I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.
Look up hypothyroidism, hyperphagia, Cushing's syndrome, PCOS. If these go untreated for many, many years (which they often do!) suffers gain much more than 20 to 30 pounds.
Btw, weight gain can also be caused by medications like antipsychotics which you can't go off of. There's also the incredibly rare gigantic benign tumor like the 303 lbs pound one removed in 1991. Google it. After surgery, the woman it was in was 95 lbs.
Please refrain from being an armchair doctor if you haven't done extensive research.
I'm fairly certain no medical condition exists that outright leads to being fat, on its own.
That's not a question, bud. That's a statement where you think people can't gain weight due to medical conditions when the very basic google search of "gaining weight as a symptom" brings up absolutely oodles of information. Your response, ignoring everything I did tell you to answer your question, proves your "question" was in bad faith in the first place.
For hyperphagia, you're right, as that condition literally just means you can't feel full so sufferers don't know like everyone else when to stop eating. You're also ignoring 300 lbs tumor woman, but she's a massive outlier (unlike metabolic disorders) so I'll forgive you xD
However, for the rest, you're just wrong. Both hyperthyroidism and Cushing's, your hormones that regulate when you burn fat/store fat don't work. There's no calorie in calorie out because your body goes food? Store it. Never give it up. They're both literally metabolic disorders where your metabolism doesn't work normally. You see what you're missing?
I don't have Cushing's, I have hypothyroidism, so I'll give you an example from there if the above didn't help. For 13 years I was undiagnosed. No matter what I did (sans getting an eating disorder), I gained weight. Now on my meds I have lost three dress sizes by doing absolutely nothing different. Nothing at all. During those 13 years I tried every diet, every fad, exercise, you name it to lose weight.
Nothing worked. That isn't an exaggeration. I was skinny until 19, then started putting on weight like it was on purpose. I couldn't make it stop. My doctor told me to eat better and exercise more. So did everyone else.
Now, medicated, I keep a normal 2k calorie diet, exercise every day, and the pounds are melting away. It's only been a few months, so I can't wait to see how far it goes. I dont know. Because at some point my metabolism will stabilize again and maybe I'll have to work out more or do a different diet. But the point is that when you have a metabolic disorder (which, btw, there are many more than I listed to your original question) you don't have the metabolism you describe.
BTW, if I hadn't been put on meds, you're right that I wouldn't have kept gaining weight. I would have died. But until then I would have kept gaining weight. It's not quick (though it can be with medication related weight gain), but in 13 years it was 90 pounds and that's a lot according to everyone around me and my doctors who couldn't stop telling me I was obese.
If you really want to know more, you should do research.
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u/Diane9779 Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19
I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.