Is Simply Being Fat A Disablity?

[Cool_Freaker 0]

As has been mentioned before, a lot of the problem stems from the way our lifestyle has changed in terms of the foods we eat and the way we live. Essentially, with all the agricultural advances, we can afford to eat more, but not put in the physical exercise required to actually attain that food. The fact that extremely unhealthy choices are available doesn't help either. (I read a book that claimed the biggest mistake in human history was agriculture).The problem these days is starting from childhood, with children being fed unhealthy food, or demanding unhealthy food through some media gimmick. Many parents like the convenience of fast food, and often give in to their child's whims. Once these children become adults (and don't do anything about their weight), it's probably too late, as they've grown up used to eating these foods. It would take a very motivated, determined person to break out of this, which, of course, some people have.Another aspect to consider is those that simply cannot stop themselves from eating - I would consider this to be a mental disease, though this is usually a very extreme circumstance. By that, I mean those people who are bed-bound due to weight. These people, most definitely, have a disability. People that can still move around somewhat, (and hence still do something about their weight) really shouldn't be considered disabled, in my books.

[humanisfilth 0]

I'm extremely sensitive to anyone being labelled "disabled". So when I see some huge, fat MONSTER pasted to their mattress, unable to move because they can't stop shoving hamburgers and pizza down their throat...I become SICK WITH RAGE. Please understand...I UNDERSTAND that there are genetic and psychological factors at play that mitigate what those folks have to go through...but at SOME POINT...SOMEWHERE DOWN THE LINE...WHEN THEY'RE UNABLE TO GET OUT OF BED ANY MORE...then THEY HAD TO HAVE A CLUE they needed to change and something had to give. I'm sorry, but at that point, they have CHOSEN to be a big, fat slob and ruin their life. And CHOOSING to be like that should negate the possibility of there being any disability benefits available. They're NOT disabled...they're FAT. Lock 'em in a room with a water source and let nature take its course. They'll lose the weight...and get out of bed so they can go on a Burger King run again. Hopefully but then - they'll actually seek help for the factors that cause them to suffer...but MAN...they can CHOOSE to lose weight! I cannot choose to switch my rogue autoimmune factors off...retarded people cannot choose to repair their genetics...cerebral palsy victims cannot choose to gain control over their muscles and walk normally again....we are permanently disabled and have to find a way to live with it.

I saw a show in PBS recently about diabetes becoming rampant on Native Indian reservations now...because, starting in their youth, men and women are now choosing to eat pizza and burgers instead of their traditional foods. In one woman's case, she was TOLD 7 years ahead of time that if she continued to eat badly, her diabetes would get so bad, her kidneys would fail. Did she choose to eat better and stay healthy? NO! And now she's permanently plugged into a dialysis machine. Is she disabled? Well, NOW she is...YES! BUT IT WAS TOTALLY AVOIDABLE! All she had to do when she was FAT was to LOSE THE WEIGHT and stay healthy...simply by eating right!! That really got under my skin.

So, in answer to your question. No, simply being fat is not a disability. Fat people will tell you it does...and that we're all "fatists" now...and that we should accomodate their need for two seats and movie theaters and airplanes. And I should be the most sympathetic person in the world to them...but again...they HAVE CHOICES!!! It makes me sick(er) knowing that they can fix themselves but do not. So I'm sorry...they can't have two seats any more, because I need that other seat for my living assistant. They can't use the special chairs put in place to help me get up stairs...they can WALK and maybe LOSE SOME WEIGHT.

I say all of this with some of my tongue in cheek...but mostly because I hope it inspires the anger and rage in enough overweight people to actually DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE THEMSELVES. And, PLEASE, for your own sake...DO!

If you are overweight and find you simply can't lose the weight and keep it off...here are some WONDERFUL resources to help you. You are loved...you can do it...and you ARE WORTH IT!

Obesity Treatment Resources

Edited November 16, 2006 by humanisfilth (see edit history)

[Kuroshiro 0]

Without fat people, the world would be full of walking sticks. I myself, is fat, and also not proud of it. But thats just life. Also, without those "fat people" there wouldn't be much enthuisatics [spelled it wrong, but I hope you get my point]. Lets take Josh, from the show Drake and Josh. Hes a "fat guy", yet the funniest with intense sarcasim, hm, just like me. But yeah, being fat is not a disability. Its just how you control your eating. Just don't eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner untill your full. One plate or even half would be a good start. I would also suggest to buy a treadmill if youre that embarrassed to go jogging outside, just lile me, I run at least a mile every other day on my treadmill. But there are those one people who weigh at least half a ton and eat six boxes of large pizzas and a dozen strawberry smoothies each day. Thats just really sad.

[Kioku 0]

I don't see what the big deal is. If a person wants to have a heart attack when they're twenty nine years old, let them. Geeze.

