why society looks down upon obese people ?

Today i went to mall, a obese guy came shopping , was sweating for summer afternoon . A good looking young couple was sniggering at the poor guy.

Obese people are good natured , jolly people from my personal experience. Its not good judging someone by ones physical features... imo.

Some people really have no soul nor sympathy towards others .

Agree with me OT ?

How long have you been with us? Welcome to the human nature.

@indzman: Not to justify what the "good looking couple" did or anything, but you've NEVER poked fun at anyone for the way they look?

Like the other poster said. It's human nature. We've all been on both sides of that coin at some point in our lives.

For the reason that people look down on ugly people or people who are of a different race than them.

People have always been superficial. It's probably human nature (it's in our DNA) just like racism is human nature.

Because fat people have repulsive bodies.

It's an easy punching bag, and..

it's honestly detrimental to society with higher health care costs for everybody, lower worker output, higher food costs,Wisconsin, ect.

Isn't it more accepted to make fun or do something against a person based in their weight than say race or sexual origination?

@Brain_Duster: if u said that about a gay person you'd be evil. A fat person ok that's fine?

Inferred weakness of will

/thread

NEVER. Reason being my own sister is physically disabled due to accident. I find it repulsive when people make fun of others ( ugly , physically disabled , obese ).

Stop being an idiot.

@Brain_Duster: I don't understand? I think its legitament question. Sure it's unhealthy to be overweight but whether they choose to eat bad, to much, or maybe have a health problem, slower metabolism, mental problem. Sometimes it's an addiction people feel sorry for someone with drug problem don't they?

Unlike most other things make fun of you for, obesity is usually something that can be changed. While I won't condone flat out bullying, when somebody is overweight and don't have a medical reason for being overweight they are setting themselves up to be bullied.

Then you have the "fat acceptance" movement going on which in my opinion is going to cause some people to have unnecessary health problems from refusing to try and lose weight. The thing about people being overweight versus smokers is insurance companies can get away with charging smokers higher rates but charging overweight people higher rates can be considered discrimination.

People are assholes.

Because they're fat.

Obesity truly freaks me out, and (not all cases) unlike some afflictions is not a disease or disability. 95% of it is self inflicted.

That being said that couple was a couple of assholes and that was uncalled for. And prejudice you may have, legitimate or not is never reason to poke fun at others.

Obese are either lazy or have no self control over what they eat. They deserve ridicule. Apart from genuine medical cases which is fine, it happens.

Well then, consider this a first for me. You're the first person I've ever met who has never poked fun at someone at some point in their whole lives for the way that they looked.

@indzman: you must have been living under a rock your whole life. People are cruel and judgmental.

Saying that obese people should just stop being obese is like telling a poor person that he should just become rich. Of course it can be done, but that kind of LONG TERM change is ridiculously hard to do. Dismissing and trivializing the difficulties of long term weight loss actually contributes to obesity. When many obese people do decide to try to lose weight, they're going in with unrealistic expectations because they've been told how easy it is. Then when they fail to see results, it's a hit to their self esteem, they think of themselves as failures, and they go right on being obese.

I poke fun always , but not regarding ones disability or by how one looks as to hurt someone.I find it cruel, sorry :)

@indzman:

That's what I was getting at. Whether it be at someone's looks, personality, intelligence level, etc...we've all poked fun at someone at some point in our lives. I don't think one is any better than the other.

lol. a jolly fat people sterotype.

with friends like you who needs enemas.

HaHa yeah. Back at me also =P

Posts like yours are what contribute to the problem. Instead of proposing solutions, you are making excuses for them. You pretty much told any obese person without a legitimate health problem that prevents them from losing weight that if they are fat they should just deal with it and they should make no effort to change. They listen to your advice and decide to just keep doing what they are doing.

Apparently there isn't anything wrong with shaming cigarette smokers into quitting but try to shame somebody who is obese into exercising and/or going on a diet and you need to shut your mouth or you are some fat-shaming bigot who is no better than a racist. Fact of the matter is most reasonable people don't expect somebody who is obese to become slim in a month. Some people take years to lose weight but they have to start somewhere.

Some people just need motivation to lose weight. This woman lost 110 pounds because she wanted to join the Army and they wouldn't take her at her previous weight. It took her 15 months but she made it happen. Many others have done the same. Give somebody a realistic goal and they can achieve it. Comparing weight loss to going from poverty to riches isn't a legitimate comparison.

For one, no one is suppose to fat.

I would guess they look down on them because most are fat because they are lazy people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle. And because they drag us all down with their health issues.

Because "society" is inherently selfish and non-compassionate.

I was thinking me meant opposed. Hell I have no clue wtf he tried to say there.

Being obese or fat is unattractive and it's an easy thing to poke fun at. And it should be because it isn't beneficial for human evolution...I think.

Because, for every single obese person out there who honestly has medical issues which not only prevent them from losing weight, but also caused their obesity in the first place, there's about ten thousand obese people who are obese because they're lazy, disgusting and irresponsible. So, whenever you see an obese person, there's an extremely strong chance that they fit that description. And such people should be looked down upon.

