Why aren't we allowed slag fat people?

Precious flower

For some people is not as easy to just eat less and exercise more, they may have health problems that may hinder weight loss and no matter how much they try it is extremely hard to loose the weight, for instance is you had an under active thyroid, can cause weight gain that is hard to shed.

For some people they may have weight issues because they were raised in a household where their parents dished up unhealthy and fattening meals, and once they got a taste of that they found it very hard to adjust to healthier food, as there is always that craving for sweet, fatty or salty food. It is also said that children who become obese in childhood, find it next to impossible to completely shed all that weight, they might try everything, and there are people who have loss a significant amount of weight but its a very hard road. Sometimes they may need help in losing that weight, so they resort to surgery, they may be taking a risk but may have no other option.

There are also people who are emotional eaters, this may stem back years and may be caused by a traumatic event in their lives, they may have lost a loved one, they may have been abused as a child anything could have happened in their past to make them turn to food. For instance OP, you are a smoker, you may have started smoking because all your friends were doing it or maybe for a deeper emotional reason, you may have found it helped when you were stressed or worried. Or maybe your parents smoked and like the child who grew up in the home where large quantities of unhealthy food was dished up day after day you knew no better and and just accepted it.

So before you feel you have a right to rant at an obese person, because you feel its justified, take a minute to think, what might have caused that person to go down that path, because no one just makes a conscious decision to become overweight.

leggo

Precious flower wrote: »

For instance OP, you are a smoker, you may have started smoking because all your friends were doing it or maybe for a deeper emotional reason, you may have found it helped when you were stressed or worried. Or maybe your parents smoked and like the child who grew up in the home where large quantities of unhealthy food was dished up day after day you knew no better and and just accepted it.

So before you feel you have a right to rant at an obese person, because you feel its justified, take a minute to think, what might have caused that person to go down that path, because no one just makes a conscious decision to become overweight.

I'm with you for the most part. But you also play into my main argument with your examples of why I started smoking.

In spite of all those potential reasons, society deems it acceptable to ridicule my decision to smoke. And, as I've said, I agree with that. So why should we be so sympathetic with over-eaters' sob stories in that case? Most smoking addicts don't wish to be addicted. They don't enjoy spending x amount each week to feed the habit either.

What you're demonising is the effect, not the cause. Making excuses won't help the damaging effects.

Logical Fallacy

People might feel justified giving smokers grief due to second hand smoke.

It's pretty hard to get second hand fat.

prinz

The same people who get a kick out of slagging off fat people rarely put as much effort in to slagging off the underweight. Being underweight is almost celebrated in fashion, pop culture, as sexy and desirable. Then you have the people who make the valid arguments about the cost of obese people in terms of healthcare.... however the same arguments are rarely if ever brought out when dealing with the underweight. And yet...

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.4
Students:

• 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.”5
• 86% report onset of eating disorder by age 20; 43% report onset between ages of 16 and 20.6
• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents.7
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.8
• 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a weight-management technique.3
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.4
• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.17
• In a survey of 185 female students on a college campus, 58% felt pressure to be a certain weight, and of the 83% that dieted for weight loss, 44% were of normal weight.16

http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

You will rarely here the same people who slag off the fat, slag off the too-thin.

Monife

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Oh but we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Hen2aAVng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIN0AuymZ7I

Even though I am overweight (not comparable to the obesity of the subjects in the video's though), this made me LOL!!!

But what a terrible mother in the first vid, laughing at her poor child... ok... laughing again ha ha ha ha ha

johnny_cash

This thread is stupid of course you can slag fat people, if i'm out with a bunch of lads we all take the piss out of each other and that includes the fat lads.I am obviously not going to go up to somebody that i don't know and slag them off for being fat.

Redhairedguy

Was over in England a couple of days ago. The area I was staying in was notably working class, but christ the amount of obese mothers with equally obese babies was grotesque.

Of course, I turned to the people I was with and said the typical "you'd have to dip her in flour to find the wet bits" "you wouldn't ride her into battle" etc. etc.

Seeing as they were waddling out of a Gregg's Pasty shop with a greasy bulging brown bag, their size was obviously self inflicted so I don't really feel bad saying stuff like that. Now if they were disabled/a different race/genuinely ill and I was cracking jokes that would be a different kettle of fish altogether.

Gingers always get slagged about their appearance as well, and it's not something that can really be changed (unless you dye your hair black like I did for a while :P) so you either embrace the jokes or you die a lonely, pale, soulless person.

So if you're fat and don't like fat jokes, either put down the fork and make a change or learn to laugh about it. I thought ye cake worriers were all supposed to be jolly anyway.

