Bashing The Obese Needs to End. 2010

[Paul Murphy]

Dignity,Respect,Integrity and Hope .

The Shared Accountability Model will not stand for Bashing the Obese . I am hoping you will join our web site and help address the issue. We need a community obesity action plan with the concept laced with Integrity.

The Shared Accountability Model is the Antidote for the Lifestyle ,Blaming Tool, and I am asking you to get involved. I have no miracle weight loss tool and I cannot help anybody to lose weight. I am trying to build a healthy food relationship for myself.

I do what is called ,Mechanical Eating and this helps keep my Bingeing Down and I can manage my meals much better. I never tasted food ,I just inhaled it. While others Eat To Live ,I Lived To Eat. The goal is to raise awareness about food and food marriages. I try to build Balance in my day, and I eat Guilt Free. If I need a snack ,I sit down and try to enjoy it.

Mindfulness is the ability to be totally focused on this moment , in other words concentrate on the issue in front of you. While I push for awareness of this topic ,balance is out the window.I am spending way too much time trying to reach others. I am certain this will level off soon, but for now I am going full out. This is why I am calling for volunteers .

Children are at risk for obesity and for those who are already affected by obesity ,I want to provide a safe web site ,where they can explore the issue . I am calling for a national obesity discussion to be held . The goal is to promote the conversation and shift our focus. 90 % of people blame obesity onto the individual and I feel we need to explore this issue globally. Lifestyle is the slippery little con and if you fall into it's trap , you may lose focus.
Is poverty a lifestyle choice?
The obese bashing needs to end and our media is getting the wake up call. In Europe the issue of obesity is searing hot and this is coming to North America thanks to communication sites like Twitter.
I am 2fat2fly on Twitter by the way. There are four aspects of social change; Ignoring, Laughing At,Fighting with or Engaging and finally, I win. I just wanted the discussion in the first place.

Thanks , and I do hope you get involved .

[Paul Murphy]

I am obese. Would you have me spurn medical attention to save society from the expense? I can hear the choruses of "yes". Now please try to tell me there is not discrimination of the obese. Even if I were to lose 100 lbs. the medical issues would remain, but I guess I must not seek help because I brought this on myself. How many of you smug normal sized people have ever succeeded in losing 100 lbs or even 15 lbs? Not so easy as eat less and move more. Oh yes, and the obese have no will power. How about the will power to start again time after time when this program inevitably fails (only about a 15% success rate)? How about the will to survive all the "food saboteurs" in our lives. Family and friends both guilty of this. How about the daily rude comments that you would not heap on anyone else with any other condition? How about the self-loathing we live with every day of our lives? The obese have a lot of will power to cope with all of these and still start over again after a failed attempt to eat less and move more. The sad thing is that most of us use being obese as an excuse for everything that goes wrong in our lives. And, should we be among the few who actually do lose weight and keep it off with totally healthy life plan, we find little has changed. Fat is not the reason things go wrong. Despising the obese is not helpful to anyone. Offering true encouragement and support would be much more helpful. Treating us as equals, would be good 1st step.

[Michael J. McCarthy]

Paul,
I am trying to figure out in my own mind if lifestyle choices influence both poverty and overweight. I am not saying that bashing is ok in any situation. I do think that choices we make influence our financial position and body fat composition. For example, decisions early in life about how seriously we take schooling influence our income later in life. However, our choices do not paint the whole picture. For example, not everyone has the same talents and different talents are compensated disproportionately in the workplace. In another example, I was on a medication for diabetes recently that caused rapid weight gain (about 3 pounds a day before I realized it was the medication). So, medications and medical conditions can lead to increased body fat. These are not necessarily choices. One does not say, "I want to have a thyroid condition now and gain a bunch of weight." This is not a choice.

One the other hand, I am now losing fat rapidly (31 pounds in the last 8 weeks, with a long way to go). In this case, it takes 1) a plan that works and 2) following the plan that works. I have had to change my lifestyle. I now get up at 6:00AM and go for a 40 minute walk before eating anything. I am eating way less fat and only low-glycemic carbohydrates (but lots of them like vegetables and fruits). And, I am eating more, but very lean, protein. This plan works for me, but, like I said, this has been a total lifestyle change for me and, in my case, it was a series of choices. So, choice has a role, also, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, I should never be discriminated against, teased, bashed, or anything else but respected as a fellow human with dignity regardless of my body composition. I think that people that do these things are deficient in their learning of how to respond appropriately to various situations. Education is in order. I commend you for this website which promotes the discussion and lends to a bit of education!

All the best,
Michael

P.S. I can't figure out how to start a topic. Can you please let me know? Thanks.