Thoughts on the “glamourizing/normalizing” obesity vs body positivity conversations

Sometimes it really is food addiction.

My ex had a mother who was a real piece of work. She told him what a pig he was as she gave him a serving of his favorite foods. She never said she loved him, just baked him a cake. Yeah, he grew up with a really messed up attitude toward food. He was obese his whole life. That, combined with 20 years of smoking, got him a heart attack at 51. Due to the lung damage, he was on a respirator and tube fed for three and a half months. He lost 150 pounds. He had about another hundred to go; then, with an abdominoplasty, he would have been normal weight and looked like everyone else. I don't know anyone with obesity issues who wouldn't trade three months of sleeping through life to lose 150 pounds! What a gift! Over halfway there already! And I was willing to cook him whatever diet he wanted to go on to keep it off.

In six months he put it all back on and an extra fifty pounds for good measure. He refused to eat better. Instead, he had second breakfasts, and heavy lunches, and dinners, and a midnight supper, and didn't move much. Now he has emphysema and congestive heart failure, and is diabetic. It broke my heart to watch this, but you can't make someone want to break their addiction, you just have to wait until they do.

I couldn't hang on that long. We're now divorced. And now that I'm not around his addiction, I can work on my own weight issues. (He wouldn't let me diet either.) I don't think he can ever break that addiction. And that's a pity. But social disapproval never moved him. Addicts don't care about that. Or, at least, they care until they find out the restaurant offers not only french fries, but cheese sauce and bacon to top them.

I think what needs to be encouraged and high-lighted in society is loving yourself NO MATTER what size you are. Life is a precious gift, and it needs to be cherished and respected. Care should be given to our bodies, but this obsession with body image is unhealthy. Should we strive for health? Yes!!! does this look the same for everyone?? No!! Stop judging everyone else and focus on your own happiness and gift of life. ✨💪🏻✨

My perspective.

I hope it resonates with others!

syeda2007 wrote: »

There is something or some things we are not doing right if we have the time and energy to promote glamourising being the victim. We are playing at the hands of big pharma, food industries.
We know those models of body positivity are a cry for help, but after you wipe the tears and talk about your hardships in your journey, isn’t the next step to try and be healthy again?

I don't think the food industry really has an interest in normalizing obesity. I think they are actually better served by the guilt eating that can come from feelings of shame at being overweight or obese.

theleadmare wrote: »

Sometimes it really is food addiction.

My ex had a mother who was a real piece of work. She told him what a pig he was as she gave him a serving of his favorite foods. She never said she loved him, just baked him a cake. Yeah, he grew up with a really messed up attitude toward food. He was obese his whole life. That, combined with 20 years of smoking, got him a heart attack at 51. Due to the lung damage, he was on a respirator and tube fed for three and a half months. He lost 150 pounds. He had about another hundred to go; then, with an abdominoplasty, he would have been normal weight and looked like everyone else. I don't know anyone with obesity issues who wouldn't trade three months of sleeping through life to lose 150 pounds! What a gift! Over halfway there already! And I was willing to cook him whatever diet he wanted to go on to keep it off.

In six months he put it all back on and an extra fifty pounds for good measure. He refused to eat better. Instead, he had second breakfasts, and heavy lunches, and dinners, and a midnight supper, and didn't move much. Now he has emphysema and congestive heart failure, and is diabetic. It broke my heart to watch this, but you can't make someone want to break their addiction, you just have to wait until they do.

I couldn't hang on that long. We're now divorced. And now that I'm not around his addiction, I can work on my own weight issues. (He wouldn't let me diet either.) I don't think he can ever break that addiction. And that's a pity. But social disapproval never moved him. Addicts don't care about that. Or, at least, they care until they find out the restaurant offers not only french fries, but cheese sauce and bacon to top them.

@theleadmare breaking food addictions is hard but I was age 63 before I realized I was an addict in October 2014. It was a hellish 2 weeks when cold turkey I stopped eating and drinking any food that contained any added sweeteners or any form of any grain.

Thankfully 30 days later I was able to say No to starting Enbrel injections for pain management.

I'm still Rx med free in 2020 with better health and health markers than decades ago.

Our son and daughter are now 22. I didn't want them to have to watch me die thinking that may be their future as well.

I had a friend that got too heavy to manage at home near the end and I didn't wish that on my wife.

We can only control our own Way Of Eat and best of success in finding the WOE that works best for you today.

I don't think people should be belittled because of it but they also shouldn't be told it's ok. I feel "body positivity" should be valuing yourself enough that you take care of yourself. Theres nothing positive about sticking your head in the sand about being obese.

As far as seats to accommodate larger people, sure, but it should cost more. It costs more to move them and the people that fit in normal seats shouldn't have to pay for it either literally or by losing space themselves. I've been on flights many times where my neighbor is spilling into the space I paid for. I'm not going to shame them for it but how is it fair that I have to lean over for a 3 hour flight and walk off with a sore back because you can't take control of your size or buy a first class seat?

