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

Mazintrov13 wrote: »

We have an obesity problem in Australia too but the corona virus is no where near as out of control as it is in the US I think mainly because of the way our government handled it

Lol well when our leader defies wearing proper equipment and calls it a hoax, you can see why it spreads so fast.

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Dnarules wrote: »

I don't feel like I'm sacrificing because of obese people. I actually don't even understand how one would think that. I'm sacrificing for everyone, and especially for the elderly.

Obesity may lead to more severe outcomes, but it isn't causing this pandemic. This virus is wreaking havoc worldwide, even in countries with lower obesity rates.

Countries with lower obesity rates are having much better outcomes. The death rates are much lower in Japan, South Korea, and China, than they are in North America and Europe. This is despite the fact that Japan and South Korea have had fewer restrictions than we do, and even China, after the initial lockdown, started having fewer restrictions than we do. Even developing countries aren't having as much of a problem with COVID-19 as some expected they would, and are actually having a lot more deaths caused by lockdowns than by the virus.

Elderly people also aren't generally in the workforce and are better able to self-isolate than younger people. So they're probably deriving less benefit from the mandatory lockdowns than high-risk younger people are. Also, most of the elderly people who died were in long-term care facilities, which were already self-contained (although they really dropped the ball on containing the virus).

kimny72 wrote: »

Yep, that's the kind of thing I was thinking of earlier when I said there's a correlation but they don't know for sure the cause. It seems logical that the obesity itself puts you at some kind of disadvantage, but until doctors find a clear physical mechanism for why, there's no way to know if it is primarily physical or a smaller factor.

Researchers already have a pretty good idea of why it's more deadly for obese people. It isn't some big medical mystery. COVID-19 is a disease that primarily attacks the respiratory system and blood vessels, and those are systems that are compromised by obesity. Also, obesity impairs immune function in general (that's why on My 600-Pound Life, Dr. Now often tells the patients that even a cold could kill them at their weight). Here is an article that goes into a detailed explanation of why obesity is such a big risk factor for COVID-19 death.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young

janejellyroll wrote: »

Nobody here is suggesting that you need to "get over" your particular issues or that you're choosing them. I understand you've received that message elsewhere, but I think people here get that nobody chooses OCD or PTSD. What I'm suggesting is that obesity is a complex situation where it's also not realistic to expect people who may be struggling in other ways -- including mental health or poverty -- to just "get over."

I'm not saying it's realistic to just get over it. Especially not when the lockdowns seem designed to make people obese -- making people depressed and anxious, taking away all other distractions, banning or discouraging outdoor exercise, etc. A lot of the blame I have is towards the public health experts, really. They should have made the "lose weight" messaging on par with the "stay home" and "wear a mask" messaging, if they really wanted to reduce deaths. But they didn't, and the reason why is probably a combination of our culture of normalizing obesity, and political correctness.

Here's a comparison that maybe will cause people to understand what I'm saying about why this "normalizing obesity" thing upsets me so much. Let's say you have a relative who is a hoarder. Every year, you spend a week of your vacation time helping them clean out their house to make it livable. You also have contamination OCD, so this takes a huge mental toll on you, but they don't care and even mock you for having OCD in the first place. By the end of the next year, they've hoarded it again and are nagging you to help them clean it out again. At a certain point, you're going to say "sorry, I hope that you can figure out your hoarding disorder, but I've reached my limit and this isn't my responsibility" and just refuse to do it. Then imagine that everyone around you calls you a "psychopathic murderer" for not helping them anymore. That's how I feel about this whole thing.

They're not choosing to be obese to spite us or to draw this thing out.

People who want to have in-person social interaction aren't doing that to spite people or draw things out either, yet they're called "psychopathic murderers."

I don't know if it's realistic to expect a huge chunk of the population to completely overhaul their meal planning, comfort mechanisms, and patterns around food intake during a economic and health crisis.

It was considered realistic to expect a huge chunk of the population to stop socializing, working, and getting a proper education indefinitely. Losing weight is a much more realistic (and healthy) goal than those.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

siberiantarragon wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

I'm not seeing anything where overweight or obese people are telling those with mental illnesses that they need to "get over it" so they can be safer. I think you're heavily personalizing public health messages. Which I get, this whole thing has been frustrating in many different ways, but I don't think seeing this as an obese people versus mental illness thing is warranted. To begin with, there is overlap between these two categories!

