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

hikeout470

I thought so.

lugovelb

I think this is a very touchy subject. In my opinion if there is no health issues and the person is happy with him or herself. Why lossing weight. A

shelleilei

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 was healthy and active most of my life till I packed on these pounds. I do not currently have any health problems... as of yet but I do know that if I keep this up then I will later on. I would never look down on anyone who was fat but noone that I know "chooses" to be fat and would much rather be a lighter and more fit person. Being overweight is not healthy... No matter how you try to spin it.

B_L_A_Z_I_A_N

Derived from above... Just a thought. How many people on this thread would feel that their "groove" was interrupted if they noticed that their pilot (s) was obese?

I wouldnt care if my pilot was fat as long as he can still reach the controls properly, is not liable to have a heart attack or some sort of health related issue because of obesity during my flight, and as long as the plane doesn't tip forward :ohwell:

meldaniel

I think it depends on what you consider overweight. Obesity is never healthy and should be corrected for a number of reasons, not just appearances. That is a fact.
Being just a little overweight or heavy...well, I guess that is up to that person. Some people view a size 10 as slender and some view it as large. It's an opinion, not fact.
I think people should take the inititive to be the best they can be....personally and professionally. If someone is feeling down about their appearance then I hope for their sake they do something about it because life is too short to be unhappy about things that can be fixed. If I see a woman who is a size large and she has confidence and is well groomed and pretty I think "oh she's so pretty", not "oh she's so large". It is all about the individual.

elliecolorado

I feel it is the most selfish form of acting out that a person can do.

So ...methamphetamine abuse, anorexia, having unprotected sex with strangers, dangerous driving, cutting - all these things PALE in the face of the great evil that is being 200lbs? Really?

I haven't finished reading this whole thread yet, but this caught my attention.

I am not trying to lose weight because of health reasons or to look better, I decided I wanted to start running again after many years of not running and figured if I wanted to start running in races again then losing weight would probably help my running. I never really cared about my weight and if it wasn't for running I probably wouldn't be trying to lose weight.

But this caught my attention because I have been told by a couple of different doctors that although being obese isn't healthy, that I did a lot more harm to my body while I was at a 'normal weight' but was abusing drugs.

Dtho5159

Personally, I don't have the energy, time nor desire to worry about anyone else.. If they are an adult, they are going to do what they want to do..

elliecolorado

I feel it is the most selfish form of acting out that a person can do.

So ...methamphetamine abuse, anorexia, having unprotected sex with strangers, dangerous driving, cutting - all these things PALE in the face of the great evil that is being 200lbs? Really?

Nope, they're all pretty equal in my eyes.

Please stop trying to rationalize things so you can hear what you truly want to hear.

I am ...flabbergasted there's people who think being 200lbs is equivalent to being a drug addict (and I am very sympathetic to drug addicts). It's shocking that people think like this

You'd really feel the same if your kid was fat as you would if you caught them smoking meth? Seriously?

I have to agree that I am shocked that people feel this way as well.

I'd have to say that anyone who feels that way probably hasn't dealt with addiction or abuse issues and doesn't have any idea what the long term effects of drugs are. A someone who has been on both sides of that issue I know for a fact that being skinny and abusing drugs is not any better for you than being obese.

I gained weight purely due to quitting doing drugs, after spending years of my life doing drugs and rarely eating killing my metabolism was just one of the side effects. When I quit doing drugs and started eating again (not over eating, just eating more than once a week) I gained a lot of weight and I gained it quickly. And if I hadn't quit doing drugs, no I wouldn't have been fat, but I wouldn't have been healthier, I'd probably be dead by now at the rate I was going. So I'm not sure how that can be better than being fat.

1234lbsgone

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me. ~Author unknown, variation of an excerpt from "The Serenity Prayer" by Reinhold Neibuhr

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Best post on this thread.

candistyx

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16580531?dopt=Abstract

What do you guys make of that one then? The fatter the cardiac patients in that study the more likely they were to survive cardiac events. Normal weight people were more likely to die!

In people without cardiac disease the normal, overweight and obese all had equal rates of cardiac death.

