Hi everyone,

I was watching an old episode of Dr. Phil today. I guess I was just bored. Anyway, there was a guest who was supposedly "fat person phobic" and she had the opinion that all overweight people are lazy and have no willpower. People went crazy calling this woman names, etc.

I didn't like the way that the woman acted. Not because of what she said, but because she was just obnoxious and over-the-top with everything she said. However, for a few hours since watching I have been thinking about this. I actually did get fat from laziness. I'm not afraid to admit it. Honestly, I disliked myself so much when I was so overweight that I became incredibly lazy, always talking about things that I wasn't capable of doing and making excuses.

Is anyone else willing to admit to laziness or is this a taboo subject? Just curious.

Yep. I WAS FAT and very lazy. I'd spend hours a day surfing the net and reading and watching TV. I was your typical fat lazy slob.

I don't think I gained weight from laziness. I gained cuz I wasn't aware of what I was eating or what I was supposed to be eating. I also had post partum thyroiditis. So on top of pregnancy weight gain, I had a condition that made it crazy difficult to lose weight. My doctor basically told me, "You are going to have to work twice as hard to get half the results with weight loss." And I really didn't start losing much til my thyroid was working again.

Many people gain weight for reasons other than laziness. So the woman who assumes all overweight people are lazy isn't being fair to everyone else who gained for other reasons.

It sounds like the woman was making a blanket stereotype that's in no way true for every fat person. Of course it's true for some fat people (I think I fit the profile), but it also fits for lots of thin people, too.

LAZY....yup that is me. In fact I have a nice clean basket of laundry in my basement since sunday cuz i'm too lazy to go down and get them. i
I rejoiced when I first heard diet was 80 or 90 percent(nbr escapes me right now) of losing weight exercise only small percent. Yes I know I need to exercise but hate it. So yes I am lazy.

I think overweight or obese people have the capacity to be lazy, just like thin people can be lazy. Anyone at any weight can be lazy. I feel that it's a stereotype but I do understand what you're saying.

The danger, in my opinion, is that weight is so much more complex than that and generalizing is not accurate. People have different reasons for what they do. Some people are even depressed, which should not be amounted to laziness. I guess it just depends on a person's own life experience and what has really caused them to be overweight in the first place!

So, if a person tends to be at a healthy weight but gained due to laziness, I can see what you're saying. But if someone has emotional issues or other factors going on that are beyond his/her control, then I think laziness is not necessarily the real reason there.

Always, people should look at themselves to find out why they have gained weight to the point of being overweight or obese. Self-introspection and honesty is key. Of course, some people with a family history of obesity should also look at medical explanations for why they're overweight (such as a thyroid or hormonal disorder). It would be unfortunate to just assume a person is lazy when they may have a medical condition they're unaware of.

In answer to your main question: yes, I can admit to being lazy sometimes And that has led to some weight gain for me in the past.

Yeah but I mean 2 out of 10 - gain the weight from legitimate health issues (thyroid) but even that can be monitored by diet and exercise and prescription. I think almost everyone that gets "fat" is because of poor diet choices, more so than anything else. But even when those people are active ( myself included) it's very "lazy"- the effort that is put in.

mine was a bit of laziness, but it was also from not watching what i was eating. i used to eat everything in sight.

Mine was because of lazyness along side the comfort of food in an abusive relationship! So yep I'm willing to admit I got fat because I was lazy!

Lazy pants by nature here. It's just part of who I am, constant inertia to just coast by and stand still. Even my diet and exercise routine is lazy. I build it into my schedule because it's too much effort to change anything.

As for laziness affecting my weight, I kept putting off making changes to better my situation so I suppose that's its own form of laziness.

Same here. I'm still working on it.

I am a lazy person by nature, and I love food. Sitting around mindlessly eating whatever strikes my fancy is much, much easier than dragging myself to the gym, and doing the careful planning and preparation I have to do now to make sure I always have tasty, on-plan food.

I'm not minimizing anyone else's experience - but for me, getting control of my weight hasn't been a matter of psychoanalysis, of grappling with tmotions dating back to childhood. It hasn't been a matter of tackling PCOS or thyroid problems. It's been a matter of will, pure and simple. For me, this process has required saying "no!" to the lazy carter who would rather take the easy road, and applying discipline and will to do what I know I have to do. Nothing more, and nothing less.

That doesn't mean the stereotype of "fat people are lazy and undisciplined" is valid - and it doesn't mean I am equally lazy and undisciplined in all parts of my life (though, generally, I think I tend to be). However, it's pretty much true for me and why I got fat.

I may have been/be fat but I've never been lazy. I've never owned a car (still don't) so all through high school I walked 8+ miles a day and when I was working last year I was riding my bike 13+ miles a day before I got a job working from home. Even while I was riding my bike literally hours a day to get to and from work, and go to the store and then working on my feet for hours I still weighed 240 pounds. I gained almost 20 additional pounds when I stopped exercising like crazy though. :/

*Raises hand* fat & lazy here too. But in my defense (justification) the fatter I got the lazier I got. Not because I'm necessarily actually lazy because I've seen many thin lazy people, but because I got so dawg gone tired from it. I have no energy. Not to mention I have a slew of health issues from being fat which makes being not lazy even harder. I'm trying now to do something to change my lazy ways.

I think laziness can strike whether you are skinny or fat. If you eat more calories than you burn, then you will gain weight. Some days I feel lazier than others but I try to remain active. You can be a triathelete, exercise every day and still be fat. You can also be a total couch potato and be skinny.

Nope. There's not a lazy bone in my body and never has been. Everything was ten times harder fat, and I did everything anyway. Not lazy.