The Pressure of Obesity

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by TheCount, Jan 31, 2009.

  1. TheCount

    TheCount Happiness is a mindset

    I was just watching Gok Wan's program "Too Fat Too Young" and it really is incredible to see the effect obesity actually has on people and how it started. To think this is just one aspect of life its... well, shocking.

    In most of the cases the kids at a young age piled on weight uncontrollably and then because of that they ended up secluded from other children socially. They then very often turn to food to get comfort and it gets worse. As they got bigger they gradually became less and less involved in just basic aspects of daily child-like life. Before long avoidance and mastication become an addiction in them.

    However what his program really REALLY highlighted I think was the fact of how much this can actually effect the child. Many of them have no self esteem, a huuuge degree of self loathing and just such a degree of hopelessness. In many cases the children ended up in a paradoxical state of hating themselves, others, fear... just an impossibly insurmountable mountain that they can never see the top of.

    Yet fascinatingly many of them fail to accept what needs to be done. Most of them hate their life but have absolutely no true intentions of changing it.
    A really incredible insight was this boy who at age 15 is 30stone!! He was REALLY uneasy in shopping centres and incredibly disturbed on the bus. Yet he said he had tried to loose weight and it didn't work and had come to the conclusion he couldn't and had to have surgery.
    If course this really rings alarm bells, but seriously what does it say about someones home life and their parents if they can still eat enough to continue gaining weight at 30 stone, aged 15!!! Completely unchecked!

    I don't know what I hope to achieve but seriously, I would recommend watching this program, even if you don't like Gok Wan. The socialogical effects of being different and the like that he brings up are incredible.
     
  2. Custom Volusia

    Custom Volusia Valued Member

    How much is a 'stone' in pounds?

    If I can find the video when I get home I will watch it with my two kids. Neither of them are fat and both are VERY active.

    I work out 6 times a week and do TKD 2-4 times a week and my wife is a Certified Personal Trainer for Youth Fitness (kids age 7-15) at Golds Gym, so it is very easy for our kids to start thinking that a healthy lifestyle is the only kind. Which is GOOD of course. But we have seen our eldest (he's 6)mock someone for being large, which is BAD...and that's where it comes down to trying to make sure that they understand it's really about a person being happy. The problem that my Wife and I are having is how to teach them that, while we want them to be healthy, it is OK for someone to be fat as long as they are HAPPY. Maybe this video could give them some insight into what larger kids go through.

    The joys of trying to raise kids right!
     
  3. Axelator

    Axelator Not called Alex.

    TBH I have no sympathy for these people. Nearly all of them are fat because they deserve to be. I've been through periods in my life where I've been alone and felt hopelessness trying to get a grip of me (Although I've never been fat) . You have to mentally fight it off and sort your life out. Then you end up a stronger person for it.

    Often it also seems to me that they use the fact that they're fat as an excuse for their pathetic situation. Rather than facing reality and accepting it's their personality that stinks not just their B.O.

    Edit: Maybe in the U.S. it's ok for Mr fatty to be happy. However in the U.K. where we have national healthcare the tax payer ends up picking up the bill for their happyness.
     
  4. Hiroji

    Hiroji laugh often, love much

    Aelator that was an awful post, ill put it down to your age. i agree some of the blame is at the persons door, but there are usually much more subtle reasons why people get so big.

    I feel for these people, when they get over 20stone even if they lose the weight they are still going to have saggy skin as one of my friends has.

    Its sad that they get in that way, often i notice on these programmes that the parents are grossly overweight also, i think some of their issues are passed on to their children. It is a vicious circle, one that needs to be identified at a young age and given proper care and help to stop them developing in their dispare and gaining more and more weight.

    It also doesnt help that decent food costs so much, and you get idiots like her on the iceland adverts saying "thats why mums go to iceland". Its all crap foods and is so cheap.

    The government is always banging on about smoking and drinking, how about sorting out decent cheap food?
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2009
  5. Axelator

    Axelator Not called Alex.


