Do you think fat people "ought" to lose weight?

bcattoes

Yes I think they "ought" to lose weight because extra fat on your body is, by itself, a risk factor for many diseases. Even if they don't currently have health problems it's likely they will develop them later. I feel it's even more important if they are parents because they have a responsibility to teach their children.

PJilly

Nor should they be entitled to park in the handicapped spots due to any health issues caused by their choice of being fat.

Yep... I COMPLETELY agree on this one! It was particularly enraging when I had to go about daily activities during my last 5 weeks of pregnancy already 3cm dilated, 60% effaced and at -1 station... I was homicidal over things like parking spaces.

Just to play devil's advocate here for a minute... Couldn't someone argue that it was your choice to become pregnant? That you aren't as deserving of that handicapped spot as someone disabled through no choice of their own? Personally, I think once someone has a bona fide disability, there isn't much point in assigning blame when deciding who is deserving of a parking spot.

Apples & oranges princess. I didn't exactly say that I was turning my nose up at the person with cerebal palsy on a wheelchair lift getting in and out of their van, now was I? Having a healthy pregnancy and strong history of precipitous labor in itself doesn't make me a handicapped parking candidate in the first place. All it did was make me jump more easily to the unavoidable (as msf74 put it) "generalization" that the heavy person exiting the car obtained their permit from obesity-related disability and not an obesity-causing disability. When in all honestly, there's no way of knowing... it's the chicken & the egg argument revisited. Didn't change how I felt, but did I act on it? No. At most I wasted a moment of my time on being a little pissed.

As for questioning one's "choice" to get pregnant... look at your own kids and ask yourself why you bothered.

Princess? I was playing devil's advocate, suggesting that there are different ways to look at any given situation. You may look at an overweight person and say they don't deserve a handicapped spot because their disability was their own doing. I was just making the observation that a pregnancy-related disability could be viewed similarly by someone else. Personally, I think if someone is disabled and needs a handicapped spot, they ought to have it. I'm not interested in assigning blame at that point.

mfkfoster

I think it's completely personal decision. I am obsese I hated being like this. So, I decided to do something about it. I didn't have any health issues at all. I went to the doctor every year for a physical and let me tell you he always looked for something to scare me into losing weight!
I was pregnant twice with no complecations, both children are completely healthy. I husband who is skinny has health problems. He has sleep Apnea, high Cholestrol, Polyps, and now they think high blood pressure!
I joined MFP in November and I have lost 60 pounds so far but still want to lose another 64. At this weight (160) I will still be considered overweight but I don't care. I will not kill myself to fit into someone else's ideal. I'm still healthy and probably the healthiest in my family and I'm the heaviest!
So I hate when people automatically think fat=health problems!

hikeout470

I have just caught up with this thread, and personal decision my rear end! When ones personal decision affects the lives of others, it becomes just pure selfishness, self centeredness. Hurting others. However you want to define it. You may not be hurting many people, but chances are, those you hurt will be the most important people in your life.

You clogg up the department stores with your personal scooters (paid for by tax paying citizens), take up handicap services that were created for non self imposing handicaps, and complain to thinner people making them feel uncomfortable. Enough is enough!

LaJauna

I truly believe that people come in all shapes and sizes:)

I used to say, "I am a Saint Bernard in a Chihuahua world."

LaJauna

I have just caught up with this thread, and personal decision my rear end! When ones personal decision affects the lives of others, it becomes just pure selfishness, self centeredness. Hurting others. However you want to define it. You may not be hurting many people, but chances are, those you hurt will be the most important people in your life.

You clogg up the department stores with your personal scooters (paid for by tax paying citizens), take up handicap services that were created for non self imposing handicaps, and complain to thinner people making them feel uncomfortable. Enough is enough!

Most people who are overweight/obese do not have a clue how to overcome their food addictions then a drug addict. Do you really think they like living that life? How about some compassion?

bcattoes

I have just caught up with this thread, and personal decision my rear end! When ones personal decision affects the lives of others, it becomes just pure selfishness, self centeredness. Hurting others. However you want to define it. You may not be hurting many people, but chances are, those you hurt will be the most important people in your life.

You clogg up the department stores with your personal scooters (paid for by tax paying citizens), take up handicap services that were created for non self imposing handicaps, and complain to thinner people making them feel uncomfortable. Enough is enough!

Why would someone need a personal scooter if they had no health problems, which is what the OP questioned about?

LaJauna

Nor should they be entitled to park in the handicapped spots due to any health issues caused by their choice of being fat.

Yep... I COMPLETELY agree on this one! It was particularly enraging when I had to go about daily activities during my last 5 weeks of pregnancy already 3cm dilated, 60% effaced and at -1 station... I was homicidal over things like parking spaces.

