Hating on Fat People Just Makes Them Fatter

cmcollins001

So, does calling someone skinny, in turn, make them skinnier? Or calling someone smart, make them smarter? Or calling someone rich, make them richer? Or calling someone athletic make them more athletic?

So, basically, I'm not responsible for my own actions, but I am responsible for the words that people say to me. I have no control over my weight, my financial status, my level of knowledge...I'm just at the mercy of the general public and family members, and I just HOPE that they bless me with good words and not bad ones.

Or am I missing the point of the article?

MyChocolateDiet

Is that one of those websites where anybody can write anything?

Because that article sure looks like one. Airplane weights? Restrictions based on weight for actual things that engineered to carry certain weights? What? What I'm teaching my kids? 50-54 yr olds as a sample? What?

J.S.F.

MyChocolateDiet

So, does calling someone skinny, in turn, make them skinnier? Or calling someone smart, make them smarter? Or calling someone rich, make them richer? Or calling someone athletic make them more athletic?

So, basically, I'm not responsible for my own actions, but I am responsible for the words that people say to me. I have no control over my weight, my financial status, my level of knowledge...I'm just at the mercy of the general public and family members, and I just HOPE that they bless me with good words and not bad ones.

Or am I missing the point of the article?

Please FR me and call me skinny every day. I think you just solved the puzzle!

BioMechHeretic

We should all just join the joke that is the National Fat Acceptance Movement, so people's feelings don't get hurt

QFT.

THIS. It doesn't even say they WERE discriminated against, just that they FELT discriminated against.

News at 11! Fat people that like to play victim and project their feelings onto others still like to play victim and project their feelings onto others 4 years later.

likitisplit

I was abused as a child and my stepdad nicknamed me "Ms Piggy!". It took me till my late 30's and I am now 40 and thinner than I have been in my whole life. My mom even said I probably haven't wore these sizes since elementary school. How else do you interpret it if that's all you know and you cannot help who you are surrounded by when you are a child!

Good for you on changing your life! How did you do it?

Contrarian

So, does calling someone skinny, in turn, make them skinnier? Or calling someone smart, make them smarter? Or calling someone rich, make them richer? Or calling someone athletic make them more athletic?

So, basically, I'm not responsible for my own actions, but I am responsible for the words that people say to me. I have no control over my weight, my financial status, my level of knowledge...I'm just at the mercy of the general public and family members, and I just HOPE that they bless me with good words and not bad ones.

Or am I missing the point of the article?

Please tell me I am rich and beautiful. And clever.

Legs_McGee

The only thing that study would prove is that fat people with persecution complexes tend to remain fat people with persecution complexes.

Yes. While I cannot comprehend mocking anyone - especially a loved one - about their weight, this article just seems to be about finding someone else to blame.

VioletNightshade

My personal motivation came from me. I woke up one day and started doing research on food, watched every documentary I could find (except for vegan propaganda ones. I can't watch animals being abused or killed) on food and the like. Then I devised a plan. I got tired of hating what I saw in the mirror and hating how I feel in my own skin.

It was rare anyone said anything about my weight. I never got teased or anything like that, no one said much at all. When they did, however, all it did was make me want to binge. I would think "what's the point? I'll always be this way, might a well give in and make it worse since there's no hope of it getting better" Once I got out of an environment where people felt it was their business to comment on my weight, it started melting off.

I think this idea has merit. On the other hand, it was still my responsibility to decide what I put in my own body. The idea that teasing people will motivate them, to me, is a terrible one. We tell kids that it's what's inside that matters, insist that it's important that we love ourselves for who we are, not what's in the mirror, and give them the "sticks and stones" spiel and then turn around and say that people should make life choices based on what people say about us, and change ourselves to be what others want us to be? Seems contradictory to me. Which is it? You're beautiful the way you are, or you're only beautiful if you're what others want you to be? Can't have it both ways. Whichever one it is, we need to stop sending mixed messages.

1PatientBear

No matter how much a loose I will always be fat.

With that attitude, you're right.

The victim mentality that I see a lot on this site drives me up the flippin wall. Quit letting other people have power over you and take control of your own life!!! We're adults and we have responsibility for our own actions. Quit blaming everyone else and looking for a convenient excuse! If someone makes you feel bad, it's probably because they were speaking the truth. No one gets their feelings hurt over something that doesn't apply to them.

brower47

discriminating against people in some way due to weight, like not being able to ride a roller coaster

This was the best bit. Fat people aren't allowed to ride roller coasters because people are MEAN! And here I thought it was a safety thing. Silly me.

skyekeeper

I was abused as a child and my stepdad nicknamed me "Ms Piggy!". It took me till my late 30's and I am now 40 and thinner than I have been in my whole life. My mom even said I probably haven't wore these sizes since elementary school. How else do you interpret it if that's all you know and you cannot help who you are surrounded by when you are a child!

Good for you on changing your life! How did you do it?

Well, I learned through the years that the past is the past and I cannot change it. I learned to love myself and I learned I wanted to make these lifestyle changes more than anything else in the world. Never thought I would make it this far but I did it and am very proud of myself. Some people are just mean and you can change anyone but yourself and you have to want to do it. No matter what anyone says to you or about you. BTW - thank you

skyekeeper

I was abused as a child and my stepdad nicknamed me "Ms Piggy!". It took me till my late 30's and I am now 40 and thinner than I have been in my whole life. My mom even said I probably haven't wore these sizes since elementary school. How else do you interpret it if that's all you know and you cannot help who you are surrounded by when you are a child!

Good for you on changing your life! How did you do it?

