Would you ever judge people by their size?

Sometimes yes, I immediately see some as slothful and gluttonous.

I usually don’t make judgments very much. I do feel sorry for people who are morbidly overweight and not able to control it, but heck, if you’re 600 pounds and munching on a quadruple thickburger from Burger King, I’m going to make a judgment.

@KatetheGreat Burger Kind, lol, I’d love a kind burger.

Look beyond the physical. It will empower you.

@King_Pariah Hahaha, I fixed it. Yes, Burger Kind is my favorite place to go. It’s the Japanese knockoff version of Burger King. ;)

We give you kind burger for 5 dolla!

Like @KatetheGreat I get judgmental when I see large people eating food that’s really bad for them. I took my son in a 7–11 to get a water, we saw a mother buying her two large middle school age children nachos and 48 ounce sugar drinks for an afternoon snack “until they got home”. (That’s what the mom said.)

I learned a long time ago by witnessing someone else ask about a pregnancy when the woman had gained a lot of weight fairly quickly. I don’t care if she is giving birth in front of you, never ask a woman if she is pregnant.

I might judge someone by their size but I’m not going to point it out to them. Most people I see around me for several decades I think are fat or obese. Never would I ask a woman about being pregnant unless she brought it up first, just not something I do but I have a gf that fits your description. Other people think she’s pregnant and since she loves empire style sundresses, I’ve been present when people have asked about her pregnancy, complete strangers! She says it happens all the time but I just think it’s absurd for a stranger to do. Oh well, weirdos rule the world now.

No, I don’t judge people by their size. I’m just glad that people of all sizes want to associate with me.
And I hope no one judges me by my size.

Yes, I do. The way a person looks says a lot about them.

Yes and I can’t help but notice anyone over 250 lbs…man woman or child who is sitting in a restaurant stuffing their face with a big ol’ greasy burger and fries with a 40 ounce coke to wash it down. WTH?

I have a real hard time while riding the subway, trying to determine if the gal in front of me is pregnant or, um, just big.
Unless it becomes clear I won’t be offering her my seat, because of the potential for misunderstanding and insult.

I will admit an initial wariness of short energetic people because of past experiences with Napoleon complex types.

While I’m aware that there are a few exceptions, I see obesity as a disease that is spreading. It terrifies me. I recently witnessed a woman in Stop & Shop, who could hardly stand up she was so big, shop for cupcakes. She was reading the labels. Huh? Are cupcakes acceptable food for anyone? I felt like crying or throwing up.

Obesity is a serious problem.
Also, obesity seems to be related to low socio-economic status (at least in “developed” countries).

Think of it as a way to cut the medicare and social security entitlement mess. These people are all gonna die way before they are eligible to collect a dime. seems like a conspiracy by the big fast food companies and of course, big pharma.

You cannot judge a book by its cover.

and I don’t

I don’t. because after a certain weight I know overweight people will feel depressed and depression will lead to more eating for comfort. Most of the time they are self medicating with food. I usually feel sorry for them because I feel they may not have the support they need around them to help them out of their depression. After a while, many of them have enablers or some live with unhealthy obese people who got them started at a very young age.
No body purposely chooses to be overweight. They just find themselves overweight one day by 10lbs than another 10 and before they know it they are in a quick decline with no brakes.
When they are really big, many need couseling to deal with other issues than just weight, a weigh trainer and time and energy to get started. Its can be really espensive and its not that easy to get going up that hill than down.

A little bit.

Well, we all judge. Isn’t that how brain works? It sorts, classifies, finds patterns – we really can’t help making one judgment or another. I wish I could say I’ve never made negative assumptions about obese people, but I think for example, of being young and working for a large company where obese people walked around with huge jugs of Mountain Dew, ate snack cakes at their desks and heated up family-sized lasagnas for lunch; then at the end of the day, they toddled off to their handicapped parking spot and probably walked into their houses and directly to their couch. Many of them were not the timid type who eats to fill a void inside them, but actually very bold, demanding and confrontational about the situation. These were people who constantly complained about discrimination though I saw no evidence of that. In fact, they were the ones with the ergonomic chairs, unlimited bathroom breaks and FMLA…

Sure, I regret prejudging any individual. I’ve known really wonderful obese people in my life, but I don’t agree that obesity is typically due to unavoidable conditions. Of course, there are always exceptions. I think that if part of your life is out of control and you won’t take responsibly for that, then you can’t expect people to accommodate you.

And what she said.

No, they are the way they are for whatever reason. I don’t like to judge in any way if I can avoid it. I enjoy talking to random people too much to wait and judge them by appearance alone. Even if it only for thirty seconds, listening to someones problem’s or reasons they’re cheerful can drastically change the way your day goes, and I love it.

i think you can usually tell if someone is pregnant as the woman is a different shape to one who is overweight. it gets tricky if the pregnant woman is also overweight. People just don’t think before they open their mouths.

