To think that people pretend not to understand obesity

[Mezzoprezzo]

After 30 plus years of failed diets I've recently started on mounjaro. Because I've placed an order and spent weeks searching stuff about weight loss medication, my Facebook feed is full of adverts from suppliers, many of which use vlogs from real clients who have lost weight. And the vast majority of comments are along the lines of, couldn't you just eat less, haven't you heard of exercise, why not just stop eating crap etc. Surely people are faking ignorance to have the fun of fat bashing. Obesity is rife! Everyone knows someone who struggles with their weight and who talks openly about it. I and every other obese person I know have tried every diet under the sun. Walk into any gym and you'll see a fair number of larger people trying bloody hard. And I know someone's going to reply to this post by talking about an obese friend who they once saw eating an entire packet of biscuits. Well numerous times I've given in to the overwhelming urge to do that too. And hated myself afterwards. It's part of the horrible condition. People have got eyes and ears and they seriously know full bloody well how hard obese people try to lose weight. They just pretend not to so they can have the fun of hating.

food noise increases with sugar and junk food though and decreases with self respect and self love

But the problem is that willpower, the ability to delay gratification, is mediated in the brain through our physical/chemical reward systems ie it is a physical rather than emotional thing. Addictive substances disrupt these balances so willpower itself is reduced. And it is also finite - no one can live in a state of delayed gratification permanent unless they have some underlying psychological issue like body dysmorphia.

So I get your point but I don’t agree with it because it suggests that people with addictions are just not “strong enough” or trying hard enough and it is a reductionist narrative which is victim blaming.

I can believe that. I'm also willing to bet my house that she reached that stage after trying and failing to lose weight for years and deciding that the only option was to accept herself the way she was. No effortlessly slim person ever looked in the mirror and thought, I'm bored of being all thin and agile. I think I'll gorge on cake and burgers for a couple of years, give obesity a go. It looks fun waddling around.

Yes I can see it must be horrible for people who have some sort of medical reason for not being able to lose weight or gain weight too quickly. The problem is the vast majority of overweight people are like that due to the food they eat, the amount of food they eat or the lack of movement.

Obesity is so multi faceted, there is no one fix.

Yes of course, how much and what we eat is a key factor. And exercise plays almost no role at all in weight loss. It's great for health of course. But to lose weight? No.

But so are hormones. Any woman in or past the menopause will tell you, they can practically fast and the weight won't come off. I've experienced this. With GP support.

Hormones change for a period after weight loss surgery (got this from the horses mouth, from one of the UK's leading weight loss surgeons) and this is what makes weight loss surgery work. It's also why the effect of the surgery wears off after a few months, despite still having a hugely reduced stomach size.

Insulin resistance. Makes losing weight very very hard, regardless of calorie intake. Another reason that WLI work. Because they're designed for diabetics. It isn't just about the appetite suppression.

When losing weight, the body is designed to try to cling onto the weight. Losing just 3 percent of your body weight can result in a 17 percent slowdown in your
metabolism – a body-wide starvation response that blasts you with hunger hormones and drops your internal temperature until you rise back to your highest weight.

So no one is saying that eating junk food, drinking fizzy drinks loaded with sugar, high fat, high fat and crappy food isn't too blame. But it isn't the whole picture. ~

And people that have never been obese aren't experts. All this calories in, calories out crap is just that.

If you talk to a REAL expert, they know this.

Obesity is so multi faceted, there is no one fix.

Yes of course, how much and what we eat is a key factor.

But so are hormones. Any woman in or past the menopause will tell you, they can practically fast and the weight won't come off. I've experienced this. With GP support.

Hormones change for a period after weight loss surgery (got this from the horses mouth, from one of the UK's leading weight loss surgeons) and this is what makes weight loss surgery work. It's also why the effect of the surgery wears off after a few months, despite still having a hugely reduced stomach size.

Insulin resistance. Makes losing weight very very hard, regardless of calorie intake. Another reason that WLI work. Because they're designed for diabetics. It isn't just about the appetite suppression.

When losing weight, the body is designed to try to cling onto the weight.

Obesity is so multi faceted, there is no one fix.

Yes of course, how much and what we eat is a key factor.

But so are hormones. Any woman in or past the menopause will tell you, they can practically fast and the weight won't come off. I've experienced this. With GP support.

Hormones change for a period after weight loss surgery (got this from the horses mouth, from one of the UK's leading weight loss surgeons) and this is what makes weight loss surgery work. It's also why the effect of the surgery wears off after a few months, despite still having a hugely reduced stomach size.

Insulin resistance. Makes losing weight very very hard, regardless of calorie intake. Another reason that WLI work. Because they're designed for diabetics. It isn't just about the appetite suppression.

When losing weight, the body is designed to try to cling onto the weight.

Absolutely, I know a couple who are both overweight and so are both their children (aged 7 and 11).

The parents will post photos of their meals on their IG accounts (as the dad likes to cook) and the portions are huge!!! All 4 plates are covered in food, you wouldn’t be able to tell which ones are for the adults and which ones are for the children.

Neither kid does any sport or exercise either which doesn’t help, they spend their time in the ‘Gaming Room’ at home playing on their consoles.

I really feel for the children because they are noticeably overweight, so I’m sure the parents realise it too, but nothing will change and things will just get worse.

