Ugh, The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance

Bollocks. The issues getting in people's way, the majority of the time, are their self control. I'm perfectly fine with a sedentary lifestyle filled with crap food being demonized. It's much better than ignoring the problem or promoting it as a perfectly fine lifestyle choice.

First, it's not really up to you what I do with my life. Second, I'm really happy for you that you have the self confidence right now to look at yourself, say "Poo, I probably ought to slow down eating this crap and move around a bit more, I'm filling out a bit around the middle". Really, I am. That's not sarcasm. I'm glad that you are there. My point is that a lot of people are not there, and telling them that their self-control is the problem is, again, calling them lazy. It's not going to make them feel better, it's not going to make them deny the one thing that they can rely on to give them comfort, and it's certainly not going to motivate them to get up and move around.

If you'd spent your entire life being told your "insert body part here" was horrifically ugly and you should be ashamed of it, you'd believe it. If I've spent my entire life being told I'm just lazy, imaging how good I'd feel about myself, how motivated to take care of myself, how inspiring that must be for me. My self-worth would be rock bottom. Why would I bother to change it?

(To the hypothetical person you are speaking of)
This is why: To prove to others and MAINLY yourself that NO you are not lazy, and NO you are not ugly. The self defeated attitude doesn't hinder anyone else but yourself. It isn't what other people call you, but what you answer to. You can't depend on others for motivation, it comes from yourself. And there are many of people on this site that wouldn't necessarily say they are motivated every day, and sometimes they feel like *kitten* and don't want to continue but they do. You can't wallow in self pity forever, eventually you are going to have to change it. And i personally won't feel sorry for somebody that feels sorry enough for themselves. I can be sensitive to obesity, but i cant be sensitive to self defeated attitudes. That's just lame.

Ah, so THIS is why it's okay to shame kids? Because if the Disney cartoon shows all skinny kids that are heros and all fat kids that are bad, and kids take away that they're bad if they're fat (and almost worse, that they're automatically a hero if they're skinny) it's their fault they have a "lame defeated attitude?"

What actually would have taken place in the exhibit?

Maybe Will Power helped Lead Bottom to get healthy? Wouldn't that be a positive message?

As someone has said above - you can't be obese and healthy. And yes there might be people who are eating healthily and be obese, which means they are on the right track - those people should see this as a good thing surely! I don't see how it would encourage teasing and bullying just by saying that healthy is good, unhealthy is bad.

Have you ever actually dealt with or watched a group of kids? They will pick apart "the other" with ravenous delight without actually thinking about reality. So that obese 12 year sees the exhibit, becomes confused because he or she actually trying to change her or his life through better habits and doesn't understand why he's the villain all of a sudden (because the fact that the villains are really behaviors and not people isn't literal enough), and the rest of the pack start making fun of him or her. That's reality.

A better solution would be teams of speakers, some of whom are fit and some of whom aren't, being seen working together to talk about good behaviors instead of being pitted against each other in a fictitious battle of good vs evil--when the real issue is cause and effect, not good vs evil.

I gotta be honest, this post sounds like it was written based on seeing how kids act through TV movies and teen TV shows, rather than real life. Maybe my childhood was strange, but growing up, I never saw or dealt with roving bands of children/teens going out of their way to pick apart "the other." We were actually rather accepting of people looking different. All of our judgement was reserved for attitudes and actions. And I see the same thing with my daughter, my niece, my nephew and their friends. Kids aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be. An obese kid that's taking steps to change his obesity sees that exhibit, and he doesn't see himself as the villain, he sees himself as being part of the fight against the villains.

Such a stupid thing to advocate.... Fat Acceptance? I see Fat Acceptance as a bunch of people basically saying yes they're fat, and no they're not going to do anything about it, and rather than spending all that extra energy getting their bodies in shape they form organizations trying to convince people that being fat is OK as they continue to eat themselves into an early grave.

Have you gone to their website and looked at their mission or are you just going off their choice of title?

Yeah. Because their vision statement: "A society in which people of every size are accepted with dignity and equality in all aspects of life" is something to look down upon. If you have made choices the poster disapprove of you don't deserve dignity or equality.

Ofcourse everyone shold be treated with respect! One of the things I saw on their website was that no one overweight should be discriminated against for a job. Guess the U.S. Army should start allowing morbidly obese recruits. Wouldn't want to upset this organization.

What actually would have taken place in the exhibit?

Maybe Will Power helped Lead Bottom to get healthy? Wouldn't that be a positive message?

