Why do some people care so much that others are fat?

[emerytura]

I have a friend that only eat salads. She usually buy them ready at supermarkets. Her plate always looks more white than green. Macaroni salad, coslaw, cheese, croutans. She always complaints and comments that she can't understand why she eats so little and can't stay at a normal weight. She also ask me what I eat that I am always at a normal weight. Once I told her that her plate should look more green than white, and this will make the difference. Her reaction was actually I am not that fat. I shop at Chicos and size 4 fits me very well. Chicos sizing explains all https://www.chicos.com/store/page.jsp?id=45.


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[Philliefan33]

DW sometimes tries on clothes advertised as 'petite', and gets lost in them - seems 'petite' has been reclassified as 'short' in many instances.

Um, that is exactly what "petite" clothes are. Shorter inseams, shorter rise, shorter arms.

 

[Nemo2]

Um, that is exactly what "petite" clothes are. Shorter inseams, shorter rise, shorter arms.

More 'word drift' I guess.

Here's the definition as I always understood it:

pe·tite
pəˈtēt/
adjective
(of a woman) having a small and attractively dainty build.
"she was petite and vivacious"
synonyms: small, dainty, diminutive, slight, little, tiny, elfin, delicate, small-boned

 

[photoguy]

I weighed 125 lbs at 5'7" in highschool and sewed my own clothes (as many did at the time). In Simplicity and Butterick patterns I was a size 10 or 12. The same size now is a 4 or 6. That's how much "vanity" sizing has changed things.

You'd think there wouldn't be much of an issue with vanity sizing in men's clothes as the numbers should just be a straight measurement of the waist (or arm, etc). But I always wore a size 32 waist all the way back to HS -- however now my 32W shorts from costco will fall down without a belt. It looks like I could add a football to my belly and it would still fit.

 

[athena53]

It honestly breaks my heart to see people who struggle with their weight, especially younger folks who are experiencing disease and disabilities in their 20s and 30s that normally don't show up until much later in life.

This is my other area of concern: quality of life. I don't know what it's like to carry around 100 lbs. of extra weight, but I imagine it makes your everyday existence that much harder, and it's a load on your back, your hips, your knees, etc. That can discourage someone from a lot of wonderful active pursuits like hiking or bicycling, which can then lead to less activity and less mobility. I'm 63 and get up in the morning pretty much pain-free even when I've bicycled 35 miles the day before.

The effects of prevention were really driven home to me last week. There's a lady in our church who personifies the phrase "rode hard and put up wet"- you just look at her and know she had a hard life. Thin hair, missing teeth, on oxygen, moves slowly, although she's not that much overweight. After a bad fall she wore a neck brace for nearly a year. I thought she was older than I am. I noticed her birth date in the church directory. She's 58. She's just scraping by economically and she's pretty much unemployable due to her physical limitations.

A bit off the track since overweight wasn't her main problem, but I wish everyone could feel as healthy and energetic as I do at my age. Part of it is good genes and sheer luck- I know that- but part of it can be managed.

Hankster mentioned being kind to overweight young people knowing what difficulties they might have; I belong to a Planet Fitness and they emblazon the words "Judgment-Free Zone" all over the walls. I like their attitude. We have a good mix of the general population in there- young and old, zealots and people trying hard to get up off the couch. I like that.

 

[MRG]

This is my other area of concern: quality of life. I don't know what it's like to carry around 100 lbs. of extra weight, but I imagine it makes your everyday existence that much harder, and it's a load on your back, your hips, your knees, etc. That can discourage someone from a lot of wonderful active pursuits like hiking or bicycling, which can then lead to less activity and less mobility. I'm 63 and get up in the morning pretty much pain-free even when I've bicycled 35 miles the day before.

..snip..

Can't say I know what a hundred feels like but fifty plus, yes. I put on weight slowly in my late 20s (started at a desk job) I was skinny at 27. By 56, I carried an additional 60 pounds around with me. Miserable shape, always hot, out of breath, no desire to change. Frankly I didn't know it was the weight, perhaps denial, but I honestly believed it was age. When we started walking last May our first walk was to the nearest cross road and home. I should mention it's very hilly where we live so it's harder to walk. I had to stop nine times on that walk to catch my breath. Couple of times I swore it was all over, I'm ready, Lord, come take me.