    Maybe you're right. Maybe it is everyone elses fault but their own. Or maybe they need to take some responsibility for their own actions and accept it's their own fault they are fat and only they can change that.
     
  6. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    14 pounds to the stone.
     
  7. Hiroji

    Hiroji laugh often, love much

    I think you may find that most of them do feel it is their own fault, and know they and only them can change it, but its easier said than done.
     
  8. Custom Volusia

    Custom Volusia Valued Member

    Thanks Frodo....

    Axelator that truely was a horrible post. I'm HOPING you will learn better. Yes, it is their fault. No it isn't anyone elses. Does that mean you have to HATE them and be such a jerk? NO. It is possible for a large person to be perfectly happy the way they are.

    I'm really starting to wonder about YOU though. This isn't the first crude and thoughtless post I've seen from you. EVERY person that I knew when I was your age, made comments like that for two reasons

    1) because there was something about THEMSELVES that they didn't like and they thought that by insulting others that people wouldn't notice whatever it was

    2) they wanted to look cool in front of their friends

    Hope neither of those sound familer..but like I said, I'm starting to wonder.

    If we do get National Health Care here (our new President wants SOMETHING done) maybe I will feel the strain of paying for overweight people more then we already do, but I still won't be a jerk to them.

    You are at that age, Grow up.
     
  9. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    A lot of kids are fat because their parents feed them crap at a young age. They then begin to demand more crap and refuse to eat anything but crap. Their parents give in and the downward spiral gets deeper.

    I've seen this happen with my nephew. Interestingly both his parents are fat and live on crap. Of course it's taboo to blame the parents these days. It's all genetics and glands or the result of social deprivation. My brother was never deprived and neither were his kids. My brother was the youngest and subsequently most spoiled in the family.

    I think there's a pattern there.
     
  10. Custom Volusia

    Custom Volusia Valued Member

    Oh yeah...parents definitly should share the blame!!! You can't raise a kid on McDonalds and expect anything except weight gain. But you are right, seems to be taboo. :(
     
  11. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    And at the grand old age of 17 you've contributed so much to the welfare state through your national insurance contributions.

    Fat people are fat because they eat too much crap and don't exercise enough. Everybody knows this. But why you feel such animosity towards them is a mystery?
     
  12. Axelator

    Axelator Not called Alex.

    The first one applies, not the second. I constantly try to improve myself though.

    I don't hate fat people. I have one or two fat friends. It would be impossible to go through life in the UK hating fat people as nearly everyone is fat now, so much so that to be fat nowadays you have to be pushing 20 stone, because average joe is a fatty too. I think a persons physical appearance reflects the way they live their life. In my opinion fatness without any muscle suggests a lazy undiciplined life style and I tend not to like people like that.
     
  13. Hiroji

    Hiroji laugh often, love much

    turned down by a tubby chick at the ball were we?...:)
     
  14. Axelator

    Axelator Not called Alex.

    ACtually I was once. Maybe this is where my hatred of fat people comes from?

    Or maybe it's from the fact that I don't like lazy people.
     
  15. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    I wouldn't say the average person was fat. I know plenty that aren't. I know plenty that are. Most of the people I know that are fat have gotten fat as they've gotten older and less active.
     
  16. Custom Volusia

    Custom Volusia Valued Member

    But you don't live in the UK...you live 'in your basket, in the corner'!!! :)
     
  17. Axelator

    Axelator Not called Alex.

    This is the problem, our idea of fat has been warped because what is fat is now normal. The truth is most people in the U.K. are fat.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1170787.stm
     
  18. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    How would you define lazy? There are plenty of fat people in my work. It's a manual job? But they are still fat.
     
  19. aikiwolfie

    aikiwolfie ... Supporter

    My idea of fat is someone who is overweight. This is more visible on some than it is on others. What's your idea of fat?
     
  20. Custom Volusia

    Custom Volusia Valued Member

    pushing 20 stone=280lbs??????????????????????????? Holy crap that IS fat...unless you are 7 feet tall!!

    Sorry, had to convert it...feet, inches, pounds....the ONLY units of measurment! lol
     

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