In discussions I've had, I've seen a lot of overlap between the people who tell anyone who is negatively affected by the lockdowns to "get over it," and the people who get offended when you suggest that people should take more personal responsibility for their own health before asking others to sacrifice for them. I'm not implying that anyone who holds these beliefs is obese, or anyone who doesn't hold these beliefs is not obese. (Ironically, I have several friends who are overweight/obese and agree with me about the obesity/COVID/personal responsibility thing.)

I get that you don't understand how anyone can be overweight. It's a common thing, but I promise you that logistical and mental obstacles to weight loss exist, including a lack of information about how CICO works or not understanding how to effectively implement it into one's life.

I never said that I don't understand how anyone can be overweight. I just gave an entire paragraph of reasons why I think people stay overweight. I just said that I don't think lack of access to information is the reason. 20 or 30 years ago, sure, it was a lot harder to find information back then, maybe that would have been a factor. But today, the information is out there, free and available. If someone doesn't look it up, it's because they don't want to know.

And again, regardless of what the reason is why people keep gaining weight, is it not the government's job to fix this public health crisis? Why are governments and our society in general enabling the obesity crisis instead of trying to fix it? If the answer actually is just lack of knowledge, that would be a pretty easy fix, wouldn't it? Why aren't there huge billboards with this information everywhere, the same way there are billboards everywhere about wearing a mask or social distancing?

There's a ton of information on weight loss out there and a lot of it is conflicting.

I think someone can be overweight AND think it's an issue of importance and still not be sure how to proceed. Or maybe they know how to do it, but implementing consistently is an issue. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see this as an us/them issue and I don't think it's a consequence of fat being glamorized.

Daily here, we encounter people who know what to do and aren't quite sure how to do it (given the circumstances of their lives or particular emotional issues). There are also people who know what they want to do, but have inaccurate ideas of how it needs to be done that are either setting them back or causing them to spend energy on controlling irrelevant factors. We're in a society that makes it incredibly easy to consume more energy than our body needs. I can understand how some don't have grace to expend or don't want to expend grace, but I've been there and I think it's more complex than you're making it out to be.

The corollation of obesity and a history of abuse, and of obesity with poverty, is stunning when you dig into it. The number of people in the US who don't have access to a primary care doctor, internet access, or a decent k-12 education as a result of poverty (either urban or rural) is also stunning.

I listened to a podcast comparing access to broadband internet in the US to other industrialized nations and it blew my mind!

As a consequence, I suspect that overweight/obese people are over-represented in the "essential worker" or "meet the public" workforce, when it comes to those outside strict total-PPE health care settings, especially. That appears to me to be true, based on the people in those jobs that I see around me, but I know that my eyesight's not a statistical sample.

Yeah, almost certainly.

IME (in a major US city), obesity is really socially disadvantaged and also less common among those who tend to be college graduates, to live in safer/nicer areas, and to have jobs that can be done from home. Obesity is more common among those less well off, who are more likely to have "essential" jobs.

Age is by far the biggest risk factor for covid and countries with less obesity have done lockdowns (more so than in many higher obesity states in the US), so the pretense that we are shutting down inside restaurant service or limiting the number of people who can be in spaces due to the obese is of course untrue anyway.

I always wonder what people mean by "lockdowns" in the US in that most of the job loss is due to people changing what they do, not things being intentionally shut down (although we should bail out restaurants). Here in Chicago all businesses but inside restaurants and bars are open. My social life has changed because of the lack of inside restaurant service and, mainly, lack of concerts and theater, but those didn't tend to be populated by the obese on average.

I wonder if something like that could also play a role in over-representation of overweight/obese people among those dying of Covid in the US? There's IMU some evidence that higher viral load (loosely, getting more viral bits on/in you when exposed) relates to more severe cases of Covid. It would be interesting to know if those in essential/public-facing/low-PPE jobs are dying at disproportionate rates from the virus.

As someone mentioned above, I don't expect to see those more refined statistical analyses for quite a while yet, to explore questions like that, there currently being fatter fish right now for epidemiologists and their statistician buddies to be frying.

Could very well be.

Pretending it's all about the evil obese seems silly, however. (I also think we were initially told the "lockdowns" would be 4 weeks, also, which doesn't allow for much weight loss. I certainly didn't expect to be working from home this long.)

