BBC 3 FAT people

[jollymum]

OK just watched programme showing that fat people can't do this/that, have nice clothes etc etc. Right, two thoughts. One, the two girls on the programme who couldn't get trendy teen clothes were ready and willing to boycott clothes shops with placards when told to by the programme makers. Would they have done it on their own and why weren't we told why they were fat? That's the word used so I make no apolgies. Maybe the money spent on the programme could have been used to get dietary advice, personal trainers and more help for the girls so they didn't have to humiliate themselves on national TV. I know fat people can be happy and happiness is not related to size (look at anorexia). I have experience of this, but the programme was suggesting that certain theme parks should accomodate fat people because of their size. I am not generalising here but most theme parks don't cater for disabled people and they can't go on rides for whatever reasons/problems they have. SOME and I mean SOME fat people have the choice, slim down a bit and get smaller clthes/go on rides etc. That's their choice and why should everyone cater for them? The programme never once suggested/advised any form of fat reduction/diets and as far as I watched (maybe I missed a bit) didn't seem to care about the people's health, just the fact that they were "victimised" because of their size. I just kept shouting at the TV, "well try and lose weight then or explain why you can'T" but felt that this was so in your face that it almost ranked with the uniform/non-uniform debate over certain faith schools. It's everyone's right to be different but to ask everyone else to cater/pander to them is wrong.Life is unfair sometimes and that's life.

If you are so fat as to not be able to fit in the rides at Alton towers then there is no way you are healthy.
If someone choses to over eat, that is their choice. They should not then expect allowences to be made for them.
Is the best way to deal with horribly over congested roads to just make them wider and wider?
That would merely encourage more cars.

Kittywits as I said the programme overplayed the whole point and instead of saying yes we are fat don't push us to the outskirts it went over the top and said yes we are fat accomodate us now.

As I said in my post it did need to have a positive weight loss swing on it.

However I find you "should not expect allowances to be made for them" attitude appaling and unfortunately the same attitude a lot of people have who have never had an eating disorder because yes that is what being morbidly obese is an eating disorder.

I'd take issue with that, actually. I probably wouldn't fit into the rides at Alton Towers, but I'm in good health. Yes, I need to lose weight and am doing so because of the health issues that can come with being overweight, but being fat doesn't automatically mean being unhealthy.

There are a number of reasons why someone of my size would find it hard to lose weight. If it were as simple as "eat less and move more" then we would all be size 8 ... but it isn't always that simple, particularly if someone has a significant amount to lose. There are often emotional issues that need to be overcome - just as there are with other eating problems. Until those emotional problems are addressed, the weight won't shift - and if it does, it won't stay off. Plus food can be an addiction, just like any other, and can be just as difficult to break as any of the more accepted forms of addiction.

For many people, myself included, there's self-worth issues tied in with weight as well. When you have poor self-esteem, you can feel that you don't actually deserve to be slim and healthy ... I was able to eat well when I was pregnant and my baby was at risk from gestational diabetes, but I can't do it as easily for myself because I don't value myself as much as I valued my dd. It's really hard to explain to someone who hasn't been there, but there are other things in the equation along with eating and exercise.

I don't want society to "accommodate" me (probably just as well, given the attitudes that some people have); I know that there's only one person to blame for my weight, and that if I can't fit into a ride at Alton Towers it's not the staff's fault (although, like the ladies in the programme, I would be annoyed if I'd been assured that I would fit into the seats and then found I'd wasted my money). What I do want, though, is to be seen as a valued member of society on my own merits, rather than because of what the size label in the back of my jeans says, or whether I can fit my arse into an airline seat.

To be honest I really can't see why this causes such strong feeling in people who aren't affected by weight issues. My weight is my problem and mine alone; it affects me (and possibly my family) but it doesn't affect anyone else at all ... why are people so bothered by it?

Flutterbee, do you have an ideas as to why this disorder is so prevelant now?

I totally agree with and understand how annoying it would be if you paid money to get into a theme park and then couldn't use the rides. That's wrong.

I am confused also as to some views put forward here that if you are obese then you are not necessarily unhealthy. Why does the medical profession say that it is bad for your whole system and have BMI charts if that is not the case?

According to the BMI charts, even athletes can be classed as obese - they are not the most accurate way of measuring someone's health. The ratio of the waist to hip measurement is more accurate.

People often assume that fat people are unfit and unhealthy because they believe the stereotype that we all have our bottoms velcroed to the sofa, and eat nothing but chips and chocolate. That's not always the case. I exercise - I may not be able to keep up with you, but I exercise and do hill-walking (yes, shock horror, fat people can walk up hills). A friend of mine is an aerobics instructor who takes 5 aerobics classes a week and goes to the gym twice a week - she's a size 24, and as fit as a flea.

Yes, there are conditions which affect obese people more than slimmer people, and believe me we are all aware of them - but it's wrong to assume that every large person is affected by these problems. Or that we are so stupid that we don't realise that there can be health risks associated with being overweight.

ITA Wigwambam - my DH has a BMI of 27 so according to that you would expect him to be a seriously fat. But he isn't - he's 6'2 broad shouldered and muscular - he is carrying a bit too much about the waist atm but he isn't by any manner of means fat.