Addictive substances - so you need to avoid them - and you need to ensure your children don’t get the taste

apples , whole grains and the like are not addictive like crisps and Greggs pies

There is a reason that the population is getting larger, all the chemicals in our food and environment are permanently altering our microbes and hormones causing metabolic and hormonal issues. For some people this can cause leptin deficiencies so the body doesn’t get the usual cues to say it is full, for others it can be insulin resistance which causes the body to store fat no matter how much you diet, it can cause food to travel through the digestive system faster which can increase hunger, slow down metabolism etc… they are only really beginning to tap the surface of all of the issues. More and more people are getting digestive issues, food intolerances and things like autoimmune diseases.

My granny was always about 7 stone and cooked everything in cream and butter, had cream in her coffee and kept little chocolate bars in the fridge. But it was all relatively non processed food. It’s also the type of food - there was a recent documentary about how snacks are now designed to dissolve quickly and require very little chewing which disrupts and confuses our body affecting digestion. There are chemicals in some crisps and things that encourage the brain to keep eating too. I think all these factors are why the majority of the population is now overweight. There needs to be a major overhaul of the food industry and stricter rules on what chemicals can go in food. Companies are making a fortune making us fat and then selling us diet food to combat that which is also loaded with chemicals and messes our bodies up further.

I had a passive aggressive colleague who went on a rant one day about how she would never hire an overweight person as it shows poor impulse control and laziness - she was about a size 8 and would regularly eat half a pack of biscuits in one sitting, she worked from home half the time and was rarely contactable so definitely not a model employee.

Obesity is a symptom not a disease or mindset. It's a descriptor and it can be the result of many things. Some of them are undeniably diet related but some of them are medical conditions, whatever the Fat Shamers like to say. I have lymphoedema. In my case I'm probably at least overweight and might or might not be obese, even without this condition, but someone else could still have lymphoedema and look obese even though they were carrying no more fat than the critics themselves. I'm sick to the back teeth of people who say obesity is always caused by overeating and state this as if it is fact. It's not; it's simplistic twaddle. For most of my life the fact that people might be taking one look at me and making the judgement that I was weak, lazy and somehow less than them would make me very sad and uncomfortable. I'm glad to say that I've finally reached an age where I realise that those people and their tiny, uneducated minds are nothing.

Again - addictive foods are made that way - to trigger the pleasure pathways in the brain - you don’t need a “medical condition” you just need a brain that is more susceptible to reacting strongly to these substances either through genetics or just the way your brain is/biological variations.

So yes it is partly the food they eat (which is designed to be addictive) and partly how their body metabolises and stores food - and it is way more complex than calories in/calories out.

Here is just one short quote which might help people understand why obesity is very complex - people can google “NAD” to understand better if they want to help the obesity epidemic rather than just victim blame.

“NAD+ plays a crucial role in metabolism and energy production, and its levels are often reduced in obesity, potentially contributing to metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistance. Boosting NAD+ through precursors like nicotinamide riboside (NR) or nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) may help improve metabolic health and combat obesity.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37761000/#:~:text=Adipose%20tissue%20plays%20a%20key,;%20sirtuin;%20type%202%20diabetes.

Yea addictive foods work that way and they are everywhere in life today unfortunately. It is hard filling up on say vegetables when there are so many other more tasty options. Problem is they dont actually fill you up and you just crave more.

I don't think they're pretending. I think if you've never struggled with your weight then you're not going to understand obesity. It must seem such an easy solution - just eat less!
It's a bit like people who've never struggled with their mental health telling people who are depressed to go for a walk.

Maybe

Yet people who are depressed abs nevertheless go for walks get better quicker than those who don’t and avoid relapses more

there are people who take responsibility for themselves and those that won’t

Where has the cut and paste option gone!!!

re hormones. It’s simply not true that every woman around or post menopause needs to fast lose weight.

Sorry but you don’t get it at all. Saying obese people just don’t want it badly enough or they would lose weight is ignorant and offensive.

I guess it's just that there are different categories of obese people. There are those who are too lazy or chose to eat the wrong things for no other reason than they prefer it.

I had a problem gambling addiction and managed to give it up with only one relapse. I also quit smoking after multiple attempts.

Losing weight is harder than those things ever were.

Well exercise really can help with depression. It’s often the first thing a good GP will ask about when someone presents with low mood. Rather than reach for the ADs they may suggest a programme of exercise and to then review in a week or two.
Not all obese people have deep seated psychological issues or an addiction or have tried all the other weight loss methods, and could be supported in ways other than injections.

Well done for not reading the OP and coming on to do exactly what it said someone would do. In all likelihood she says that because it helps her not hate herself (and no doubt doesn’t really believe it). And goodness me! How horrible that she should ‘pat her stomach’ after eating. Never seen a thin person do that.
maybe your friend knows you judge her so is trying to divert you by telling you she likes it.

A very small amount of people are able to get it on the NHS (purely for weight loss, different if it’s being used to treat diabetes), and those that do have been in the weight loss ‘tier system’ for years most likely.

The vast majority of people are buying privately, there’s in depth questionnaires and photos required with lots of prescribers also moving towards wanting video calls as well.

The difference is that with smoking you can completely stop. With eating you cant. It’s different. How many ex smokers say they’d be back to 20 a day if they had just one? Now think about that for meals.

Read what you replied t9 again. Yes, obviously overweight people are eating too much. It’s not because they are lazy fuckers with no willpower though (usually). It’s a chemical and emotional addiction.