All this advice about eating right and exercising, while well intended, is pointless. People who eat healthy and exercise often die from heart attacks, cancer and everything else just as much as overweight people do. I say love yourself, people.
You're so opening a can of worms. But it's true. The effects of being overweight are smaller than commonly portrayed.
The risks of being obese - they cause problems on the "national level," but the risks for an individual are comparatively small. Things sound worse than they are. As a rule I don't like to look up numbers to prove a point, but for example, if something has a 5% chance of happening, and being obese makes it 10% more likely, then that ten percent is applied to the 5%, giving the obese person.... a wopping 5.5% likelihood.
That +10% chance (or whatever it is) means a lot for our health systems, for how much we spend on healthcare, for how many beds and doctors are needed in the hospitals, for our rankings by the World Health Organization, but significantly less for the typical obese individual.
Diet and exercise can affect your energy levels, and all other aspects of your life. I found just switching breakfasts made a big difference for me, and I've been making other small changes. And my own weight hasn't been so bad - I don't mean to overstate.
But the undertone some people in our society have that overweight people are just eating themselves to death and playing Russian roulette with their lives, or entrenching themselves in laziness, is ridiculous. People adapt to their situation. Most people have the energy to do at least whatever they're doing, and if whatever they're doing in life is enough for them, then I wish them well.
So, I teach my children to be be careful with words, not to hurt. But, whatever they say, under it all nobody is fooled. I would scold my child equally for being unkind to a child with Down syndrome or for being obese, but at the same time, everyone knows that it is avoidable, some rare genetic cases aside. In the case of the child, the fault of the parent, in the case of the adult, their own choice and responsibility.
"Nobody is fooled"? I had to read that like six or seven times. Nobody is trying to fool you. Sure, obesity can avoided, with a tremendous exertion of willpower. But willpower - the ability of a person to take control of something in their lives and turn around the status quo - is a limited resource, and most of the time we spend it elsewhere. Like at work, or in relationships, or being kind to people we don't like - like our families (that's a joke - I love my family). What you sound like is, these people should want to, with all their heart, lose weight, and it should come first for everyone at all times because it's just that bad.
It's not.
I had to read your statement like six or seven times because I really kept seeing it as "Nobody is fooled" about your show of not being mean. Because it really does look like you and your kids are exerting that same willpower to put on a "kind show" over a disgusted face. It would be better for you to just get over it and stop seeing people as disgusting.
Most obese and overweight people are more or less just fine.
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