Okay, so I've been overweight for a while now and I've always struggled with my own body image issues and food related issues. This year I've made huge strides towards just being healthier...I enjoy healthier food, I love exercising, I appreciate feeling good and being productive...these are NEW developments, keep in mind.
However...I've found that I am starting to feel...disgusted by some of the overweight people in my life or that I meet. And I feel TERRIBLE about this. I am no better than anyone and it's not like I'm perfect, it just feels like my contempt and hatred for being overweight has slowly morphed into contempt for overweight people. Like my mom, for instance...she's at least 150 pounds overweight. She always has been, but it's only recently that I feel really irritated with this...disgusted, even. She just eats all the time, never exercises, makes no effort to take care of herself and she looks...bad.
Also, I just met a REALLY nice guy...he's sweet, funny, has a good job, seems really genuine, etc, etc...but he's overweight. And this is a turn off to me.
Before anyone gets mad, please know that I feel awful. I know that it's wrong of me to feel this way and I wish very much that I didn't. I love my mom and I know that this new guy could potentially be someone special, I just don't know how to control these negative feelings that I seem to be developing towards the overweight people that I know. (It's not overweight people in general...just the ones I have personal relationships with). I KNOW that I am no better than anyone, I am overweight myself and I'm never far from hitting the Golden Corral buffet for a couple hours, myself.
I totally feel you. I get so annoyed when my friends/family ***** about their weight or tease me for losing and then just eat and eat... I've come to a point where I can't stand it. I'm disgusted at how much they eat and don't care about their bodies. But I have days when I do it too, so I can't say anything.
Well I'd say as far as attraction, even if the best guy in the world came along, there is no guarantee that you'd be attracted to him. If you aren't attracted to him, I wouldn't date him. I was never attracted to big guys myself but that even included muscular guys. I also was interested in those that were active rather than couch potatoes.
As far as your mom, it may be that you are becoming more self aware of her habits. I imagine you are also feeling concern for her. In any situation though, I'd try to put yourself in their place a little bit and a bit of empathy can help. Your mom may have her own issues and demons that keep her where she is at. How does she feel about herself? Does she really see beyond her current habits? What would it take to get her to change?
I can't say I am disgusted by overweight people, but I sure notice them, have you noticed how many teen agers are grossly overweight ? I feel sorry for them and wish I could tell them they don't have to be this way. I am talking about strangers, kids I see in the mall And other places.
This is pretty normal. Is it right? No, but you already know that. Where's it come from?
Personally, I think it comes from giving ourselves permission to be disgusted with ourselves. Once we're ok with being disgusted with oursleves, it becomes pretty easy to be disgusted with other people (and it starts from the center and grows outward, so the first people we're disgusted with are the people closest to us. Also, having that disgust for others gives you even more reason and energy to hate/feel disgust for yourself, which empowers you to send even more disgust outward. It's a vicious cycle, if you allow it to be.
The thing is you do have a choice. I know it feels like these are unwanted thoughts - so they're out of your control, but that's not entirely true, either. You do have control over these thoughts, or at least you can have control over these thoughts if you choose to.
People say "I can't help it, it's just how I feel," but that isn't really true. You don't have to allow yourself to feel this way. You know better. You know for yourself that compassion is a whole lot more helpful then judgement and contempt. When you feel people are disgusted with YOU, you know how hurtful that feels and how it doesn't motivate you and make you feel more able to change - it's more likely to inspire depression, hopelessness and helplessness.
You probably think you're hiding your emotions well (that you wouldn't tell any of these people that they disgust you), but I would bet that on some level they know - don't you know when someone is looking down their noses at you with contempt and disgust?
I'm not trying to make you feel bad, because I know that you don't want to feel this way, and you consciously know it's not helpful to yourself or to the targets of your disgust. There are ways to end the cycle of disgust targeted inward and outward. Most of them involve talking to yourself - not just bad, punishing thoughts - not just trying to will the thoughts away, but by replacing them with compassionate, loving thoughts. Remind youself of the wonderful qualitites these people have, and why FAT is only a very small portion of who they are.
