yolland
Forum Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
- Messages
- 7,471
Absolutely, it does make it worse, and we could probably think of all 'weight problems' as being on a continuum in that sense. Even for someone who's not the type to relentlessly beat themselves up for supposedly being 'lazy,' 'greedy,' 'weak' etc., it's still going to be tough initially to adjust to more exercise, smaller portions, fewer calorie-dense foods, and whatever other (probably permanent) lifestyle changes you'll need to make to lose weight. And food is a favorite source of comfort for many people, so the more reasons you have to crave comforting, the harder it'll make the process. But realistically, it's hard to imagine the idealization of slenderness in our society abating anytime soon (and by idealization I mean not only image saturation, but also some of the more irrational fantasies associated with that--that to be 'thin' is to be particularly worthy of admiration, love, success and so on, and by extension to be 'fat' to be pathetic, dislikeable, a failure). And so long as it's out there, you're going to have an industry capitalizing on it--"Look hot in a bathing suit by summer!! results guaranteed!!!"--alongside the more sober and reasonable approach advocated by doctors, nutritionists, some weight-loss books, and organizations like Weight Watchers. The thing is, though, all of us understand intellectually that those idealization fantasies are just that, fantasies; that weight loss isn't actually a moral crusade or a longterm investment in your lovability. So I guess it becomes a question of how vulnerable you are to excessive emotional investment in that fantasy (and others' projections of the same), which is a pretty complex thing. Clearly, for some people it works out fine to use 'looking their best' as a motivating goal, and they don't send themselves into some self-destructive emotional tailspin by doing that. But if you already tend towards a poor self-image on multiple fronts, or if you're addiction-prone and wont to go overboard treating substances or behaviors as 'medication' for problems they can never address, or if you simply aren't that motivated by looking good when it comes down to it, then maybe that route won't work out so well.
Ultimately, increasingly sedentary lifestyles plus widespread, inexpensive access to calorie-dense foods is the main reason why we're seeing epidemic overweight and obesity now. Most governments in the countries where this has become a serious medical concern seem to be directing most of their public health resources towards preventing child obesity, which I guess is the right approach; better to establish good eating and exercise habits young, rather than struggle to reform bad ones after 4 or 5 decades' worth of attachment to them. Of course we can't afford to ignore adults' statistics either but, unfortunately, there we have to rely very heavily on individuals' motivation to reform their own lifestyles; there are limits to what we can do in terms of incentives and disincentives, not that those avenues are by any means exhausted yet.
To go back to the 'continuum' thing, though...while it's obviously the job of a professional alone to ascertain whether someone has a clinical eating disorder, I do think it's important to recognize the difference between that and plain old 'bad habits,' which are far more typical causes of being overweight or obese. If someone is regularly doing things like returning to the kitchen after dinner and compulsively taking in 8000 calories at a standing, literally eating themselves into a stupor despite not feeling hungry, then they've got problems with food and eating that something like Weight Watchers isn't designed to address.
You have no clue as to what you are talking about!!! They've been able to prove it's hereditary, even in cases where the child was raised outside the parent's house without any knowing or contact. But I doubt that someone who has no respect for medicine in general will accept this.
Assholism, another disease.
