I'm sure I'll get bashed for this, but..

Let's try to be accepting of all people regardless of societal stigma's.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

Weight stigma, also known as weightism, weight bias, and weight-based discrimination, is discrimination or stereotyping based on one's weight, especially very large or thin people. The term is a misnomer as the stigma arises from the condition of being obese or schadenfreude arising from the suffering from the disease, and not the mass of the individual stigmatized in this manner. Weight stigma reflects internalized attitudes towards the obese that affects how these people—the targets of bias—are treated.

A person who is stigmatized possesses a weight that leads to a devalued social identity, and is often ascribed stereotypes or other labels denoting a perceived deviance which can lead to prejudice and discrimination. Common, “weight-based”, stereotypes are that obese persons are lazy, lack self-discipline, and have poor willpower, but also possess defects of intelligence and character. Common weight-based stereotypes of non-obese persons are that non-obese persons are unattractive, anorexic, unhealthy, diet and/or exercise excessively. There is no experimental or scientific evidence to indicate that these stereotypes are true, although pervasive social portrayals of obesity create and reinforce biased attitudes.

In fact, I understand what you mean. When I see people who have alot of weight to lose, I can't help but think " at least they enjoyed themself!!! I can't remember last time I ate with pleasure and without counting the calories" but what we are doing is hard....it is hard for everyone. If it was not hard everyone would be healthy!!!! We all have our own road to travel.

I have to comment on this... while I understand your perception and your thoughts, I do hope you understand that just because someone overeats doesn't mean that they're enjoying themselves doing so. If someone has reached the obese and higher stage, there's a good chance that it has nothing to do with enjoying the food.

Yes I understand what you mean. Self medication with food has nothing to do with enjoyment!!! far from it

Just a quick clarification. I'm not angry. I'm not victimized, etc.

The broad category I refer to are people that are not actively doing something. This probably eliminates everyone at MFP.

If you were actually thinking that what you wrote, actually elliminated everyone at MFP, why would you post a forum on MFP w/ the topic I'M SURE I'LL GET BASHED FOR THIS, BUT....

If it wasn't intended for anyone from this site to get offended by when they read it, I think you should've made that clear from the beginning.

Back to you forum, haven't you ever heard the ole saying, NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER? Just because someone isn't as healthy as you, doesn't mean that they haven't struggled w/ their weight. My mother-n-law, bless her heart, is obese. But, she doesn't eat that much. I actually eat at least twice more than she does. She may not be as active as I am, she is over 60, but when she was younger, she was VERY active & have heard that she's pretty much been obese her entire life. When some look @ her, they may think that she has just let herself go or that she eats all day.....etc etc...but that's not true. She just has a very low metabolism.

So see, you can't judge someone just because of the way they look. And if you wrote this forum w/ a certain person in mind, you should've made that more obvious. If someone is being rude to you because you are trying to better yourself, and you know that they aren't actively doing anything about their weight, I'm sorry that you've had to go through that. Because, that does hurt. Especially when it comes from family. I've had to deal w/ smart remarks from members of my family. They don't want to change enough to do something about their weight, but yet they want to criticize me for trying to have a healthier lifestyle.

Congrats to your weight loss & good luck in reaching your goals!

I think what the OP is trying to say, albeit poorly, is that someone that has eaten everything under the sun and never exercised their entire life, then one day decides to watch what they eat and start exercising cannot claim that they have “struggled” with weight control their entire life, because they have never worked at it. On the other hand someone that has worked their entire life to maintain their weight, while never becoming overweight or obese could have a greater struggle (i.e. put in more work).

Bingo!! Thank you so much for putting that in a better way. That is exactly what I meant.

And I do owe an apology to the medical-issues people.

i suppose. but there are people who can eat anything under the sun and never gain weight at all. it's not fair to lump people into categories as you are doing. you can never know what people are going through unless you talk to them. not at them. and weight loss is such a personal thing, so varied by genetics and colored by emotions, there is no standard. how insulting you have been!

Funny that someone who has NO IDEA what its like to be ridiculed & cast out because they've never been to a point most of us are at now can step up & say something like that. We all are making positive changes for OURSELVES, NOT TO COMPETE WITH ANYONE. I highly doubt anyone has chastised you on this site for maintaining a healthy weight most of your life. La dee frickin da. Conversely, being a snot about how much harder your life is than everyone else's.. you can shove it, seriously. Clearly you are misguided in some way. This isn't about your diet experience being any more or less of a challenge than anyone else's. We're ALL here to get healthy - if you're looking for a skinny b*tch contest find it elsewhere.

So what was it that an MFP member said to you to make you feel this way? Did someone say something or are you just having a hard time with all the Kudo's for the big weight loss?

I'm surprised everyone is being so nice. You should be "bashed" for your mean-spirited and totally useless, self-centered post.