I for one am not gonna stop ripping the piss out of the fatty-boom-batties anytime too soon.

Handsome Bob

johnny_cash wrote: »

I am obviously not going to go up to somebody that i don't know and slag them off for being fat.

Nah, of course you wouldn't, you wouldn't want to risk a potentially very embarassing situation to occur.

storker

Yakult wrote: »

It comes down to laziness to eat healthy, exercise and more available fatty foods than ever.

Its personal imo. If it were societies fault we would all be fat.

Self-fucking-control.

Wow. Are you really a moderator?

Stork

leggo

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

People might feel justified giving smokers grief due to second hand smoke.

It's pretty hard to get second hand fat.

The second-hand smoke argument wears pretty thin on me. I mean, take me for example. I rarely smoke when I'm walking somewhere (unless I'm rushing and really need one asap) for that exact reason. If a kid is anywhere near me I won't take a drag and will hold the smoke in the opposite direction until they pass. My old roommate used to give out to me because I'd often get up and go over to the corner to have my smoke, when he didn't mind the second-hand smoke.

And a lot of others would be mindful of this kind of thing too. Just being a smoker doesn't automatically make you inconsiderate. I remember the conversation that inspired the OP being IN a smoking area with the overweight person in question accompanying their smoker friend. It wasn't as if I was blowing it down her throat against her will.

prinz wrote: »

The same people who get a kick out of slagging off fat people rarely put as much effort in to slagging off the underweight. Being underweight is almost celebrated in fashion, pop culture, as sexy and desirable. Then you have the people who make the valid arguments about the cost of obese people in terms of healthcare.... however the same arguments are rarely if ever brought out when dealing with the underweight. And yet...

Good post and valid points.

However, I think the reason there's not so much 'slagging' of the underweight is because:

a) It's difficult to tell, at a glance, who is underweight and who's actually healthy and,
b) In extreme cases, the circumstances that led to them being underweight - that you outline - aren't appropriate for playful slaggings or a bit of social pressure. This is where serious education and clear understanding is required. There's different ways to tackle different problems, depending on their severity.

Whereas with overweight people, 90% of the time its down to laziness. Underweight people don't simply 'forget to eat'. And, if you get to know overweight people reasonably well (well enough to be able to slag them to begin with), you'll be able to tell if it's down to poor dietary choices or not.

I also know people who, though they don't discuss it, clearly have legitimate weight issues because they are constantly eating healthy and still tipping the scales. I would never deem it okay to rib them about their weight. Whereas some people could use a hard dose of reality (e.g. a gal I used to work with who would lecture skinnier people about what they ate, would lecture me about smoking, would go on about hitting the gym ad nauseum and so on).

Vanolder

How do you make love to a fat chick?

W-ank in your hand and throw it at her

Stercus Accidit

Anyone who presents themselves poorly I generally have less respect for, being obese or massively overweight is pitiful.
PC or not, if you look like crap people will respect you less as you don't have enough respect for yourself or others to present yourself properly.
The same goes for pajamas in public, dirty tracksuits, scumbag haircuts and rubbishy cheap jewelery, excuses are fine and dandy but in reality people judge you initially by how you look.

prinz

prinz wrote: »

The same people who get a kick out of slagging off fat people rarely put as much effort in to slagging off the underweight. Being underweight is almost celebrated in fashion, pop culture, as sexy and desirable. Then you have the people who make the valid arguments about the cost of obese people in terms of healthcare.... however the same arguments are rarely if ever brought out when dealing with the underweight. And yet...



http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

You will rarely here the same people who slag off the fat, slag off the too-thin.

Because it's not as funny as slagging a fatty who you know is going to eat more after you laugh.:pac:

Hank_Jones

Redhairedguy wrote: »

Was over in England a couple of days ago. The area I was staying in was notably working class, but christ the amount of obese mothers with equally obese babies was grotesque.

Of course, I turned to the people I was with and said the typical "you'd have to dip her in flour to find the wet bits" "you wouldn't ride her into battle" etc. etc.

Seeing as they were waddling out of a Gregg's Pasty shop with a greasy bulging brown bag, their size was obviously self inflicted so I don't really feel bad saying stuff like that. Now if they were disabled/a different race/genuinely ill and I was cracking jokes that would be a different kettle of fish altogether.

Gingers always get slagged about their appearance as well, and it's not something that can really be changed (unless you dye your hair black like I did for a while :P) so you either embrace the jokes or you die a lonely, pale, soulless person.

So if you're fat and don't like fat jokes, either put down the fork and make a change or learn to laugh about it. I thought ye cake worriers were all supposed to be jolly anyway.