Or this one:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12608522

There are many good reasons to expect that weight loss in overweight and obese subjects should lead to reduced mortality, not least because the general risk factor profile of several diseases responsible for the excess mortality associated with overweight and obesity improves with weight loss. However, observational long-term population studies have shown that weight loss in overweight subjects leads to increased long-term mortality, even if the studies are well controlled with regard to known confounding factors, including hazardous behaviour and underlying diseases that may lead to both weight loss and increased mortality. It seems unfeasible to wait for the multiple randomized clinical trials of sufficient quality, size and duration that may resolve this question. Therefore, the recommendations about weight loss must be based on the weaker evidence that can be obtained in short-term clinical trials and the observational population studies. Several studies have tried to address the problem by distinguishing intentional from unintentional weight loss, but only few do so by gathering information about the intention to lose weight before weight loss is observed. These studies suggest that intentional weight loss is associated with increased mortality. Recommendations to healthy overweight and obese subjects to lose weight must be based on an explicit weighing of the short-term well-documented benefits of weight loss, including improvement of quality of life, against the possible risk of an increased mortality in the long-term

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19555520

This one on the other hand, done more recently to address the issues in prior studies says that:
Unhealthy obese people reduced their mortality by losing weight.
Healthy obese people did not change their mortality.
Overweight and normal people increased their mortality by losing weight.


Ah and this fun article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1545329/Heart-disease-risk-is-largely-genetic.html

Hah, and lol, found this quote somewhere:

Launched as the world’s largest epidemiological study of BMI and life expectancies, which followed 1.8 million Norwegians for four decades, the Norway Study found that the most morbidly obese women with BMIs of 40 or above reduce their life expectancy about as much as “ideal” weight women who are light smokers. “However even these extremely obese women still have a longer life expectancy than normal-weight men,” said Ernsberger. Yet, we are not being inundated with scares about the deadliness of being male, millions aren’t spent to eradicate maleness

Fat may not be pretty (although some apparantly like that aesthetic and even I have to admit my boy's soft squidgy tummy is nice to snuggle up to) but the idea that it's a death sentence or a guarenteer of health problems is NOT scientifically sound.

hikeout470

I think the studies are misleading, and you only want to hear that we all are happy for your decision to remain "overweight". Also think you cannot accept new information from others no matter how objective the poster is, and even if the poster shares some of their most important experiences with you on a public forum. Now that we are throwing around "research" here is a bitty for you to enjoy.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110704/lf_nm_life/us_ageing_cure


By Health and Science Correspondent Kate Kelland – Mon Jul 4, 2:39 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger.

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.

"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science.

"And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance," which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.

De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he won his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009.

He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.

"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

CHALLENGE

Exactly how far and how fast life expectancy will increase in the future is a subject of some debate, but the trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year at the moment and experts estimate there could be a million centenarians across the world by 2030.

To date, the world's longest-living person on record lived to 122 and in Japan alone there were more than 44,000 centenarians in 2010.

Some researchers say, however, that the trend toward longer lifespan may falter due to an epidemic of obesity now spilling over from rich nations into the developing world.

De Grey's ideas may seem far-fetched, but $20,000 offered in 2005 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review journal for any molecular biologist who showed that de Grey's SENS theory was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate" was never won.

The judges on that panel were prompted into action by an angry put-down of de Grey from a group of nine leading scientists who dismissed his work as "pseudo science."

They concluded that this label was not fair, arguing instead that SENS "exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that some people may find intriguing but which others are free to doubt."

CELL THERAPY

For some, the prospect of living for hundreds of years is not particularly attractive, either, as it conjures up an image of generations of sick, weak old people and societies increasingly less able to cope.

But de Grey says that's not what he's working for. Keeping the killer diseases of old age at bay is the primary focus.

"This is absolutely not a matter of keeping people alive in a bad state of health," he told Reuters. "This is about preventing people from getting sick as a result of old age. The particular therapies that we are working on will only deliver long life as a side effect of delivering better health."

De Grey divides the damage caused by aging into seven main categories for which repair techniques need to be developed if his prediction for continual maintenance is to come true.

He notes that while for some categories, the science is still in its earliest stages, there are others where it's already almost there.

"Stem cell therapy is a big part of this. It's designed to reverse one type of damage, namely the loss of cells when cells die and are not automatically replaced, and it's already in clinical trials (in humans)," he said.

Stem cell therapies are currently being trialed in people with spinal cord injuries, and de Grey and others say they may one day be used to find ways to repair disease-damaged brains and hearts.

NO AGE LIMIT

Cardiovascular diseases are the world's biggest age-related killers and de Grey says there is a long way to go on these though researchers have figured out the path to follow.

Heart diseases that cause heart failure, heart attacks and strokes are brought about by the accumulation of certain types of what de Grey calls "molecular garbage" -- byproducts of the body's metabolic processes -- which our bodies are not able to break down or excrete.

"The garbage accumulates inside the cell, and eventually it gets in the way of the cell's workings," he said.

De Grey is working with colleagues in the United States to identify enzymes in other species that can break down the garbage and clean out the cells -- and the aim then is to devise genetic therapies to give this capability to humans.

"If we could do that in the case of certain modified forms of cholesterol which accumulate in cells of the artery wall, then we simply would not get cardiovascular disease," he said.