Re health and weight.

Being overweight is a risk factor in the same way as smoking, drinking, genetics etc are a risk factor. you are significantly more prone to certian conditions if you are overweight.

For example the most common weight related risk is type two diabetes.

In a Scottish survey in 2002 2% of the population was diabetic and its beleived that including unrecorded cases would bring it to 4%. These percentages increase dramatically with age and particularly over 60.

People who are clinically obese are about twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as non-obese people so lets say the adjusted risk factor is probably about 1-2% for those not overweight and 5-8% for those with BMI over 30.

So for every 100 obese people between 5 and 8 of them will develop diabetes. I'm not suggesting for a second that this is a good thing but it is far and away from the perception that the majority of fat people end up with diabetes.

I should also add that Americans studies have shown that although your risk of cardio vascular disease (heart attackes etc) is higher if you have BMI over 30, your change of surviving a heart attack is better than if you are a healthy weight or underweight (25% chance of surviving vs heakthy weight and 50% better chance of surviving if you are underweight! )

Being overweight is not healthy ON THE WHOLE - it is healthier to be within the govt guideline ON THE WHOLE - being overweight is not a death sentance ON THE WHOLE!

The fuss non-medical people kick up about other people weights is, I suspect far more to do with what is socially acceptable, than any true concern for others. (think someone already said that).

And why shouldn't fat teenagers whinge about not being catered for in the way they want? Is whinging to be limited to thin teenagers?

Kittywits...it is NOT always someone's choice if they over eat.As has been said before, over eating stems from deeply rooted emotional or psychological reasons, and these need to be dealt with before you EVER deal with the eating. I think that people who react so negatively to 'fat' people have their own issues to deal with. I for one have far more of a problem with people's intolerance of someone with a weight problem than I would ever have with an overweight person. I am shocked and saddened, to be honest, at the reaction of some people (not directed at anyone in particular)to people with weight problems. When it stems from low self esteem, it just compounds the problem when they are faced with people's stares and comments. Self esteem plummets even more. How about helping people feel better about themselves instead. It would make for a much nicer world.

marmaladesun, low self esteem is indeed a horrible thing to have and it does manifest itself in many ways.
I am interested as to why obesity has increased so much. What is it in the western world that has encouraged this and why is it so much more of a problem than it was say 50- years ago?

Money and availability, I guess. Certain types of food are more easily available than they were 50 years ago. Fast food, "junk" and snack food are often seen as staples rather than treats - and most of them weren't around in my mother's day, let alone my grandmother's.

I'm not saying that every overweight person sits around eating junk - there are other factors at play. There's portion sizes - we can afford to eat more because disposable income has risen, which makes it easier to have more food in the house. I think we also take food forgranted - it's not rationed, we can keep our cupboards full, we can eat whatever we like when we like.

having extra weight is GOOD for ostoporosis

Twig women much more prone I believe

I suppose we aren't as active as we used to be either what with the ready avalibility of cheap electronics alliances. We use cars instead of walking and sit at the computer forlong periods.

KW - because food - especially high-calorie low-nutrition food - is so freely available and is eaten ALL THE TIME, not just at mealtimes. When I was a child my granny hated to see anyone eating in the street - almost on a par with picking your nose in her eyes! Now everyone does it. So there is never any time when it's not acceptable and normal to eat. So we all eat more and more.

Crisps, chocolate, crisps, pizza, etc etc. All hig-cal foods that don't really feed the body - just fill the stomach - so that you want something else soon.

And you don't need to burn many calories in a normal modern life. We have central heating, lifts, washing machines, cars. 50 years ago simply getting by used more calories and there was less to eat and fewer opportunities to eat it.

I don;t think its our diet per se but exercise as someone else pointed out, I seem to recall reading that we eat fewer calories than our ancestors do but burn significantly fewer calories as jobs and life are far less manual (at least, if you had working class ancestors like me!).

Of course it is more complicated than that.

Some people use food to self-medicate in the same way that some people use shopping to self-medicate, or alcohol or drugs. We live in a society wehre your life is not taken up with mere existance and therefore we are prone to many more aberrant (can I call it that?) behaviours than our great grandparents generation.

On the news this morning they are talking about the latest research which shows that overweight people are much more likely to go blind due to eye disease than non overweight people. is this not more evidence that being overweight is just not healthy?

kittywits - no-one is trying to kid themselves that being fat is healthier than being thinner. The point that WWB and I and others are trying to make is that all fat people are not unhealthy. If you read the research into glaucoma and macular degeneration, the risk increases from 1% (of the overall population) to 2% if you're overweight.

Of course thats not as good a newspaper headline as "Obesity doubles risk of blindness".

A (male) friend of mine is 6 stone overweight. He had a pretty appalling and abusive childhood, and fast-food was what he used to 'love' himself. He would run away from the house when it got particularly bad, buy/steal lots of crisps and chocolate, and hide somewhere and stuff it all down, enjoying the sugar-rush-buzz and the temporary warm feeling that comes with it.