Try to find out where the disgust is really coming from. Is it because you're projecting your disgust of yourself onto them - or are you distracting yourself from making changes by looking at those in your life who need to change "more" than you (a way to say, I'm not so bad, I only have 40 lbs to lose, at least I'm not as bad/disgusting as my mother who has at least 150 - why she's more than 4 times as bad/disgusting as I am).
I'm not saying these are your thoughts, I'm saying that you find out where the disgust is coming from. Since you're not feeling it for strangers, only people close to you, I think there's a lot more than just disgust of obesity going on - it's something else, and you need to find out what that is, and heal it.
I think you just have to remember how you have struggled and that they are probably struggling right now.
I can understand not liking how some people eat- while my husband isn't overweight it bothers me how he eats. He eats very unhealthy but is just LUCKY that he isn't overweight.
As for this person if you aren't attracted to him (it doesn't matter why) I wouldn't try to make it happen- it's just going to hurt him in the end.
I honestly think with my mom it has a lot to do with my lifelong fear of "ending up" like her. Not just physically but otherwise...she's always had depression and has made a lot of really bad decisions in her life and seems to have an overall lack of any self control. I just watch her...eating three bowls of cocoa krispies at midnight...and I get so angry and it IS disgusting to me now. I am so aware now of everything I put in my mouth now and how it affects my body and my weight and I can't help but apply that knowledge to what I see those around me eating. She's not ignorant and she does know better, it's like she's just out of control and doesn't care...it's kind of embarassing.
This is the first time that I've ever felt a lack of attraction (or complete attraction...I am attracted to him on a mental and emotional level) for someone based on weight. Really, I've always been the type to be able to find something attractive about everyone. It bothers me to think that I might now be limited like that...I don't want to be attracted to only a certain "type" of person...I know that a lot of great people are overweight...
Thanks for all the understanding support and the different perspectives. I'm glad that you guys were able to understand how I meant all of that and that I'm not a mean person or anything. I hope to be able to get these negative thoughts under control...
I think you might just be going through a phase as you adjust to some big changes in your own life, and figure out what that means to you. In a few weeks or months, you might find these feeling resolve themselves.
ThicknPretty, I'm going to go in a different direction with advice re the overweight guy. I say date him and give him a chance. I can tell you that the two greatest loves of my life were both men to whom I felt no initial attraction, but as our time together unfolded, the attractions could not have been stronger. It may be that your feelings never change, but on the other hand, you may be most pleasantly surprised.
Don't be too hard on yourself for your feelings of disgust toward others who are overweight. Personally, I think those are just externalized feelings of self-loathing. Now that you are actively taking steps to improve your health, you watch others engaging in behaviors that you yourself used to engage in -- and you can see with no illusions how self-destructive it is. Maybe it will help to distinguish between disliking the behaviors and disliking the person...? kaplods has said it best.
Your mom may be out of control and she may not care. Mental illnesses can be very powerful on a person, especially depression.
As far as attraction, it really all depends, I think people all have their 'types'. Funny that I was always attracted to dark haired/dark eyed guys but my husband is blonde with blue eyes. It was really him the individual that I was attracted to rather than him being the 'typical' type. It is possible that you could find yourself attracted to an overweight guy at some point but it doesn't sound like this guy is it.
i know im going to get alot of sideways glances for this but im going to say it anyways.
Dont bother with this guy. if your not attracted to him youll just hurt him in the end. he dosent deserve that he has his own demons to struggle with ( who dosent ) he dosent need this too
The way you feel towards your mother is unacceptable. My mother by no means was a great role model for me or my sisters ... my eldest sister ( 43 ) took care of my sister and i [my sister is 29 im 22 ] because my mother was emotionally unfit and struggled with her own problems BUT despite it all she is my mother and she has never left me to want or need for anything she has done all that she CAN for us and i love her unconditionally
third of all i know you said you feel bad but think of how you would feel if people felt that way towards you. pretty crappy huh? you may not b that overweight in the world of tubbies but in the real world your still pretty overweight. i bet if you knew what some people thought of you . you would burst into tears. YOU of all people should understand and have sympathy for people of a larger size... in alot of cases these people are depressed and eating has become a coping mechanism. some of these people have been through traumatic excperiances leading them to to use food to comfort themselves and yes there are the cases where medication. or just plain greedyness made them fat. what made you overweight? wouldent you like if someone could sympathise with you and instead of shed a critical eye on you help you with some constructive critisism??
