Should we stop calling people 'overweight'?

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Replies

  • 10acity
    10acity Posts: 798 Member
    Sorry, my post above was not an angry rant (despite the brief caps)... it was me pleading with the many people who go through life thinking its time to remove everything offensive from the planet so as to avoid anyone having self-esteem issues.

    I liked it. :wink:
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
    good lord....we've gone from politically correct to out right coddling. I see no problem referring to someone as overweight or obese. It is what it is...the truth. Sucks sometimes but hey tough love.
  • yksdoris
    yksdoris Posts: 327 Member
    now if someone called my kid a name, I'd more than likely end up with an assault charge.

    There's not much a kid can actually *do* about his/her own weight, so I agree with you. HOWEVER, I think strong words are needed with the parents of these kids. Being in the normal weight category isn't about dieting, it's about lifestyle and lifestyles are learned, primarily at home. Changing one's lifestyle (as the people on this particular website know firsthand) can be horribly hard, and we can't expect a kid to even begin to know how... enter eating disorders.

    I really wish my mom and dad had handled my weight differently: their approach was to snark about miss chubs. I can't honestly say that they endorsed or ignored my weight but they REALLY didn't help either.
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
    Its called SELF-esteem cause it's your own SELF's responsibility and having no one damage it is not your human right.

    Strengthening it is your personal responsibility.

    Especially if you have children and people who look up to you. If everyone avoids telling you the truth so they dont hurt your feelers, then humans are going to walk around vulnerable, expecting everyone else to always protect them instead of actually investing in their own resilience and sense of self as their armor against unhealthy influences.

    Having a doctor tell you that you have allowed yourself to fall so far from the healthy mark that you've become obese and put your organs in danger and shortened your lifespan (or at least the length of your existence with a good quality of life) is not a toxic influence that your sense of self needs to deflect at all costs.

    THATS WHEN YOURE SUPPOSED TO OPEN YOUR EYES AND LISTEN or cover your ears and prove just how selfish you are.

    But its got jack to do with self-esteem.

    Your self-esteem = your problem. No one can give it to you, build it for you, expand it, demand it, crush it, pump it up or solidify it for you.

    Everyone out there is a influence, an action or an event. You react.

    Get a stronger body and a stronger spirit and quit whining about what words people use. Prove youre no coddled little over-sensitive baby.

    Amen Sister!!!!!
  • amdahwd
    amdahwd Posts: 237 Member
    I used to work for a general practitioner in a small town. After I left the practice, I went back one day as a patient. When he came in the room, he looked very surprised to see me and I said "If you would read those charts better before you come in the room, you would have known who was in here." His response to me was, "I read the chart just fine and knew it was you - just cannot believe how fat you have gotten!"

    I was not there for weight loss, but believe me, when I left there, I began a lifestyle change! We have to quit sugarcoating things for people because they become complacent and accepting of it.
  • Laces_0ut
    Laces_0ut Posts: 3,750 Member
    my god we are such a soft society.
  • LindaCWy
    LindaCWy Posts: 463 Member
    I dont' want to hear from my husband "Have you put on weight"?

    I WANT to hear from my doctor "You are overweight"

    See the difference?

    My MIL wouldn't go to the doctor for years because he kept telling her she was obese and she didn't want to hear it, so I guess thats the downfall, if we don't ignore it or sugar coat it then obese people will start avoiding the doctor and dropping like flies.
  • kahlee2000
    kahlee2000 Posts: 77
    Facts are facts. Mollycoddling people won't change that -- and in the long run could do a lot more harm when they start accusing doctors of not warning them about the dangers they were facing because they were what? This reminds me of the book 1984, and double speak. That or Shakespeare's famous saying -- a rose is a rose.