Adults that think it is their job to comment about other adults in a negative way creates more stress. Emotional abusers are are not required since most of us have mirrors.

rwecker5782 wrote: »

Although fascinated with this thread, I couldn't read all comments before I wanted to add something.
Humans are attracted to and love looking at beautiful, healthy, strong things including people. That said, there is a wide range of what people think is beautiful, healthy, and strong looking!
Unhealthy people are a cost to society in healthcare and other ways.
The food industry reminds me of TikTok and other media: They expertly and scientifically grab us and keep us coming back to them for things that increase their bottom line, not to things that benefit our health and well being! And on top of it all, we are then "blamed" for our predicaments! We are labeled "addicts" and "lazy". It is hard to eat well and live well when we are being unwittingly controlled and sabotaged by corporations that know exactly how to manipulate our brains and bodies.

These evil corporations aren't standing in front of you forcing food into your mouth. Put your big girl panties on and take responsibility for your own actions.

I'm usually a "live and let live" kind of person. But what's really annoyed me this year is that obesity now negatively affects everyone, even if they are not obese. By which I mean, COVID-19 is a disease which disproportionately harms obese people. Most of the people who are hospitalized or die from it are obese, especially the non-elderly people. Countries with very low obesity rates, such as Japan and South Korea, have much lower death and hospitalization rates than other economically-similar countries, despite a high proportion of elderly people. (And this doesn't get discussed in the US -- people just say Japan and South Korea "handled the pandemic better"...as if the fact they have a 4% obesity rate and we have a 42% obesity rate plays no role.)

All year we've been in lockdowns and told that we're killing people if we go outside. Some people have lost everything to lockdowns -- their jobs, businesses, homes, mental health, physical health, education, etc. I have a health condition that is made worse by the lockdowns, and nobody cared about that. Yet I don't see many people who are obese and worried about COVID-19 doing anything to lose weight. In fact, studies indicate that most people gained weight during the lockdowns. We're all expected to blow up our lives indefinitely to reduce other peoples' risk, yet they won't even do the slightest thing to reduce their own risk. That is so selfish and unfair and yet nobody calls it out.

I think the media and government play a role in this because they haven't been really talking much about the role obesity plays in COVID-19. The UK is the only country I saw that really discussed it in any official capacity, but even then they kind of forgot about it. Meanwhile I've seen countless articles where the media talks about a "perfectly healthy young person" who died of COVID-19 and then when you see the picture, the person is 300 or 400 pounds. That just shows how sick our culture is, that being morbidly obese is now considered "perfectly healthy," because people are too afraid of offending someone to tell the truth. And that attitude is contributing to peoples' deaths, from COVID-19 and from the many other complications of obesity. Sometimes I wonder where we would be if the public health messaging this year had focused more on weight loss, instead of officials doing things like banning outdoor exercise and closing parks.

So yeah, I'm way more judgmental about "fat positivity" culture now than I used to be, because it's a big reason why we're in this mess now.

Dnarules wrote: »

Please post stories about healthy people dying of CoVid 19 who are 400 pounds. This isn't what I see at all. Yes, taking steps to lose weight may decrease severity of disease. But BS statements like this are not helpful.

I've seen many, many articles out there since March, but here's what I could find in a few minutes of searching. Note this is not a complete set of all the articles out there that fit this criteria, just a tiny sample.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html

"The state’s health commissioner, Judith M. Persichilli, has said Ms. Fusco-Jackson had no underlying health problems.

Ms. Paradiso Fodera said the woman’s younger siblings were also in good health before contracting the virus.

“They’re young and they don’t have any underlying conditions,” Ms. Paradiso Fodera said.

It was unclear whether Mrs. Fusco, a heavyset woman, had underlying health problems."

[Every person in the picture of the family is obese, as many people pointed out in the comments.]

https://khn.org/news/dying-young-the-health-care-workers-in-their-20s-killed-by-covid-19/

[Every person shown in this article is obese, yet it isn't mentioned in the article.]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/us/covid-death-pregnant-mom-trnd/index.html
"Other than being pregnant, Becerra didn't have any underlying health conditions"

https://advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2020/07/13/young-covid-death

No picture included, but a family member says "Timothy Hendrix, Hill's adoptive father, said Hill was "heavy" but worked out daily and was otherwise healthy," and the article says "When Davon Hill, a generally healthy 24-year-old, developed Covid-19, his doctors thought he would recover."

https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9070625/Graphic-photos-blood-boy-spattered-hospital-walls-died-COVID-19.html

"Peyton Baumgarth, who had asthma and a thyroid problem," [Doesn't mention at all that he was obese, and neither do any of the other articles I saw on his story.]

https://courier-journal.com/story/news/education/2020/12/03/louisville-elementary-school-attendance-clerk-arethia-tilford-dies-covid-19/3807530001/

"Her husband said "we did everything we could to stay safe," such as wearing masks, practicing social distancing and washing hands often."