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

I think the response to that would be, is it realistic to expect people to lose their livelihoods, homes, sanity and families to lower risk, without pointing out that there are also other targeted ways to lower risk as well?

I'm fine with encouraging people to use this as a reason to lose weight. I thought the UK focus on that was sensible.

However, the claim that if not for obese people no one would have lost their livelihoods, etc., seems obviously disingenuous and a distorted blame focus. I mean, the UK did try to focus on weight loss, and the main people at risk are not the young generally healthy obese, but old people (even slightly older people in good shape like me (51) or my dad (thin, very active, 77). But sure, blame us for the fact that people in general are staying home even when stuff is open, as seems to be the case most places in the US.)

The biggest spreading stuff here in Chicago, where it has been bad for ages, is generally involving younger, in shape people, like big house parties (these are sell ticket events), among other things. Not the obese.

Theoldguy1 wrote: »

Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »

At first I was really against these, but then I read the article and I guess they are saying their mentalities are healthy because they are focused on how well their bodies can function and perform, not how they look. I am all for that, but I think if you focus on being the healthiest you are and love yourself you would lose weight to be the best you can be and healthiest you can be. Staying obese is harming yourself.

I am just glad they didn't outright say "I am perfectly healthy and don't want to lose any weight" like Tess Holiday does.

Sorry totally disagree. Most people are not going to read the article. They are going to see the cover of a national magazine with pictures of obese, if not morbidly obese, individuals on the cover with the headline, "this is healthy".

This is what people are seeing in the checkout line, this is not healthy. These covers are poster children for normalizing obesity IMO.

I completely agree. That was my first thought when seeing the covers and photos. It just annoys me when people say "oh it's just how I am, I am built this way" not that they are eating too many calories.

Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »

At first I was really against these, but then I read the article and I guess they are saying their mentalities are healthy because they are focused on how well their bodies can function and perform, not how they look. I am all for that, but I think if you focus on being the healthiest you are and love yourself you would lose weight to be the best you can be and healthiest you can be. Staying obese is harming yourself.

I am just glad they didn't outright say "I am perfectly healthy and don't want to lose any weight" like Tess Holiday does.

Looking forward to the "This is tall" edition of GQ with Peter Dinklage on the cover!

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

I think the response to that would be, is it realistic to expect people to lose their livelihoods, homes, sanity and families to lower risk, without pointing out that there are also other targeted ways to lower risk as well? That’s what bothers me about all this. There’s not an equal standard being applied. Apparently people are “irresponsible” for doing things to alleviate their suffering caused by the loss of the things mentioned above, but people aren’t being called “irresponsible” for not personally doing what they can to lower their risk of getting ill and using scarce medical resources. That is to say, one set of risk lowering actions are deemed so important as to cause great wide spread and long lasting effects and the other set all but ignored. Standards have to be applied fairly, otherwise they aren’t standards but just bias, which is not scientific.

I say this as an obese woman, with vulnerable pneumonia scarred lungs. If I have a bad response to Covid, should I get it, I know that in some degree, I could have taken actions to lessen the severity. In fact, my brother in law physician who treats Covid patients every day, did tell me at the outset of all this, that being so overweight did put me at higher risk, while my older and in shape parents risk was much lower, based on how patients were responding in the hospital.

I absolutely think that people should evaluate their situation and take steps to reduce their risk. I also think we should extend some understanding to people who may be struggling to do this due to financial or emotional or logistical factors that are also being exacerbated by the current situation. I'm just saying I don't see it as a situation where the obese are doing this TO us. We're all caught in this bad situation in various ways and I believe that many are just doing the best they can.

Theoldguy1 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

nooshi713 wrote: »

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.

I agree. I work in the ER in Los Angeles and see Covid patients every day. We are NOT seeing young healthy in shape people die. Most of the younger people with complications are either very obese or diabetic and uncontrolled. Some people told me they have no medical problems but then their blood sugar is 500. They did not know they were diabetic apparently or someone told them they were years ago and they ignored it.

Obesity is a huge problem when it comes to Covid. We need to focus on this instead of ignoring it.

I think the difference is that I'm not thinking that these people are selfish and subjecting ME to something, I'm thinking it's unfortunate that they're at higher risk.

Those with preventable comorbidities are subjecting you to something.

If someone that was an obese smoker quit smoking and started losing weight at the start of this and got Covid now their chances of needing ER or even hospital care would be decreased freeing up medical resources which are in short supply in many parts of the US.