Humanity has changed as culture has grown. Before groups of people began developed agricultural techniques, they mostly followed the migration patterns of prey for sustenance. During that time, an obese woman was considered the ideal partner for men. The carvings of what is known as the Paleolithic era confirm that. After that, petite women had what was considered the ideal body type because of a diet with large servings of wheat and small amounts of meat. Carvings again confirm that ideal. Today, people have access to a variety of healthy foods and a myriad of exercise programs. Plus, beauty and athleticism being focused on in all aspects of modern culture has developed a higher standard of healthiness. Actors, models, and sports stars all are focused on every day including sumo wrestlers who are admired for their strength. Genetics and disease make obesity a real epidemic in first world countries, but the fact that choice is a factor at all in any individual has encouraged the degradation of the obese.

I would agree that it's completely wrong if the question was "why does society look down upon anyone who isn't very thin and fit", because I think the obsession with being skinny is a bit too much, but unless you have some ridiculous medical disorder that makes you gain weight regardless of what you eat (Alexis Shapiro, for example), being one of those 400-pound scooter-riding Jabba-the-Hutt lookalikes is something you generally do to yourself.

Like I'm sorry but if you eat enough to feed an entire family 2 separate meals in one sitting, nobody but you is to blame for that. And that is how most people end up like that.

To answer the question though, obese people are looked down upon because they are perceived to be any of: selfish, impulsive, no self-control, greedy, gluttonous, etc etc etc. and none of those are great qualities.

And statistically, nearly every such case of huge weight loss results in the person gaining it right back. I'm not talking about diets, I'm talking about LONG TERM weight loss. And when it comes to long term weight loss, a REALISTIC best case scenario is something like 10% of your weight. As in if you're 250 pounds and you try really hard, you can probably keep your weight down to 225.

And that's the fucking problem. Obese people succesfully get down to a REALISTIC weight, but give up because people like you are telling them that they've failed for not ending up slim. They're not fucking gonna end up skinny, at least not for the long term. Aside from statistical outliers, that doesn't happen. It's like telling a kid that in order to be successful he has to become the goddamn president of the USA, and then being surprised when he ends up broken because he failed to live up to a standard which is practically impossible to live up to.

If an obese person is clearly not trying to change their ways by eating a lot of junk food then i have no sympathy for them. We are all educated on the negatives of being obese and you CLEARLY ignore that and continue eating badly then don't cry when people ridicule you.

If I see an obese person at my gym trying to change their ways, It puts a smile on my face because they are DOING something about it,

It's easy to talk but harder to take action.

Well they shouldn't let themselves get that fat to begin with.

Once I gone past 25 in age I noticed my metabolism taking a dive and I couldn't eat whatever I wanted.

I used to eat a lot of fattening food and went from 165 to 215 pounds.

I started to notice my pants wouldn't fit and stretch marks appearing on the skin around my waist.

I decided that I had to stop eating so much and to change what I eat.

I slowly lowered my portions of food and stopped having too many late night snacks until eventually it felt normal to eat half portions.

In order to get myself to stop craving food I found stuff to devote my mind to in order to take away attention from food.

Whenever there was a chance to switch from a car to a bike I would take a bike ride for transportation or I would just walk.

I eventually got down to 174 pounds which is ok for someone like me who is 6'2 1/2.

I never even exercised beyond the walks or bike rides.

Just eat less and eat healthier while being physically active throughout the week and the pounds should come off unless you have a serious health issue.

And also, we really need to get rid of the notion that people are obese because they're lazy. Oh, sure, some of them are lazy. But some skinny people are lazy too. The fact is that some PEOPLE are lazy and it really has nothing to do with your weight.

Think of it like this: I am a little bit overweight, but I have never been close to being morbidly obese. Do you know how much effort I have to put into not being morbidly obese? Practically none. When I eat whatever I want and don't get any exercise, my weight tops about at about 155 pounds. This will probably change as I get older, but I am CURRENTLY able to maintain approximately that weight without even trying. So how bullshit is it of me to accuse a 300 pound person of being lazy? I don't know his life history. For all I know, he might have worked his fat fucking ass off to get to 300 down from 350. He's still fatter than I'm ever likely to be, but he also very well may have put WAY more effort into losing weight than I'm ever gonna do. For him, getting down to my weight might be like scaling Mt Everest with no shoes, while I maintain that weight without even fucking trying. How the **** can I accuse him of being lazy when I've never been as fat as him. It's not as if I've been in his shoes, and then went down to 155 pounds, and then managed to effortlessly cut my weight in half and then maintain that lower weight for the rest of my fucking life. There are fat people out there who would LOVE to get down to my weight. And they're busting their balls trying to do so, expending way more effort than I've ever expended, and it's a slap in the fucking face for me to walk up to them and tell them that they're just lazy when I've never had to work that hard to reach my weight.

Well a lot of it comes down to food consumption and physical activity.

Sure some people have a better metabolism but there should be a point where someone knows they are getting too big.

I knew that point was when I had trouble fitting into my pants and stretch marks appearing on my skin.

I could of ended up going past 215 pounds and instead weigh 300 pounds but I decided to stop before that happened.

