I think the important thing is that you didn't act on your feelings... I have these thoughts too.. but I only ever voice them to my hubby or family and always in a joking manner.
Most often I'm thinking "well, at least I'm not THAT fat" but I also think a lot about really skinny women and how they must look at me with disgust and think that being as fat as me must be their worst nightmare. Sometimes I can't get past that and find that I have trouble being friends with skinny people at all.
As for the fat commandments - that cracked me up but it's so true. There are 2 things even now that I refuse to do because it breaks one of my fat commandments. Ride a bike and eat at a buffet! I will not be the joke of cars riding past and I REFUSE to be the fat person at a buffet.
I think it's all a part of human nature and it's up to us to act or not act on those thoughts and feelings we have.
If there's only one good thing that I learned in reading "fat acceptance" literature, it is that those "fat commandments," are not written in stone. I can break them without dire consequences. I even bought a bicycle last year. I still feel like an idiot on the darned thing, but I smile and wave at the neighbors anyway.
I strongly believe that all of these "fat commandments" are bull puckey, but I still catch myself thinking of them when I am going to be "breaking" one, or when I see other fat people doing the same. My first reaction, is "they shouldn't...." and my next is "Yeah!!!!! they're doing it anyway. Good for them.
I love this!!!!
I guess I'm the oddball out, here. I am probably one of the least judgmental people I know. When I see even a judgmental look on someone's face it makes my blood boil and I generally call them on it! And, this is about anything, size, shape, hairstyle, complexion, handicaps, clothing, sexuality.... I am sorry you had those feelings about him but I'm glad you feel bad about it. I'd worry if you didn't!
I vaguely remember experiencing something like that at on time or another. I think the reason I was so disturbed by it - is probably because it reminded me of myself. Does that make sense?
Something similar and odd did happen to me a few months ago. I was well into my journey and I was on a city public bus. There was a man on the bus taking up 2 full seats. He must have been well over 500 lbs. Although I was not "disgusted" by him, I actually felt so very sorry for him. I just kept thinking what a terrible life he must have and why in the world would he do that to himself. Why would he CHOOSE to live that way. And then of course I realized, was he being 500 + pounds really any different then my being almost 300 lbs? No. I don't think so. I look back on that day and wonder had I not been alrready in the throes of my weightloss journey would that have propelled me into one. I think - probably not.
I think even feeling sorry for someone is a kind of arrogance. It's not ill-intentioned, but it's based on assumptions that may or may not be true. My father-in-law just passed away. He was very ill with kidney disease, MS, PAD (peripheral artery disease) and heart disease. He had wounds that wouldn't heal (bedsores and such, and his skin was so thin that rubbing one hand against another could tear the skin. The hands were swollen and black with constant bruising), had to have dialysis 3 times a week, was in a motorized wheal chair. He'd already had a leg amputated, and the circulation in his hands were so bad, that some of his fingertips literally died, mummified and dropped off.
A stranger might have assumed that he was miserable, and longing for death, but he had a love for others and a joy for life that is rare amongh the healthiest of people. He had a strong religious conviction, and was so kind and concerned with others (he always asked my husband and I how WE were doing, and checking up on our health issues, where he would have been entitled to say "You think you've got problems...," but never did). I had always assumed that he had some days of dark depression and misery (because I had, and hadn't 1/50th the problems he had), but in talking to MIL after his passing, she said he only had two or three days in the 14 years of his illness that he even complained. He enjoyed his life immensely in spite of (or maybe in some part because of) it's severe limitations. He didn't take anything for granted.
Poor (and good) health exists on such a wide continuum. Some of it is under our control, and some of it isn't. I think some people find it easiest to look up, and feel inferior. Others find it easier to look down and feel superior. Just as I can look at a 500 lb woman, and say "how did she let herself get this way?", An olympic athlete, or otherwise extremely fit person could look at (well, just about anyone) and say "why aren't they taking better care of themselves. Or how a woman of completely average weight can feel like the fattest woman on the planet when comparing herself to magazine and television images.
Looking inward (objectively, without self-satisfied pride or self-hatred) is a lot more difficult. Comparing ourselves to others is how we determine whether we're "ok." It's crazy sometimes, and the hardest thing is realizing when we're being crazy, because when we're in the middle of it, it makes sense.