Yikes!!!! Not necessary! Really don't get why people use MFP as a means to be rude. This site is just as bad as facebook with it's rude/negative remarks to so-called "friends".

I think what the OP is trying to say, albeit poorly, is that someone that has eaten everything under the sun and never exercised their entire life, then one day decides to watch what they eat and start exercising cannot claim that they have “struggled” with weight control their entire life, because they have never worked at it. On the other hand someone that has worked their entire life to maintain their weight, while never becoming overweight or obese could have a greater struggle (i.e. put in more work).

Bingo!! Thank you so much for putting that in a better way. That is exactly what I meant.

And I do owe an apology to the medical-issues people.

I think you owe an apology to a lot of people for your judgmental comments.

I'd agree with that Alexandra

SMH. Somebody call the Waaaambulance. This isn't a competition. Focus on you and I will focus on me

The broad category I refer to are people that are not actively doing something. This probably eliminates everyone at MFP.

... hahaha, yeah, sort of!


I did get your point, but you probably also got "the other point".

Everyone on here is on here because they want to make a change. Actively. For themselves.
So your theory of people who do nothing but enjoy and therefore gain weight doesn't apply around here ...
(Maybe it used to be like that for one or the other, but whoever made it on here has left that point far behind ...)

But of course everyone on here IS enjoying their journey -- and we should be out there giving each other support!
:happy:

Now everyone keep going and do it RIGHT!
:flowerforyou:

Why is it people who are over weight think they have struggled with weight control more than I have?

It's obvious they haven't. I've "struggled" daily for my entire life. They, on the other hand, have obviously not. They chose to ignore weight control and not bother with it. Now they are trying to take a short cut through all the years I walked away from the fried foods and baked good and still think THEY have been struggling longer than me!

Sure, I know you've had spells when you THOUGHT about weight control, and times when you may have even given it a meager attempt. But in the end, YOU skip out and enjoy all the good food and *I* keep on struggling to say no to it.

Don't think less of me because I have never been 50 pounds over weight. I've been working at this harder and longer than you ever will.

WOW. Sounds like you are the one doing all the judging here. Who is "they" & "you"? Those are pretty generic, all-inclusive terms. Are you saying you've worked harder to be thin & healthy than everyone else in the world...especially all of us "fat people"? "Harder & longer than you ever will"? Really? I hope there's one single person out there that ticked you off for you to write this...perhaps it would be better for you to address this to that person directly. You should probably get off that high horse of yours before you fall off...

This thread is incredibly inappropriate. The OP knew it was going to be controversial and that it was going to hurt people, but decided to post it anyway. The classic definition of an internet troll. It's all about creating drama.

Please don't feed the trolls.

MFP is a community of all sorts of people with all different goals.

I agree and that sounds good in practice. The idea that MFP is for everyone who wishes to achieve a weight or fitness related goal in a safe or healthy manner is very appealing.

However, in practice it doesn't always work that way. I have lost count of the times where negative assumptions have been made about slim people simply because of the way they look from being called skinny *****es, believing they have eating disorders, their weight loss goals are trivial, they don't struggle with their weight or my personal favourite that it's easy for them to lose weight because they have a fast metabolism (yeah, because busting your *kitten* in the gym and watching what you eat meticulously has nothing to do with it...)

I guess the old adage of "don't judge a book by its cover applies."

Everybody hurts....sometimes.

Couldn't have said it any better so I won't try. Completely agree with this!

I agree with pretty much everyone on here. I'm still trying to find the POINT of this post.

The point might be that it is such big of an effort to keep your weight on an acceptable level. That absolutely is hard work. People who manage to do so want to get credit for it. And on here they might be experiencing that a lot of very big people losing very big amounts of pounds are getting lots of credit -- though they might not have worked on that issue "all their lives" but only "from now on".

We all know that this is not all there is to it, as everyone above has already said.
But to me that seems to be the beginning "problem": Please give me credit for what I have ALREADY done well throughout so many years and almost all of my entire life SO FAR!

Definitely well done :-)

Now everyone keep up the good work and spread the positive vibrations!!! ;-)

People--
The OP is 53 years old and facing the fact that her body will change and is probably a bit uneasy about it. (I'm 62 and have already changed and embraced my age). She has been able to control her weight for 53 years, but nothing will control the aging process.
True--you can work all your life to maintain a healthy lifestyle--making sacrifices (if that is how you see healthy choices) but at some point there will be changes. You can be a skinny as you please but you will never be 18 again (thank goodness!!!).

So to the OP--keep up your healthy lifestyle, keep up your strength work (more important than a number on the scale) and be very careful about your scale goals.
You don't say how tall you are--but those of us at a certain age need to be at the middle-higher end of the "healthy" range to maintain our bones and strength.