Just to play devil's advocate here for a minute... Couldn't someone argue that it was your choice to become pregnant? That you aren't as deserving of that handicapped spot as someone disabled through no choice of their own? Personally, I think once someone has a bona fide disability, there isn't much point in assigning blame when deciding who is deserving of a parking spot.

Apples & oranges princess. I didn't exactly say that I was turning my nose up at the person with cerebal palsy on a wheelchair lift getting in and out of their van, now was I? Having a healthy pregnancy and strong history of precipitous labor in itself doesn't make me a handicapped parking candidate in the first place. All it did was make me jump more easily to the unavoidable (as msf74 put it) "generalization" that the heavy person exiting the car obtained their permit from obesity-related disability and not an obesity-causing disability. When in all honestly, there's no way of knowing... it's the chicken & the egg argument revisited. Didn't change how I felt, but did I act on it? No. At most I wasted a moment of my time on being a little pissed.

As for questioning one's "choice" to get pregnant... look at your own kids and ask yourself why you bothered. I know I wouldn't take my choices back for the world.

Should be make gastric bypass a mandatory surgery for the obese to force them to lose weight? We force drug addicts into rehab. Maybe forced fat camps? Man I could make some money off of these fatties! Sorry. I was being factitious. (Sarcasm intended)

BethanieK

If someone is fat, and doesn't have health problems because of being fat, do you think they "should" lose weight? Would you in any way look down on them or reject them if they chose to live with their weight instead of struggling to change it?

Why or why not?

I think people "ought" to do what they want in regards to their health, appearance, etc. However, being obese tends to cause problems later in life, just look at the studies done in every medical journal. I'm not in the habit of judging people, but I'll admit, when I see someone who is morbidly obese, scarfing down 2 super sized meals at McDonald's, I wonder what exactly they are thinking.
All in all, if people truly WANT to change, then they will, and since I am only in control of my own actions, I don't bother preaching to someone else.

Swimgoddess

You don't need to define "facetious" to me LaJuana, MUCH less if you can't even spell it right yourself

and WTH does

Should be make gastric bypass a mandatory surgery for the obese to force them to lose weight? We force drug addicts into rehab. Maybe forced fat camps? Man I could make some money off of these fatties! Sorry. I was being factitious. (Sarcasm intended)

have ANYTHING to do with the posts you quoted? I fail to see where you made a pertinent reference.

hikeout470

Luna,I showed some compassion already several times earlier this thread and it was thrown back in my face by the original poster. So basically, don't dish it out if you can't handle it back.

Scooters, just an observation. Yes, obesity causes handicap

candistyx

The vast majority of people with BMI's above normal are completely mobile and have no need for scooters or handicapped spaces or anything of the sort. Even my dad who has bonefide issues with his size, which is "morbidly obese" (has to wear a special leg sock to reduce the strain on his joints and has gout) and is well old enough to have all the potential health problems manifest still manages to walk 2 miles a day and certainly doesn't require any kind of extra help from anyone.

People on scooters because of obesity ALONE are extremely rare. If you do see them (and I think in my life I have seen one person on a mobility scooter round town), how do you know they're not fat BECAUSE of their impaired mobility rather than the other way around. You'd have to be exceptionally fat to not be able to walk.

lovejoydavid

Candistyx: Like I said before, being overweight is not healthy no matter how you want to spin it. You show me a few studies out of the 1,000s that say the opposite. You KNOW being overweight is not healthy or you wouldn't be here. And you also know that if you were to lose some weight then you would be able to do the exercises that you presently can not do. I'm overweight now and comparing myself to before and now....Sure, I can exercise but NOTHING like before.

1. health is not the only motivation someone can have for something. I am doing this for the sake of LOOKING nice, not for health.
2. Show me the 1000's of studies in which being overweight increases your chances of dying NOT increases you risk factors. Risk factors are not the same as disease. I am open to debate and being convinced. Just like I didn't know the information I have now a short while ago, if I have more information I'll revise my conclusions.
3. Exercise conditioning is achieved by exercise not weight loss. I'll be able to do more exercise by exercising not by becoming smaller. Maybe when you were thinner you were also more active and thus more conditioned, or maybe you were just younger.

I know this is an older topic, but I would point out the most recent, and largest, study reported in NEJM. 1.46 million americans (pooled from studies in the national cancer institute), and exclusions for preexistant disease and smoking. It is the definitive epidemiological study for the time being, and it clearly demonstrated increased (10%) all cause mortality for the merely overweight, and then a much more significant jump as BMI increased. That is pretty impressive, especially considering BMI is an imperfect measure, and some elevated BMI's are completely benign (people engaging in weight training, etc). The study designers themselves admit that waist circumference to determine adiposity would be a more desirable measure, and one can only imagine that a pooled study as large as this one using that data would have more definitive results.

