Why should we accept and accommodate people being fat?

[Freefaller]

Exactly, a great example is my team at work, none of us are overweight & all are pretty healthy - but, two of the guys eat multiple muffins a day & do no exercise & maintain their weight - me & the other guy have to visit the gym 4 times a week & monitor our calorie intake to do the same.

Everybody knows a few ultra skinny guys who eat like pigs, its hardly a rare occurrence - if one extreme exists why wouldn't another?. The simple fact is we all respond differently to food.

Yes but also some people look like the eat a lot, but actually eat very little in total. In the gym I get so many people go "I eat so much but I'm not gaining weight" then when you break down their daily diet it's actually not that calorific. Also eating a double your calorific allowance per day once in a while won't do you any harm and you won't suddenly get fat over night.

If you read through metabolism studies the normal distribution of metabolic activity is actually fairly standard and even, the people outside that normal distribution are the exception that make the rule.

However as activity decreases and exercise decreases, metabolic activity decreases and then it becomes that ever decreasing circle. Some people have higher testosterone levels too which also helps, and the midlife spread can also be attributed to lowered activity along with key hormonal decreases.

Of course there will always be those that fall outside those limits, but in general I don't accept that.

 

[elmarko]

Yes but also some people look like the eat a lot, but actually eat very little in total. In the gym I get so many people go "I eat so much but I'm not gaining weight" then when you break down their daily diet it's actually not that calorific. Also eating a double your calorific allowance per day once in a while won't do you any harm and you won't suddenly get fat over night.

If you read through metabolism studies the normal distribution of metabolic activity is actually fairly standard and even, the people outside that normal distribution are the exception that make the rule.

However as activity decreases and exercise decreases, metabolic activity decreases and then it becomes that ever decreasing circle. Some people have higher testosterone levels too which also helps, and the midlife spread can also be attributed to lowered activity along with key hormonal decreases.

Of course there will always be those that fall outside those limits, but in general I don't accept that.

Of course you are correct - this one specifically it doesn't apply in general across the board, but once you start adding up all the different causes & biological/psychological differences between the population - it builds a wider picture.

As we said earlier, no singular cause will account for the entirety - it's an amalgamation of different aspects which gets us to where we are.

Some people may have reduced metabolisms, others FTO gene, a few distinct medical conditions, some may have a genetic predisposition to sugar addiction - others never learned temporal discounting (with many more other factors), add into the mix poor food content & lack of education on nutrition & you get a western obesity epidemic.

 

[memyselfandi]

Personally, I find people who hate fat people to fairly abhorrent.. I suppose it's not very PC any more to hate many of the groups that were hated in the past, and people have to find a reason to hate other people, right?

Quite. You see it any time there is a weight related thread on GD ... the small minded people come out who, in the past, would be be bullying or generally harassing other groups but now can safely comment on this subject as it's seen to be ok. Frankly in my view these type of threads really should just be deleted as they always descend into the same arguments and just make the forum community as a whole look bad.

On the threads topic ... in my view should we go out of our way to accommodate massively overweight people where it is just due to laziness (rather than a diagnosed medical condition ... diagnosed that is rather than just saying "oh I have a slow metabolism" with no medical backing) .... no. Should we look on any one who is over a skinny 8 stone as being a target for humour, humiliation and bullying .... no.

 

[plasmahal]

I don't agree that the NHS should fund the treatment of people who have quite simply eaten themselves into oblivion and as a result have all sorts of health problems.

I'm with the OP to some extent - I don't think we should change things just to accommodate people who are fat or who can't say no to food.

I have been working, paying taxes and NI since I was seventeen. I am now 44, never stopped working..........

Surely with all the money i paid to the state, I'm entitled to something back to assist with whatever health issues I have (avoidable or not)????

How many people pay nothing all their lives, get state handouts and still become a burden.

As for the OP.

You have underlying hate issues with overweight people which is just as bad as racism, discrimination etc. While being overweight should not be accepted as the norm, why hate people who are overweight and therefore make them hate themselves, lose more self esteem and their problems worse.