    I have found that if we quit making people emotionally uncomfortable and allow them to feel true feelings then they just might get uncomfortable enough to change what is making them uncomfortable. But as long as we sugar coat everything they will never feel the need to change.
  • Darlingir
    Darlingir Posts: 437
    numerically challenged?
  • Linda_Darlene
    Linda_Darlene Posts: 453 Member
    It is what it is! Overweight is overweight. Sugar coating it does not make it any better.
  • paint_it_black
    paint_it_black Posts: 208 Member
    I think Doc's need to watch who they call obese, a trainee doctor recently screwed up doing a lumbar puncture on my hubby, it took 5 attempts. His excuse was that it was a difficult procedure to do on obese people. Since when did 172lb @ 5'11 constitute obese?
  • kaetmarie
    kaetmarie Posts: 668 Member
    I think it's worse to dance around it and worry about trying to make people feel okay about it. You never hear a doctor worry about what saying someone has cancer or diabetes is going to do to their self-esteem, because it is what it is ... like it or not. The "beauty" of being overweight or obese is that it is not set in stone. If you don't like it, it is totally in your power to change it...
  • Krissy366
    Krissy366 Posts: 458 Member
    I don't think either term (from a medical professional at least) is offensive, however, I also don't think it's strictly about political correctness or coddling people. I think it's about using the terms that will be the most effective in encouraging action. I don't know specifically what those terms are (and it likely will vary from person to person), but it's nice to see someone trying to figure it out. The last thing that is effective is anything that makes the patient tune out what the doctor is saying.
  • Erisad
    Erisad Posts: 1,580
    Don't sugarcoat the truth, some of them will try to eat that too. :laugh:
  • yoovie
    yoovie Posts: 17,121 Member
    Next thing you know- obese, politically fanatical, religious zealots are going to be lobbying to have words removed from the dictionary.
  • hallie_b
    hallie_b Posts: 175 Member
    I don't think the idea that "if the shoe fits" or the like is the best way for me to look at it but, I want to know if I am in a danger zone, I don't care what you call it.
    It is depressing to hear or read "overweight" "obese" on your BMI chart. I'm not overweight now because I lost weight ( and forgot about that evil scale) but when I read that for the first time I was devastated, it broke me...

    for about 5 minutes until I pulled myself together and got on track to lose that weight. So if it hurt to hear or read, GOOD, scared me enough to log back into MFP after a year.

    Call it overweight, unhealthy weight, or elephantitis of the fat cells, I am just glad I was pushed by seeing it in my face in such a blunt way and I think a lot of people can relate.
  • lizziebeth1028
    lizziebeth1028 Posts: 3,602 Member
    my god we are such a soft society.


    ^^^^^This!!! Seriously get a backbone and grow a pair. Life is not all flowers and butterflies. There is going to be adversity....be the better person, stand up and fight it!
  • misscristie
    misscristie Posts: 643 Member
    I don't know what the replacements would be? Healthy, fluffy, fluffier, too d@mn fluffy?

    People put way too much stock in words. I was always a chubby kid. If I went to my doctor and he told me I was "fluffier", I'd still go to school and get called a fat @ss. What's the difference?
  • Hellbent_Heidi
    Hellbent_Heidi Posts: 3,669 Member
    When I was at my heaviest, a doctor used the term 'obese' in a conversation with me, and it was a huge wakeup call. I knew I was overweight, but NEVER considered myself as obese till then. Were my sensitive little feelings hurt?...hell yes. But...did it make me get off my @ss and go to weight watchers and the gym?...another resounding 'hell yes" to that one!

    I think this article is ridiculous and a sign of policitcal correctness gone way too far. Overweight and obese is what it is...there no reason to sugar-coat (no pun intended) something that so seriously impacts peoples health!
  • mrmanmeat
    mrmanmeat Posts: 1,968 Member
    I dont' want to hear from my husband "Have you put on weight"?

    I WANT to hear from my doctor "You are overweight"

    See the difference?

    My MIL wouldn't go to the doctor for years because he kept telling her she was obese and she didn't want to hear it, so I guess thats the downfall, if we don't ignore it or sugar coat it then obese people will start avoiding the doctor and dropping like flies.

    Well,

    Who better to ask that question? Your husband.

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