Why Women Lose Weight—or Don’t

websites like www.mybodygallery.com finally give women a way to look at themselves more objectively and hopefully less critically.

I am one of those nurses who took care of 400 pound people who is now permanently disabled myself because of it. I literally starve myself to keep my weight in line because I don't want to get into the same condition--or have others have to care for me like that--because when one can't move one doesn't burn off many calories--so one just can't burn many calories (I can't move my arms and legs due to spinal conditions, so no aerobic exercise for me--not even walking...) It is a pitiful state to be in--but worthwhile keeping my weight down. Unfortunately people comment about my eating patterns-always pushing food, or thinking I'm not eating enough. I know what I can eat and cannot. It's a life-long "spiritual exercise" of discipline and love--love for me and my God--who has been so abundant in all ways. I know people are really worried--but this concern comes out of not knowing that humankind is eating too much in this country. 'nuff said.

in addition.i had a 600lb man ask me to help him out of a chair. for petes sake do i look like a body builder?

i work in a hospital. do you overweight people have a clue how hard it is to deal with someone that weighs 200 300, 400 lbs? they cannot reach their own butts to wipe after going to the bathroom. someone has to help them stand up. someone has to pull them up in the bed. someone has to give them a bath. so my back should be hurting because you guys like big macs? last week one of our nurses had a fat patient fall on her. she cannot work because she got hurt. the patient did not. it is not all about you and your hunger. you will get to the point you cannot take care of yourselves. pity the person that has to take care of you

The importance of weight proportionate to height is health, not looks.

The importance of weight proportionate to height is health, not looks.

Minny: My replies were kind of like the fat jokes I always hear in public -- ostensibly meant for their friend's ears, but purposely told loud enough for all the surrounding fatties to hear. I could really care less whether Martin reads my replies, because he is clearly a bigot, a waste of perfectly good oxygen, and I meant what I said about his opinions being irrelevant. The main reason why I bother is that I am trying to incite other people of size to fight back against this sort of thing, to reclaim the dignity that is rightfully ours as human beings. I'm hoping to give them some ammunition to fight the fat-phobic voice in their own heads and stop taking it from outside, too. I'm just passing along the love that fat activists have shown me, trying to offer up some tools for people who may not b where I am yet. It broke my heart to read the comment from the girl who said she is fat herself but then parroted all of the 'fat is immoral, gross, wrong, disgusting, etc' crap that she hears every day. It is tragic that she should have to hate herself for such a trivial thing, and I'm hoping that people like her will take something good away from my comments. As for Martin, well, he can kiss my fat behind...it's an all night job, but I'll gladly furnish the chapstick.

re jayhawk, others...
Martin28ma doesn't care. Guys like him are likely empowered and amused by your passionate responses because he knows he got to you enough to respond to him. Who knows if he's even reading this anymore.

So it seems that for you it comes down to hating fat people because they???re too big for airplane seats. Has it ever occurred to you to ask to be reseated? They do that, you know. I???m sure the fat people don???t want to sit next to someone like you, who exudes hatred and negativity out of every pore. Current theories in quantum physics suggest that your negativity is actually not only dangerous, but contagious, so I certainly wouldn???t want it to infect my round, happy cells???

Even if all of your claims against fat people were true, where is your vehement opposition to: people who ride motorcycles, whose fatality rate is not much reduced by wearing a helmet ??? and whose survival rate comes along with expensive treatments for spinal cord injuries? People who don???t wear their seatbelts, or who speed? Smokers, who are not only causing their own early demise, but that of their children and other people around them? People who engage in risky sex, both catching and spreading fatal diseases? Anorexics, who are damaging their heart, lungs, and digestive systems, whose disorder can cause life-long medical conditions? There are a million ways in which humans can make poor choices that are both dangerous to their health and potentially expensive for the surrounding community. So why do fat people make you so mad, specifically? Especially since you can???t look at them and know where they are in their attempt to care for their health; a 400lb woman may work hard at dieting and exercise and lose 100lbs, but she will still be fat and will still earn your contempt by there mere fact of her presence in your line of vision; she will necessarily be exercising and eating healthy, thus reducing her risk of health problems, and yet you will still hate her. Why? Because she???s too big to fit in the seat next to you on an airplane that you aren???t even on at the moment?

In short, you???re a bigot, and all your attempts to justify your hatred are reminiscent of similar arguments in the days of civil rights and segregation. You just hate fat people, for no good reason except that the media told you you should. I???d rather be a fat free-thinker than a skinny bigot any day; my soul, and my fat, happy cells, are healthier than yours, and no amount of weight lost or gained can take that away from me.

