Dr. Oz and the autopsy episode
 

Did any of you happen to see Dr. Oz's show, the one where the 700 lb woman is there and he's trying to help her? Not sure if this was a repeat today, but he took her to the morgue and had her lift up the fat from a deceased person. The person who died was 100 lbs overweight and she had to lift up huge mounds of fat. My goodness, what an eye opener that was.

I watched it. Hopefully that truly opened her eyes so she can lose the weight and change her life.

What channel is Dr Oz on? I've never heard of it.

It's on abc in the afternoon where I live. (WA)

It's on 5 days a week check your TV guide. By the way his show is not always about diet, he covers many topics.

i watched it. It has given me new motivation. i was waiting to hear him say the dead person was HER size, but they weren't, they were MY size. my goodnes.. my poor internal organs. And i tend to have "belly" fat. It was an eye opener, and although i usually hate shock-tv, i'm glad i caught that episode. i watch about four episodes of dr. oz a year, so i guess it was meant to be :) -fm

I know, I rarely watch his show either, and felt like I was supposed to see that episode. I too thought he would say that person was several hundred pounds overweight.

Thanks. Hopefully they'll have a rerun of that episode.

I didn't watch it. I hope for the sake of her health that this helps provide motivation to the woman on the show, but...on the other hand, does anyone believe that this woman got to 700 pounds without ever once thinking about the consequences for her health and mobility? Did she need to be shown something gruesome and tragic to understand?

Maybe I would feel differently if I had seen the episode, but to me it sounds exploitative and sensationalistic. It also implies that people are fat because they're just too stupid to know any better, and I can personally attest to that not being true, as can pretty much everyone on these boards.

I hope she received more meaningful help than just "look at this gross fat that looks just like YOUR gross fat! Now don't you want to put down that fork?"

I don't know, Celeste, though I didn't see the show either - even if everyone knows that there are health consequences to being fat, I think they are really too vague and amorphous and unspecific to really motivate a lot of people to do the hard work of getting fit. They sure were for me. While I was only 275 at my heaviest, nowhere near 700, I never gave a fig about the health consequences of that. I certainly wasn't in ignorance of them, but I just. Didn't. Care.

Actually, in truth, I still don't. It's nice when people say they want to lose weight to improve their health, but that's never been a motivator for me and still isn't. Oh, I know, I don't want to live with diabetes, heart disease, etc. like my grandmother did, but worrying about that just isn't enough to overcome my love of eating. And while I have certainly enjoyed the increased mobility and strength I've gotten from losing weight, it's still a side benefit - not really a motivating factor.

So even if everyone knows on some level that being fat has health consequences, I can sort of imagine (again, not having seen the show) a scenario where graphically introducing someone a fat person who died as a consequence of that fat might firm up those amorphous consequences and make them more of a motivator. And the show isn't just for the woman who was on it - if it makes the health consequences more tangible for the viewers as well, there's probably some benefit to that also.

There have been other programs of morbidly obese people. one man weighed 1000 pounds. These people don't live very long and while they are alive their quality of life is very poor. Most of them can't get out of bed or even leave the house, it is terribly sad.

OMG...I saw this!!! It was soooo scary and a serious wake up call; I felt like I needed to see that, because I never watch Dr. Oz but I just turned it on that day. I am about 100 lbs overweight (well, like 80 lbs now) and that poor person's organs made me feel bad for my own organs and it was scary. I hope she got the wakeup call as well. Thanks for bringing this up.

You're very right, Carter. As someone who smoked for 25 years, I'm proof that you can indeed know about all the consequences without really internalizing the lessons. I might've quit sooner if I'd actually seen a darkened, withered lung first-hand rather than just pictures of them.

I can see how it would definitely be a more concrete motivator than just being told. It probably has a lot to do with presentation, too. There's a difference between, "I want to show you what this looks like and the effects it has on the human body" and "Wow, look at this poor fat corpse who was someone's mom or sister or daughter until she died because she's too stupid to know when to put down the fork! Poke around in it, be disgusted by it, hate it!"

I'd probably really need to see the show before judging it. Generally I would keep my mouth shut (well...okay, no, I probably wouldn't :D), but I'm kind of sensitive about televised excesses especially when they involve someone's poor dead maw-maw. Seeing it through others' eyes, I can definitely see where it would do some good.

I just hope the tone was respectful and not, "You're gonna dieeeee, stupid! Put down the fork!"

I think the shock factors works for some, especially first hand. But it truth as we all know you have to be ready in the first place.

I'm a biologist so I know lots of the consequences of fat (I'd wrote all but there is always new ones springing up so figured I'd better go with most -LOL-). And still I continued to pack it on. I saw my Mum get diabetes. More pounds on. Finally I was ready, I was thinking ok time, and then my Mum had a heart attack which worked to shock me enough to go oh **** yes its time.

It wasn't done to be sensational. He'd been trying to help her for a long time and he said at first she lost 30 lbs but then she quit trying and only lost one pound in a month. This is a young woman, she has to use a scooter to get around. He said he could tell her heart wasn't really in it, she was just mouthing the words that she wanted to lose. At the end of the show he was sending her to an inpatient weight loss place, he said NC, my guess is that is Duke Medical Center.