Some people just gotta hate................

 

[Trifid]

I'm at the age where my friends are having children, and almost all of them have little or no time to exercise now, and as a result have all gained weight. Most fat women you see on the street are pushing babies.

That is no excuse, children love exercise. If they are still in a push chair, push them into town instead of getting in the car, they will fall asleep on the journey and the pram will have plenty of space for shopping in it. You get a couple of miles of exercise walking.

Old enough to run around? Take them to the park with a football and have a little football match for an hour.

Old enough to cycle? go for a 5 mile cycle.

Children love swimming, join them in the pool instead of standing by the side.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Im with Ricky.

"Should one of us swap with one of them? Otherwise we'd go into Canada wouldn't we?"

Hahaha

 

[Freefaller]

Of course you are correct - this one specifically it doesn't apply in general across the board, but once you start adding up all the different causes & biological/psychological differences between the population - it builds a wider picture.

As we said earlier, no singular cause will account for the entirety - it's an amalgamation of different aspects which gets us to where we are.

Some people may have reduced metabolisms, others FTO gene, a few distinct medical conditions, some may have a genetic predisposition to sugar addiction - others never learned temporal discounting (with many more other factors), add into the mix poor food content & lack of education on nutrition & you get a western obesity epidemic.

We really must stop agreeing it's getting to be a worrying trend

All things considered though, if people took a little care, a bit of education, and some better support networks they'd all be in a better place.

Going back to the point in the OP though, I'd be a little reticent to start building double sized seats, promoting and almost accepting that people are "overweight" - rather than spend resources on doing that, spend the resources on educating, and helping people to get out of that mindset.

I remember being at school and "fatties" were the exception (I use the word "fatties" as that's what the kids used to say), having been to a couple of schools recently and seeing the kids out and about there does seem to be a lot more overweight children. The younger it starts the sooner it can then create permanent or longer term hormonal issues.

 

[Efour]

Send them back.

I wish the forum would suggest previous threads every time someone had an axe to grind on "fat people"

I reckon we would be on 1000+ pages by now?

Posting in monthly "I hat fat people cos it makes me feel better about my mundane existence and release my anger at being bullied as a child/place of work thread.

(delete as appropriate) [including post lol]

 

[One More Solo]

Going back to the point in the OP though, I'd be a little reticent to start building double sized seats, promoting and almost accepting that people are "overweight" - rather than spend resources on doing that, spend the resources on educating, and helping people to get out of that mindset.

This is it for me really, by accommodating fat people in the short term it has the effect of normalising the behaviour. The point where people get to requiring extra large seats and so on is where you should hit the panic button and do something about it rather than look for jumbo furniture. If you make allowances for it then where is the incentive to change?

 

[elmarko]

This is it for me really, by accommodating fat people in the short term it has the effect of normalising the behaviour. The point where people get to requiring extra large seats and so on is where you should hit the panic button and do something about it rather than look for jumbo furniture. If you make allowances for it then where is the incentive to change?

If a person is willing to endure public condemnation, the occasional insult, revulsion in many cases from the opposite sex, poor health & a significantly reduced life-span then denying them a seat or larger furniture isn't going to make that much of a difference.

These are pretty serious issues which require support, diet advice, encouragement to exercise - not shaming & using social exclusion. There are plenty of incentives to change without intentionally making life more difficult for them by making no allowances.

 

[Freefaller]

Which is why instead of spending money changing everything to suit the larger people, it's more important to use those funds to fix the root cause, not create work arounds.

 

[elmarko]

Which is why instead of spending money changing everything to suit the larger people, it's more important to use those funds to fix the root cause, not create work arounds.

If it was a case of picking between the two then I'd agree - but furniture companies & airlines are not in the business of helping people lose weight.

The minimal funds being spent on providing provisions for the severely overweight are justified to show the business in question is open to all kinds of people & willing to accommodate anybody (it's good PR).

