Feeling uncomfortable after sharing a seat with a very obese passenger

[Bayleaftree63]

On public transport earlier. A very large woman sits nexts to me. She couldn’t get the seat belt
round her. Her body spilt over into my seat, leaving me squashed with what little space there was left.

On the journey I couldn’t help be annoyed at the lack of space I was left with and questioning how do people let themselves get to that size. Talking morbidly obese, not just larger - whatever the medical
term.

This isn’t about shaming, more I’m in disbelief people being that big are happy? Why wouldn’t you want to loose some weight for a healthier lifestyle.

"Why wouldn't you want to loose some weight"

That's ignorant of what people go through.

A lot of people are overweight as they comfort eat after going through traumas. They can't stop and become addicted to food.

I spent 6 years of my life trying to lose weight. It's all I thought about. Being overweight is very uncomfortable. Nothing worked. Diets didn't work. Weight loss injections didn't work.

I tried very very hard to lose weight and nothing worked

Of course you were goading. We can read your OP.
Drop and run. 👋

There is a point when there is no excuse for these sorts of opinions. If you said this 20 years ago someone might take the time to educate you. Saying this in 2026, there is no excuse for, so nobody should give you the time of day frankly

Weight gain is often a symptom to trauma.

Many people comfort eat after trauma. Me and my brother were both severlely abused as children. Both of us are overweight.

Many women also gain weight after being sexually abused. As they don't want to look sexually attractive.

I put on a lot of weight after being sexually assaulted as an adult

Thank you. That's interesting. Yeah it makes sense. I was just imagining what might happen if everyone was very overweight.

Yes I have had an under active thyroid for the last 20 years.
Obviously I take Levothyroxine for it, watch my diet, exercise and stay a healthy weight.

I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to upset or offend you, please accept my apology.

So you have a chronic condition which causes weight gain, which you need to manage with medication...and you are still saying "calories in, calories out innit?"

Willfully blind doesn't quite cover it

If you don't want to offend people, maybe you could take the time to read the thread before voicing your (outdated) opinions? Just a suggestion

I'm a big girl who used to be much bigger and was so paranoid about taking up space on a flight that I booked premium economy. It's horrid to have someone big over spilling into your personal space and OP is well within her rights to question it.

There are no excuses - it's overeating, pure and simple. I overeat. Have done most of my adult life. I wish I could control it better than I do.

There's a lot of ignorance.

I always notice on these threads there seems to be a marked trend for correlation between the people who seem to be the quickest to judge and those who have the worst spelling and punctuation. Scroll back through and have a look ,,,

ETA though actually it doesn't even take education to correct the lack of knowledge. A bit of empathy will do the trick in this case.

It's over eating yes. But it is not as simple as that.. It is also a psychological addiction. People cannot stop eating food.

It's the same as addiction to drugs. People want to stop. They can't stop. It can take a lot of time and psychological interventions

Is it wrong to be disgusted by someone else’s flesh entering your personal space down to their obesity? Surely that’s pretty grim?

Blimey the apology wasn’t to you it was to another poster who has clearly gone through some terrible things.
But are you actually saying 2 out of 3 people in the country have gone through immense trauma which affects their eating?
Surely most people put on weight because they eat slightly more than they actually need on a daily basis?
If you eat an extra 100 calories a day over 10 years that’s a lot of weight. Just denying it doesn’t help.

It's the airlines fault, that the seats are so tiny.

When I was thinner, I was squashed on airplanes by overweight people.

Now I'm bigger, I'm squashing the thinner people.

The seats are too small.

I agree.

I am healthy weight, a bit above average height for a woman and I don't feel comfortable. There is nowhere to put my elbows, especially in the middle seat.

I think the OP's musings are completely fair, given that she (I assume she) has been squashed and squished by an obese adult on public transport.I'm a fat bastard, and if I have to share a seat, I deliberately perch on the edge of the seat, to avoid imposing my bulk on the nervous passenger who glances at me before shrinking as close to the window as humanly possible.😱😂

Yes, I realise that. But my advice was that if you care not to offend or upset people you should read the thread before posting.

To clarify, that advice was to you specifically.

Please don't ask me questions - that is very lazy. If you really want to know about the subject, you can read up about it, maybe beginning with reading this thread. I get the feeling you would rather remain ignorant and say "eat less move more" and "too many calories tsk tsk" while patting yourself on the back for managing tour weight, despite needing medical intervention to do so. Which btw, there is no shame in. There is shame in your willfull ignorance, but I think you are too obtuse to feel it

Put them in a hotel, they are only allowed to eat the 3 healthy meals a day served to them and they have to spend time walking round the grounds every single day, 15 minutes after eating. You will be amazed how the fat melts away, once the excuses have run out.And the enablers. I have been extremely slim/underweight (naturally) and morbidly obese. I now have associated health problems, but they didn't cause the weight gain, I caused them by being a lazy glutton.If I decided to stop stuffing myself today, I guarantee in a year I would be slim again.Most people (not those with endocrine disorders or medical treatment causing weight gain) who are obese are so by choice.

I'm really sorry to read this. In a decent world, you'd have loads of support to look after you mother, so that you wouldn't feel like this. I hope things get better for you, somehow. Are you getting all the practical help you can? Is there a charity you can contact? You deserve support.

That's a naive way of looking at it.

So can people just stop taking heroin?

Why do they often relapse then and are in and out of rehab?

I've tried to lose weight for 6 years. Do you think that fat people want to be fat? I'm very uncomfortable. I would love to weigh less and not carry around my huge breasts

There's a temptation for responses that encourage shame. Shame is linked to over eating for many people

I've lost a bit of weight. When I was very heavy I felt so shameful about being fat, I felt irredemable, disgusting and like I shouldn't be taken up space. I caught comfort in food and used it as a form of self harm because I was so gross it didnt matter. I was eating in secret because I felt like I couldn't tell people what I was actually eating because people would judge me, so id shovel down stuff in my car out of whole packets

Ironically self love and being more confident in taking up space lead to more weight loss for me.

Feeling like I could wear certain clothes, go to the gym, eat a normal meal in a break room socially were all things that really helped to regulate my eating habits, that i wasnt something to hide away. Working with my body vs against it.

Or, we could be less unpleasant and just accept that we don’t own other people’s bodies.

I do agree that if I was spilling into another seat, I should get two, but outside of that - how someone looks or feels in their own body is literally none of anyone else’s business.

Let’s face it, “nothing worked” because you didn’t do it properly.
”I couldn’t lose weight” is not the same as “nothing worked” and it’s ridiculous to claim it is.

I’ve never called planes public transport before but I guess they sort of are.

I’d be annoyed if my seat was being encroached on or there was a sweaty smell, but those things would annoy me regardless of size.