Society's view on food

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  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    I don't care if they stick all kinds of treats out, what bugs me is the comments about not eating the treats or better yet the ones that tell you they're trying so hard to lose weight as they chow down on a 1,000 calorie blob of sugar, cream and crap. Our society is effed up in it's view of food. We're so accustomed to people being overweight and eating too much that if someone is just a normal size we're labeled as skinny. Being fat is not normal and gorging on plates of crap food is not normal. I'm probably being horribly judgmental, bigoted, unkind, whatever label you want to use, but when I see an obese person shoving food in their mouth it actually makes me gag. I can't help but wonder what is so effed up in their life that they have to stuff themselves with food to be "happy".
  • Luvr2502
    Luvr2502 Posts: 26
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    [

    ^^ Yeah. This. For christ's sake, when's it going to be "NOT OKAY" to be overweight?

    It's ok to have one treat. it's NOT ok to have a plate full of treats.
    For people to offer treats to others is pushy behavior that needs to be shamed.
    People who are overweight relish in others looking the same as them.
    Misery Loves Company. If everyone wants to be miserable at the same level, let's all do zumba and feel silly TOGETHER!!

    I love you OP!

    True. This story wasn't about her being mean, it was about how the people in her office were eating and trying to persuade her to eat unhealthy. You people are making the author of the discussion out to be a monster. After a few people come up to you about eating crap you don't want to eat, it's annoying. I'm sure she did tell them no thank you.
  • MrsMohawk
    MrsMohawk Posts: 74 Member
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    OMG you're a RUDE lil girl!
  • BurtHuttz
    BurtHuttz Posts: 3,653 Member
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    Like former smokers who can't stand the smell or recovering alcoholics who can't be around drinkers, former fat people can sometimes be the harshest judges of obese people.

    Using your metaphor - - everyone in the office knows you're a non-smoker, perhaps have quit or perhaps never were, but they constantly offer you cigarettes.

    It's reasonable to be upset by people who behave that way. Especially if you, like I, have explained time and again why you won't be having face-cake for sally's birthday.
    "Oh, no thanks, that's not in my diet."
    'Oh come on, you can afford it!'
    "Thank you but I don't want any."
    'So-and-so cooked it! Well, okay, but it's REALLY good!!'

    I've had that conversation probably ten times in the last six months at my office. I know EXACTLY what the OP is talking about when she takes food just to get people to leave her alone, and then throws it out.
  • 141by2016
    141by2016 Posts: 179
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    I get where you are coming from, trust me. If one more person asks me why I don't eat the pizza at the lunch time lectures I might scream, but every time someone does I calmly explain that I don't do well on a standard diet and I have worked to figure out what does work for my body. The environment is a bit different because I am in med school and everyone kind of gets it, but I have made it very public that I can't "afford it" not matter how home made or tasty it might be. My point really is that the overweight people in your life are probably not being malicious, and may be in such a mental state that they don't see what they do as a problem or as abnormal.

    As for the ex-smoker analogy, I was more referring to the OP's pride and judgement of the "hugely obese" woman walking by - not trying to get her to do anything - who was talking about her love of chocolate. What does her life choice or personal delusion have anything to do with any of us?
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    Thanks everybody who gave me support in this thread and the kind words.

    You guys are my heroes.

    To all the negative people - you wouldn't be on MFP if you thought being fat was okay.
  • quirkytizzy
    quirkytizzy Posts: 4,052 Member
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    Who gives a **** what other people eat? Making moral judgement on that is just cruel - and lord knows you would have been hurt had someone had that thought about YOU before you decided to start being healthy.

    Size should not be a moral judgement - and neither should food. That's not a healthy way to approach a body.
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    And this post was not supposed to be about this specific woman, although I realize many people see it this way. This nameless woman is similar to people I see day in and day out at the grocery store/work/mall/vacation/pretty much every where. I see hundreds just like her each week.

    If this were a one time thing, I would not have thought to even vent - but obesity is every where and you can't tell me that 99% of these cases are due to a bad thyroid or PCOS.

    I was already annoyed due to bad food being pushed on me yesterday, and this topped it off.
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    To the person who suggested this is the mentality of an ex-smoker; you are spot on, and I'm not going to argue with you one bit on that.

    I'm sure that while one is a smoker, they hardly ever notice others' cigarette smoke. However, once they quit, anywhere they go if they smell it, it feels like it's being shoved in their face (even if this is not the case.)

    This is exactly how I feel when it comes to unhealthy food.
  • Siege_Tank
    Siege_Tank Posts: 781 Member
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    To the person who suggested this is the mentality of an ex-smoker; you are spot on, and I'm not going to argue with you one bit on that.

    I'm sure that while one is a smoker, they hardly ever notice others' cigarette smoke. However, once they quit, anywhere they go if they smell it, it feels like it's being shoved in their face (even if this is not the case.)

    This is exactly how I feel when it comes to unhealthy food.

    I'm going to go out on a limb with the OP here and say that I owe a lot of my calorie cutting abilities and my diet control to my pure, unadulterated hatred of myself and being overweight, and every person out there angers me who spouts "it's just how god made you" as if they have no control over their actions.

    Might not be healthy to use hatred to fuel a desire to refrain from eating, but conversely, being obese is less healthy.

