To ask what you think when you see a young, fat person?

[AugustSlippedAwayIntoAMoment]

I'm very, very aware that this thread will probably get some nasty responses.

But I'm young (26), overweight and short. I try to dress nicely and I'm actively losing weight, but I'm just curious. What do you actually think when you see a fat person? I've never given it much thought before now as I've been fat my entire life, but what do you really think? Am I walking round oblivious to the fact I'm being judged all the time or do people just not care?

I am mid-fifties with two kids at uni and one still at home and have a bmi of 19 which is in the healthy range as I am Asian

19 is in the healthy range if you are not Asian.

Personally the only thing that draws my attention or judgement to an overweight person is what they’re wearing, ie. if they’re wearing something incredibly unflattering and letting it “all hang out” or wearing those hideous skin coloured leggings that show every flaw. But then my next thought if they are is to check myself and think actually good for you, clearly you don’t care and I should wind my neck in!

If it makes you feel better, I was out with my friend who has been overweight her entire life and all I could think was “damn, her make up is better than mine, I love her earrings, her skin is looking so good, I should try dress more like her.”

Trauma.

Oh is it? I thought it was 20 and I would be told I was underweight. Thanks.

The problem is that weight is linked by society to moral values.

So fat is stereotyped by some as lazy, dirty, stupid etc. Thin can be stereotyped as controlling, uptight and mean; I have noticed that ‘baddies’ in the media/books are often ‘skinny’.

That’s the main problem. Weight is not seen as a health thing. It’s tied to core values. Which is actually quite unhelpful.

Some have commented on being the same weight since they were a certain younger age. I’m definitely not the same weight as when I was in my twenties when I was quite slim. Pregnancy and breastfeeding changed my shape and made my breasts much fuller and my hips wider. I actually think I look better a few pounds heavier as my skin on my face and chest looks plumper. I lost a little weight due to illness a couple of years ago and I felt I looked older. I chose between my arse and face and picked my face. 😂 That’s a joke by the way before I’m told people didn’t need to pick between their pert bums and beautiful faces.

Yes this is true. Being a healthy weight and physically fit is a good thing for your health obviously, but it does not make you a fundamentally better person.

If they’re fat and eating eg McDonald’s then yes I would judge and a neighbour from when I was younger got very fat now is size 18 and on keto which us helping her lose weight.

Generally I wouldn’t judge though. Not my place.

I’m sure the OP will clarify but I imagine they mean the times when they see larger people who aren’t currently eating fast food - surely the majority of the time? I say that as someone who once worked in the town centre of a place with one of the highest rates of obesity in the UK apparently.

What makes one become so disparaging about fat people? I ask this with several of your posts in mind, not the one above. I’m sure most of us wish society was less obese (especially children), for them, their children and the next generation, the NHS… but it’s very rare I come across someone as disparaging about fat people in real life. It seems to happen more frequently here. Maybe it’s just the company I keep! This is a genuine question, by the way!

I genuinely wouldn’t really notice you or care about your weight to be honest - I guess selfishly because it’s your life not mine, so I don’t really care one way or the other that you’re fat as it doesn’t impact me.

If you really pushed me on it though and wanted the conversation, I guess I’d be curious to understand what’s stopping you being your physically healthiest / best version of you.
Maybe you’re not motivated by that goal though.
Or you like eating highly calorific foods more than you like physical movement.
Or you have an injury that prevents exercise.
Or something else.

But I’d be indulging the conversation for you not me. If you wanted help I’d give you some general pointers to take it or leave - but it’s not going to be anything you don’t know already. Like I say I just don’t really care that much about other peoples weight, because it’s not me that has to live in their fat body.

People can be unnecessarily bitchy towards slim women. Apparently, we all deprive ourselves. I have been told time and again it’ll ’catch up with me when I am older’ and here I am, nearly mid 40s and still slim. I love food, I eat what I want when I am hungry but don’t tend to snack much. Some days I will eat delicious but healthy meals, some days I will have a hungry day and eat take away and crap. I listen to what my body wants I guess and I hate the feeling of being too full up and bloated

Absolutely. My next door neighbour smokes like a chimney and our terraces have paper thin walls so I can hear her coughing her guts up every day. And always think why can’t she stop smoking.