I for one am not gonna stop ripping the piss out of the fatty-boom-batties anytime too soon.

Just because people are of a different race and fat,
that doesn't mean they should be exempt from fat jokes.

Being unhealthy should not be acceptable,
regardless of what race someone is.

If we're going to come together as a society, blacks, whites, asians,
we must all be able to insult fat people.

thirtythirty

leggo wrote: »

Whereas with overweight people, 90% of the time its down to laziness. Underweight people don't simply 'forget to eat'. And, if you get to know overweight people reasonably well (well enough to be able to slag them to begin with), you'll be able to tell if it's down to poor dietary choices or not.

I also know people who, though they don't discuss it, clearly have legitimate weight issues because they are constantly eating healthy and still tipping the scales. I would never deem it okay to rib them about their weight. Whereas some people could use a hard dose of reality (e.g. a gal I used to work with who would lecture skinnier people about what they ate, would lecture me about smoking, would go on about hitting the gym ad nauseum and so on).

In the first instance, do you honestly think overweight people don't know they're overweight, and should be reminded at ever opportunity?
You say you're sick of hearing about "you'll die young" and you know very well about the dangers. You don't think they know?

In the second instance, do you think "being able to slag" is worth the potential of potentially damaging self esteem, making them sad, or at worst driving them towards perpetual depression at which point they will never have the drive to lose weight because it's then a mental issue?

I can slag you about smoking and you'll walk away in three possible states of mind:
- Defensive: "He's a d1ck, I know the potential dangers, it's my bloody choice"
- Indifferent: "Fck it, dont really care"
- Amused: "Ha, fair point!".

But no matter how it plays, you're not going to walk away saddened.

IMO it's not about equality or awareness or even "doing them a favour through tough love". Slagging someone about something that can't be immediately changed if they wanted to, is just a d1ck move.

green_dub_girl

Ghandee wrote: »

As stated above, it can be a sickness, would you slag someone with say Downs Syndrome, or some one in a wheel chair?

Can you not see anything wrong with this statement?? Now the "weight illness" is being compared to Downs, I find this grossly offensive to anyone who has the misfortune of being born with Downs syndrome.

In cases of anorexia nervosa/super obesity I agree many of these people have underlying psychiatric illnesses, bit I think for the majority of overweight people it's laziness/poor diet. I work everyday at maintaining a healthy lifestyle as I suffer easily from weight gain myself and I'm sick and tired of people feeling sorry for themselves. Get out there exercising and change your negative relationship with food gradually with the help of your GP.

BUT SERIOUSLY! Comparing being over weight as a disease similar to DOWNS???

Beau

An overweight girl in work called me a 'health freak' yesterday. I'm a freak?

jive

Beau wrote: »

An overweight girl in work called me a 'health freak' yesterday. I'm a freak?

"phuck off ya fat bitch" would have went down a treat (would have went down a treat? YA GEDDIT???)

jive

Overweight people actually are gross. Unless you are older and a bit pudgy then I think you should phucking do something about it. I'd hate to wake up every morning and see some fat shít in the mirror all the while putting unnecessary stress on all my organs while filling my body with crap food. There are literally no benefits to being overweight, you look like crap and put your health at risk. It's embarrassing that able bodied people with no medical conditions are unable to keep their weight within a healthy level. Talk about a lack of motivation/dedication. You will die young. Do something about it, chubbies.

Balloon Of a fish in C.

Tut Tut ,kids these days need to grow up.

WonderWoman!

Beau wrote: »

An overweight girl in work called me a 'health freak' yesterday. I'm a freak?

Here's an idea , tell the teletubby to run to the sun

purity

I am trying my level best to cut down at the moment after hearing an old man say I was fat. I am by no means fat but that's how society perceive me.
At the moment I have cut out junk food and trying my level best to get healthy.
Its not easy to eat healthy as healthy food is much more expensive and takes more time, but that shouldn't be an excuse to be fat.
I personally think fat people deserve a good slap as you can enjoy food to a degree but not to the extent they do.

leggo

spottyelephant wrote: »

I can slag you about smoking and you'll walk away in three possible states of mind:
- Defensive: "He's a d1ck, I know the potential dangers, it's my bloody choice"
- Indifferent: "Fck it, dont really care"
- Amused: "Ha, fair point!".

But no matter how it plays, you're not going to walk away saddened.

IMO it's not about equality or awareness or even "doing them a favour through tough love". Slagging someone about something that can't be immediately changed if they wanted to, is just a d1ck move.

Best counterpoint I've seen here so far. Genuinely.

To flip it slightly, though, pro-actively what do you feel is a fair, effective way to deal with the problem?