To debunk your ridiculous arguments:

MOST of the people I know of who have SUVs are thin (they???re harder for fat people to climb into). Only rarely would a fat person not fit into a compact car; my aunt weighs about 400lbs and drives a Ford Focus. Also, she DOESN???T get a handicapped decal. There are strict rules about who can get one; unless you have a valid and verifiable disability, you cant. Maybe you see fat people with decals, but have you ever considered that their disability and the resultant inability to exercise LED to obesity, not the other way around? I work for a disability resource center and I know that it???s quite common for newly disabled people to gain quite a bit of weight. So, all those fatties in disabled spaces that piss you off are legitimately disabled ??? they would have to be, since their doctors are the ones who sign the forms to get the decals ??? and so your hatred is aimed at real disabled people. Very classy.

As for food, tons of over-produced food go to waste yearly. Companies came up with super-sizing to gain some sort of profit on the extra food. Even so, they still produce too much. So no matter whether someone ate it, it would be produced. Besides, its not the AMOUNT of food that makes one fat, its the TYPE of food. Big Mac = 540 cal, 29g fat; 5 large apples, 550 cal, 0g fat. 5 apples are bigger and cost more to produce. As a side note, my two cousins were rail-thin in their teen years and early-to-mid twenties and would eat a whole pizza each as a meal, while I, the chubby girl, ate two or three slices at most. So, your theory that fat people eat more than thin people is fundamentally flawed. Clearly, they ate more than twice what I did in one sitting, but for some reason, never got fat.

As for the jeans, that???s not a fat thing. I have an hourglass shape, always have, and no matter whether I weigh 130 lbs or 330 lbs (I???ve been everywhere in between), I always will. So the bigger-bellied jeans wouldn???t fit me, either. Maybe the problem is that the pants are all made from one template and no variation of SHAPE is offered ??? because obviously someone whose belly is different than yours but who wears roughly the same size can???t be extremely obese, right? Or is shape actually what you have a problem with? Because they are definitely not the same thing. Get your prejudices in order, please.

No matter what my size, inside I???ll always be fat; it???s an identity, forged through years of playground taunts, random commentaries from strangers, an endless stream of loudly expressed judgments. Hatred is words, prejudices, dirty looks; you???d have to be blind, deaf, and flat out dumb NOT to realize that fat people are hated. You have it backwards; fat people don???t hate themselves and project it outwards, those who hate themselves are projecting their daily dose of external hatred inward. Not everyone hates fat people (and not every fat person hates him/herself), but those who do hate fat have no social taboo preventing them from repeatedly and venomously expressing it. Read a good two-thirds of the comments just on this board alone and you can see a clear picture of just how people feel about fat people. Though the claim is that fat is unhealthy and that is a justifiable reason to hate it, most of the comments are about appearance. Theories about the harm that fatties are doing to other people are thinly-veiled excuses for bigotry; the same kind of justifications are used to discriminate against, and perpetrate oppression, hatred, and even violence against, minorities. And just like minorities are not imagining racism, fat people are definitely NOT imagining fat hatred.

I have to say something again... Why most of the fat people think they are hated because they are fat? Probably because somewhere deep inside they know being fat is wrong and they actually hate themselves, too. I don't hate fat people just because they are fat. I hate the fact that because of their obesity they get the disabled parking spaces; I hate when I think of all the environmental effects for the production of thet the extra food they eat ; I hate to see them driving huge SUVs just because they could not fit into a normal car (think of that extra air pollution); I hate to have to sit in an airplane and "share" my seat with the fat person next to me... and I'm sick of having to wear belts on all my jeans because the clothes are designed with the new "fat-around-the-middle" body style in mind. Well, this brings me to another question: What is the reason for those huge bellies in yung people?

I won???t tell you how much I weighed then, or now, or how many calories I eat, or how much exercise I get, because I don???t want to feed into your twisted little system of counting a person???s worthiness in man-made measures of superficial qualities; suffice it to say, it is the perfect combination, and I have a perfect bill of health, and my success was NOT the weight I lost or the approval I gain from people who look at my outer person, my success was finally loving myself enough to take care of me. And none of you care the least bit about that, so your opinions are irrelevant. I am posting this so that other fat people can read it and hopefully realize that you are a bunch of bigots and you only have the power to hurt them if they let you.

A final note: Every human being, regardless of religion, color, size, national origin, race, gender, sexual preference, or disability has the right to be here. You may not like looking at them, but neither do they enjoy sharing the planet with a bunch of people who are so superficial that they judge the worthiness of a person???s existence on something so trivial as fat, and not, in the words of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, ???the content of their character.??? He would have been thrilled to have an army of fat people fighting for his cause, and if he thought their weight was a matter of health concern, he???d have held their hands on the marches and kept them up front with him. He was a great leader, mostly because he knew that the best leaders walk beside their people. And he would be painfully disappointed in the nation he fought to change, the hatred and bigotry that never really left us, just looked for a new angle. And here it is, evident in these commentaries.

If any of you really wanted positive changes for fat people, you would stand beside them, sit down to a healthy meal with them, take a brisk walk with them. You would not stand on their heads, holding them down with mean-spirited judgments, comfortable in your superior role. You are not leaders, and you incite no respect in the fat people you claim to want to motivate. Deep down, you know that, but