I think even feeling sorry for someone is a kind of arrogance. It's not ill-intentioned, but it's based on assumptions that may or may not be true.
I'm not quite sure I get this. You feel that my feeling sorry for the 500+ lb person on the bus is arrogant? Allrighty then. Obviously, not having known this man, I surely don't know his circumstances. And I never will. But I still think about him occassionally oddly enough - and I still feel sorry for him. Hopefully, he is a happy, content man with a full life - but nevertheless I know for CERTAIN, his life is that much more complicated because of his weight. And my heart goes out to him. That's just my opinion - and I'm sticking to it.
I didn't mean it is wrong to feel compassion and empathy, for someone we deem less fortunate. I just mean sometime the reality of the person's situation may be far from what we assume. We may be feeling sorry for a person, who might just as legitimately be feeling sorry for us for a different reason. I think it's why some handicapped people, not only refuse help, but get angry when it's offered unrequested.
Human beings have caused a lot of grief and pain by trying to "fix" problem they perceive in other human beings. My grandmother was punished for using her left hand in school. As little as 50 years ago, children were taken away from parents deemed unfit, only because they were poor or uneducated, or because they were a single parent (even if due to the death of a wife or husband).
These are extreme examples, and I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help people, or shouldn't feel compassion, but I think we always have to challenge our own assumptions about others, especially when that assumption puts them into the "less fortunate" category in our mind.
I have judged other overweight people in this way myself and felt disdain or disgust, when in reality I probably didn't look any better than they did. I totally think it's projection of my own feelings about myself on others. I can choose not to look at me, but there they are right in front of me. It's like with my kids, the things they do that drive me crazy or that I react to most strongly are the traits they've gotten from me. I often don't realize this until later.
I'm also guilty of judging the overweight. Not vocally or even hatefully. But I do look at big bodies and remind myself why I'm working so hard.
To clarify- I don't find overweight people disgusting or anything, I just don't have that kind of negativity in me. What strikes me the most is how uncomfortable some extremely overweight people seem, physically.
I got all the way up to 245 and heck yes I was uncomfortable!
I don't think this makes us bad people, just human.
I am guilty of this, but I don't really judge these people, because I try and put myself in their shoes. And I hate to admit it, but when I see a person who is morbidly obese( 400+) I look and think to myself if I eat and don't exercise this is what is going to happen, and I don't think a 400 + person looks pretty, go ahead and get angry with me,but it is the truth, and by that I mean these people I am talking about have a stomach hanging down to their knees, can't walk and have trouble getting around. Am I a witch because I am thinking that way, no I don't think so, I don't laugh at these people or talk about them behind their back. If my daughter is with me and says something, I tell her, Think about them, how they feel, would you like to have people talk about you? And this should be a lesson for you unless you have a medical condtion, too much food and too little exercise may have the same result on you. The result my daughter no longer talks about big people, but she does eat better, and gets daily exercise.
cheryl
I think we always have to challenge our own assumptions about others, especially when that assumption puts them into the "less fortunate" category in our mind.
I just want to thank you for giving such clear, strong words to these ethical problems, which I think are so hard to discuss. This stuff cuts to the heart of human experience--how do I fundamentally see myself, how do I fundamentally see others, what do I fundamentally believe constitutes human worth, how do I own my fears and biases. I gotta say, I never, absolutely never thought that really committing to change in my life would raise so many, I dunno, philosophic questions for me, but it really has. I want to thank you and everyone here for opening up so many questions and providing so many possible answers.
Life is certainly filled with a lot more questions than answers, or at least I surely am.
Cheryl your comments didn't offend me (I'm far too thick-skinned for that), though they did make me think. I can't say I've ever thought of myself in those terms before. I mean they certainly describe me, having been so close to 400 lbs, and even currently being not that far away, it does disturb me that I might be pitied, or worse used to illustrate a cautionary tale to a child. My stomache does hang down, though not to my knees, but I'd estimate a good 5 - 6 inches. It's why I often wear skirts (though that is a recent change, as I was always told fat girls shouldn't wear skirts - not sure why), but I found that I like skirts. They make me feel feminine (if not pretty) and I think at least help diminish the "Humpty-Dumpty" shape a bit more than slacks.
