To think that fat people get unfairly bullied?

[Reallytired]

There are those who think that the NHS should not fund essential medical treatment.

It is OK to publically humilate children by weighing them in front of their class mates.

There is a total lack of decent clothes for fat adults and children. Believe that its particularly hard to find nice clothes for overweight children. Surely larger people deserve nice clothes?

And before you ask. I am 5 ft 6in and weight 9 st. I am lucky in that I don't put on weight easy. My slim figure is down to genetics and nothing to do with life choices.

We should accept everyone for who they are and not badger people into starving themselves make them miserable. The press seems to worthship the bodies of those who are so skinny that they are unhealthy. Its abnormal to be size 0.

People with fuller figures should be proud of their bodies and pressurised into attempting to be a totally unrealisic weight.

good lord I agree with Xenia

Its also time that sugar addiction and Overeating were recognised as genuine eating disorders and treated with the same seriousness as Anorexia and Bulemia.

And i'm not talking overeating as in eating too much.. i'm talking about the bulemic style binging but not being able to throw it up afterwards.

There is all the same feelings of guilt associated with it.. the frantic food buying then trying to hide the evidence from friends and family and feeling bad afterwards.. so eating more to feel better.

I've been there, spending 20 quid on cakes, crisps, biscuits and fast food.. then sitting there and eating it all... i know what its like and the attitude you get is just 'well stop eating'

I managed to kick it with the help of my DH giving me some confidence and monitoring what i was eating to break the bad habits.

Its a serious problem for many obese and overweight people but its ignored.

Good. Eating disorders are very complex and I believe over eating is the most common eating disorder, much more common than anorexia or bullimia but is largely undiagnosed. Food beoomes like alcohol or a cocaine, the one biscuit becomes the packet. People eat not because they are hungry but in an attempt to cure their mood or mask their pain. Certain foods like sugars and white bread make it worse . It is quite hard to binge eat on brown rice and fish but I don't even think we have begun to scratch the surface on dealing properly with obesity in the UK. My brother has just written a book about male eating disorders and is doing 24 radio interviews this week although I don't know when they are on. Even for psychiatrists like him it is very hard to treat people.

And you might think that I resented my friend getting an abortion on the NHS at the same time I was paying privately for my IVF. But I didn't (sad yes, resentful no). Presumably she ought to have been made to pay to go private or forced to have the baby because it was her fault

thats very interesting Xenia - my brother has an overeating disorder as I do (though more extreme in his case), I beleive my skinny sister has an eating disorder which she will not admit to and is addicted to exercise.

I can only conclude that we either had one screwed up childhood (true with regards food)or we share an addiction gene!

i dont agree at all with the not treating people

and for fucks sake why isnt more directyed to mental health

by this argument all the suicidal freaks in the world would be written off too

Oh smashing, another "eat less cake" thread.

I am overweight. BMI close to 40. Size 22. I have an eating disorder. I am a binge eater, comfort eater, call it what you will.

Let me tell you about my day.... (not that you probably give a shit but here goes anyway)

Fuck all sleep last night. DD is not sleeping well atm. DH has taken to sleeping downstairs so it's all down to yours truly to sort out.

Really busy, awful day at work. Unpaid overtime again, when I had taken a pay cut recently to reduce my hours. Cut a long story short - I spotted someone else's mistake and stopped a massive problem for my company only to get a gobful of shite from the customer because all is not hunky dory.

Drove home in a pea souper, driving like a twat in the fog to get to dd's nursery before it shut.

Then to Asda. DD understandably doesn't want to shop at 6pm but needs must. We were away at the weekend and need essentials.

Get home. Find time for uninterrupted wee, during which dh tells dd she can watch a dvd (even though it is already past her bed time). I put a stop to dvd shenanigans and get told by my three year old that she loves Daddy and I am not her friend any more (yes I know she doesn't mean it but it touched a nerve)

DD has a tantrum. DH in huff beause I won't allow him to let dd have her own way in order to avoid the tantrum.

I start doing more work while he puts her to bed. He comes downstairs and cooks while I work. Eat tea, do more work.

I am withdrawing from ADs. I am recovering from my seventy ten hundredth chest infection of the winter.

