Is Fat acceptance like screwing for chastity?

[kirmy]

There is a new movement. Crack addicts are lobbying the government for access to rock cocaine and wish it to be recognised as a disability. They want all government buildings to have smoking areas installed and hospitals to have special crack smoking areas assigned with disposable sterile pipes. They want to be able to hold down jobs and not have people make shitty snidey comments about their appearance. They want laws to protect them from discrimination. Why? Because they are sick but able to function in society with the right set of supports in place i.e.. regular access to crack, support groups, social workers, employment agencies, housing services, child care. It is discrimination to judge them less because they are unacceptable socially.

Cat, pigeons...go!

Ok I'm fucking with you. I'm talking about SMO folks like me (once upon a time). Did you see what I did there? Not all crack addicts can't function in society, same way not all alcoholics or heroin addicts can function. This also applies to the SMO. Some are terribly sick and disabled. This cost and care burden is evident as too is the effect on the individual. Some aren't. Some are just big but ok. So how then are we as a society helping them by normalising their condition and accepting it as a part of how things are?

By not medicalising the problem i.e. noting it is a complex addiction, biomedical, bio-mechanical issue with far reaching consequences then are we in fact turning our back on a vicious and powerful addiction? If you believe the hype 40% of the population will be MO in the next 50 years and that means they will be dropping like flies. Recidivism is 98% according to statistics generated by the all powerful dieting industry. Are we right to seek a normalisation of obesity in light of this? Is it any more right then a crack addict seeking normalisation of their issues by society?

I posted a contentious video yesterday of an obese man in A&E and the effect of childhood conditioning on his health. The responses were interesting. Many of this fab community were hurt and offended by the implications of this video. They felt pointing out the obesity as a problem would only facilitate the shitty haters to make fun of individuals. Granted we have all lived this to some degree. So my question is are we putting out hurt feelings before common sense?

After all...we are dying at a far far greater rate then Ebola, Malaria, Tetanus, tuberculosis. The WHO should be calling a state of emergency. But how do you help us? It is offensive right?

 

[JackieOnLine]

you are really making us think, that's a good thing. but see the smoke coming out of my ears? I'd just like to add this shit

40% of the population will be MO in the next 50 years and that means they will be dropping like flies. Recidivism is 98% according to statistics

is taking place in the US in a healthcare "system" that is at least partly broken, with all that implies.

 

[kirmy]

I'm trying to make smoke come out of your ears. Anger should be your first impulse. I'm precociously kicking the hornets nest.

If the Tories get their way the UK will have privatised by then and we'll all be so hopelessly screwed. The big scaries coming in the next 50 years are:

Obesity
Smoking related illness
Antibiotic resistant bacteria
Virus infection

Show me a country that can handle to cost burden of these if they do nothing?

 

[JackieOnLine]

If the Tories get their way the UK will have privatised by then

because it's worked so well here?

seriously, WTF?

 

[kirmy]

What do you expect? Rupert Murdoch got them in.

We are doomed.

 

[Larra]

I think there is a big difference between social acceptance of fat and medical acceptance of fat.

Social - we're not criminals, at least not most of us. Unlike drunks and drug abusers, we don't kill people while "fat driving". We don't abandon our children and rob our families blind to support our addiction. But we do have a very visible problem for which we get stared at, picked on/bullied as children, insulted, job discrimination, and more. that ain't right.

Medical - in no way to I think the medical community should accept obesity as the new normal. The damage that obesity (nevermind morbid obesitiy even) causes is well documented. I won't go through the list here as most of us are all too well aware of the comorbidities, the cancer risks, the disabilities, the mental health aspects. Obesity causes not just shorter life but diminished quality of life. And that's all aside from the financial aspects. The medical community should be doing everything possible to address this problem. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult, multifactorial problem.

I don't have the solutions, but I do feel strongly that discrimination is wrong, whether it's fat people or people of color or whatever the case.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

I think there is a big difference between social acceptance of fat and medical acceptance of fat.