After we got back I was done for the day. Need rest, then the pain and stiffness, Achilles was too tight. That terrible walk took 48 minutes! Sounds like a heck of a walk, later I learned it was exactly one half mile out and obviously the same back. Yes a 48 minute mile kicked my a $$. Granted it is hilly, I had to walk in front of DW as she couldn't keep her footing going downhill. That 48 minute mile we regularly do in 16 minutes now then go one or two more. I plan to do it in 12 minutes this year.

The benefits of losing are many, I no longer take meds for BP, Tachacardia, GERD, insomnia. For some reason the regularly reoccurring cluster headaches I've had since 2010 have disappeared. I wouldn't believe it had someone promised me this gift.

Now the negative, instead of always being too hot, I'm often cold!

 

[Alan]

You'd think there wouldn't be much of an issue with vanity sizing in men's clothes as the numbers should just be a straight measurement of the waist (or arm, etc). But I always wore a size 32 waist all the way back to HS -- however now my 32W shorts from costco will fall down without a belt. It looks like I could add a football to my belly and it would still fit.

I discovered this back in the 90's. I tried measuring my waist before shopping for clothes and discovered that the waist measurements on men's trousers in the stores were at least 2" less than reality.

 

[nash031]

What anyone does with/to their own body doesn't bother me until it impacts me or my family. Thus, it usually only becomes an issue on an airplane, and even then only very rarely, and often not at all. If DW and I are seated together and a very large person happens into our row, we are small enough that we have plenty of room between two seats to allow a little overflow or what have you. Even if there's no room for overflow, it's an inconvenience for me for a couple of hours whereas the person has to live with it and all of the health and social aspects all the time. I try to keep that in mind when the initial pang of inconvenience hits, and I try to give benefit of the doubt rather than assuming they're just eating chips and chugging soda 100% of the time and being judgmental. I admit this is a work in progress.

Otherwise, it doesn't bother me, and I wish everyone the best in their personal battles if they choose to wage them.

I do have a hard time believing all obese people don't want to be obese. I think there is some portion of the populace that is perfectly happy with how they are and unwilling to make life changes. I think that's a very small percentage, but I have to believe there are a few out there based on my experiences at the grocery store. Or perhaps it's ignorance. I don't know, but it's generally none of my business.

I can't get behind the "we all pay their medical bills" rationale. My father's pancreatic cancer treatment was almost entirely funded by tax payers (via Tricare and Medicare) and had nothing to do with obesity or probably any other preventable cause. I know how much the taxpayers paid to treat him for three years. My health care is also paid for by tax payers (as is my salary and a good portion of my retirement) and likely will be for my entire life, so it'd be awfully hypocritical of me to bemoan public expenditures on health care for just about anyone.

...Especially because I'll probably need knee surgeries from all the running!

 

[athena53]

I can't get behind the "we all pay their medical bills" rationale. My father's pancreatic cancer treatment was almost entirely funded by tax payers (via Tricare and Medicare) and had nothing to do with obesity or probably any other preventable cause. I know how much the taxpayers paid to treat him for three years. My health care is also paid for by tax payers (as is my salary and a good portion of my retirement) and likely will be for my entire life, so it'd be awfully hypocritical of me to bemoan public expenditures on health care for just about anyone.

...Especially because I'll probably need knee surgeries from all the running!

Pancreatic cancer is one of those "there but for the grace of God go I" health problems. The whole principle of insurance is that the large losses of the unfortunate few are shared by all of the policyholders. No matter how hard I work to stay healthy I'm not immune to a similar catastrophe and that's why I buy health insurance.

My issue is with the increased costs of healthcare due to preventable conditions. We could realize huge savings if people took better care of themselves, and everyone would win.

 

[Amethyst]

We've almost gotten rid of smoking (yay!) but guess what...every silver lining, it seems, has a cloud: 15 studies reviewed by the US Surgeon General in 1990 found that four-fifths of people who quit smoking gained weight (average: 5 pounds).

gaining weight after quitting smoking

Pancreatic cancer is one of those "there but for the grace of God go I" health problems. The whole principle of insurance is that the large losses of the unfortunate few are shared by all of the policyholders. No matter how hard I work to stay healthy I'm not immune to a similar catastrophe and that's why I buy health insurance.

My issue is with the increased costs of healthcare due to preventable conditions. We could realize huge savings if people took better care of themselves, and everyone would win.

 

[unclemick]

I was fat when my Doc up here said I 'was fat - aka 400 Cholesterol and high BP. He went to high school in Metaire so he knew.

