I was sat in our canteen today with a group of friends, one who is a model (but very modest and lovely and just looks after herself), and she happened to point out a lady who was extremly overweight, must have been a good 20stone+ eating a plate of chips and fish and everything batterd and nasty.
She said how she feel fattest but wants to go over and help her not to do that. I understood what she meant but we then ended up discussing, when is it right to intervene with other peoples lives, and just because some of us care about our bodies, and they way we eat/live, does that mean other people need to be told?
maybe now because i care about my body, and my life i am more aware of others, but as i said to my friends, there were times that i would have happily snuck into a big pile of chips when i was bigger and not even thought twice about it.
i could not help feel awfull for the lady, because she must feel how the rest of us do when we are/were bigger, everyone must be looking at me cause im eating fatty food, thinking,'god shes huge she sould go on a diet'.
she may have an eating condition, yes, or a weight problem, but i could not help think about this subject of conversation, and see what other, dieters opinion was on this matter.
If food makes her happy, and eating what she wants, then who could ever tell her to stop what she is doing. NO ONE, i suppose that free-will all over,
but i wish when i wa sgetting bigger one of my close loved ones was strong enough to say, your getting a bit larger, are you happy with this?

i dunno, im confussed, any other opinions?

I find it quite hard now, because a healthy diet and exercise are so important to ME I feel like I want to tell other people just what it can do for them, and give people a good shake sometimes. But equally I appreciate that my priorities aren't necessarily someone else's priorities, and equally if they are, that plate of fish and chips might be a sanity retaining treat meal in an otherwise healthy diet.

I know from personal experience that it's quite possible to be big and comfortable about your weight, and there's no reason to assume that someone doesn't know that what they are eating isn't healthy, but has other things that are more important to them at the time. For a long time I knew that I could start losing weight if I ate less chocolate and ran more, and I didn't need any well meaning friend or doctor to tell me that, but I simply didn't have the motivation to get down to doing it.

Personally, I wouldn't have been happy with someone telling me what to do. I was always aware of the issue, aware of what I needed to do, and aware of the risks of not doing it. I didn't need someone to tell me that. What I needed was time and space to make the decision for myself.

But everyone's different, and maybe there are people who would appreciate a bit of friendly non-preachy support. But you never know, do you?

I think everyone needs to make their own decision on what they want out of life, whether it be with their bodies, their careers etc.

It's funny, even at my size now, which is hefty and FAT, I never think about what people think of me if I'm having something to eat while we're out, I've never thought of anyone, whatever size they may be, that they shouldn't be eating that...and I would never in a million years think about approaching them and telling them it's bad for them :shocked:

I've just had a thought, if we saw a skinny minnie model? type person eating a lettuce leaf, would we walk up and hand them a plate of greasy food to build them up, because, we know they're not healthy... no, we probably wouldn't, so why should someone thinner than us, feel that they could offer us a lettuce leaf instead of the plate of chips we have in front of us?

We're all different, some people are the happiest being heavy, doesn't neccessarily mean that they're unhealthy... they could eat right, have more muscle than fat, have a healthy BMI and such...


So many people in the world think thin is the best thing, and so many people have health issues because of trying to get there, changing you style of eating is hard, no one should be knocked for lapsing or living, when on a 'diet', each day is different and seeminly, there's a lot of people out there judging...we're a very judgemental world now. It's a shame.

I say, good job to all of us, and them who try to make ourselves healthier, and if you don't, that's ok too....I certainly won't judge you on your size, or your looks....or how much or little money you have, if you're decent and kind, I'll be right there with you

I totally feel you on the last part..i wish someone had stopped me and said hey..your putting on weight girl!!But noone did they just made me feel normal in a large family...But i did manage to turn this around the first day i joined slimming world, i dragged my aunt along for moral support and now...my whole family have changed their eating habits...i love to see the little changes such as i remember when i was young we would all have fried egg with tomatoe ketchup sandwiches for breakfast...now they boil the eggs without ketchup or just a teaspoon and brown bread, we used to buy gallons of oil, now we only have a small bottle of olive oil that lasts for ages, the biscuit used to always be full and it still is but just plain biscuits like digestives and rich tea and also lots of snack-a-jacks!!!....sometimes just being the first to take a step can motivate others...just gentle pushes thought not a big shove...We don't have a right to tell others what to do but we can lead by example..

Not.

My.

Business.

Period.

I have close friends and family members that are overweight. I would never , EVER, mention their weight or what they are eating. When I was FAT, I knew I was FAT and didn't need anyone to point it out to me. All it ever did was hurt my feelings , make me more depressed and cause me to eat more. If asked for help with weight loss, I'd do anything possible to help, but otherwise I wouldn't say a word.

