Yeah, I have to second the notion about giving the folks in the scooters the benefit of the doubt. :^: It's the chicken and the egg thing, ya know. My mom had surgery 20 years ago that damaged a junction of three nerves so now she is in constant nerve pain, like being stung by bees 24 hours a day. She went from 90 pounds (4'11) to 195 lbs (and shrunk to 4'9"). She can barely walk and I wish she'd get a scooter. But she doesn't want to be seen as one of "them". Her weight gain is because of the disability and not the other way around.

And as far as scooters go, the event that helped trigger my weight loss was me slipping down some stairs while one of my legs was caught behind me. I ended up straining a knee ligament. I could barely walk and when I did walk it was quite painful. I never used any scooters in stores but at work, I asked about parking in the handicap spots because the parking lot was actually quite a distance from the front door but the handicap spots were 20 feet from the front door. They told me to go ahead after I explained my predicament. Anyway, despite there being plenty of handicap spots, there was one person who complained that I was parking in the handicap spot without a placard. I felt bad parking there but I was also enduring a lot of pain at the time and it wasn't as if I was taking a spot away from anyone.

Originally Posted by Lori Bell:
it pisses me off to no end when I see morbidly obese people taking/using all the motor carts at our local Wal-mart. They park their cars and walk in the store (under their own power) and set down on a cart...

My husband and I would be thise people. You wouldn't know it to look at my husband, so you'd be pissed off, but the truth is he has a degenerative joint condition. He was told at 17 (when he was a fit, young athlete) after his first knee surgery, that he would be disabled by 30 (by sheer force of will, he made it to 35).

He gained weight as he became less and less able to be as active as he was in his teens, even though he worked extremely strenuous jobs and went to the gym for 3 hour workouts 3 times a week (when I met him nine years ago, when he was 31). His doctors say it's possible that the extra weight actually may have helped slow the joint degeneration (because his bone density and muscle mass allowed his bones to do some of the work his joints and tendons would have otherwise had to do). If he'd been fat and inactive, it would have sped the degenerations - but fat and active was a combination that may have actually been moderately helpful - bad for his heart, but it added several years to his working life.

Of course, now that he is unable to work, there's no "up side" to his weight, and he's having a hard time getting it off. This guy who even at his highest weight, did jobs most men weren't strong enough to do, now uses a cane in the winter and on bad days, the Walmart carts.

He is a fat, disabled man who when he loses the weight will be a thin, disabled man, but people will believe he only has a right to use the cart when he's thin.

I on the other hand, have fibromyalgia and 95% of the time will stay home rather than use a cart on a bad day - because of the stigma of using the cart when you're overweight - again I feel that I only "deserve" to use the cart when I'm at a normal weight.

My FIL who recently passed away had MS and PAD and used a cart (full-time, so he had his own). He didn't become overweight until AFTER he became disabled, but for many years (until his amputation) he also looked like a healthy, fat man who didn't deserve to use the cart. Initially, when he first started using the cart, he could walk under his own power for quite a length of time, but because of the risk of falling, his doctor wanted him using the cart.

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving.

Originally Posted by Hamoco350:
I do think that America's view on food has ruined a lot of people...

We are lazy and everything has become easy to accommodate us. Food isn't food anymore, it's chemicals and drugs, but we're too tired to fight against it.

That is a big'ol buncha truth right there! America's food has become mostly processed, bagged, boxed, frozen, canned stuff. If a meal takes more than 20 minutes to prepare, then it just ain't worth it, and it oft-times ends up with a "honey, could you swing by Subway on your way home?!?!?!" :dizzy:

This is part of my overweight problem. I don't like to cook. NEVER HAVE. At 46 years old, probably never will. But through trial and error, I have learned easier ways to prepare food without relying on processed junk. That's not to say that I don't open the occasional can of corn or peas, but I would much rather have corn on the cob or REAL potatoes as opposed to the fake boxed kind. And if you stop & think about it, most processed food IS full of chemicals & so forth. Heck, even FRESH fruits & veggies can be chock-full of chemicals and pesticides, which is why so many doctors, etc. are touting the organic route these days.

All I know for sure is how/why I got to this particular weight (for the ....6th?.... time in my adult life!!!!) and what does/doesn't work for me to get it off. HOW / WHY did I get this way? I love food, and I eat too much of it. Ouch. But true. :cbg:

I'm definitely in the "who cares" camp about how and why. When people ask how I'm losing weight, the basic answer is eat less, move more, and the opposite of that would be the reason I gained - ate too much, didn't move enough. Maybe I don't have some deep understanding of why I did that, but for me, that's less important than making the choice to commit to a healthy lifestyle and sticking with it.

The one thing that has actually been the biggest revelation for me is that my commitment to this lifestyle doesn't have to be perfect and if I mess up, I just need to pick myself up and keep going in the right direction. Before, if I wasn't perfect, I would just give up. Now I just let myself enjoy it if I go off plan, and then just make the better choice the next time. If I get to my goal a day later that I would have, or even months later, what does it matter in the end?

for me, it had a real emotional component, I was a compulsive binge eater for many years. I felt addicted to food and like it was all I thought about. I had periods of dieting and losing lots of weight -- and food and eating would be all I thought about.

once I broke through some of the emotional garbage, I had to deal with breaking bad habits. and I had to adopt new exercise habits, which actually took me quite a while. I didn't feel like doing much as 300 plus pounds, believe me. Lazy? I felt more embarrassed, uncomfortable, scared. I felt terrified walking into the gym at 260 lbs. I'm sure there was lots of denial going on as well, not WANTING to have to deal with it. (Still have some of that.)