I feel like shit. I need to sort my life out but don't have the strength just now. So if it's all the same to you I will drag my lazy lardy arse to the fridge and eat the entire contents. For those few moments, I might actually feel a bit better.

There are programmes to help people move to three regular meals a day of foods which don't trigger binges. I suspect a lot of people are over weight because they eat when tey aren't hungry for emotional reasons as it covers up how you are feeling just as drugs and alcohol but it's not taken as seriously. Look at web sites like www.radiantrecovery.com and www.promis.co.uk/content/eating/eatguide.php. Like all conditions like this you need a gradual process of normalising the eating, removal of the trigger foods which make you want to eat more etc and for many people some therapy too as well as more getting outside in the sun and walking etc.

For the first time on this planet in its history we have more people at risk of damage to their health through obesity than starvation. It's a sort of tipping point but we're very bad at handling it and helping people who have these problems in their genes. It is nothing like as simple as telling people to eat less.

i think Xenia is a GENIUS..........OMG DIET &EXERCISE.........is the key ,shocker.

Kewcumber love and totally agree with your post earlier (20:23:13)

As an addendum to my earlier post (Sun 17-Feb-08 00:34:57); I do not eat between meals, and do not eat enormous portions. I do not have binges, I do not eat fried foods, I have cooked low fat meals for around 20 years or so, I do not have any emotional problems, I do not eat unless I am hungry. Sometimes, on days when I am very busy, I even forget to eat and it's only when my DH comes in and I comment how crap I feel that he asks what I've eaten today - that I realise that I haven't actually eaten.

My DD's, although once thin are now starting to increase in size very quickly, they are both around the age that I was when my weight started to increase dramatically. My DS eats for bloody England and is over 6ft tall and skinny. My GS, is the only 5 year old that runs round the supermarket pestering for things like broccoli or boxes of raisins instead of sweets. On going through some old family photo's, I found pictures of my great grandmother (in her mid 40's)who I am the spitting image of (size and all) - the likeness is unbelievable and her grandmother who was also very big. Both women were thin until their early 20's and obviously neither had access to todays types of foods. So it would seem that the 'fat' gene is inherent in the female side of my family.

I was thin (not skinny) up to 26 years ago when I went on the pill. I gained 6 stones in 6 months and was taken off it - thats where my weight gain started. I have been on just about every 'diet' that you can name. Three times, over those years I have joined 'weightwatchers' type groups - I lost exactly 3 stones and gained between five and six back on coming off the diet. I have done 'online' dieting, and following the diet plans exactly, managed to gain weight both times. I have kept eating diaries that people think are 'made-up', I have twice participated in research to see how little I have to eat before losing any weight (one hospital based where everything I ate was monitored for a fortnight), I did not lose weight in either. However, last year I was on was the Cambridge diet, and I did loose over 40lbs in a couple of weeks and then the weight loss just stopped - I could not lose a pound more, I persevered with it and nothing else would shift. I have since regained that weight plus another 10lbs.

I now do more exercise than I have since I left school (28 years ago) yet am still growing widthways.

I am so sick of the smug thin people and wonder how they would feel if one of the people close to them was obese and verbally abused or patronised in the street (or on the internet), shouted at from passing cars, turned down for jobs simply on the basis of the way they looked, ignored when moving to a new area, looked at as if they were something that had been trod in, asked why their DH's are with them when the DH could have someone better (read thinner), or turned down for medical treatment just because they are overweight.

aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!

i know you have posted a lot on this joash and think you are the same age as me

i felt the same way as you but did find a way to lose weight

i hope ypou do if that is what yo want

Joash, you may have PCOS or another medical condition.

I have been tested for everything over the years and I have no medical condition. The only other option I currently have is a gastric band - which the doc can't see being any use as reducing my food intake doesnt seem to make any difference to my weight.

The reason fat people get bullied and people think it's ok to suggest that the NHS shouldn't treat them is that their problem is visible.

Everyone else who does not live a blameless life (those who drink too much, smoke, take no exercise, eat no fresh food, drive too fast, take stupid risks and get injured) has an "invisible" problem and therefore it is not possible to label them.

You can't tell if someone drinks too much as soon as they walk in the door of A&E so you treat them as another human being. If they are fat though, it's an immediate label.