"No more fried seafood platters and stuff for you." Dat's a no no.

Diet change. Gym 3 days a week. 6 mile walks, etc.

heh heh heh - that was back in 06. Now I have bib overalls and a range of oversize pants with a suspender collection. Hit or miss on diet and exercise. I am in the land of BBQ. Still take pills.

 

[aja8888]

...Especially because I'll probably need knee surgeries from all the running!

My knees are OK from years of running. I did wear out a hip, though. Much easier replacement.

 

[Elbata]

I just find it interesting from a sociological perspective.

In 1997 the obesity rate in US was 19%. In 2016 it's 30%. Obesity charts per state shows a continual increase each year. There is no decrease.

Despite spending billions, Americans will only get fatter.

And this truly is a very recent phenomenon.

So why does it happen, what can prevent it? Obesity is a precursor to diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

2/3s of us are overweight. Literally, it's now abnormal to be of normal weight.

 

[RonBoyd]

2/3s of us are overweight. Literally, it's now abnormal to be of normal weight.

According to some it is because, in that nineteen year period, two out of three of us lost our willpower.

 

[brett]

Maybe there has been a sudden outbreak of thyroid problems over the past twenty years.

 

[plex]

I think most of the points have been said already for what I find concerning about it:

1) It results in high health costs, when it becomes the norm, at some point, which I would be somewhat surprised if the non-use of medicare/SS made up for it, considering how high healthcare costs are, this point is up in the air though somewhat, there are a lot of factors to take into account.

2) It occurs sometimes on airplanes, and seat space just keeps getting smaller.

3) Obesity doesn't have a beautifying effect, to say the least...it is unfortunate it is truly uncontrollable for a minority of people.

4) The biggest issue not mentioned, there has been a huge explosion in the number of people becoming obese, which is when it starts having a very large effect on lifespans. It isn't good for a lot of reasons when a large minority, and perhaps eventually a majority, are suffering from something equivalent to a serious disease, such as causing a large drag on each nation's life-expectancy, lowering each countries productivity, and making voluntary ER rarer.

 

[Fedup]

If you watch at old TV, people were much thinner than. We have more sedentary activities now for entertainment.

 

[Amethyst]

I know the statistics say more people are fat (and fatter) than 20 years ago, but my teenage memories from the 1970's are that pretty much everyone's parents, except mine, looked rather fat to me. The men all had prominent bellies, and the women always had fleshy hips and rears. I remember being shocked by the sight of a beautiful young neighbor woman, who was probably around 30, when she appeared in a bathing suit. She was young and beautiful down to her waist. Lower down, she was so heavy and flabby that her limbs looked like plastic bags of cottage cheese. I had no idea that could happen to someone so young, plus I couldn't figure out how she still had a small waistline. Heredity, of course.

It's true that there were not many overweight kids in my high school classes, but in college a number of fellow students were starting to get heavy. I figured it started when they acquired cars, and stopped walking or riding bikes. I went to college in south Florida, where everyone who wasn't in my age group seemingly was 60+, and absolutely all those older people looked, to me, like Fisher-Price people: no waists, hips and chests the same width. And when I started working, I was one of a cohort of young women, early 20's in age, who went into the same trainee program. All the others were overweight, and several had to be 200 pounds.

So my memory is that there was quite a lot of fatness, 40 years ago. I decided it was normal (even though I wanted to avoid it myself). That is why I have been slightly bemused at the fuss that's been made over people's weight in recent years.

 

[RonBoyd]

I had forgotten about this "school of thought." I have always felt it had some merit... particularly in the theory that the chemicals used to rapidly put weight on animals destined for the human food chain are passed on to the consumer. Anyway...

How Vitamin Supplementation Leads To Human Livestock Obesity

But first, a bit of clarification. I get the sense that some may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding our thesis here. It is, admittedly, a subtle distinction because it’s a chain, not direct cause –> effect.

What we said is that a diet rich in B vitamins (and perhaps other added, isolated nutrients—or even minerals like salt) enables you to eat a shitty refined junk food diet if you should happen to choose to eat them. Without those vitamins, you wouldn’t have much urge to consume those obesogenic foods or beverages.

Some “traditional” diets may too have been relatively high in some of the fortified and enriched nutrients we’ve been talking about (such as B vitamins), but they didn’t have the kinds of junk food we do now. They didn’t have a taste for it, apparently, or perhaps it would have emerged more naturally and widely on its own, rather than through livestock farming-like food engineering, intended to have animals put on weight rapidly.