Social - we're not criminals, at least not most of us. Unlike drunks and drug abusers, we don't kill people while "fat driving". We don't abandon our children and rob our families blind to support our addiction. But we do have a very visible problem for which we get stared at, picked on/bullied as children, insulted, job discrimination, and more. that ain't right.

Medical - in no way to I think the medical community should accept obesity as the new normal. The damage that obesity (nevermind morbid obesitiy even) causes is well documented. I won't go through the list here as most of us are all too well aware of the comorbidities, the cancer risks, the disabilities, the mental health aspects. Obesity causes not just shorter life but diminished quality of life. And that's all aside from the financial aspects. The medical community should be doing everything possible to address this problem. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult, multifactorial problem.

I don't have the solutions, but I do feel strongly that discrimination is wrong, whether it's fat people or people of color or whatever the case.

Not all of us who got into the SMO and SSMO category as adults were fat kids. Some of us were skinny kids who TEASED the fat kids. And one day, an MO or SMO person on a plane who PRETENDS to be buckled into a seat belt is going to go airborne and kill someone. As sure as my name is "Sue Whatshername!"

 

[kirmy]

I agree utterly Larra about discrimination. So how do you open a conversation about obesity on a National level without causing offence? It is a campaign that says..."you're not ok and you need to change"!

 

[Elizabeth N.]

how about a campaign that says you are loved and important and you are DYING. The"not ok" message is too nebulous.

 

[DianaCox]

Or, you have a disease which is worthy of treatment, should you decide you need help.

 

[Spiky Bugger]

How about, "This is about US. We are, as a nation, putting on enough weight that x% of us are endangering our health...and even the health of our children. The goal is NOT to find an overweight person to point at and to tell to lose weight, the goal is for us, as a nation, to work on eliminating what is a threat to a huge segment of our population." Kinda like that?

 

[hilary1617]

The efficacy of national health dialogues has been tested before. Perhaps lessons can be drawn from the various vaccination, seat belts / safety helmets, and anti-smoking campaigns? What approaches have had most success?

I'm in favor of starting with high impact programs for the masses that are already paid for using our tax dollars. For example, I would advocate mandatory healthiness of school lunches and Physical Education classes for every school child every day. Our town gave up Second Language instruction in elementary school so that the kids could have PE daily, a choice I wholeheartedly supported. However, kids in other school districts may only have PE a couple of times a week. Also, despite increased regulation in recent years, we still have horribly unhealthy food choices for their school lunch. We take the time and expense to prepare and pack brownbag lunches for our children feel left out when the majority of other children at their school are served pizza and a cookie every Friday, which to me is not what should be happening.

 

[Munchkin]

Or, you have a disease which is worthy of treatment, should you decide you need help.

Right on.... But here's the big BUTT. So many of the O, MO, and SMO are so disenchanted with the quality of treatment they have received that they will not go to the doc even when they are very ill. Why? All the diets that don't work. All the smarmy comments like push yourself away from the table. There isn't a SMO among us who hasn't heard a thousand times just eat less and move more. Calories in VS energy expended. And every single thing wrong with them is attributed to their weight. Your leg was broken in an auto accident...must be related to your obesity. After someone tries to lose weight a few times and fails, they usually give up. And the heavier you are the harder it is to lose. And the more times you diet, the harder it is to lose and it's even harder to keep it off.

 

[ShiftedSanity]

Well how humiliated do you think I felt when my employer told me I had to loose weight or I would be terminated. That if I did not sign a paper saying I would keep my weight below 350 and forced to weigh in at nurses station weekly... I would be fired. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WAS NO OTHER PEOPlE OF SIZE WERE HELD TO SAME STANDARD...... This has been a huge problem affected my marriage, my mind, and took me to a place of self hate and loathing becuause I could not stablize my weight. Having no where to turn as HR was the leading force behind this movement and no insurance to help me fight my disease .... I have lived in a world of hate that is and has been an acceptable American prejudice. .... I wish I was the crack head...
shifty out (raged)

 

[kirmy]

I was sent to occupational health nurse. So SHifty what worked because you're here?