[Thorned Rose 0]

I have very little sympathy for people that knowingly inflict health problems upon themselves. If you smoke and get cancer - you've got no one to blame but yourself. If you eat to excess and don't exercise and become obese, don't bi*ch - you only have yourself to blame!Once, when there was so little awareness surrounding the importance of eating well and exercising, people might have been able to declare ignorance but nowadays there really is little excuse.I certainly feel sorry for people with physiological problems that can cause obesity especially when they unfortunately get lumped in with the lazy buggers and called mean names. Of course there are also lazy fat people who use medical conditions as an excuse.I have M.E. and have had it for near on 7 years now. After having my two children, I put on about 20kg (about 44 pounds) and for a long time I didn't know what to do because exercise is extremely difficult for me. However eventually I found Vibration Training. I've always eaten better than most but my making my diet even better and virtually cutting out all refined carbohydrates (i.e. sugar, white bread etc) and eating lots of veg, complex carbohydrates etc and doing Vibration training I've lost 14kg (31lbs) which just goes to show that it is possible for people who so called 'can't exercise' to.There really is no excuse any more. 1. you shouldn't get like that to start with and 2. even if you do because of one thing or another there is ALWAYS *something* that you can do about it. Eating right + exercise like aquarobics, aquajogging or vibration training etc = healthier, more energy and longer, happier life.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

as many people have said before, it depends on whether it is a chosen thing, or if it is an unchoosable thing. For instance, there is a desies out there that makes birth in the Addams apple (located in the throat) that makes someone feel like they are never satisfied no matter how much food they eat. which, in the end makes them bigger.Then there are some people who were born with abnormally large stomaches and are capible of eating a WHOLE lot and that too will result in them getting bigger. this is an un-avoidable thingThen there are the idiots that CHOOSE to stuff their faces and expand their stomaches themselves. now this is a choice they decide to make on their own. and it is avoidable..For the last two choices, there is an option to stop the 'fatness' and that is to have a band surgically put around your stomach that reduces the size of your stomach making you feel full after a small amount of food, or a doctor's advised amount of food. You can even adjust the size of this band with a small lever that is supposabley brought out to your side.The reason i know this is because my grandpa before he died was planning on getting this band surgery done and the doctor explained to him some of the possible reasons why he was 'fat'

[Krazychinkstaboi 0]

well it doesnt really matter how you eat it just matters wether u can handle it or not. i hate how people thinkk dieting will help u lose weight. it just keeps you from getting even more fat. if people are willing to pay so much for dieting programs i recommend that they spend less and get membership to a gym and start excercising and working out more instead of ruining your body trying to starve yourself of needed nutrients.

[randomdood 0]

if you are obese you should park as far away as you can from the disabled parking, so you can get the excersise!if you are obese then you should be running laps aroung walmart, not be riding a scooter to clean out all the fast food places in the shop!!!!!if you are obese, you are fat, do something about it or stop complaining and stop using truely disabled peoples rights. obese poeple are disabled but unlike a lot of people the choose to be, therefor they should not be given the rights of a disabled peron

[Madkat-Z 0]

if you are obese you should park as far away as you can from the disabled parking, so you can get the excersise!if you are obese then you should be running laps aroung walmart, not be riding a scooter to clean out all the fast food places in the shop!!!!!
if you are obese, you are fat, do something about it or stop complaining and stop using truely disabled peoples rights.
obese poeple are disabled but unlike a lot of people the choose to be, therefor they should not be given the rights of a disabled peron

For some reason I find this rather true and funny, but at the same time kind of offencive. According the Mass Body Index, I'm obese, even though I don't even look like I am even that fat at all. I do park pretty far away from the store I go into just for the shear fact, I can't park very well still. I am doing stuff to be able to manage my weight as well and walking all over my college campus is giving me more exersise then I need. However, there are people who actually can't do anything about there weight due to heritatary or other various health reason. Sure there are people out there whos main problem is their diet, but even still there are people out there even if they ate carrorts and walked every where they went they still wouldn't lose any weight.

I know this board started out on the fact that obese people where using scooters at shopping centers instead of older people who needed them because of age. I'm finding it kind of odd that one in the posts that I've read has thought of this, What if the older person in question is too prideful to use a scooter or doesn't need to use it even though it looks like they do. Most stores normally have quite a few scooters on hand anyway, so whoses to say who should use it and who should?

[randomdood 0]

well, madkat-Zforget the scooter or the disabled parking, it's not really what you eat, it's how much, i'm not sure of this genetic hing you speak of since if you eat 3000kJ a day and put out 5000kJ then obviously you are burning fat, it also depends on what type of excersise you do. you Mass body inde is very inacurate since it depends on what type of build you are.

[Madkat-Z 0]

well, madkat-Zforget the scooter or the disabled parking, it's not really what you eat, it's how much, i'm not sure of this genetic hing you speak of since if you eat 3000kJ a day and put out 5000kJ then obviously you are burning fat, it also depends on what type of excersise you do. you Mass body inde is very inacurate since it depends on what type of build you are.

Well keep in mind in about one cup of chopped carrots is 52 calories, in order to lose weight you need to eat under 2000 calories a day by Calorie counting. 1500 calories (which is the normal number of calories a person should eat to lose weight) divided by 52 works out to be about 28-29 cups of carrots. This equals about 1.5 dry gallon of carrots. So think of eating a milk jug and a half filled with carrots. However a person who can't move as easily or is at bed rest needs to eat 1200 calories or less a day to loses weight which is more like just the milk jug filled with carrots. To me at least that is a lot of food, and plus you shouldn't just eat carrots in order to lose weight. It is unhealthy and unbalances your nutritional values, plus you would get sick of eating just carrots after one day.