TheRoadDog

If someone is fat, and doesn't have health problems because of being fat, do you think they "should" lose weight? Would you in any way look down on them or reject them if they chose to live with their weight instead of struggling to change it?

Why or why not?

It's their personal choice. If a person makes that choice, it's nobody else's business. However, they should garner no "special" rights.

lovejoydavid

As to the original 'ought', I don't know. For moral oughts to be real, there needs to be brute moral facts. Otherwise, we are just speculating on things being other than they are actually are, which seems irrational and unproveable. If the ought is a statement of duty, one still has to prove the duty exists, at least in a social contract. I suppose, if we are just referring to a goal directed ought, than one ought to lose weight if one wants to mitigate certain social and physical constaints, however, those constraints must be evident. These may all be in conflict, though, as if the moral ought is real, it is possible that it is the moral obligation to reduce the social constraints on the overweight, which may not be consistent with a singular goal ought towards weight loss.

ZebraHead

I think (as everyone should) that if we all minded our own business that world would be a better place.

hcam8

Definitely should lose weight

Diabetes
Breast cancer
Ischaemic heart disease
Depression
Osteoporosis (no weight-bearing exercise)
Diabetes
Diabetes
Diabetes
Diabetes

schnarfo

yes...same as they would probably say i ought to gain weight

bcattoes

The vast majority of people with BMI's above normal are completely mobile and have no need for scooters or handicapped spaces or anything of the sort. Even my dad who has bonefide issues with his size, which is "morbidly obese" (has to wear a special leg sock to reduce the strain on his joints and has gout) and is well old enough to have all the potential health problems manifest still manages to walk 2 miles a day and certainly doesn't require any kind of extra help from anyone.

People on scooters because of obesity ALONE are extremely rare. If you do see them (and I think in my life I have seen one person on a mobility scooter round town), how do you know they're not fat BECAUSE of their impaired mobility rather than the other way around. You'd have to be exceptionally fat to not be able to walk.

Very good point. They may have some non-self-inflicted disease or condition that prevent exercise and causes weight gain.

The whole argument about overweight people not being cut any slack by society is rather ridiculous. There are tons of other ways that people become burdens of society by self infliction. Smoking, drinking, driving too fast or recklessly and getting into a disability causing accident, being thin but eating so much sugar that you develop diabetes or CHF, ... The list goes on and on, just because obesity is more noticable doesn't make it any worse.

lovejoydavid

I think (as everyone should) that if we all minded our own business that world would be a better place.

My business is other people's health. What do I do with that?

ZebraHead

I think (as everyone should) that if we all minded our own business that world would be a better place.

My business is other people's health. What do I do with that?

how bout: "Keep your mouth shut unless someone solicits your 'expert' opinion"

lovejoydavid

I think (as everyone should) that if we all minded our own business that world would be a better place.

My business is other people's health. What do I do with that?

how bout: "Keep your mouth shut unless someone solicits your 'expert' opinion"

People do not solicit my opinion. They end up in my ICU. Do I fail to tell them why, because they seem sensitive on the subject? I only ask because your 'moral ought' of minding your own business seems very little different from any other moral ought, and I would require as stong a rationale for it.

llaurall

People have different perceptions about what defines being "fat". But if someone was clinically overweight/obese then yes they ought to lose weight because fat and medical problems more often than not come hand in hand.

writtenINthestars

Wow. This thread still boggles my mind.

mamagooskie

I think everyone ought to do what feels right for them. Whether it is harmful or beneficial to their health or life is up to them

lizziebeth1028

For their own health and well being and for their loved ones they should try to loose weight and overcome their addiction to food. They may be in good healthy when they are young but have you ever seen an obese elderly person??? People who are extremely over weight generally do not live long lives and their latter years are riddled with healthy problems. And that.... is very sad:( Ultimately it is their decision but as I would encourage them to lead a healthier lifestyle.

lovejoydavid

I think everyone ought to do what feels right for them. Whether it is harmful or beneficial to their health or life is up to them

That sounds very fair, and under most circustances I would agree. But how does it function in the light of, say, hospitalizing a person with disordered eating, or staging an intervention for an alcoholic? Is it, in fact, morally wrong to pressure someone to stop smoking? I would have to ask, what drives the moral principle of non-interference, when it appears to be not more than impolite to question someones health habits? Is a polite society preferrable to a healthy one? Is it, in fact, preferable that I am polite to a parent of obese children, and scrupulously avoid mentioning recent studies that indicate that they will likely not outgrow it and may have significant health problems, or do I risk being being seen as tactless and broach the subject?

Frankly, I tend to be of the tactful and quiet variety, and prefer politeness and non-confrontation, but I do so from personal comfort. I am unclear if, ethically, my approach is actually the better one. I would like to see a real argument made for it, not just a statement of opinion, if such is possible.