* waits for people to tell me off, but im entitled to an opinion too *
Are you sure its "disgust" you feel...or is it more frustration? I know as I lost weight I became more and more frustrated with my husband and my sister and my brother - all overweight people who claimed they wanted to lose weight but refused to DO anything about it. I'm not and never have been disgusted by my husband...just angry that he won't change.
Maybe you feel that YOU made the choice and can't understand why THEY haven't, as well?
She's not ignorant and she does know better, it's like she's just out of control and doesn't care...it's kind of embarassing.
I had a feeling that this might be part of the issue, but didn't want to say anything in case I was wrong. You're disgust is tied to embarassment - how your mother's weight hurts YOU, not how it affects her.
Instead of feeling compassion for the pain her inability to control her obesity is having on her, you're thinking about how it hurts/embarasses you.
It's not an unnatural emotion - but it is a bit self-absorbed. I don't mean that harshly, and my guess would be that you're still young (under 30?)
I don't mean to dismiss your feelings, but it's very common when you're young to look at the world through the filter of how it affects you. The isn't about you, it's about her. Depression is a prison, and it can be very difficult to escape. Resentment against parental imperfections is pretty common (at least until you become a parent or in other ways start to see your parents as real people, not just parent-type people). It's easy to forget that parents are real people, with real demons and struggles. Their job is to raise us as best they can - not make our lives and themselves perfect for our sake.
I disagree that we should "hate the fat, but not the person." It's too much like hate the crime -not the criminal, implying that fat people ARE criminals, and their fat - their very existance being offensive and harmful to us all. I don't think we should hate fat at all. Body fat serves a very useful purpose, and until only the last couple generations, having a little extra ensured survival. The behavioral tendencies that ensured our survival, are now killing us.
It isn't a shock as to why so many Americans are obese - it's a wonder more are not. Liking food and having a strong desire to obtain and eat it, isn't a mental illness or a character defect - it's a survival mechanism that is not useful in an unnatural, artificially overabudent environment. It's not our brains and body's that are off-track it's our environment. We need to change the environment, because it could be tens or hundreds of thousands of years before our bodies and brains catch up.
We need to stop looking at obese people as some disgusting, immoral, deviants - instead of the people they are - normal people living in an abnormal environment.
I would suggest some books to give you a different perspective. Not all of them are perfect, and I don't agree with everything between the covers, but they're good thought provokers and insight into different perspectives.
The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler
Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata
FAT!SO? : Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size
~ Marilyn Wann
Big Fat Lies: The Truth about Your Weight and Your Health
~ Glenn A. Gaesser
Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession (I haven't read this one yet, just have heard good things about it).
~ Don Kulick and Anne Meneley
I definitely feel you. My parents and friends and family ***** and complain about their weight, or if I get excited about dropping a pants size my aunt (who is 225lbs and a size 16) will be "Oh great." in a sort of contemp-filled voice :| I try to just ignore it. When they irritate me I just preach to them about 90% of a healthy lifestyle is eating right, because they loooove their snacks and junk food.
it's like she's just out of control and doesn't care
A lot of food issues can go along with depression, such as binge eating disorder. I can tell you from the outside it probably appeared to my friends and family that I was out of control and didn't care. I was out of control, but I did care. I just couldn't seem to handle it properly. I'd hate myself for eating, so I'd eat more. Makes no sense logically, but it's what I did. And it took me a long time to pull myself out of that habbit (and I will always have to be vigilant to keep from falling back into it).
It's easy when your weight loss is going well to forget how hard it is to make those initial changes. My mom gets really negative about herself. I get so frustrated with her "I can't"s. But it's a hard mindset to change. You just have to remind yourself that just because you're ready and have made the change, doesn't mean she is. The best you can do is give her your support and hope she finds her way.
Am I a Bad Person???