As someone has said above - you can't be obese and healthy. And yes there might be people who are eating healthily and be obese, which means they are on the right track - those people should see this as a good thing surely! I don't see how it would encourage teasing and bullying just by saying that healthy is good, unhealthy is bad.

Have you ever actually dealt with or watched a group of kids? They will pick apart "the other" with ravenous delight without actually thinking about reality. So that obese 12 year sees the exhibit, becomes confused because he or she actually trying to change her or his life through better habits and doesn't understand why he's the villain all of a sudden (because the fact that the villains are really behaviors and not people isn't literal enough), and the rest of the pack start making fun of him or her. That's reality.

A better solution would be teams of speakers, some of whom are fit and some of whom aren't, being seen working together to talk about good behaviors instead of being pitted against each other in a fictitious battle of good vs evil--when the real issue is cause and effect, not good vs evil.

I gotta be honest, this post sounds like it was written based on seeing how kids act through TV movies and teen TV shows, rather than real life. Maybe my childhood was strange, but growing up, I never saw or dealt with roving bands of children/teens going out of their way to pick apart "the other." We were actually rather accepting of people looking different. All of our judgement was reserved for attitudes and actions. And I see the same thing with my daughter, my niece, my nephew and their friends. Kids aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be. An obese kid that's taking steps to change his obesity sees that exhibit, and he doesn't see himself as the villain, he sees himself as being part of the fight against the villains.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, I guess. My experiences and first-hand observations just lead me to a different conclusion than yours do.

EDIT: I'm not so sure it's that I think they're stupid. I think that as a group, children are cruel and lack empathy.

So, so true:

Proverbs 22:15

15Folly is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

This is why although I do have a lot of kids over to visit my own children, i make sure there is constant supervision. With kids, even fairly young ones, things can get ugly all too quickly. It's sad but true.

FitLink, make up your mind. Are you a victim or the one taking responsibility for your choices?

The obsession with other people's health is unhealthy in itself. You are responsible only for your own health, not every adult in the world's health.

I don't see how FitLink has been inconsistent. It's possible people aren't understanding what's being said. We're responsible for our own health and actions. It can be also true that factors outside of our control do influence us.

Are we responsible for our own obesity? Sure. It's also true that people can feel powerless and defeated due to the actions of others. We can tell them that they're the one's in control 50 times every hour on the hour and it won't a make a difference if something else is going on causing them to not truly believe it.

And even if they do believe they're in control, seeing people shaped like them vilified can very reasonably be interpreted as demotivating.

This is the reply of a person who clearly did not grow up in poverty but wants to say they did to add credibility to their post. No one who has ever had to work two jobs just to get by would say it is just as easy to make healthy food as it is to go to McDonalds and that does not ever consider the cost.

If you really want to eat a healthy diet then it is far more expensive and time consuming than eating fast foods. In this country, a lot of people want to think they grew up poor because they could not afford to go to Mexico on spring break. Real poverty is a much different thing.

To say having no time and no money and no safe place to get exericse are not excuses to be fat is to shout oout to the world that you have never lived that life.

You have no idea what my background is or how I grew up, so I'd appreciate you not making those assumptions. I was taught not to use my circumstances as an excuse to live poorly and to always do the best with what I have, period. If you think that means I'm lying about growing up poor, whatever. Like I said, you have no idea.

If you really want a REASONABLY healthy diet and are living in poverty it CAN be done, and it's not all that hard. Canned vegetables are cheap, as are many in-season fresh vegetables, which I am aware are not available cheaply in all areas. Rice is cheap, potatoes are cheap, beans are cheap, whole chickens are cheap, as are chicken breasts in bulk. Seasonings are not cheap, but a little can go a very long way. Ramen noodles can even be made reasonably healthy if they're cooked in chicken broth (also cheap) and seasoned with salt and pepper rather than that god awful seasoning packet. Many people living in poverty also have some assistance like food stamps, and it's possible to buy reasonably healthy food with food stamps. I'm not denying that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to eat an optimally healthy diet with very little money for food.. but a reasonably healthy diet is an entirely different story.

You don't know what you are talking about.

I grew up in a poor area. You had liquor stores, carry outs and fast food places on every corner. The "supermarket" was loaded with canned veggies, chips and the like.

If you don't have a car good luck.

Overweight children is a huge problem. I work with children as a swim coach and I can't tell you how many times the kids come to practice bouncing off the walls from eating candy and ice cream before practice. We wonder why so many children have ADHD??

Um... ADHD has nothing to do with eating candy or ice cream. You can't give yourself ADHD. It's a neurological disability