From a government perspective then I'd agree, it should be spending money on promoting exercise in children, healthy eating, tougher regulation on food content, adding an element of teaching self-control as part of schooling in infants/nursery to increase temporal discounting skills etc) - the kind of provisions being suggested to be removed - reside within the private sector mostly anyway.

I don't believe we need to pick between supporting weight-loss/preventing people becoming obese & providing provisions for people who already are - we can do both simultaneously, without causing unnecessary human suffering or shaming/ostracising obese people (which is likely to exasperate the problem).

 

[hurfdurf]

To expect someone to just "eat less" is just as stupid as expecting someone anorexic to suddenly eat more.

Of course this is not acceptable, it is more often than not a combo of many serious psychological issues which require actual, real life treatment.
But please, cut out your self righteous idiocy because sometimes losing weight for you really IS easier than for someone else. Ugh.

Realize that "fat acceptance" may just be a natural coping mechanism in adults to gain or keep some dignity. No matter how wrong it is, please stop with the insults. No human being should act this way towards people with obvious psychological issues.

 

[Freefaller]

If it was a case of picking between the two then I'd agree - but furniture companies & airlines are not in the business of helping people lose weight.

The minimal funds being spent on providing provisions for the severely overweight are justified to show the business in question is open to all kinds of people & willing to accommodate anybody (it's good PR).

From a government perspective then I'd agree, it should be spending money on promoting exercise in children, healthy eating, tougher regulation on food content, adding an element of teaching self-control as part of schooling in infants/nursery to increase temporal discounting skills etc) - the kind of provisions being suggested to be removed - reside within the private sector mostly anyway.

I don't believe we need to pick between supporting weight-loss/preventing people becoming obese & providing provisions for people who already are - we can do both simultaneously, without causing unnecessary human suffering or shaming/ostracising obese people (which is likely to exasperate the problem).

From an altruistic point of you, you're entirely correct, but from a business POV whilst it's good to draw more customers through showing that you're catering for them, you will then potentially be wasting money on those new adaptations as people receive the help they need to return to a healthier size.

I think it's more important personally to target the mindset change and target people's health and well being more aggressively, than pandering to a legitimate condition (in some cases).

It's a little different to catering for those with disabilities or that are blind/deaf for example. There is something that can be done about weight loss, MS or paralysis, or sight/hearing is not easily reversible.

Do you get what I'm getting at?

 

[uv]

it is more often than not a combo of many serious psychological issues which require actual, real life treatment.

I assume you have a source for that, verifying that psychological issues are the most common cause of weight gain?

Everyone I know that has lost weight has done it via exercise and nutritional control, not therapy.

 

[Dis86]

I assume you have a source for that, verifying that psychological issues are the most common cause of weight gain?

Everyone I know that has lost weight has done it via exercise and nutritional control, not therapy.

I tried to get at that a few pages ago but no, the majority of people that are fat are ill either mentally or physically.

Does make me wonder though why they're not all taken in to medical care since they're causing such levels of self harm...

 

[Frightful Boar]

I assume you have a source for that, verifying that psychological issues are the most common cause of weight gain?

Everyone I know that has lost weight has done it via exercise and nutritional control, not therapy.

I'd love to see that!

I'm always hearing fat people say that they hardly eat anything, but it's not true and most of them drink like it's going out of fashion.

Funnily enough, every single person I know as well that's lost weight has done it through eating less food.

 

[PermaChanged]

Everyone I know that has lost weight has done it via exercise and nutritional control, not therapy.

Have you considered what effect the exercise may have on a persons mental state?

 

[Uther]

Of course, some people are fat due to medical conditions.Looks like I will be going onto some major steroid treatment, a side effect of which is you can get fat.Not really looking forward to it, and will be even more upset that ignorant ***** will just assume I'm a fat ******* that eats too much.

 

[Turambar]

Does make me wonder though why they're not all taken in to medical care since they're causing such levels of self harm...

Maybe their problems are dimissed by people unwilling to look past the fat.