De Grey is reluctant to make firm predictions about how long people will be able to live in future, but he does say that with each major advance in longevity, scientists will buy more time to make yet more scientific progress.

In his view, this means that the first person who will live to 1,000 is likely to be born less than 20 years after the first person to reach 150.

"I call it longevity escape velocity -- where we have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of therapies to enable us to push back the ill health of old age faster than time is passing. And that way, we buy ourselves enough time to develop more therapies further as time goes on," he said.

"What we can actually predict in terms of how long people will live is absolutely nothing, because it will be determined by the risk of death from other causes like accidents," he said.

"But there really shouldn't be any limit imposed by how long ago you were born. The whole point of maintenance is that it works indefinitely."

shelleilei

I think the studies are misleading, and you only want to hear that we all are happy for your decision to remain "overweight". Also think you cannot accept new information from others no matter how objective the poster is, and even if the poster shares some of their most important experiences with you on a public forum. Now that we are throwing around "research" here is a bitty for you to enjoy.

I believe you hit the nail on the head.


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.

candistyx

I am losing weight and have not decided to "remain overweight".
This is pure shallowness on my part, I think thin looks nicer.

But the demonisation of fat under the guise of "health" when the majority of the science doesn't really support that conclusion if you look at it objectively is bad for society. People are dying because they are taught that thinness is the key to health. Societies demonisation of fat has actually killed people, not even considering the emotional and social damage it's caused people.

I could turn back your accusation against me on yourself, that you are so caught up in the ideology of thinness you can't see the science objectively. But I'm not going to convince you, I just hope that by sharing some of this information other people might realise the ACTUAL risks of being fat, because it's only with accurate information that people can make valid judgments in life on how they want to live. And if it turns out they just want to be pretty, then that is ok, most people want to be pretty I bet.

Swimgoddess

Hmmm. All these MORBIDITY and MORTALITY studies being thrown about... Ok, so you might live a bit longer; how's that QUALITY of life treating you? I mean really? Make less $ than your lighter weight coworkers? Last time you were allowed on an amusement park ride with your kids? How fun is it to get dressed in the morning? Wear anything you want? Wonder why people stare at you? Uncomfortable navigating furniture around other people? How's that rash where your thighs possibly rub together? Enjoy having photo's taken of you? Enjoy seeing yourself in photos? Strut your stuff in a bathing suit sans cover-up? Last time your significant other picked you up off your feet and tossed you into bed? Just rhetorical questions of course, those are MY reasons for preferring my possibly slightly shorter lifespan.

Whoever brought up the "clothing size 10" thing as some people's cut-off for "too big", being over 5'8" myself a size 10 looks pretty d@mn good

OP is here and not on a NAAFA site for SOME reason, right? *scratches head*

candistyx

I am here because I am working on losing weight.

And if you find your weight impacts your quality of life then go ahead and lose it.

But I do worry a bit that some people on this site are using "health" as an excuse to maintain what are actually disordered eating habits and that makes me kind of sad.

crisanderson27

I feel it is the most selfish form of acting out that a person can do.

So ...methamphetamine abuse, anorexia, having unprotected sex with strangers, dangerous driving, cutting - all these things PALE in the face of the great evil that is being 200lbs? Really?

Yeah, pretty much.

I feel it is the most selfish form of acting out that a person can do.

So ...methamphetamine abuse, anorexia, having unprotected sex with strangers, dangerous driving, cutting - all these things PALE in the face of the great evil that is being 200lbs? Really?

Nope, they're all pretty equal in my eyes.

Please stop trying to rationalize things so you can hear what you truly want to hear.

Am I the only one seeing these replies in the light they were intended? With a slight amount of sarcasm, due to the absolute blinders the original poster is purposefully wearing. Additionally, in the first example...the woman clearly has explained that someone in her life is experiencing pretty serious health issues if I recall, due to an absolute lack of willpower to take care of their weight. If drugs, sex with strangers, cutting, and any other evil you can mention AREN'T affecting me...and my husband/wife being obese/overweight is...you bet it moves up the ladder. The fact that you won't look from anyone elses perspective, yet expect us all to see your own...is very, very telling.

I don't judge people, purposefully. That being said, when I am hiring, and I see an overweight lady come in for a job as a traffic flagger...versus a younger, healthy male...you bet I make a judgement. Very likely, the younger, healthy male will be ABLE TO WORK HARDER, AND DO MORE, and thus increase the value of my hourly pay I am offering.

That's judgement.

Also, when I strap myself into an airline seat, and in comes a 5'4" 200lb (to use your limit) woman to the seat next to me...I can't say I'm pleased. Nor were the people all the way down the aisle that had to move, shift, shuffle, and be physically disturbed/contacted by her making her way to her seat.