I suspect most people on MN fit one of the categories above but they are not at risk of being blamed for it because no one sees the half bottle of white every night or the sneaky fags or the speeding or the pot smoking.

Actually, you know what. I am one of the few "blameless" people I know. Eat an extremely healthy diet, exercise, don't smoke, rarely drink, never speed. Guess what. I'm fat.

margoandjerry - well said

Clement Freud knew how to deal with people who called him fat. He said "that's because every time I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit!"

Elasticwoman - I like it LOL.

I like the look on people faces when they shout abuse at me in the street and I look down at my body with a shocked look on my face and reply "OMIGOD, YOU'RE RIGHT, I'VE NEVER NOTICED BEFORE, WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN, I MUST BE ALLERGIC TO SOMETHING... HELP ME PLEASE!!" whilst walking towards them with my arms outstretched.

Dittany, yes I took Citalopram and put on about a stone. I didn't make any connection at the time but when I lost it afterwards I realised that was why. No change in diet at the time.

Joash, am and that people shout abuse at you in the street. That's just awful.

I lost weight taking Citalopram

Joash I could have written your post of 23:41.

Until I was 25 I was positively skeletal although I ate like a pig. I was 5'8 and a 6 or 8. I have no idea how much I weighed because I never even owned a set of scales. From 25 and beyond I was normal, around a size 10/12, but after DD was born I started having real problems.

At the beginning of last year I tried to shift my baby fat and it just didn't happen. Not an ounce. Quite the opposite in fact - if I had anything like, say, a restaurant meal (proper restaurant, proper food) I would put on maybe 1-1.5kg and that would then become my 'new' weight. I dropped my intake down step by step down to 800 calories and my GL was around 40 a day, and not an ounce shifted. Anything more than 1,000 cals and the weight went back on.

I have been through every test going and seen more specialists than you can shake a stick at. I have variously been diagnosed with border thyroid problems, CFS, Insulin resistance, and post-natal depression (the latter from a GP who also told me I was a bare faced liar because 'we all have the odd doughnut now and then which we forget to add to our daily record sheets').

The only test that was off the scale for me was one which nobody can explain - Retinol Binding Protein. I was given the test because a high level (above 60) is consistent with extreme insulin resistance. Instead the result came back as 0.2 which was apparantly unheard-of according to the lab. I have googled this and actually read in depth quite a few medical research docs, but haven't really got anywhere. Low levels are consistent with severely malnourished children (commonly found during African famines). No explanation on how they occur in a size 16 woman on an extremely healthy diet.

I am personally convinced that hormonal changes create a whole plethora of problems which are just not being investigated because doctors just don't believe it is going on (just like they don't believe people who talk about their mirena coil problems). It is just so much easier to tell them to go to the gym and get the next patient in. I would love to hear if anyone else has had a Retinol Binding Test that has come out low like this - if only to make me feel better about myself. Having everyone assume you are how you are because you are a slob is soul destroying. It really is. Even more so when you can't find out a reason for it. I got so depressed with everything I ended up starting to eat sweets, because then I had something to blame. And the really sad thing about your post Joash is that I started the Cambridge diet just this morning, and even though I know I will stick to it like glue I suspect it won't work either, which is such a miserable frame of mind to be in.

I believe fatism is the last taboo. Seemingly it's ok to make jokes about fat people and victimise them. There are many reasons that people are overweight, like there are many reasons for most things. Two of my children suffer from extreme low self esteem because they were chubby children. My daughter is now very thin and probably anorexic. She used to be a very happy sparkly fun loving girl. I asked her recently when she stopped feeling happy and she told me it was when she realised she was fat. Probably school chums ( or possibly a teacher or doctor , a parent of a friend or some person or persons in this world who feel they can humiliate children in class or elsewhere and who pick on them and let them know that they are fat and therefore worthless) said something one day to her and her bubble of esteem burst.

My children all ate a very healthy balanced diet, they probably could have used up more energy as they don't have fast metabolisms, but were by no means sedantry, but they just had a family tendancy to be chubby children and lose excess weight at puberty. That wasn't their fault and in spite of our trying to bolster their self esteem endlessly, they now hate themselves.

It makes me weep. Every day.