What are your thoughts on fat acceptance?

[Shell B]

I gained about 30 pounds on Citalopram. I came off it and lost the weight only to have to go back on and gain it again. I'll take the weight over the alternative. I'm by no means fat, though, so I'm lucky. I'm as overweight as I've ever been, so I'm not exactly thrilled, either.

[Jesster]

I think it's terrible to fat-shame people or to encourage the supermodel and extreme dieting as the norm. People should be able to feel comfortable in their own bodies no matter what because it is their body and not yours. It's not hurting you, so get over it.

However, this kind of generosity should not get in the way of talking about health concerns. Obesity obviously causes problems, and at some point there should be a public awareness of this. Just don't be an asshat about it.

[Chad32]

Topic started eight hours ago, and it already has seven pages. Wow.

Hollywood does seem to have biased people in what is an acceptable amount of fat. Hollywood pudgy is a term used for someone they would consider fat, but most people would consider normal.

Obviously it's not bad to have some meat on your bones, without getting unhealthy. Hell it's unhealthy to be underweight too. Eat right most of the time, and get a reasonable amount of exercise, and whatever body results from that should be just fine.

[drfuzzy]

I'm currently obese.  In an earlier life, I spent 27 years in a karate school, most of that time as an instructor.
I'm well-educated, I know what foods/behaviors are healthy and which are not.  I'm very aware now that I need to lose weight.  Everything hurts.  

Without whining, let me just state that people have multiple reasons/causes for their becoming obese, as has been shown in this thread.  I'm pretty typical:
depression and illness mostly, yada yada yada.  Life did not go according to plan.  Bring on the Netflix and pizza and beer.

But we might also consider that even with Hair Gropenfuhrer as President, it's still not cool to be overtly sexist or racist.  But apparently it's ok to make fun
of someone who is overweight.  A person is a stupid and lazy pig just because they have a too much adipose tissue on their body.  A lot of people need someone to hate.

[Aroura]

No she said that junk food should be taxed like cigarettes and she even said eating junk food in pubs should be banned like cigarettes are. Completely false comparison because junk food doesn't harm other people around them who don't eat it. The only way she could make that comparison was if anyone who ate junk food around people shoved parts of it down the mouths of other people around them... and even doing that would be less harmful than shoving smoke down people's lungs. Unhealthy food is still at least a food. Not just a fucking addictive poison that harms other people around them who don't want to even consume that fucking addictive poison.

I stand by almost everything I said (except the tax rates, which was a little extreme, I typed it while pissed off), junk food should be taxed like cigarettes. Fat people are still a drain on the NHS, at least smokers pay their fair share towards the health system. Maybe age restrictions should be placed on unhealthy food as well to cut down on child obesity.

Are you saying overweight people don't pay their fair share toward the health system?
I mean, lung cancer and COPD are not cheaper than diabetes and heart disease. Or did you mean that fat people are lazy and don't work?

Personally, I think we should encourage people to love themselves while always striving to improve. Saying, I'm fat, and giving up and not trying to change is not mentally or physically healthy. We can accept the person whole encouraging better health all at once, it does not have to be all one way or the other.

Then again, when people use words like fatties and streetlights them as lazy drains on society, you are wrecking self extreme so people are more likely to say, fuck you and fuck it all, Imma go eat a shole cheesecake and cry. You are not helping the problem, anymore than someone who uses words like libtard or republicunt.

Ps, why go through the trouble of changing on the outside if you stay the same on the inside? People will eventually notice the same old persona underneath.

[chimp3]

Being fat is unacceptable. That is .. my being fat is unacceptable. I am the heaviest in my life. I do not like it .

[Chad32]

I have been overweight in my life. I was 210+ lbs, and had a 40" waist. Now I'm 190 lbs and have a 36" waist. Diet and exercise, people. That's all you need. I'm 5'9", for height reference, so may still be overweight, but I feel much better than I used to.

[Aroura]

How body acceptance had gone too far:
Average clothing size in America in 1995, size 14.
Average clothing size today, size 16.