Again, instant judgement...whether she, or I like it or not.

In every day life (excepting those kinds of situations) do I really care whether someone is overweight or no? Absolutely not.

Take what you want from this...but realize, society has prejudices built right on in. Ignoring them is tantamount to jumping out a two story building and expecting not to fall...because you choose not to believe in the laws of phsyics. The slap you'll receive when reality hits might sting a little.

It seems to me like obesity is an issue when it has somehow interrupted your 'groove'. But I don't see how it's like being promiscuous or using drugs. Those things put people's lives in danger. It's not just an inconvenience to have a venereal disease or to be killed by a drug-user. My second-youngest uncle is in prison for life for killing someone while he was high on heroin. I would prefer that he had gotten fat.

You guys took my post out of context. I gave a few examples (yes, using me personally, to avoid the possibility of misinterpretation...go figure)...of how and where an obese person MIGHT be naturally judged in life. I'm sure there are countless others as well. I worked with a quite overweight gentleman (similar ratio to your 5'4", 200lb lady) for TWO YEARS that, for the first year and a half...smelled. No one wanted to be around him, period. It was bad. He was clean shaven, clothes clean every day...and didn't have bad breat...he...just...smelled. Right before I left that company...his wife left him, he lost substantial weight (even though he was still 'overweight' by the time I actually left), and miraculously, the smell went away. Apparently he could now reach whatever he couldn't previously while in the shower. SARCASM folks...light hearted as well...but the story is a true one.

As for the comparison to drugs...apparently you weren't getting the mild sarcasm there either. Nor were you getting my explanation that to the woman who referenced it, it was worse. Did you not hear the story about her mother? Would I rather my mother/child be in prison for whatever, or dying of a lack of willpower to take care of themselves...hmm? I'd choose none of the above, but whatever situation was affecting them, would certainly be one I would feel pretty strongly about.

What would you say?

Hmmm. All these MORBIDITY and MORTALITY studies being thrown about... Ok, so you might live a bit longer; how's that QUALITY of life treating you? I mean really? Make less $ than your lighter weight coworkers? Last time you were allowed on an amusement park ride with your kids? How fun is it to get dressed in the morning? Wear anything you want? Wonder why people stare at you? Uncomfortable navigating furniture around other people? How's that rash where your thighs possibly rub together? Enjoy having photo's taken of you? Enjoy seeing yourself in photos? Strut your stuff in a bathing suit sans cover-up? Last time your significant other picked you up off your feet and tossed you into bed? Just rhetorical questions of course, those are MY reasons for preferring my possibly slightly shorter lifespan.

Whoever brought up the "clothing size 10" thing as some people's cut-off for "too big", being over 5'8" myself a size 10 looks pretty d@mn good

OP is here and not on a NAAFA site for SOME reason, right? *scratches head*

=D

Cris

hikeout470

Night Candistyx,

I am going to turn in and think about my goal weight as I drift off, back when during summers I could wake up in the morning on days off, toss on a pair of water shorts, jog bra, in any color combination covered by any TANK top, flip flops,,, hook the boat up and and be on my way to the lake in less than 30 minutes. Sweet Dreams!

candistyx

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.

candistyx

Night Candistyx,

I am going to turn in and think about my goal weight as I drift off, back when during summers I could wake up in the morning on days off, toss on a pair of water shorts, jog bra, in any color combination covered by any TANK top, flip flops,,, hook the boat up and and be on my way to the lake in less than 30 minutes. Sweet Dreams!

I can do that now and I am almost 200lbs.

http://redache.co.uk/~tamerlan/photo.JPG <---speaking of which, you are seriously telling me at this weight there's areas I can't reach to clean?? I beg to differ. I've never been fat enough to not reach all over and I was over 15 stone when I started this.

crisanderson27

Night Candistyx,

I am going to turn in and think about my goal weight as I drift off, back when during summers I could wake up in the morning on days off, toss on a pair of water shorts, jog bra, in any color combination covered by any TANK top, flip flops,,, hook the boat up and and be on my way to the lake in less than 30 minutes. Sweet Dreams!

I can do that now and I am almost 200lbs.

http://redache.co.uk/~tamerlan/photo.JPG <---speaking of which, you are seriously telling me at this weight there's areas I can't reach to clean?? I beg to differ. I've never been fat enough to not reach all over and I was over 15 stone when I started this.

Young lady...if you're referring to me...I have no clue where you can reach to clean or not. I was, once again...making a semi light hearted, semi sarcastic, yet completely honest observation about someone who was overweight and smelled (yet clearly took care of himself otherwise), affecting everyone around him...and how it miraculously changed when he lost some of the weight.

That is all.