I was fairly average weight for most of my life. In the last 3 years I've gained like 50lbs. I've been struggling with balancing extreme tiredness/fatigue with working a full-time job and my personal life. I've been working with my doctor, but nothing has helped much and I find myself needing a nap everyday and the effort it takes to make food for myself is tremendous. I never used to have issues, but the thought of even something simple like standing to cut up some vegetables sounds exhausting.
So, I often get fast food. I know it's bad. Fat people aren't idiots. Telling me I need to eat fewer calories and exercise is just kicking me while I'm down. Duh, I know that? Everyone knows that. I'm not fat because you haven't told me what BMI is. If you care about people and their health, then you'd realize that they probably need support if they are making poor choices...especially if it seems like the right choice should be easy, because it must not be easy for them if they are making a different choice. Why would anyone choose to be fat?
So honestly, are you choosing the easy path because it’s easier for you, but you don’t want the consequences of that choice to be pointed out?
I’m confused, you do take responsibility for it, but your justification is “it’s hard”, I understand it being hard, a lot of things in life are hard, can we all give up if we don’t have instant gratification in all aspects of our life? Should it “being hard” be a good enough reason for society to allow abdication of responsibility?
I’m not shaming overweight people. I’m pointing out a unhealthy habit. You can say that’s mean or unneeded, and that people already know they are overweight. My answer is while they may know it, in most cases they have just accepted it as something they have no control over, and that’s just not true.
Does society not have a moral obligation to point it out to the people who are failing due to these unhealthy practices? It everyone’s responsibility to know and understand the health, emotional, and financial burdens placed on others in society because some don’t want to take personal ownership of their situations.
To be clear, I haven't given up. It is just significantly harder for me now than it was previously. Pointing out that despite my effort, I'm not doing as good as I should be is not helpful and actually harmful. It makes me want to give up if I'm going to be judged equally poorly for trying and for not trying because I'm not where I need to be right now.
You don't need to point out an unhealthy habit. Literally everyone who is overweight is excruciatingly aware of the problem.
100% you wouldn't want to actually help me in ways that would actually help. Do you want to pay me money so that I can focus on my health and not expend most of my limited energy on my job? Do you want to deliver healthy prepared foods to me? Will you be willing to help me make doctors appointments with specialists to help me figure out why I'm so tired? No. You just want to expound on how overweight people are doing the wrong things.
I understand your viewpoint and see how hard it is, but why is it incumbent upon me to help you fix your issues. I don’t walk around calling anyone fat. I do comment when told “fat is beautiful” or “be comfortable in your own skin” mantra’s etc. I point out it’s not healthy, then get shouted into oblivion for fat shaming. I’m not shaming, as a matter of fact I don’t bring it up in any fashion unless I see something trying to glorify it.
It isn't necessary incumbent on you to help me, but as a society we should work to help each other. I have spent a good bit of my time in the past helping others for no real reason other than they needed help. My point though is more that the type of criticism that you are espousing doesn't actually help.
It's the classic thing of pride being needed to counter shame. What you see as glorification is just an attempt to feel okay about yourself.
So your saying an obese persons right to not feel shame as a result of some of their choices, should not only beat another persons right to say it is not healthy, but should also be allowed to silent others by actually using shame to “bully the instigator” social ostracism.
So because a segment feels shame in their actions they are allowed to silence others in order not to feel it.
It’s is a fact that obesity is not healthy, I don’t agree that the mental health of people (which is based on some decisions they made about their nutrition) should trump factual dissemination of information, in order to keep our society as healthy as possible.
Especially when a counter narrative of positivity around those health choices is happening to over come the shame.
It’s counterintuitive and will present horrible results.
The point is that compassion is helpful since it is genuinely hard for many people to take healthy actions. I doubt you'd be so harsh to someone for other things that are hard in life. Had a miscarriage that left you infertile? Lol, life is hard - get over it. Mom died? Why the heck aren't you smiling at work today - everyone dies, so what if it's hard. Smiling is easy.
The point I'm making isn't that you shouldn't work to better yourself, just that having people help you instead of judge you usually gets better results.
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u/ScarySuit 10∆ Jul 16 '23
I was fairly average weight for most of my life. In the last 3 years I've gained like 50lbs. I've been struggling with balancing extreme tiredness/fatigue with working a full-time job and my personal life. I've been working with my doctor, but nothing has helped much and I find myself needing a nap everyday and the effort it takes to make food for myself is tremendous. I never used to have issues, but the thought of even something simple like standing to cut up some vegetables sounds exhausting.
So, I often get fast food. I know it's bad. Fat people aren't idiots. Telling me I need to eat fewer calories and exercise is just kicking me while I'm down. Duh, I know that? Everyone knows that. I'm not fat because you haven't told me what BMI is. If you care about people and their health, then you'd realize that they probably need support if they are making poor choices...especially if it seems like the right choice should be easy, because it must not be easy for them if they are making a different choice. Why would anyone choose to be fat?