Studies Showing Fat Shaming is Causing Weight Gain
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3670560.html

I read that article and found it really interesting. Thoughts?

Blame anyone or anything but where the real problem lies - our food choices.

Food choices are only one of the "real problems." Like most health issues, obesity is complex. Blaming or focusing on only one cause or contributing factor, blinds us to others.

Most of my weight is due to eating too much fairly healthy food. Way too much. But there are other causes too.

I would never have said that before I suddenly had evidence. I was told by the doctor who diagnosed my sleep apnea that with treatment (the cpap machine) would probably lose some weight without trying. I didn't believe him in the least. In fact I laughed at the thought.

For 6-8 months I didn't diet, ate what I wanted, and didn't watch what I ate and ate, ate mostly my husband's restaurant-style cooking and I didn't have a scale (all the things that usually result in gaining). When I went to my new doctor for my first appointment, I was expecting the HUGE gain, I always experience when I do any of the things I listed.

Miraculously, as the pulmonologist predicted ( and I had forgotten) I had lost. 20 blasted pounds! I was not eating fewer calories, in fact I know I was eating as much or more than before the cpap - and to top it off, my life was much more sedentary.

Food is only one part of the picture, probably the biggest part, but still only one part. Blame doesn't belong in the picture at all, because blame and shame do not fix problems they only add to them (which is kind of the point).

We don't need blame, we need insight and every scrap of it, because obesity is a problem that needs to be addressed on all fronts.


At the very least, social support gives people the hope and motivation to make good food choices. If you hate yourself and feel that no one cares about you, not even yourself, it's pretty hard to see the point in "wasting" any energy or effort on your own behalf. Instead, suicide by food seems like a pretty good idea - less painful, less messy, and less work than other methods, and at least suicide by food temporarily opens a tiny window of enjoyment in your life.


Yeah food is a problem, but it isn't the only problem that causes and contribute to obesity. Let's work on all of them.

Interesting!

Yes, I just found the article thought provoking, especially when you think about it in the context of fat shaming/bullying and children. Adults can rationalize and process emotionally a he|| of a lot better than children. If it effects adults as much as these studies are showing, imagine what it's doing to the children.

Even as a five year old I realized that people making fun of me or scolding me about my weight and my eating only made me hungrier and more secretive about my eating.

"Get mad and use it as motivation" always seemed like ludicrous advice, because the more anger I mustered the hungrier I felt.