    I *AM* an ex smoker, and I can't stand the smelly volcano people. If it wasn't a cloud of doom floating around, making everyone smell it that would be one thing. It's akin to someone standing next to the entrance of a building spraying a can of stink bomb spray. In fact it's not akin, it's EXACTLY that.
  • katz22
    katz22 Posts: 116 Member
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    And this post was not supposed to be about this specific woman, although I realize many people see it this way. This nameless woman is similar to people I see day in and day out at the grocery store/work/mall/vacation/pretty much every where. I see hundreds just like her each week.

    If this were a one time thing, I would not have thought to even vent - but obesity is every where and you can't tell me that 99% of these cases are due to a bad thyroid or PCOS.

    I was already annoyed due to bad food being pushed on me yesterday, and this topped it off.



    Although I myself sometimes do wonder how overweight people can be happy, stuffing food so desperately into their mouths, I leave it as that, because thinking about it too much can lead to a) really unnecessary negative thoughts towards people b)my ego getting too big and thinking I'm superior to everyone else. So I think instead of thinking these people are "pushing" bad food on you, just take a step back and see they are sharing out what they have. Would you prefer to be around people who kept themselves to themselves, and excluded you because of your healthiness ?
  • 141by2016
    141by2016 Posts: 179
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    To the person who suggested this is the mentality of an ex-smoker; you are spot on, and I'm not going to argue with you one bit on that.

    I'm sure that while one is a smoker, they hardly ever notice others' cigarette smoke. However, once they quit, anywhere they go if they smell it, it feels like it's being shoved in their face (even if this is not the case.)

    This is exactly how I feel when it comes to unhealthy food.

    I am glad you see that, and I only chime in because I have had a lot of these thoughts and feelings about food/other people/societal expectations. It has taken me about a year to get where I am now, and I am no authority on anything really, just trying to be mindful as possible about the experience. The first four months or so I lost more than forty lbs, and I basically excluded myself from all social outings and work parties because I didn't want to be places where people would give me crap about what I was or wasn't eating. In the past few months I have been working on being more moderate and willing to explain how/why I am or am not partaking in things. It is very hard some times, but I just remind myself that some day soon I want to be a positive advocate for my overweight patients. Understanding and learning to control my disgust at them - and my former self - is part of that process.

    Best of luck on your journey, and I understand needing to rant, especially when it feels like everyone in the world is trying to sabotage you. My roomie's girlfriend is baking cookies right now :/
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,984 Member
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    Sometimes when life happens around us, it may not actually be about you, so don't take the red light personally. lol
  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    So I go to the bathroom about a half hour later. The bathroom is outside our office, so I have to walk by it on my way out. This HUGELY OBESE woman walked by me with this massive plate of sugar crap, talking about how much she loved chocolate.

    At that point, I felt soooooo validated in my decision to not partake.

    That statement was mean....And speaks volumes about your character, or lack there of

    X2
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    And this post was not supposed to be about this specific woman, although I realize many people see it this way. This nameless woman is similar to people I see day in and day out at the grocery store/work/mall/vacation/pretty much every where. I see hundreds just like her each week.

    If this were a one time thing, I would not have thought to even vent - but obesity is every where and you can't tell me that 99% of these cases are due to a bad thyroid or PCOS.

    I was already annoyed due to bad food being pushed on me yesterday, and this topped it off.



    Although I myself sometimes do wonder how overweight people can be happy, stuffing food so desperately into their mouths, I leave it as that, because thinking about it too much can lead to a) really unnecessary negative thoughts towards people b)my ego getting too big and thinking I'm superior to everyone else. So I think instead of thinking these people are "pushing" bad food on you, just take a step back and see they are sharing out what they have. Would you prefer to be around people who kept themselves to themselves, and excluded you because of your healthiness ?

    Thank you for this, and I do ask myself these questions these questions a lot. I think many times it's a mixture of both - people who just want to share, and people who do indeed want to sabotage. I try to differentiate between the two before getting annoyed, but sometimes it is hard.

    Thanks for understanding though, and letting me vent.
  • cebreisch
    cebreisch Posts: 1,340 Member
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    It didn't come off as "society's view" but your view, and the comment was HUGELY insensitive. I applaud your efforts to refrain from the pastries. Yes, it bothers me that everything around the holiday's revolves around food but who doesn't know this? Rather than say that peeves you, you chose to target the obese woman and say, "This is the reason I don't eat that crap!!" Because she's making bad decisions and you perceive that society accepts the way she eats but not the way you eat.

    Oh - and yes, I have PCOS, but that isn't the reason I topped out at 376. No doubt it played it's part, but it isn't the sole reason. And obviously I've been able to do something about it - I'm about half way to my goal. Sometimes I do eat a pastry, but that's really none of your business.
  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    I just read the OPs profile. It explains a lot. **exiting this thread**
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    At 215 I was close to being obese.

    And no, that was not okay for me either. That's why I did something about it.
  • RoadsterGirlie
    RoadsterGirlie Posts: 1,195 Member
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    Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
  • PaprikaPrincess
    PaprikaPrincess Posts: 89 Member
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    My work has a wellness clinic on site that has a wellness coach, nutritionist, physical therapist on staff to help reduce health care costs for the company.

    Thursday, I had training at work and pastry trays and coffee were provided in the morning and individual bags of large size snack chips, trail mix and candy bars with sugar and diet soda was the snack in the afternoon. This was provided by the on site company that provides food services. The afternoon snack bags were easily 1000 calories + 200 more if you add a can of coke.

    All day long in my head I was singing "And isn't it ironic... don't you think" just like the song.

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