Obesity Can Be Healthy, Dammit! — Page 3

"but if I really had to point a finger At anyone --it would be at parents.

Parents, quite simply, have stopped raising their kids. And then they blame the schools, they blame the media, they blame fast food, and fast lifestyles -- for the obesity, violence, drugs, sex...

however, they never look into the mirror and blame themselves."

PREACH RadiGal! PREACH!

After teaching for a while, I came to this realization pretty early on. I couldn't stay in a profession where I was undervalued and blamed for problems that had nothing to do with me. And shunned when I tried to do something about it. It was a sad decision, because you really care about the children, but I was sacrificing my own happiness.

There is so much reform that needs to happen in our Education System it makes my head spin, And government, parents, and teachers are all at fault in some way shape or form. How we can all sit down at the table and find some way to fix it needs to become a priority on this country's agenda.

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Rad, you took the post right off my keyboard.

A friend and I were laughing over her early '70s high school photos, when all of a sudden, something occurred to me. I asked her to point out the "fat girls." We all had them, the ones you couldn't believe were that big.

She pointed to a few, including one truly obese girl. Funny thing was, most of the "fat girls" would be considered quite normal by today's standards, if not on the slim side. The majority of the girls appeared downright skinny.

Doubt it? Try on a dress from your mother's or grandmother's prime. Chances are you'll come nowhere near being able to zip the darned thing.

Now, the availability of better and consistent nutrition has certainly beefed up the frame; our shoulders generally are broader, we're generally taller than previous generations, but we're considerably fatter. We spend too much time sitting and eating refined sugars, and not enough moving.

BB, I can personally tell you I have been on the teasing end of that. Sadly, it happens.

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"I can't tell you how many times I've heard of obese people getting laughed at and heckled while struggling with a treadmill or using a really light weight."

I haven't experienced this at any gym.

Me neither. Seriously, Cruel, how many times HAVE you heard of this? Have you ever been AT the gyms and heard this happening? Or are you hearing it second hand? Or worse, are you reading it on a lesbian fat activist's blog?

And MissChung, you can mitigate the original post all you want, but Cruel wrote of a "constant barrage" of "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE"s, which you ratcheted down to "you'd be so much happier." Which, you would have to admit is much, much different.

I would like some level of quantification on abstractions like "constant" and "countless times." Let's hear what we're REALLY talking about here.

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"Everybody, everybody, EVERYBODY needs to watch FAT: What No One Is Telling You on PBS."

I know one of the women who was on that program-Mary. I remember her telling me how fat she once was and pulled out a photo to prove it. She really works at it-I applaud her for her success.

It's on right now, actually.

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"I can't tell you how many times I've heard of obese people getting laughed at and heckled while struggling with a treadmill or using a really light weight."

I can't say I've ever noticed that. What I've found about going to the gym is that people rarely look at or seem to notice anyone else. Everyone goes into their own mental zone and works out. No one who wants to join a gym should ever feel like they will be shamed. If anything they will be applauded for their efforts.

I have heard the light weight thing before. When I lived in South Jersey, some goofball came and made some sort of comment about the tiny dumbbells I was using for my triceps. I informed him that I was still recovering from a horrific car accident and that using those light weights were a specific part of my physical therapy.

That was all BS, of course, but it shut him up.

Here in New York, however, my experiences are more in line with morosco's: Nobody really pays attention to you, whether you want them to or not.

And MissChung, you can mitigate the original post all you want, but Cruel wrote of a "constant barrage" of "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE"s, which you ratcheted down to "you'd be so much happier." Which, you would have to admit is much, much different.
?
Of course they are different, and I wasn't trying to mitigate anything. I was agreeing with what I thought was his concern - that people pass judgement and try to tell you how to live your life. "you are going to die" is more acrid than "you'd be so much happier" but I have to tell you, I have had people tell me the latter and its very unnerving.

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Updated On: 4/26/07 at 10:11 PM

yeah me too

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morosco, Namo, and Barstolboy. I have personally been made fun of at a gym. And not even because I was struggling with anything. But, for merely having the nerve to walk into one. I'm not saying that SHOULD be used as an excuse, but I promise you a lot of people, especially those my age would be turned away by this.

It eventually escalated to the point where I started, and I still do this actually, going around 5:00 in the morning on Weekdays. And 6:00 on Weekends. Luckily my body responds better to being worked out in the mornings anyway. So in this case it turned out to be a good thing.

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(copied from wikipedia)


Obesity, especially central obesity (male-type or waist-predominant obesity), is an important risk factor for the "metabolic syndrome" ("syndrome X"), the clustering of a number of diseases and risk factors that heavily predispose for cardiovascular disease. These are diabetes mellitus type 2, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and triglyceride levels (combined hyperlipidemia). An inflammatory state is present, which — together with the above — has been implicated in the high prevalence of atherosclerosis (fatty lumps in the arterial wall), and a prothrombotic state may further worsen cardiovascular risk.

Apart from the metabolic syndrome, obesity is also correlated (in population studies) with a variety of other complications. For many of these complaints, it has not been clearly established to what extent they are caused directly by obesity itself, or have some other cause (such as limited exercise) that causes obesity as well. Most confidence in a direct cause is given to the mechanical complications in the following list:

Cardiovascular: congestive heart failure, enlarged heart and its associated arrhythmias and dizziness, cor pulmonale, varicose veins, and pulmonary embolism
Endocrine: polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), menstrual disorders, and infertility
Gastrointestinal: gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), fatty liver disease, cholelithiasis (gallstones), hernia, and colorectal cancer
Renal and genitourinary: urinary incontinence, glomerulopathy, hypogonadism (male), breast cancer (female), uterine cancer (female), stillbirth
Integument (skin and appendages): stretch marks, acanthosis nigricans, lymphedema, cellulitis, carbuncles, intertrigo
Musculoskeletal: hyperuricemia (which predisposes to gout), immobility, osteoarthritis, low back pain
Neurologic: stroke, meralgia paresthetica, headache, carpal tunnel syndrome, dementia[4]
Respiratory: dyspnea, obstructive sleep apnea, hypoventilation syndrome, Pickwickian syndrome, asthma
Psychological: Depression, low self esteem, body dysmorphic disorder, social stigmatization

that doesn't sound too healthy...

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it's an open letter to my doctor.

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Updated On: 4/26/07 at 11:43 PM