

People who DO live their best lives are not insecure and don't come and post it.

So I'll continue being skinny thanks all

While I agree with you in general, I have to say that the people (mostly, but not exclusively, male) who used to shout incredibly nasty things at me when I was an overweight runner in London — ‘Go faster, jelly belly!’, ‘I wouldn’t even rape you, you fat pig!’, or driving alongside me holding a burger out the car window making oinking noises, to just give a general flavour — weren’t concerned either about my health or the strain on the NHS. I was just an easy target.

I’m a fairly confident person with no particular body hang ups who ran listening to music but over time it started to get to me, and eventually contributed to me quitting running for 12 years. I realised a couple of weeks after a group of guys in a car slowed down to jeer and threw a milkshake over me that I was having to steel myself to put on my gear and go out, and I felt unsafe with my headphones on in case I missed something approaching. And gradually I just stopped.

I now run again aged 50, and am within a healthy BMI, and while I still get the odd remark, it’s more along the standard-issue misogyny lines of ‘Show us your tits, love’ or ‘Cheer up, it might never happen.’

So no, I don’t think that anti-fat feeling is ‘all in my head’, or stems from my own insecurities. I saw far too much evidence to the contrary.