"Mark said his wife exercised and made sure to go in for regular examinations over the years to maintain good health." [Yet she was clearly obese from the picture, so she wasn't "maintaining" good health at all.]

https://cnn.com/2020/04/05/health/young-people-dying-coronavirus-sanjay-gupta/index.html

"She knew her husband was sick, but how was it possible that a young, healthy 30-year-old with no pre-existing conditions declined so swiftly?"

https://myfox8.com/news/coronavirus/healthy-teenager-who-took-precautions-died-suddenly-of-covid-19/

“I can’t tell you how a perfectly healthy 16-year-old boy can be making his own peanut butter sandwich late Wednesday night, getting his own tea out the fridge and head up to bed like any other teenager in the state or in the country is doing. And then within 24 hours is fighting for his life,” Dawn said.

I can...this is a picture of him where you can clearly see he is morbidly obese: https://indianamemorial.com/obituary/Andre-Guest

https://whio.com/news/local/husband-local-nurse-who-died-covid-19-did-everything-avoid-it/EB52C3VZE5DDFB2FRTY5DC2IUA/

"The husband of a local nurse who he said died from coronavirus said “she did everything she could not to get it.”" [Yet no mention of her losing weight to reduce her risk.]

siberiantarragon wrote: »

I'm usually a "live and let live" kind of person. But what's really annoyed me this year is that obesity now negatively affects everyone, even if they are not obese. By which I mean, COVID-19 is a disease which disproportionately harms obese people. Most of the people who are hospitalized or die from it are obese, especially the non-elderly people. Countries with very low obesity rates, such as Japan and South Korea, have much lower death and hospitalization rates than other economically-similar countries, despite a high proportion of elderly people. (And this doesn't get discussed in the US -- people just say Japan and South Korea "handled the pandemic better"...as if the fact they have a 4% obesity rate and we have a 42% obesity rate plays no role.)

All year we've been in lockdowns and told that we're killing people if we go outside. Some people have lost everything to lockdowns -- their jobs, businesses, homes, mental health, physical health, education, etc. I have a health condition that is made worse by the lockdowns, and nobody cared about that. Yet I don't see many people who are obese and worried about COVID-19 doing anything to lose weight. In fact, studies indicate that most people gained weight during the lockdowns. We're all expected to blow up our lives indefinitely to reduce other peoples' risk, yet they won't even do the slightest thing to reduce their own risk. That is so selfish and unfair and yet nobody calls it out.

I think the media and government play a role in this because they haven't been really talking much about the role obesity plays in COVID-19. The UK is the only country I saw that really discussed it in any official capacity, but even then they kind of forgot about it. Meanwhile I've seen countless articles where the media talks about a "perfectly healthy young person" who died of COVID-19 and then when you see the picture, the person is 300 or 400 pounds. That just shows how sick our culture is, that being morbidly obese is now considered "perfectly healthy," because people are too afraid of offending someone to tell the truth. And that attitude is contributing to peoples' deaths, from COVID-19 and from the many other complications of obesity. Sometimes I wonder where we would be if the public health messaging this year had focused more on weight loss, instead of officials doing things like banning outdoor exercise and closing parks.

So yeah, I'm way more judgmental about "fat positivity" culture now than I used to be, because it's a big reason why we're in this mess now.

If the implication is that the Covid death rate due to obesity is penalizing the rest of us via lockdowns, I'm not sure that holds up. Countries with lower obesity rates have used lockdown strategies, IMU.

That our complication rate is high does affect others (i.e., non-obese others) via hospital ICU availability, I suppose, and possibly has to do with our obesity levels in the US. AFAIK, obese people aren't more likely to contract Covid, so probably not more likely to spread it. In fact, if they're more quickly/severely symptomatic, it seems plausible that they'd spread it less effectively than someone who's less symptomatic, keeps going out in public, but dunno.

Hereabouts, based on details of tracing for superspreader events, it's been young, active people who've been the good spreaders: They don't get very sick, behave stupidly, give it to lots of others.

Mostly, though, the effect of obesity in the time of Covid is falling on the obese, IMO. More of them get very sick, more of them die.

If I thought related messaging would measurably move the needle on the "obesity crisis" or rates of Covid complications, I'd support spending money on it. I'm cynical that it would achieve anything. (Other health-related messaging efforts about obesity have failed, generally.) Social disapproval of obesity might help (it helped reduce smoking), but shunning is not a popular strategy these days, especially in situations where the individual's behavior is perceived to affect themselves more than it affects others. (Consider the effect of the "secondhand smoke" issue, WRT smoking. It appears I have COPD, though I was not a smoker: My father and husband were, so I've nearly always lived with it. Still not blaming them, FTR - pointless.)

If I wanted to search for someone to blame for the overwhelming Covid infection rates in the US, personally I'd put governmental mismanagement, science denialism, and certain people's delusional sense of invulnerability higher on the list than obesity, as things some people do that have negatively affected others. Your mileage obviously varies.