I'm a strong believer in taking care of yourself to fight off illness. A few years back I was hospitalized for a week with 4 IV's in my arms due to a Sepsis infection. I was fortunate enough that I was at a normal weight, long time exerciser and did not smoke. One of my nurses was a casual acquaintance from the gym. He told me after I recovered most people that had Sepsis as bad as I did when I arrived at the hospital at best had strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure or at worst left the hospital in a body bag as a result.

Self care is important and impacts society.

Nobody has comorbidities for fun or because they're out to get me. That's my point. They're putting themselves at risk, I refuse to take it as a personal attack.

Well, I for one, never said that the obese are doing anything TO others, or that the obese have caused the lockdowns. Anyone thinking that I did, should reread what I wrote.

If you go back and read what I said, you will see that I clearly stated that I myself am obese.

What I find ridiculous and abhorrent is the stance that one set of preventative measures such as mask wearing and social distancing, is morally virtuous and socially imperative, while other sets of preventive measures are barely mentioned. It’s not good science, and has became extremely political. If we are truly concerned about saving lives, we need to be honest and upfront about what we can each do to mitigate our personal risk of Covid and avoid straining medical resources.

Even if it means being politically incorrect and pointing out unpleasant truths. Otherwise we place an undue burden and strain on those suffering because of the other preventative measures. Imagine if the hospitals were not overwhelmed, if many more people didn’t need to go to the hospital because their symptoms were much less severe. We wouldn’t need to have such strict lockdowns or if we did, it would be for a much shorter time. Now, I wouldn’t say that we obese have caused the long severe lockdowns, but it would be bad science to deny that the obesity rate has clearly worsened the strain on medical resources.

I haven’t seen this widely acknowledged however, or seen any public measures designed to help mitigate this significant factor. Instead, the preventative measures have clearly made it much harder to lose weight. I’m confident that if the obesity factor had been widely acknowledged, we could have had innovative measures to help encourage and initiate weight loss. We still can, if public officials really would care about saving lives and not just votes.

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

Well, I for one, never said that the obese are doing anything TO others, or that the obese have caused the lockdowns. Anyone thinking that I did, should reread what I wrote.

I was not suggesting that you did.

Do you think me shaking my finger at you and saying you need to lose weight would be helpful? Or that it's somehow your fault we had lockdowns (which is obviously untrue anyway)? I'm mostly interested in doing what would be helpful, and don't think blaming obese people is likely to be. (It was not helpful to my own ability to lose weight.)

Yet someone else in this thread seems to think otherwise.

I am generally interested in how to deal with the problem of the obesity rate, so if you have ideas there, I'd love to hear them.

lemurcat2 wrote: »

I was not suggesting that you did.

Do you think me shaking my finger at you and saying you need to lose weight would be helpful? Or that it's somehow your fault we had lockdowns (which is obviously untrue anyway)? I'm mostly interested in doing what would be helpful, and don't think blaming obese people is likely to be. (It was not helpful to my own ability to lose weight.)

This year, we've really opened the door to "shaming as a public health solution," despite generally agreeing in previous years that it wasn't effective. "Stay the f home," "grandma killer," "don't be a knucklehead," "covidiot," "we could have been opened up by now if it wasn't for those idiots who didn't follow the rules," etc. Even public health experts have gotten in on the "fun" and some of these shaming slogans (like "don't be a knucklehead") were actually made up by governments, presumably under the guidance of public health experts. So apparently the experts have decided that shaking their finger at people and telling them they need to do X, and blaming them for societal-wide problems, must be an effective way to get people to change their lifestyle, or else they wouldn't keep doing it. Who am I to go against the experts?

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

I’m not accusing anyone in particular; I just saw some misunderstanding of what I was trying to say.

I do think it would be helpful to say “Lose weight, wear masks to lower the spread and severity of Covid.”

I do see people becoming extremely focused on wearing masks, gloves and social distancing and putting all their efforts to avoiding the virus completely. It increases anxiety, OCD and depression greatly because they are cowering from something they are terrified they are going to get anyway.

It would be much better for people to stop only focusing on not getting it and instead also focus on actions that have clearly and scientifically shown to decrease the severity.

Obviously, there are other factors like age, and decreased immune function that can’t be mitigated.

But we can really improve our chances for survival if we lose weight. We don’t have to be out of our minds with fear and worry that there’s nothing we can really do to prevent ourselves from dying from Covid.