There's a lot more that went into my weight gain than just eating too much and not exercising enough, but in it's simplest form it's true enough, so I don't know how to feel about that. Though I could just as easily, and truthfully tell a child "don't diet too much, or you might end up like me," or "don't work so hard and put everyone else's needs ahead of your own, or you could end up like me," or "Don't let anyone put you on a diet when you're 5, or on amphetemine diet pills when you're barely 13, or you might end up like me." There are a thousand factors that have gone into my weight being what it is, and I can't seperate them all, so I certainly hope someone else wouldn't think they had it all figured out and factored down to just those two. Eh, but what do I know, I have as many questions and as few answers as anyone else.
I know that I have pitied people who I had no idea pitied me back, and finding out was an eye-opening experience. In my early 20's, I had a friend from a weight loss group (about my same size) who was dating and living with an idiot (my judgement, and a hastey, possibly inaccurate one I'll admit). He was pretty mean to her alot of the time, and rarely contributed to their living expenses or support of their child. He spent his money and then would spend hers, stealing it from her purse if necessary. Being extremely single, but not regretting it at the time, I felt sorry for her and I thought "doesn't she know it's better to be alone, than to be stuck with an idiot!" Little did I know the gal felt so sorry for me, she tried to set me up with friends of the idiot (er, I mean her boyfriend) and even her substance-abusing brother. "You don't mind if he smokes a lot of pot, do you?", she said. For crying out loud, I was a PROBATION OFFICER at the time, of course I minded if he smoked a lot of pot! Can you see me going into the office, reeking of marijuana. Yeah smart idea that. She was astonished that I would turn down any living, breathing male, and told me as much, saying I'd never have a man if I continued to be so picky! Yikes, I would have happily gone to my grave a crazy, old virgin cat-lady, rather than sacrifice my self-respect, but for her being alone was worse than being with someone who didn't treat her very well.
I've been pitied for being fat, but also for being childless, for marrying late, for marrying my husband (who when we met, made less money than I did. I had friends that were quite disturbed by that), for being adopted (and for my parents having biological chidren afterward, after all they assumed my parents would obviously love their bio-kids more - if they do I've never been able to tell), for being colorblind, even for being smart and getting my master's degree (to my aunt, education is only for ugly, unmarriageable women).
I've never felt I needed pity, though I would have liked support in my weight loss attempts to have been easier to find. It seemed that I was most likely to be ridiculed when trying (in public, God forbid) to do things that might help me lose the weight. If I chose a salad or otherwise tried to be very careful in my eating I've heard nasty comments (who is she kidding, you know she doesn't eat that way at home). Or when trying to be more active swimming, or bicycling, or even walking hearing someone laughing, or making elephant noises, or seeing them snearing or rollling their eyes. Oh, brother! If our society truly judged fat as being so terrible only because of the health issues (or even moral ones, for that matter), wouldn't it be logical to be more supportive of efforts to change? It doesn't seem that way to me though (except among some people who have been through weigh problems themselves, but not all. As I've also encountered some people who struggle or who have struggled with weight loss who are more judgemental than people who've never had a weight issue at all).
Yeah, I think being fat does raise a lot of philosophical, ethical, and moral questions that many people never have to deal with. As much as I would love to have never had a weight problem, I have to say that I know I am a better person for having to go through all of this.
I don't think you should feel guilty about having these feelings, but I do think it's helpful to work through where they are coming from, and to try to understand why you are having this reaction. So, I'm glad you posted this here, it's been a good thread to think about, and everyone has made such insightful comments.
I tend to agree with the posters who have already pointed out that this feeling is probably somewhat of a projection of feelings about being overweight ourselves. I know I've had a similar experience where I'll see someone who is overweight eating something unhealthy, and I sort of go through a mental combination of rejection/distaste, pity, feeling grateful that I'm not in the same place myself anymore, and other mixed feelings.
I think it was my grandfather who told me, "feeling guilty is useful - for about five minutes. If you ain't learned what you needed to in five minutes, you ain't never gonna."
