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.

“This isn’t about shaming”

…goes on to shame.

“why wouldn’t you want to loose some weight for a healthier lifestyle.”

I’m sure people do. But it’s a chronic condition and it’s complex. Do you not think people would just lose weight if it was that easy?

“it was a genuine question.”

A question that you could have simply Googled to get your answer and maybe educate yourself a little on the complexities of Obesity. Instead you chose to come here and display your ignorance on the matter with your judgy comments.

Some of the readers of your post have come here with their own painful and traumatic experiences to explain to you, I hope you read them in the context they were intended and take on board how hurtful your comments have been.

Several people posted about the link between sustained, often horrific, abuse and obesity, even including their own personal experience, and then everyone else ignored it and carried on saying they’re annoyed about seats in planes and suchlike. It’s just like IRL. It’s enormously depressing and makes me feel quite hopeless.

Sigh. Obesity isn’t as simple as a person being lazy or just happy/accepting of being that size. There is usually some mental health aspect to it, and I’m speaking from experience. Not to mention how easy society makes it to be overweight. Yes there is an element of personal responsibility, but it doesn’t help that so many foods are high salt/high sugar/high fat, full of UPFs, there are takeaways on every corner, multiple convenient food delivery options and big business diet companies tempting people with quick fixes that don’t address the underlying reasons for obesity.

I think when something causes an inconvenience to someone ie like your experience, that would be an issue and piss me off so YABU. I'd hate to have someone next to me feeling touched and uncomfortable! unfair in that person

Mind your business

How about not physically inflicting your girth on some poor sod sitting in a seat? Oh no, of course that's not acceptable, because that would involve a seriously big person having to accept that they are so overweight that their flesh will make contact with, and affect, someone who has not consented to this physical contact.

It is her business though, she had someone practically sitting on her, she was uncomfortable.

I've been thinking about this and actually I want to revise my earlier comments.

I've spent a lot of time on here unsuccessfully trying to convince people that there is no such thing as "vanity" sizing with clothing. Yes, sizes are getting bigger (and less consistent) but it's not a conspiracy to flatter and delude fat people, it's just change to adapt to people getting bigger overall. It's size inflation, not vanity sizing. The reason they don't just keep size numbers going up and up into infinity is because sizes are based on scale and this is honestly the least faff. There are other things going on as well, but anyway, the point is that it's not about vanity, it's about adapting to a changing market. I don't know why people hate that as much as they obviously do, but it's true and I'm not going to get derailed about it. I'm just going to use it to make the point that markets adapt; as I try to tell people, it's not just clothes, it's also beds, cars, armchairs, everything else has got bigger too.

So actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking maybe plane seats should get bigger to accommodate people in general getting bigger, since everything else does. This will mean higher prices though. It won't happen if it means the death of the industry, and the Michael O'Learys of the world will never do it; they'll continue to sell cheap fares in sardine tins and make (admittedly kind of funny) comments on social media about "well what do you expect for £29.99" when problems arise.

And it really isn't practical to make all seats the size of the very biggest passenger, so there will still need to be a system in place for when two seats are required. I still prefer the "easily buy two that are actually connected and be refunded for one if the plane isn't full". Cannot see anything more reasonable than that. Crew could also add a seatbelt extender when two seats are requested for this purpose as a matter of course before boarding so passengers don't have to be embarrassed.

Ultimately I think the market will decide this one. Are people really prepared to spend more on bigger seats as a general rule? If a couple of airlines are trying it out then I guess we will see.

I feel for the OP. I had this on a flight years ago and it was horrible. The man was so big the armrest would not go down, he couldn’t use his tray table and nor could I as his arms were spilling over into my space so it couldn’t go flat. I had to hold the drink I was served and didn’t have the meal as I had nowhere to put the tray.
Whether some want to hear it or not, in circumstances like this where it is a full flight and the passenger has not booked two seats they should be offloaded.

Morning...

For info details here of the Southwest airlines scheme I mentioned yesterday:

https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/article/extra-seat-policy

Note amongst other things that the airline has the right to refuse carriage if the passenger has not reserved an extra seat but the airline consider such is necessary

It’s a mental illness, you know you sre being ignorant

...and then having posted that link re Southwest then saw this:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-overweight-passenger-policy-seat-change/

Which highlights a change in the way the scheme is administered.