Anyway, what I'm saying is my mom before she had her bypass surgery, she tried every single diet out there, (this lists includes, Salad Diet, Calorie Counting, Carb Counting, Nutrisystem, and a few others.) and still didn't lose a pound even with doing 30-1 hour of walking every day (and even more at her work being a nurse and all). She even had to wait a few months to get her bypass surgery because she had already had some health problems that prevented her from getting her surgery sooner.

So what I'm saying is some people just can't lose weight by changing their diet and exercising more and have to take drastic measures in order to lose weight. Some people can't even get surgery now like my mom because its too expensive since its no longer covered by most medical insurance companies, cause they believe the same thing you do. Plus, there are still people out there who can't get surgery at all because they are too unstable and would die on the table.

I'm not saying that an excuse to not do anything about it, but just because someone is unable to lose weight and has to use a scooter to get around a store doesn't mean they aren't trying to. For all we could know they could be running laps around the hospital or doing simple bed exercises and eating just carrots all day long. Yeah I get your point that they should be walking instead but keep in mind some overweight people have the joints of 60 year olds because of the extra weight and can't walk because of pain.

[Kioku 0]

Shifting the blame onto the "coporations" rather than accepting you're a fat *BLEEP*ing pile of lard and it's your own fault. Truly an American value.

[lwolfe26 0]

The key is exercise. You can eat as many calories as you can burn. If you eat food high in sugar and fat and sit all day you are taking in 10x as many calories as you need. Heredity is an issue in a very small percentage of the people who are obese. 50 years ago how many obese people were there, how about 100 years ago? The biggest change in the last 100 years is the lack of physical work people perform each day. Back then most things were done by hand and people walked to most places, burning calories. Modern day foods are high in sugar and high in fat making them taste good. Us americans like things that taste good and feel good and have no self control. Obesity is only as disabling as a person lets it become.

[Thorned Rose 0]

The key is exercise. You can eat as many calories as you can burn. If you eat food high in sugar and fat and sit all day you are taking in 10x as many calories as you need

While technically true, still somewhat deceptive: There is a point at which you can't do more exercise - what I mean is that a person who is perfectly healthy and perfectly fit could exercise 24/7 but still eat more calories than they could burn in that time (not to mention eventually they would collapse even attempting to exercise non-stop)

There is also the fact that even if you exercise enough to burn off all the calories you eat in a high-refined sugar diet, you could still end up with Insulin-Resistant Hypoglycaemia (the sudden increase in sugar levels after eating something sugary would cause this even though eventually you would burn off all the sugar in your body through exercise). I have Hypoglycaemia and trust me, it something you do not want to have!

With regards to calorie counting - unfortunately this is another version of a 'starvation diet' i.e. a restriction diet. It is far from a healthy way to lose weight. Calorie counting or restricting your diet will send your body into 'starvation mode' where it essentially panics because of lack of energy and starts to try and retain as much of that energy as possible which means it will try to store as much fat as possible, slowing down weight loss and increasing the absorption of fat from food into the body. This is why so often people stop losing weight on a diet and why when the cease the diet they end up putting on even more weight than they had to start with.
Instead of thinking in terms of calorie counting or restriction, you want portion control. this doesn't mean having smaller portions than is the normal healthy amount for a person, it means eating the amount that a person should eat to be healthy (one serving protein, two servings of complex carbohydrates and 3-5 servings of vegetables - one serving being about the size of your palm). In all likelyhood you could eat as much vegetables as you want because you end up very full before you managed to eat more calories than you could burn.

All this brings me to the point about losing weight the healthy way. It starts with diet. If you eat well with the right portions and the right ingredients, even if you don't get any extra exercise than you already get, you will more than likely lose some small amount of weight. To go the full distance, you need to exercise. Again, you don't want to be exercising more than a normal person needs. Doing this, you will lose weight slowly but surely. It won't be up and down, it will be consistent and healthy. This isn't a 'diet', this is just a healthy way of living. One of the great things about this, is when you reach a healthy weight, you don't stop living this way, you keep it up and your weight will remain stable!
Many tv shows that involve people losing weight often have people losing weight too fast. You really should only be losing about 1kg a week. Any more than that and your risk things like Orthostatic Intolerance, blood pressure problems, heart problems (like palpatations) or shock. Of course if for some reason you want to push yourself and lose weight fast, increase the amount of exercise you do, absolutely do not decrease your necessary food intake (otherwise you could create a vitamin and mineral deficiency, another reason why calorie counting or restriction diets are dangerous).

Seriously, if you do this, not only will you end up being a stable healthy weight, you will be much healthier. I have M.E. so exercise is very difficult for me, but even so, eating right and small amounts of exercise every day have given me a marked improvement in energy levels, my skin and hair are really soft, I have a healthy glow, I can think better and I have lost 13kgs so far (only 7 more kilos to go)!