Comments on: Fat People Exercising (In Newsweek)

By: Jennifer Hansen

Jennifer Hansen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:50:43 +0000

I followed the link to the _Newsweek_ article and was surprised to discover that Healthy at Every Size is essentially Weight Watchers without the weight loss goal: Don’t diet; change your lifestyle instead. Learn to tell when you are hungry; find other cures for boredom, depression, stress, etc., besides food; practice healthy habits; find an exercise program that works for you and stick to it; don’t obsess about losing weight. (In my local WW group, at least, you’re cautioned against losing weight too quickly and applauded just as much for avoiding stress eating or accomplishing a physical task you couldn’t do before as you are for losing weight.)

I _am_ trying to lose weight. I know that if I lose some of my extra fat, I will be less tired as I go about my day. But I am never, not ever, going to look like the current ideal. My sister, who has the exact same frame as me except taller, once dieted down to her so-called ideal weight. Her pelvis and cheekbones stuck out so far that people who hadn’t seen her in a while asked her if she had some terrible disease! This is what the medical community calls healthy? I would rather be zaftig, just less zaftig than at present and with more muscles. Picture Marilyn Monroe if she had lived to retire and started climbing mountains as a second career.

By: Liza

Liza — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:43:40 +0000

I don’t think you can fight obesity without it turning into a fight against obese people.

Any time you are fighting against a group I am part of, or a characteristic that describes me, I will take it as a fight against me.

I actually wrote a long blog post about this the other day (inspired by the NY Times piece from Michael Pollan) if anyone is interested: http://www.lizaeckert.com/2009/09/what-exactly-is-obesity.html

I know that may get caught up in link spam limbo, hopefully it makes it out OK. :)

By: Sun

Sun — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:29:43 +0000

And I bet that woman diver didn’t REALLY do it, she just donned the gear for the photo shoot. I remember going somewhere with a guy who was in the Army with my ex, and there was a large woman jogging, and sweating her ass off, really working, and this jerk makes a comment about how she really shouldn’t be doing it in public because it was gross. I found out that day that no matter how big a guy is, they tend to get alot smaller when slugged in the balls. ;) He just couldn’t understand why I was so upset.

By: Pauli

Pauli — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:56:03 +0000

Sadly, the comments are still along the same old lines “They’re not really exercising at all”. One person said, that “sitting on a bike” doesn’t equal healthy and is basically not exercise. Talk about blinding hate and pure nonsense…