I wish we could tax junk food, however there are a few reasons why that wont happen. Though there is a small junk food tax in some locations.
1. The food industry is a bigger lobby than tobacco.

2. Junk food is literally made from junk, that is why it is so cheap. For instance, all the veggies that aren't pretty enough to sell at a market get processed into veggie chips at a very low cost, but better than tossing them in the dump for the farmer. Then those veggie chips are marketed as a healthy snack, even though the are empty calories with most of the natural vitamins processed out, added salt and fat, preservatives, etc.

3. People like easy and tasty. I had a friend post a pic on facebook saying something like, this is why people don't eat healthier! It was a pic of a pre cut up, pre packaged fruit. It was quite expensive. I mentioned that if you just buy the whole fruit, it is many times cheaper. She said it was too time consuming to do that prep work. People often have 2 jobs, or both parents will have jobs with 3 kids in the house. Everything focuses on cheap and easy. It takes work to accustom a child to asparagus instead of french fries, work that takes time that a lot of people dont feel they have.

Personally, as someone who was dirt poor in the past, enough that we lived in HUD housing and had food stamps at one point, though no longer, I would chose being poor with one working parent, while the other stays home and has time to clip coupons, buy fresh and healthy foods, and prepare them in healthy but creative ways, etc, over having extra luxuries and a shitty diet. It's less stress, even for the one working person. But I'm not in others shoes and dont honestly know if that is an option for most people. I am probably just very lucky that it was an option for me.

[Edwardo Piet]

I gained about 30 pounds on Citalopram. I came off it and lost the weight only to have to go back on and gain it again. I'll take the weight over the alternative. I'm by no means fat, though, so I'm lucky. I'm as overweight as I've ever been, so I'm not exactly thrilled, either.

I'm very familiar with Citalopram.

My doctor says I can start taking it again whenever I want, and wean myself off it whenever i want. It's an optional thing.

I only take it when I'm starting to become particularly depressed or I'm starting to have particularly bad anxiety (or both).

Because whilst it does wonders for my mood... some of the side effects are so nasty that it's certainly not worth it unless my mood is especially bad.

I haven't had the weight gain side effect... but after the first few weeks kick in it makes me hyper (yes even by my standards) and I struggle to sleep at night at all.... and it certainly causes a lot of dysfunction for me in another area too.

I was initially prescribed it for O.C.D. symptoms and that's the symptoms it treats best of all for me. It stops my obsessive repeittive intrustive thoughts going out of control. Literally the only reason I haven't been diagnosed with O.C.D. is because my psychiatrist said that he prefers to focus on treatment than diagnosis. He tells me he can never be certain what diagnosis someone has but he can be certain of particular symptoms whatever the causes and he can treat those symptoms. And he doesn't like to label people or put them into boxes, etc, etc.

Personally I think that understanding the causes and the diagnosis of someone helps give them the proper treatment.

I'm not currently taking it but when I do take medication it's the only medication I take nowadays.

So yeah, anyways, sorry for the digression. I'm sorry you haven't had much luck with Citalopram. It's hit and miss for me. My thoughts have to get really really bad or my depression has to really sink before I take it.

I didn't know that it could also cause weight gain.

It seems to be one of those medications that works well for a lot of different symptoms but also has a lot of different nasty side effects. Like... my psychiatrist said that it can treat both my depression and my anxiety.... but it also causes me at least two other very noticeable side effects.

[vorlon13]

I have somewhat of a generalized aversion to skinny guys. Stems from the AIDS era and my seeing too many of my friends reduced to skin and bones in their final days.


So, not everyone associates low BMIs with attractiveness.


And having said that, if someone is otherwise interesting (masculine attitude, somewhat older than me, not insane, etc) I don't rule out skinny guys out of hand.


Noticed something recently that was odd. I have a fascination with an old TV show, have been DVRing it and watching it several times a week, and was wondering what was so compelling about the show, and one actor in particular. Finally hit me he resembles Brian. And now for the weird part, at 12 Steppers and/or RL too, I definitely avoid guys that remind me in almost any way of Brian. On TV, somehow it's different . . .