I'm sure there are physiological factors that go on with my weight loss too.

It's taken me A LOT of mindful, constant work to get to the point where I am now, which is still some distance to the finishing line.

just wanted to quickly add that I personally feel that will power has had very little to do with it

I have to say that I am quite surprised to hear from 3FC posters that think that laziness and ignorance is the main reason for obesity and that seeing them using those carts is anger inducing. Could it be that those who have overcome a significant weight problem feel that since they did it, everyone should be able to?
This view perpetuates society's continued disdain of fat people. As I lose weight, I realize the many reasons that people are heavy and I try not to judge them. I have not walked in their shoes.

Originally Posted by Cglasscock1:
I have to say that I am quite surprised to hear from 3FC posters that think that laziness and ignorance is the main reason for obesity and that seeing them using those carts is anger inducing. Could it be that those who have overcome a significant weight problem feel that since they did it, everyone should be able to?
This view perpetuates society's continued disdain of fat people. As I lose weight, I realize the many reasons that people are heavy and I try not to judge them. I have not walked in their shoes.

Laziness and ignorance are not at all the same thing. I was ignorant about weight loss: I thought I could only lose weight if I ate no more than 1200 calories a day, I thought there was no point in exercising if I couldn't stay in the "target zone" for 25 minutes, I thought a calorie was a calorie and macronutrients didn't matter. When I learned about these things, I lost weight.

I am not ashamed of my ignorance--it's not a character flaw, like laziness would be. Many doctors are ignorant about those exact same things. Saying that ignorance contributes to obesity in this country is a comment on our society, not on individuals.

I have a 'how' and a 'why'... and they are both a pain in the butt to manage!:D

Yep, I completely agree with Shmead. Ignorance is very different from laziness. As I had said earlier. I was ignorant about portion size. I was ignorant about exercise. I was not lazy. I am not lazy.

Oh and on the topic of the carts in stores, for some reason it never occurred to me that people used them without having a "medical" need for them. For some reason, I just always assumed people who used them needed them and no one would choose to use one if she/he didn't need it. :shrug:

I agree with Shmead

Originally Posted by :
Saying that ignorance contributes to obesity in this country is a comment on our society, not on individuals.

But we are lazy in the US and Canada.

I of course agree that laziness and ignorance are not the same thing. Both were given as main reasons that people are overweight, which did surprise me coming from this forum.

I once was berated in a grocery store for using the cart. I was obese at the time. My kneecap had also recently dislocated (I had a congenital knee defect that has been surgically corrected in both knees which caused this). I basically hop/limped into the store (my partner dropped me off right in front)...I had crutches, but quickly learned that they were near impossible to manage on the cart (they're longer, and when you turned, they'd take out things on shelves), and impossible to use while pushing a regular cart or holding a hand basket, so I usually didn't bring them into stores - I verified a motorized cart was available visually, then left my crutches in the car).

I got on the motorized cart, so grateful that I wouldn't have to basically hop around the store. Other than one leg being held relatively straight on the cart, I didn't have any obvious signs of being temporarily disabled (I had my brace on under loose sweatpants). I was able to stand to get items off of high shelves by hoisting myself up on the cart handlebars, all weight on the good leg, and I did this to grab something.

A woman in the aisle laid into me HARD about "lazy fat people" using the carts, taking them from people with ACTUAL injuries, that she saw me stand up and get things off of high shelves, that I ought to be just ASHAMED of myself for taking carts away from people who needed them, and that I'd lose weight if I just got off my butt and walked a little bit. She just kept on going. That is, until I silently rolled up my pant leg to show her my nearly full-leg brace, at which point she beat a hasty retreat (literally turned and walked away without another word!).

I went home and sobbed. And I started putting my brace on OVER my pants after that, if I thought I might need to use a scooter.

We never, ever know why someone chooses to use a scooter. It had never occurred to me that someone might think it was just "fat people being lazy" until someone publically berated and humiliated me.

Originally Posted by Cglasscock1:
I of course agree that laziness and ignorance are not the same thing. Both were given as main reasons that people are overweight, which did surprise me coming from this forum.

Why? Laziness, I can see--I don't think obese people are any more likely to be any more lazy than anyone else--but it seems obvious to me that ignorance is a major cause of obesity in this country. That's not picking on anyone or insulting anyone or anything. I'm not saying "ignorant" as some sort of code for stupid or low-class. I mean I, a college-educated, fairly intelligent, perfectly capable adult woman was deeply, deeply ignorant about weight management and it contributed to my obesity to a significant degree. I think that my experience is pretty common and that even the people that are supposed to know this stuff--first and foremost, doctors--do not.

I truly do not understand what in that is a controversial statement. I am not being coy here--if I am implying something mean-spirited when I say "ignorance contributes to obesity", please illuminate me: I assure you it is unintentional.

I guess maybe the better wording would be...

UNMODIVATED instead of lazy. BUT to me they end up with the same result.