This is true @Errors My DD, in her early 20s, is a naturally slim person. She was a twiglet as a child. She has been on the receiving end of some really unpleasant comments about her weight, way more than I ever have who is on the chubbier end of the spectrum.

Not everything is linked to 'trauma.'

Some people just have shit willpower and low motivation.

What makes you think people in the UK have more trauma now than they did in the 1940s-90s?

Access to cheap fatting food, access to a limited movement lifestyle.

There is maybe an argument that people have swapped fag's and tobacco for sugar and fat but you can't blame trauma.

It's really quite easy to become overweight or even obese...and have nothing to do with trauma. An extra couple of biscuits with your tea...having pudding a couple of nights a week. An extra slice of toast with breakfast. Before you know it, you've put on a stone. Not everyone who is overweight is gluttonous. However, when you have people who are morbidly obese, you'll find there has been some sort of emotional turmoil or trauma in their life. Ever watched my 600lb life? Vast majority of the people who are that size have had difficult lives. Now, yes, there is nothing suggest we have more trauma now than people did in the 1940s, but we have much more food available that's cheap and convenient. When it comes to trauma, people turn to all sorts of things to cope, alcohol, drugs, gambling...and some people turn to food. Why wouldn't they? It's cheap, legal and everywhere you look.

My aunt is morbidly obese, and she's not been through anything traumatic. She's just lazy and greedy. She has diabetes and is reaching a point where she's losing her vision now. She can't work, socialise. Her husband is her carer.

She still eats junk from morning to night. When I go around to give her husband some respite and a chat, she's eating biscuits. She pours actual cream in her hot drinks, has sugar in everything. Chicken drumsticks, chippy chips or chips made in a chip pan with ham, cheese, egg, and a pile of bread and butter for tea, pudding every night. She orders it all online.

Her husband has to watch her slowly eat herself to an early grave. Meanwhile she screams bloody murder if she finds he's had a cigarette.

She doesn't believe in "diets". Says she was born this way - she wasn't. She just eats too much. I can't eat at her house because she doesn't believe in coeliac disease. Says it's a faddy diet to keep me thin, despite her own father dying from complications of what was almost certainly undiagnosed coeliac disease. Sits and rants that life is just unfair and it's her genes, despite none of the other family members being overweight.

I don't know how much she weighs, but she's pretty much housebound and walking to the kitchen takes effort. The whole house was renovated years ago to accommodate her size.

Nail on the head. There may not have been so many morbidly obese in the past, but there were still plenty of alcoholics, chain smokers, people reliant on drugs, etc. The thing is that being fat is "obvious", whereas being addicted to gin, fags or morphine doesn't have the same physical appearance. Back then, cigarettes and gin was probably easier to get, as there was no "fast food", no takeaways, and of course, there was rationing in war times and foods were seasonal, so you had to eat what was available at the time, with none of the imports we see today. With people avoiding smoking and drinking due to the health knowledge and ever increasing costs due to taxation, people are turning to food instead to get their "fix". My diabetic nurse once told me that "everyone has a crutch - for some it's alcohol, for some it's drugs, for some it's tobacco, and for some it's food".

My diabetic nurse once told me that "everyone has a crutch - for some it's alcohol, for some it's drugs, for some it's tobacco, and for some it's food".

This is something she has told you to make you feel better. I don't have a crutch, unless you call reading a crutch.
The idea that slim people are drinking or taking drugs or smoking is a popular one, but not supported by any data.

Not so much the slim people now, they mean the slim people of the past ie back in the 70s and 80s. Lots of slim people, very few fat people but lots of smokers. I mean remember the days it was acceptable to smoke at your desk and on public transport.

It's weird in the 70s and 80s people weren't fat but they weren't super fit or toned either.
Now people are either superfit, toned, in the gym or running multiple times a week.
Or they are fat.

Any yes I'm a fatty gym goer but it's not easy, and I regularly falls of the slimming train.
There is definitely a thing that I'd pick up a biscuit with my coffee while mum all 7st of her has a fag.