We would not expect people to become obese unless they chose to eat shitty foods. But, their consumption of B vitamin-dense foods would better enable them to do so, if that was their choice. For example, a non-obese body builder, traditional diet eater, or health nut is a poor counterargument to our thesis, irrespective of their level of consumption of these nutrients, because junk foods aren’t a part of their normal diets.

Let’s simplify the concept: B vitamins do not cause obesity. They simply enable someone to eat shitty foods that they would normally lose their appetites for. The vitamins themselves do not cause obesity.

Furthermore, this is not an idea that requires any formal “proof” or study, since it was already proven a century ago. That’s why the farming industry fortifies their feed. This isn’t new or controversial. In fact, it’s established knowledge and industry practice. It’s uniformly known and practiced in the farming industry and the results are predictable and reproducible 100% of the time. What we did is to simply point out how the food industry adopted similar practices for feeding junk food to Human Livestock.

 

[Amethyst]

RonBoyd, did you intend to post this in the "Why We Get Fat" thread?

I had forgotten about this "school of thought." I have always felt it had some merit... particularly in the theory that the chemicals used to rapidly put weight on animals destined for the human food chain are passed on to the consumer. Anyway...

How Vitamin Supplementation Leads To Human Livestock Obesity

 

[RonBoyd]

RonBoyd, did you intend to post this in the "Why We Get Fat" thread?

Hmmm. Had kinda forgotten about that thread... there are a bunch of them (similar ones), isn't there? Besides this thread is more current and seems to heading that direction anyway -- looking for fault.

 

[Ronstar]

I don't really care that others are fat. I used to be fat. For me, losing weight is somewhat easy. But I understand that it is not easy for many people. There's a lot more junk food out there now than in the past. It's easy to get and most often an easier choice over healthy foods when people are in a rush. It seems that most people have neither the time for exercise or preparing healthy meals.

 

[athena53]

According to some it is because, in that nineteen year period, two out of three of us lost our willpower.

I don't think it's willpower. My siblings and I were all skinny (still are now in our late 50s/early 60s although we have to work at it) but it wasn't from any conscious effort to limit our food intake. It was just different then. We were outside playing- riding our bikes, climbing up into a "tree house" (really a platform nailed into the branches that would probably be condemned now), going to the pool with Mom during the summer. Mom made nearly everything from scratch other than using cake mix a lot. Yeah, we even had cake and cookies although with 5 kids you couldn't overdo them. We rarely went to restaurants- even McDonald's.

Fast forward to now and there are so many sedentary activities for kids. In some areas, it's not safe to go out and play or ride your bike. School recess has been cut in favor of more academics. Snacks between meals, mini-Oreos in the cupholder next to your car seat, McDonald's- all everyday occurrences. If you want French fries, you don't have to clean and cut potatoes, deep-fry them, drain them, etc. Just nuke the Ore-Idas from the freezer or head for Mcdonald's. Don't forget to supersize.

And don't get me started on high-fructose corn syrup, palm oil and the other junk in prepared foods.

I believe it's much harder to be a normal-weight adult if you start off as a chubby kid, with bad eating habits.

 

[Amethyst]

Actually, this thread is specifically about why people care whether other people are fat. If people don't care, they can post about that, too.

I'm not really interested in why people get fat. As you said, there are lots of threads about that.

Hmmm. Had kinda forgotten about that thread... there are a bunch of them (similar ones), isn't there? Besides this thread is more current and seems to heading that direction anyway -- looking for fault.

 

[bclover]

Otherwise, it doesn't bother me, and I wish everyone the best in their personal battles if they choose to wage them.



I can't get behind the "we all pay their medical bills" rationale. My father's pancreatic cancer treatment was almost entirely funded by tax payers (via Tricare and Medicare) and had nothing to do with obesity or probably any other preventable cause. I know how much the taxpayers paid to treat him for three years. My health care is also paid for by tax payers (as is my salary and a good portion of my retirement) and likely will be for my entire life, so it'd be awfully hypocritical of me to bemoan public expenditures on health care for just about anyone.

...Especially because I'll probably need knee surgeries from all the running!

I don't think we bemoan the expenditure but neither can we ignore the tons and tons of evidence that obesity and smoking cause numerous chronic, preventable conditions.

My employer now charges a premium on our health care benefits if you are smoker and/or obese and it's hefty. you will pay anywhere from 500 to 1000 more a year