"I may be fat, but I beat my eating disorder"

[Regina]

Unless you have a thyroid problem (which 1/3 of The USA does not have) or a slow metabolism, you have no excuse. Even if you do have a thyroid problem, that would only make you somewhat overweight, not morbidly obese on its own.

Really? So if it's not either of those two reasons, it must be their fault? Is depression their fault? What if it was depression that indirectly led to weight problems? Or anxiety? Or stress? What if it was a learned childhood habit that they just can't control without intervention?

You think it's really that easy to control weight?

If people really could control their weight so easily, then you wouldn't have so many people who are still overweight!

Well depression or mental illness is a bum argument because loads, probably most, people who have those issues aren't fat. The proportion of mental health sufferers who are fat is probably the same (or if more, not much more) as the overall proportion of fat people in the whole society. People who gain weight because of a stressful event are typically people who put on a relatively small amount of weight and then lose it naturally later on. And again it bears repeating the statistic, I don't believe America's 1/3 who are fat all have severe mental health issues.

You do not go from average weight, to 250+lbs, overnight or by accident. You get there by years and years of consistent lifestyle habits. I can accept it's not a choice up until that point where you start to notice "shit I'm putting on weight". If at that point you do not address it and make changes to your lifestyle, you have chosen to be obese. And like I said earlier, I actually don't have a problem with that in itself, but don't make excuses for it and don't pretend obesity is a normal, natural range of weight.

As for the learned childhood habit, that is exactly why I'm against people promoting morbid obesity as something "healthy" or "normal" in the first place. If a child grows up in an environment where it's normal to be morbidly obese, that's when they're going to end up with those habits themselves.