You have to wonder why more overweight people don’t try the same rehabilitation programs that drug and alcohol addicts use. There is many overeating anonymous groups who can offer help and has preformed miracles in NA and AA yet OA isn’t popular.
Going though the 12 steps helps evaluate your downfalls and triggers. The healing on the inside eliminates the outside addiction.

i have been battling weight issues for most of my adult life. I also have a couple of medical conditions that affect it and my bottom and hips are the worst affected areas. I am aware of this and make sure l am not imposing on others. I understand the problems of weight and that it is far more complex than it was originally thought. That said, I believe we should all be aware of our surroundings and how our bodies and actions can affect others. If l were ever in the position of needing a seatbelt extension and spilling into the next seat I would have to pay for an extra seat. I feel @Bayleaftree63 has had a lot of criticism and perhaps the wording of her post was a little unfortunate but how many of us want to be squashed by a stranger, particularly in the weather we have been experiencing this week?

I think because many people don't see it as a matter of addiction (although I know it can be) and even if they do, they don't think the usual steps for addiction recovery will work, since you can live without smoking, alcohol or other drugs (and in fact recovery generally does mean giving them up completely), but you can't live without eating.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to feel uncomfortable when a stranger’s body is pressing close to them, into their private space, for whatever reason. I imagine you wouldn’t like it either. And some victims of assault find it very triggering to be touched without their consent.

It deals with the reasons why people over eat. You cannot live without eating but you can live without bingeing. You can live without drinking alcohol but you have to lose friendships, relationships, unless you can resist the temptation, if you cannot then you can no longer socialise with loved ones when alcohol is involved, it’s definitely not as simple as never drinking alcohol again vs but needing to eat.
It’s a lifestyle overhaul learning the skills to resist the urge to make yourself ill. The constant guilty cycle. Food addiction causes damage to other family members, not as much as alcohol or drugs but definitely restricts life.

I appreciate that, but I'm explaining why I don't think people attend OA as much as AA. And while I realise you can live without bingeing, it must be very very hard to need to take a controlled amount of your addictive substance several times a day to survive and not binge on it. Harder than simply swerving it conpletely. I can see why people would think addiction treatment wouldn't work when you have to take the substance.

Additionally, there are zillions of diet plans and groups that people are probably going to try instead that all promise you won't feel deprived and can stick to forever yadda yadda. As food isn't actually a drug like alcohol, people are less likely to view overeating as an actual addiction even though I understand that it really can be.

Some aspects of obesity can be because of depression and because terrible things have happened to the obese person in the past. There can also be physical reasons. However, you are implying that no blame can be placed on the obese person - they are victims who will never recover. This is ingenuous and incorrect, as you very well know. Counselling is often a good idea but in the end we all have to acc accountability for our own actions. We are the only ones putting the excess food in our mouths. Have you ever watched My 600lb Life? It is eye-opening in many ways. Dr. Now is sympathetic and compassionate but he also spells out exactly what the problem is and how to address it. He is also a big advocate of psychiatric help. Not everyone succeeds, of course, but those who do turn their lives around and are able to enjoy normal life.

*take accountability

@ThatCyanCat I understand.
I know a lot of binge eating is due to past or current trauma, it isn’t a simple fix.
Thankfully the WLI seems to be a big help for people.

Plane seats are getting smaller, not bigger. I flew BA economy for 9 hours and it was horrendously uncomfortable because I had to squash my shoulders together to fit in the seat. I'm size 12 and 5 foot 2 so god knows how big people bear it. They just want to maximise profits not comfort. My theory is they are trying to get people to pay for premium economy.

No theory required...of course they want to sell tickets, although it's possible PE doesn't actually yield higher profit per seat than economy, I don't know. Pricing is always a very complicated issue. Nothing about pricing works in silos.

It is known that companies make better sales if they lure people in with the lowest price and then offer add ons on top of that (checked luggage, seat selection etc) rather than starting with a higher price and reducing it as people ditch the extras. I can understand that; it's much nicer to start at a low price and add things on than start at a high one and feel like you're "losing" stuff to get it down.

I had this once on a national express coach from London to Newcastle. It was hideous.
The lady said ‘ oh at least you’re little!’ as she took up st least 60% of my seat.
i have no judgement about people’s size or how they got there as it’s non of my business but they should book two seats.
i have an autistic child who needs a lot of space for his various needs and id never expect other people to accommodate that. In the cinema and in trains I always pay for two seats

Some of economy seats in BAs longhaul fleet, certainly some 787s are "tight" but believe it or not they don't have the worse configuration available on the type.

"They just want to maximise profits not comfort"...

That's a commonly held opinion but there's a lot more to it than that....it's not really a case of just maximising profits, it's a case of tweaking seating to make your fares attractive to price sensitive customers but also make enough profit to keep the airline going long term.

Given the horribly cyclical nature of the industry it's very easy to go from the black into the red, so a bit of profit when you can make it is a good thing, the thing not to do is maximise profit to the point it scares customers off.