Seriously I would eat a whole bowl of chili mac in one sitting which was a 16 oz can of chili mixed with a box of mac.

And I did that regularly until I noticed the massive amount of weight I was gaining.

Just a heads up...being obese doesn't grant the power to travel back in time and correct past mistakes, it just means that you're obese.

Walking up to a crackhead and saying "gee, looks like you shouldn't have started using crack" isn't helpful, that's just being an asshole. If they don't like what their life is like, and you want to help them change, then give them USEFUL advice on what they can do NOW. Don't berate them for shit that they did years ago. Maybe they shouldn't have let themselves get that fat to begin with, but that information sure as shit isn't of any use to them NOW, seeing as how they can't travel back in time and do things over.

One thing I keep hearing from the fat shaming argument is that fat shaming promotes fat people to change. That flies right out the window when the people doing the fat shaming invoke arguments such as "well, you shouldn't have gotten fat to begin with." That does nothing to solve the problem of CURRENTLY BEING FAT. And if the insulting advice that you give has literally no use to the person who you're giving the advice to, then that's the time to do away with all pretense of trying to be helpful. Some people look down on obese people not out of a genuine desire to provoke change, but instead because it's fun to make fatties feel bad.

Well people have to live with the consequences caused by their actions.

I am not going to just call them names if they are working hard towards losing weight but I am not going to act like I am in the wrong for bringing up their problems just because they have to work harder to achieve the same goals I had.

The longer you let a problem stay unattended the larger it will grow and the harder it is to overcome it.

If someone chooses to screw up their lives so badly that it kills them then so be it.

If someone dies from a drug overdose then they should of known better.

It would of been so easy for me to continue to eat large portions of fatty foods and continue to use the least amount of physical exertion possible but I chose not to because I was ashamed of myself and I was rewarded with an easier time to overcome my issues.

Humility is something every human should be taught at a young age.

If someone was trying hard to lose weight but was still obese I would congratulate them on losing weight. But I would also mention that they are still obese and they have to keep trying and always keep at it.

Once you lose weight you have to keep up the same habits that led to that weight loss.

Being obese changes your fucking brain. For starters there is metabolism, and obese people often have to work a lot freaking harder to lose the same amount as someone who is slimmer.This means that for obese people, equivalent work often results in LESS weight loss than the equivalent work from someone who isn't obese.

But never mind that, I was talking about cravings. It isn't just as easy as not eating so much. That's like telling a crackhead that his problems would be solved if he just stopped using crack. The fact is that LONG TERM weight loss is like a sudden and drastic lifestyle change that you have to keep up for the rest of your goddamn life. Your cravings are stronger, the consequences of slipping up are more grave. And no lapses, ever. This is why alcoholics often have to abandon their dearest friends. Because they're with their non-alcoholic friends, those guys decide to drink. It's okay for them because they aren't alcoholics. But YOU, the alcoholic, has to sit there watching them drink while exercising the willpower to not do it yourself. Even if your friends aren't big enough assholes to say to you, "come on, it's just one drink, it won't hurt", that's still a situation that feels like an ultimate test of strength.

Now imagine that we aren't talking about crack or booze, but instead we're talking about mundane shit like hamburgers or pizza. See the problem? It's relatively easy to avoid crack-smoking sessions. It's far harder to avoid situations in which slim people eat junk food as part of a social ritual. The bottom line is that these people have to exercise constant discipline all the fucking time, often for the rest of their fucking lives.

But hey...it's easy to not eat junk food, right? Well, try going a mere three days without eating. Notice what that's doing to your thoughts, now imagine that you had to live with that feeling every fucking day for the rest of your life. Hell, how long do you think you could go without sex before you hired a prostitute? How long do you think you could go without masturbating before you finally gave in?

Well they have to live with the consequences of waiting longer to address their problems.

It's not like it's rocket science that eating more than 3 people in portions of fattening foods is bad for you.

I've went without eating for a couple days when I had no money.

I know what it is like to constantly crave something to eat or drink.

But the thing is when losing weight it's not like you suddenly have to cut your portions by half.

You do it slowly over time so the change is gradual.

I remember trying to get off of energy drinks the wrong way.

I used to drink multiple cans of Monster energy drinks a day and decided I had to immediately quit.

I learned that it was wrong to completely stop drinking them immediately because my body was worse off.

I threw up a lot and had the shakes with cold sweats.

It was not until I slowly lowered the portions I drank that I was able to stop drinking energy drinks without getting very sick.

And the same goes for food.

Just eat a little less everyday and eventually you will notice that you don't need to eat as much to feel satisfied.

Same goes for exercising.

Do a little more physical exertion each day and eventually you will see that walking 3 miles is as easy as walking 100 meters.

This concept is used in so many cases that it should be well known.

You just need to have the discipline and if you don't have it then you won't improve.

Also bringing up what it feels like to go without sex is not really a problem.

I've gone without sex or any sort of sexual pleasure for more than a month at times.

I never really thought about it too much because I was too busy and when I had free time I was more concerned with other things or just too tired.

It was also easier to eat less if my thoughts were preoccupied on something else.

I wanna poke MOOBS with a stick and see if goo comes out....