I just want to say, I have loved all your posts on this topic!

The more I think about it, the more I realize how great of an opportunity was squandered here. We have been trying to reduce obesity rates for years with no success. Well, if there was ever a time to convince people that they needed to lose weight for their health, this past year would have been it. People were wondering "what can I do to reduce my chances of dying in the pandemic?" and being literally told by the people in charge of protecting public health, "LOL just sit at home on the couch, order takeout, and watch Netflix, oh and by the way we closed all the parks." If that doesn't say it all about how normalized obesity and unhealthy lifestyles are in our culture, I don't know what does.

People in this thread are saying that people are confused about how to lose weight. Well, there's never been a time in modern history where people were more receptive and attentive to public health announcements than they were in this past year. I don't think there's ever been a time before this year where there were daily televised press conferences on public health, for example. That information of how to lose weight could have been put out there. The city I used to live in mailed out masks to every resident. What if they had also mailed out a guide on healthy diet and exercise to everyone?

During the pandemic, a lot of people have felt hopeless, and completely at the mercy of other people -- the people making the rules and the people who choose to follow them with varying degrees of scrupulosity. Empowering people to take charge of their health would have increased morale and reduced at least some of the despair and exhaustion people are feeling, which could have prevented at least some "deaths of despair." Maybe it also would have promoted a more positive culture, instead of the really negative judgmental/hateful culture that's come out of this past year.

MyFitnessPal could be nationally promoted by officials, or other free apps like this one. We could open more gyms in empty stores so people can exercise and still socially distance. We could really promote people using hiking trails in parks. A lot of them are only wide enough for one person so it’s easy to social distance. We could have schools have more gym time in middle schools and high schools. Business could incentivize employees using MyFitnessPal and activity trackers. I know some already do, my husband’s new job is what restarted me here. We could have businesses give people exercise balls to bounce on while working from home. We could have cooking lessons required in every middle school and high school. We could have officials saying “Don’t despair, lose weight.”
I’m not very creative even. I’m sure there’s many people out there with much better ideas.

These are all great suggestions!

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

I do see people becoming extremely focused on wearing masks, gloves and social distancing and putting all their efforts to avoiding the virus completely. It increases anxiety, OCD and depression greatly because they are cowering from something they are terrified they are going to get anyway.

I think this is an odd reading of the current dynamics, especially if you are (as I am thinking you are) in a social circle where masks are generally frowned upon.

I am in one of the more mask friendly areas compared to what others have reported on MFP, and yet people aren't generally even wearing gloves, lots of people don't wear masks much of the time (I wear masks when around others or indoors in public spaces, but don't when walking/running in a situation when I can social distance), and few would say they are doing that due to fear of getting the virus. Most of us wear masks to help control the spread.

I do think the shutdown situation is bad for mental health, but I don't think it's actually caused by official action -- people in general aren't willing to go out and interact normally. Very few people in my social group are overweight (many are older than me), and yet they are not currently going to be socializing as pre covid. It's not because of fat people, and it's not even because of official action -- it's because it's what they consider responsible.

It would be much better for people to stop only focusing on not getting it and instead also focus on actions that have clearly and scientifically shown to decrease the severity.

Yes, as pre covid, it would be better for obese people to lose weight. My point is this idea that they don't know that is not based in fact, and shaming them -- in fact, blaming them for everything that is awful about covid, as another poster has been doing -- is not only based in falsehood (fat people are not why others lost their jobs) -- but not actually going to lead to positive action.

But we can really improve our chances for survival if we lose weight. We don’t have to be out of our minds with fear and worry that there’s nothing we can really do to prevent ourselves from dying from Covid.

Again, I think you are projecting or something as most of us aren't all that fearful, we just think the effects of covid are bad and would like to help it end ASAP. But you said you are overweight, so why haven't you done this? And if the answer is that you have (and didn't realize any health reasons pre covid) but it takes a while, why not give others the same benefit of the doubt? Like I said, I sure knew there were health reasons not to be overweight before I lost weight -- I was fat, not uninformed -- but it still took some time before I was in a mental space where I was able to lose. I feel like being understanding of others in that place, and not blaming them for all the evils of the world, is a better approach, personally.

And yes, I think public encouragement of weight loss is a good thing, and I don't actually think it doesn't exist. What specifically encouraged you to lose was my question, however -- no public campaign did it for me.