Not really no, although if I were to see a morbidly obese person in a tutu on a diving board, i’m going to judge that’s not going to end well. Thar she blows!

Ah..nope, not really. Most of the times WYSIWYG doesn’t apply well with people. :)

I really try not to. I usually find it difficult to judge super skinny or super fat people. I’m more empathetic than anything. If I see someone who is at either end of the sliding weight scale, I tend to wonder how they got that way. How much they might struggle with their weight – or how they may not struggle (some don’t care ..or quit caring). How hard it must be to live in their shoes (big or small). I’ve known people who were obese, grotesquely obese, too skinny and anorexic. Beneath all that, they really are just people ..like anyone else.

It certainly makes me wonder. I was recently at an event where there was about 500 women and the vast majority were very large (what I would consider morbidly obese). It struck me that this is a snapshot of 500 women in my part of the country and I don’t consider it a good thing that about 80% were unbelievably overweight. It doesn’t say much for the level of health here. I’m sure some of them had medical conditions that cause weight gain but I doubt that all of them did.

Oy, I knew “grotesque” was the wrong word to use ..I meant morbidly obese as @Leanne1986 stated. I apologize – I must not Fluther past my bedtime.

@Leanne1986 I was recently watching some old home movies my dad had made from the early 60’s. He loved parades and took a lot of movies of parades. In watching them, we noticed that not one person in the crowds of people was even a little overweight. All were very thin. Of course they didn’t eat the way we do now what with fast food and microwaves.

@chyna I think that has a lot to do with our suburban mobile culture. Nowadays, people drive to stock up in bulk at Walmart or Costco on convenience foods. Back in the pre-warehouse days, there was a marketing area convenient to where folks lived and people walked from store to store to buy fresh ingredients. It’s an idea that needs to come back.

I may say stupid comments in my head, because I’m a heinous bitch at heart. But I’ve never seriously judged a person based on how big they are. Especially not strangers that I’ll probably never see again, who just happened to walk by.

My goddaughter hasn’t voluntarily exercised a day in her life. She snorks down epic amounts of candy and junk every single day, and doesn’t seem to have any discernable hobbies aside from watching TV and playing online games. She’s one of the boniest people I know. And no, she is not bulimic. Anyone got a “judgment” to make here? Probably not, because I have described her as skinny.

@peridot It’s not about the weight; it’s about the lifestyle. And from what you describe, your goddaughter has a very poor lifestyle. With her, it’s just less obvious to strangers unless they see her scarfing down junk food. Huge people wear their lifestyles on their sleeves, literally.

@peridot The problem is, with her current lifestyle, she could very well end up overweight and unhealthy and that’s when she is more likely to be judged as her diet and lack of excercise will be more obvious. I’m not saying it is right that this will happen but I really hope, for her sake, that people are trying to advise her to start thinking about what she is putting in her body. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people (women mostly) say “I used to be so slim, now look at me”. The decisions we make when we are younger can determine a lot.

@Facade and @Leanne1986 Good points. It’s just that I see a double standard here. To use @zenvelo‘s response as an arbitrary example, if it were my goddaughter buying nachos and soda, would “judgment” happen? After all, that crap is just as bad for her as it is for huge people… however, as far as I know, nobody’s expressed “concern for her health” (the lame excuse for bashing on overweight strangers that many people hide behind). That, unfortunately, has to include me. As a child-free person and/or not her actual parent, I apparently have no right to provide any input on how she eats. But that’s another story entirely!

@peridot I agree that people probably don’t judge your god-daughter when she buys and eats unhealthy, fattening foods but it may be because they think that if she is that thin then she doesn’t eat that stuff all the time. We all treat ourselves every so often and there is nothing wrong with that.

However, being thin doesn’t stop people judging. I often here someone say ”(insert name) is so skinny, I reckon she may be anorexic”.

@Leanne1986 Lol “reckon” ...Other than TV, I don’t think I’ve actually ever heard anyone say that word. :)

@PluckyDog Maybe it’s an English thing as I hear it quite a lot!

@Leanne1986 I reckon I hear it a lot too…

I watched a programme about trying to make naturally thin people overeat and put on weight. It was very interesting. they took 10 people who had never been on a diet, were slim, ate what they liked and didn’t put on any excess weight ever. They made them eat double the calories they normally ate and do less exercise than they normally did. They all found it very hard to force themselves to eat when they were full up/not hungry. Some did put on a bit of fat, some didn’t but it looked like they were burning it off as they were hot and sweaty all the time. One guy put on muscle. Once they finished the experiment and were eating their normal diet again they all went back to their original weight within a month. I reckon that some people will put weight on more easily but if they want to be a healthy weight, they just have to work harder at it than these lucky types who are naturally thin.

@Leanne1986 I thought it was an American south thing ..um like southern belle speak. It made me a giggle I guess. I’ll stop disrupting the thread now. :P