This reminds me of when I used to smoke. People would say to me "oh my God, smoking is so bad for you."

I am a well educated person I am well aware that smoking is bad for me, and you telling me does nothing at all for me. I finally quit smoking cold turkey after a chat with my doctor.

It has now been 7 years and I have never cheated and I didn't gain a pound. In fact I'm 30 lbs lighter than I was the day I quit. Maybe I was so successful at quitting because I decided to do it at a time that was right for me.

Well you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. If asked, then offer help. But otherwise getting to the point where you want to work on losing weight has to be an individual decision.

We're all different. Some might be motivated by a friend/family member saying something. others might be mortified, and comfort eat some more.

So the only safe thing to do is - say nothing. Leave it.

As someone else has said - people can only lose weight successfully when self-motivated. And who are any of us to know when the time is right for someone else, to dig down inside themselves and find that motivation?

The only people who ever mentioned me being overweight when I was nearly 14 stone were 2 family members both of whom are the fattest people I know! Oddly, since I lost the weight, the only people to be negative about weight loss are also the fatter people of my acquaintance. Go figure!

People always mentioned my weight - but they were strangers.

I have to tell you I would never go up to anyone and mention their weight (unless they had a weight loss). Come on- if you are overweight - unless you have some disease I don't know about - you tend to know you are overweight even if you try to be in denial.

Family only mention if they think |I have lost some weight although mum will sometimes say my bum is getting bigger (case of pot calling kettle!).

thats great, some interesting responses, i only poped this thread up because it was on my mind and wanted to see what others thought.
And my model friend is not stickly thin, and does not only eat lettice, shes very healthy, eats normall meals and works out, and has a natural curvatious body for it...i hate it LOL, but she also inspires me.
infact i think i eat more like a model LOL. i joke that when im thin id love to try and be a model for evans....it makes my friends go.....:s lol

FTT - interesting topic. Well done you on recommending your slim friend not to intervene with the woman eating the fish & chips.

I'd have been devastated if anyone (even family) commented on what I ate. When I was fat I knew that I was fat and I didn't need anyone else to tell me. When I decided to lose weight it was because I was in the right frame of mind to tackle it. The problem is that you never know what other stuff is going on in someone's life which is causing them to over eat. It could be that they are eating too much to help them through a really bad time and by commenting on their food/weight you would just be adding to that stress.

I remember once totally putting my foot in it. I was 22 and I wanted to lose a few pounds - and a new diet club had opened up near where I lived. But I didn't want to go on my own so (being a total idiot) I thought that the plump girl a few doors up that I was semi-friends with might be interested in going. I didn't bother raising the subject in a tactful roundabout way - instead, like a complete I marched up to her front door and asked her straight out to go to diet club with me. It honestly hadn't occurred to me that by doing what I did I was, in effect, telling her she was fat. I have NEVER forgotten the hurt look on her face.

What I didn't know was she was going through a very bad patch in her marriage. A couple of days later she took a whole lot of pills - luckily she survived but I live with the knowledge that my thoughtless words just piled on additional pressure that she didn't need at that time.

My mom used to make little off-handed digs .... I should give that to Susan, it's waaay too big for me... I never thought you'd get to be so heavy ... and that sort of thing. It just pi$$ed me off.
I really don't think it had anything to do with my decision to do something about it.

My biggest mistake is overkill ... if someone asks ... I give tooo much information.

Thinking about it some more, there can sometimes be no correlation between what you eat and what you weigh anyways. Til I had kids at 30 I was a sickening size 8. I'd eat entire packets of chocky biccies at one sitting, fish n chips whenever I fancied them, 5 bars of chocolate a day... you name it. No-one would have dreamed of coming up to me and saying *What are you playing at, eating that junk?* because I made Kate Moss look fat! (And I know others here were skinnier when they were younger, too! I aint the only one!) In facvt, even if the health-fascist present day, people still would never go up to a skinny person and tell them to step away from the burger... So it makes me more annoyed, now, thinking of it, that anyone could do it to a fatter person.

I have PCOS (I did when I was skinny, too, but in those days I walked and cycled miles a day and burned it off!) Because of insulin problems, I'll always have a harder time staying 'normal' or losing weight - and my stepsister has a thyroid condition, and also gets related weight problems. Who's to say any stranger sitting there doesn't have health conditions that aren't onvious, but contribute to their weight? I had a diabetic friend at uni, and she hated eating/drinking how she was 'supposed' to... Now she's middle aged, she's super fit, and skinnier than when she was 20! But it also occurs to me, if this woman is younger maybe she doesn't have that maturity yet, to take care of herself. I know I didn't until I was about 37!