why do overweight people get preferential treatment?

when I was a teen and thru my twenties I was very thin. I was accused of being anorexic, but denied it. Come to find out I sort of was anorexic mostly due to poverty and drugs. Now that I am not using, I am putting on weight, also my metabolism has changed wih age. I really liked being thinner better, even though a lot of people treated me badly out of jealousy. Now I am a normal weight and glad to be healthy. Enjoy your thinness while it lasts and feel sorry for the poor overweight people. They can't help it any more than we can. Love Misty714

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misty

I am slim and I work in an office with a bunch of obese women. They spend most of the day talking about food and eating. The rest of the time they talk about the few thin people at the company and how it is so unfair and the mryiad of reasons why they cannot lose weight (over-eating and lack of exercise are never among the excuses). I have to go out to eat because they constantly obssess with what other people are eating. If I eat a modest lunch they say I'm anorexic. If I eat a big lunch they go on with the tired old piss-and moan about how thin people just eat and eat and eat and never gain weight. If you're thin nowadays, you have a bullseye on your back and there's nothing you can do about it. I have always been a kind and caring person but it's hard to be understanding towards someone who is so full of venom.

Hi Katie,

Wow, such a rant!! It sounds like you are very frustrated about strangers commenting about your weight and eating habits--I agree with you. It is NONE of their business! You don't have a problem. And that is a good thing.

But there are people out there (FAT and SKINNY) who are abusing their bodies and risking their health by either over-eating, purging or restricting.

Your natural body-type happens to make you look like someone who is doing the latter. This is unfortunate for you, and again, strangers have no business commenting. Unless they are a loved-one who is truly concerned about your health, it is none of their bee's-wax. I'm sure that folks who truly know you understand that you struggle with putting weight on.

You say that you recognize food is a drug, but then bash "fatties." There are "fatties" out there who also have reasons other than an eating disorder for why the are the way they are. Sometimes it is medication, sometimes a thyroid problem, some people deal with immediate stress by over-eating. They may be the minority, but isn't lumping them into your "fatty" category a little myopic? Just like others lumping you into the "anorexic" category is myopic?

It goes both ways.

I am overweight and I, too, hate when people comment. My biggest battle was with my mother. I have always received praise from her when I lost weight and questions such as "do you really need to eat that" when I've become heavier. Again, NONE of her business. I finally got her to recognize that it would be inappropriate for her to comment about such things with a non-family-member, so why does she think she has the right to say such things to me? She has since stopped.

Finally, being overweight does not earn anyone "preferential treatment" In fact, overweight people are less likely to be hired and are more likely to be seen as having no-self control.

If food is a drug (and I repeat this because you acquiesced this point) then do "fatties" have any less "self-control" than, say, an alcoholic?

Just some food for thought (ha, ha, it's a pun, get it?)

Throwing some logic your way,
Josie

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Edited by JosiePi at 08/07/2007 4:18 PM