He is an intelligent, deep-thinking man, and tries desperately hard to conquer his addiction ('cause that's what it is - you can't go cold-turkey on food), but at the first sign of pressure in his life he cracks.

He's now trying therapy (he's lucky enough to be able to afford it) to try to crack the problem, and I really hope it works for him.

Just wanted to tell this story as an illustration of how 'fault' and 'blame' are - more often than not - inappropriate terms to use.

Another minor point: Tom Cruise is considered obese according to the BMI charts. It throws up lots of anomalies, and lots of medic friends of mine pretty much ignore BMI now.

Why are you so concerned about this, kittywits? We KNOW that being overweight can lead to illness, you're not telling us anything new! What we are trying (and obviously failing) to say is that not all fat people will suffer from these problems - which are problems that slim people suffer from too, so obesity isn't the only factor which may predispose someone to a particular illness.

The increased risk of glaucoma (which as Sue says is actually only an increase of a single percent) is presumably because of the increased risk of diabetes, which has been known for a long time. But again, most obese people don't suffer from diabetes - an increased likelihood doesn't mean that we're all going to suffer from it.

Booboodeboo, you could be describing me. My relationship with food stems from an unhappy and abusive childhood, where food became equated with love because feeding us was the only sign that my mother loved us. It's very deep-seated, the emotional aspects go far deeper than "eat less, move more" and people trying to hammer it home that we are unhealthy.

I just am interested. I have heard the opinions of many people who are overweight. I do not have a fascination with obesity as such but it is an interesting issue as are many others.
If anyone here is offended by this no offensive was ever intended.

I'm not offended, and I didn't suggest that you were obsessed either - I'm sorry if my posts have implied either.

The problem for me is that all too often we hear people fat-bashing, pouring scorn on us and implying that we are stupid for seemingly not understanding that there are health implications, and that "all we have to do" is eat less and exercise more. I can only speak for myself but I find myself getting very defensive on threads like this simply because they invariably end up with people who have no experience of our problems telling us how easy they are to overcome. I have been judged for years because of the way I look and because of my weight, when really the only things I should be judged on are the things I do and the things I say.

People genuinely seem to think that it hasn't occurred to us to lose weight, that we don't know about the risks, that we are uninformed about the things that affect us. We're not; I know as much about nutrition and exercise as most other people do, and perhaps more - I ought to, I've looked into it enough on every diet I've ever been on.

There are people on Mumsnet who seem to think that being fat is the biggest sin you can ever commit and that it's unforgivable because it's avoidable - that's not addressed towards anyone on this thread, it's just an observation from all of the other fat threads that I've read or on. It's tiring and exasperating to find that people still judge us on our size, even when they can't see us.

Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant and it's not really addressed at you, kittywits. It's just that this comes up over and over and over again, and just as I think I've managed to get my point across, up come the same old chestnuts to make me bang my head against the table in frustration!

One thing that really really annoys me more than anything else is statistics. You're 29% more likely to develop this if you do that and you've a 33% greater chance of this happening if you continue to do this etc. Statistics are manipulated by people who haven?t got a f*ing clue what they?re doing, namely news editors, and they?re used in a sensationalist way to make the people who buy papers and watch tv act in a certain way. Did you know that 89% of statistics are made up on the spot?

I?m fat, I?m obese but I?m doing something about it. My son is slim and normal for his age and he would much prefer fruit to chocolate or crisps any day, that said we don?t actually have any crisps or chocolate in the house because I?m on a diet and I?d rather he didn?t eat it. I find it depressing when I turn on the news to see yet another item about how fat we all are and how we?re all going to die horrible premature deaths, and then they show clips of fat people from the waist down walking round town centres totally oblivious to their lardy bodies being videotaped and used as a figure of ridicule on the national news. And speaking of the news, what did we do before the advent of rolling 24-7 news eh?! How did we fill the void that once surrounded 3.27am in the morning? How did we cope with only having three bulletins a day (1pm, 6pm, 10pm) and a breakfast news show? Statistics are tailor made for 24-7 news as it?s the only way they can fill their programmes. You can take any half-baked statistics from any half-baked institution from anywhere around the world and it will be used to fill a half hour slot on the news, that?s the way it works.

As a nation we?re getting fatter. As a nation we?re also getting taller, but are we told to start actively stunting our growth? No. It?s evolution. Admittedly, a high percentage (those statistics again) of fat people are fat because they would rather eat crap and watch tv or play on the playstation instead of eating something that has a nutritional value and maybe walk somewhere once in a while. But as for me, I?m doing something about it, I?m heading in the right direction, I?m on my way to being ?within government targets?.

So, as the BBC3 programme said, F*, I?m Fat!

That's alight wigwambam Glad I haven't offended anyone.

I think I've said it before and I'll say it again, overeating is an eating disorder and many of the triggers are the same as those for anorexia/bulimia which have also increased in recent years. Society needs to recognise that it is the most prevalent eating disorder in the developed world and offer treatment that actually deals with the real issues rather than just treating overweight people as if they are greedy/lazy/ undisciplined.
This is more or less what everyone else has said really, so there must be a grain of truth in there somewhere!