RE: "I may be fat, but I beat my eating disorder"
February 13, 2016 at 4:03 pm
(This post was last modified: February 13, 2016 at 4:05 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
I would never judge someone for having an above average BMI unless I was actually their doctor and qualified to judge.
And I still wouldn't judge the person in any judgemental sort of way if they were patently severely overweight... but when someone is severely morbidly obese to the point where it has an obvious negative impact on their health, I'd be dishonest if I didn't say I'd think that I don't have to be a doctor to tell that that is harming their health. But that doesn't mean I'm going to try and encourage them to lose their weight. It's none of my business and not effective to tell them "lose some weight", or "eat more healthily and exercise more".
I do think concern for health in those cases at least does hold water though. I do have compassion for the health of even strangers, and there is a degree of overweightness that becomes so severe that it is patently damaging to their health. But as I said, I certainly wouldn't consider an above average BMI in and of itself to be harmful to health. It would have to be severe enough to be undeniably obvious. And it's very true that a thin person who eats fast food as a habit or has a shitty diet may have as bad health even as someone who is very clearly obese to an unhealthy degree if they eat enough shit... it's merely that a severely obese person is more noticeably unhealthy than a thin person who eats shitty fast food all the time.
And I still wouldn't judge the person in any judgemental sort of way if they were patently severely overweight... but when someone is severely morbidly obese to the point where it has an obvious negative impact on their health, I'd be dishonest if I didn't say I'd think that I don't have to be a doctor to tell that that is harming their health. But that doesn't mean I'm going to try and encourage them to lose their weight. It's none of my business and not effective to tell them "lose some weight", or "eat more healthily and exercise more".
I do think concern for health in those cases at least does hold water though. I do have compassion for the health of even strangers, and there is a degree of overweightness that becomes so severe that it is patently damaging to their health. But as I said, I certainly wouldn't consider an above average BMI in and of itself to be harmful to health. It would have to be severe enough to be undeniably obvious. And it's very true that a thin person who eats fast food as a habit or has a shitty diet may have as bad health even as someone who is very clearly obese to an unhealthy degree if they eat enough shit... it's merely that a severely obese person is more noticeably unhealthy than a thin person who eats shitty fast food all the time.