Well, I learned through the years that the past is the past and I cannot change it. I learned to love myself and I learned I wanted to make these lifestyle changes more than anything else in the world. Never thought I would make it this far but I did it and am very proud of myself. Some people are just mean and you can change anyone but yourself and you have to want to do it. No matter what anyone says to you or about you. BTW - thank you

**cannot**

HacheraTsarine

I used to look like Halle Berry. But then, someone called me black, and I became hamps blacker.
Hearing those comments made me lie in the sun longer. Being bullied sucks.

slim4health56

In my own mind I separate children from adults relevant to the world of behavior, but this is an interesting topic that caused pause. So, for some a) children and b) adults, the world of sad, mad, glad, shame, ridicule, and criticism impacts our relationship with food or, perhaps, it's the existing relationship with food that creates the counterproductive response (that is, someone calls a child fat and the child overeats, thus the Pygmalion Effect in its negative form). So, I was just wondering, what is it that moves the adult to a more positive reaction to negative external input? Is it motivation? Willpower? The simple realization that we're the captain of our own ship? Human behavior is so fascinating!

ezziepug

Wow, tough crowd!

I can buy that feeling ashamed or pained because of certain comments can make you eat more or give up. But it's so much about the mental attitude. Without some kind of belief in yourself and a feeling of strength that negates any hurt feelings, it's pretty hard to get healthy. I think it's awesome that some people in this thread don't let that stuff get to them. Not everyone has that confidence. It's important to build it and remain in motion.

MoreBean13

I accept exactly zero responsibility for other people's obesity or lack thereof and all the responsibility for my own.

My mouth. My body. My choices.

withabandon

I am going to try to post here without getting too crazy... or nasty.

At the end of the day, motivation is different for everyone but this is my backstory:

I have always been fat (I was 10lbs11oz when I was born!). I am built enormous, I will never be a "petite" (and before you're like "big bones are a lie" - I am 6ft tall, have a size 12 ladies feet, 7 3/4 hat size and hands as big as my 6'3" boyfriends'... I am just a big lady before you even add the weight). Not only have I always BEEN fat, but I have always KNOWN I was fat. I have been told, on various occasions, that I am fat - an elderly man once walked up to me as I was rifling through a sales rack and said "oh honey, you KNOW none of those are going to fit you so why bother even looking?". My grandfather bullied me mercilessly about my weight to the point where I decided if I ever had children, they would never meet him. I can honestly say that nobody telling me I was fat ever made me want to lose weight, even those things.

When people correlate "fat" with "stupid", it makes me want to be SMARTER, not thinner. When people correlate "fat" with "lazy", it just makes me want to be more efficient, not thinner. When people correlate "fat" with "ugly", it just makes me want to go out and buy a new dress - not get thinner.

The ONLY thing that made me "want" to be HEALTHIER is self worth and self love. Shame does not build that.. When I looked in the mirror and said "hey, you are a fundamentally good person - you are AT LEAST as good as all those thin, healthy people out there, you deserve as many good things as they do.", THAT was when, after a lifetime of yo yo dieting, I lost 72lbs and have maintained 60 of those for over three years.

I find there tends to be a large difference between men and women, especially when it comes to body shaming. Women often have a much more emotional attachment to their fat (once I was grown and making my own food choices, mine was protection after sexual abuse as a child - it was like that physical barrier of fat stopped me from allowing anyone close enough to hurt me again) and have spent years cultivating it, and so telling people how "disgusting" their coping mechanism is doesn't often make them want to change, but cling to it tighter because it is what they've always known. It seems that OFTEN (not ALWAYS, there are no hard fast rules in this conversation, IMHO), men gain weight because they've been drinking too much with their buddies or playing too many video games or whatever - they can recognize it and cut it out. For women, there is often a lot more to wade through than "eat less, move more".

Just my $0.02.

skyekeeper

Wow, tough crowd!

I can buy that feeling ashamed or pained because of certain comments can make you eat more or give up. But it's so much about the mental attitude. Without some kind of belief in yourself and a feeling of strength that negates any hurt feelings, it's pretty hard to get healthy. I think it's awesome that some people in this thread don't let that stuff get to them. Not everyone has that confidence. It's important to build it and remain in motion.

^^^^THIS

DebbieLyn63

Study: Hating on Fat People Just Makes Them Fatter


Researchers actually performed a study that measured this situation. 6,000 adults over the age of 50 were asked how often they were discriminated against and what they thought the reason was. Four years later they asked the same questions. Researchers also looked at participants change in weight over the 4 year period.

For those that had thought they experienced discrimination based on weight, 4 years later they were twice as likely to be obese. Those that were already obese at the onset of the study were 3 times more likely to remain obese if they felt discriminated against based on their weight. Discrimination based on race or age didn't affect weight.

Or perhaps these people who blamed weight discrimination for everything wrong in their life, continued to blame others for their weight problem?

Not hating on fat people, (I am still one myself), but it sure is easier to gain weight and stay obese when it is more acceptable, and accommodated. That doesn't mean people should make fun of others that are overweight, that is just wrong, but perhaps we shouldn't make so many accommodations, and push society to accept it as normal.

When I was growing up in the 70s, if you were larger than a size 18, you had to either special order your clothes thru catalogs, or make them yourself. You didn't see many women who were actually larger than that back then. You especially didn't see teens and young women that size.

LoraF83

So, does calling someone skinny, in turn, make them skinnier? Or calling someone smart, make them smarter? Or calling someone rich, make them richer? Or calling someone athletic make them more athletic?

So, basically, I'm not responsible for my own actions, but I am responsible for the words that people say to me. I have no control over my weight, my financial status, my level of knowledge...I'm just at the mercy of the general public and family members, and I just HOPE that they bless me with good words and not bad ones.

Or am I missing the point of the article?

Yes! Now you finally understand how the world works!!



(just kidding, obviously!)