You could argue that education is the way forward, but even if you use smoking as a basis...what do you believe has caused more people to attempt to give up? Say, the ads on the television or the simple fact that society doesn't consider it 'fashionable' to smoke anymore? We've been ignoring the warnings on packets for years but it's a bit more difficult to ignore our nagging friends down the pub.

Or should people be left to their own devices regardless of the consequences? Do you believe the general public, as a whole, are intelligent and educated enough to make their own sensible decisions? If so, where do the riots in a similarly civilised country like England come into play in that theory?

And finally, if left with the choice of making one overweight friend 'sad' by confronting them with the grim truth, or saying nothing and being polite but watching them eat themselves to an early death, which would you choose?

If you can point to an alternative route that would reap better rewards than simply not wanting to mention the elephant in the room (pun not...well a little bit...intended), I'm happy to hear it and revise my prior opinion.

jive

purity wrote: »

Its not easy to eat healthy as healthy food is much more expensive and takes more time, but that shouldn't be an excuse to be fat.

I never understand this. Healthy food is cheap as shít. Vegetables, fruits, pasta, water (free), porridge and meats like chicken, tuna or liver are all very cheap.

A bag of porridge is like €2.20 and lasts a month. Mixed with water thats €2.20 for a month worth of breakfast. If you got a breakfast roll or some crap out of the shop it'd cost more for one than an entire month worth of breakfast.

Again, a huge bag of pasta, rice or couscous would be around €4-€10 per month depending on how much you eat.

Bananas are like 25c.... bag of onions a euro...

The only 'expensive' things are meat and nuts. A tub of peanut butter from Holland and Barrett is like ~€5. It'd last a month. Most butchers will do you a deal on chicken fillets like 20 for €20 and tuna costs <€1 per can in places like Aldi. Bread is like €2-€3 per loaf maybe.

Compare that to a takeaway which would be €6-10 or soft drinks at €1-2 a pop.

As for the time thing... Pizza takes about 20 minutes to cook, couscous takes 3 minutes. If you're stuck for time then cook in bulk. Porridge takes 3 minutes. Toast takes 2 minutes. Tinned tuna requires you opening the tin.

It's 'too expensive' or it 'takes too long' is a fat a$$hole excuse. That's the reason they are fat, excuses - I'm sure they'll lose the weight tomorrow... or January 1st.

Mickeroo

It's not that its easy/difficult to eat healthy or unhealthy food, if you're overweight it requires you to completely change your whole lifestyle and that's not easy for anyone, getting motivated to do that and then staying motivated is extremely difficult.

jive

Mickeroo wrote: »

It's not that its easy/difficult to eat healthy or unhealthy food, if you're overweight it requires you to completely change your whole lifestyle and that's not easy for anyone, getting motivated to do that and then staying motivated is extremely difficult.

It doesn't really require you to change your lifestyle imo - I think that's another cop out. If you can't commit to not eating **** and going for a walk a couple of days a week then it says a lot about you. It requires you to change your diet primarily and incorporating excercise if needs be. Eating different food isn't going to flip your world upside down.

Mickeroo

jive wrote: »

It doesn't really require you to change your lifestyle imo - I think that's another cop out. If you can't commit to not eating **** and going for a walk a couple of days a week then it says a lot about you. It requires you to change your diet primarily and incorporating excercise if needs be. Eating different food isn't going to flip your world upside down.

The fact that someone's overweight in the first place should say enough about them that doing that is not going to be easy for them.

It's also over simplifying it a bit,if someone is serious about losing the weight they need to do a hell of a lot more than go for a walk a couple of times a week. If they're morbidly obese then they'll have to start off with walks maybe, since even that would be incredibly difficult for them but otherwise walking won't do bugger all.

jive

Mickeroo wrote: »

The fact that someone's overweight in the first place should say enough about them that doing that is not going to be easy for them.

It's also over simplifying it a bit,if someone is serious about losing the weight they need to do a hell of a lot more than go for a walk a couple of times a week. If they're morbidly obese then they'll have to start off with walks maybe, since even that would be incredibly difficult for them but otherwise walking won't do bugger all.

Walking would be enough to lose weight while on a good diet. Everyone over complicates losing weight and magazines make it sound so hard.

stolen from the health and fitness forum:
http://leetsstreet.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/paleoplate.jpg

I understand why it would be hard to change if you don't want to change. If you do genuinely want to change then you'll do it.

fonecrusher1

Hank_Jones wrote: »

If we're going to come together as a society, blacks, whites, asians,

What about the lizard people? You racist.

Balloon Of a fish in C.

What about people with fat heads ,some are so big only one fits in a room at a time.
They really should do something about themselves.