Should I be more compassionate to obese people? How can I?

1)Consider for a minute that American advertisers are way better then advertisers in other parts of the world.

2) The most fattening food in America is often sold cheaper than any other type of food.

I’m not entirely sure of that. Can’t speak for other parts of the US but in NYC my bf and I save a lot of money by not buying typical snack foods and not eating fast food and only going to restaurants on special occasions. For us the choices are actually more about our wallets than our waistlines. We call it our austerity diet. :p

I certainly can understand how easy it is to put on weight. Food is awesome and the gym sucks. But I just can’t see how some people get to be planet-sized and half immobilized by their lifestyle choices. There’s not much dignity in it and it certainly can’t be comfortable to carry around 100 lbs of extra fat.

Why must someone’s weight, or appearance for that matter, be criteria for being a human being, deserving of humanity?

I think you should be just as compassionate toward obese people as you are skinny or medium people, why do the obese deserve extra compassion?

On a more serious note, I struggle with this issue when it comes to someone who is obese complaining about their weight situation. However, other things like work problems, family, losses etc, I feel compassion for them.

@tinyfaery Well I think it may say a lot about priorities and self-control. On one hand I think that it’s their bodies so their choice which is true but sometimes I think it would be nice not to have one individual take up the space and resources of two.

Everyone is deserving of compassion.

Unless you’re their medical practitioner you don’t know why they’re obese.

A very relevent and brief talk by a doctor

@bellatrix That’s true, we don’t know. But statistically speaking a lot of people are obese because they don’t practice healthy heating habits and exercise on a regular routine. There is a documentary I am meaning to get around to watching,Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. From what I’ve heard half the battle is just educating yourself about what you’re eating and what it’s doing to you.

I say again, unless you are that fat person’s doctor you don’t know why they are obese. How are you going to discern who’s overweight because they eat the wrong foods and those who have a justified reason? There is a school of thought, see Attia in the link I provided, that obesity may be a symptom rather than a cause. I think we have a lot to learn about how our bodies work before we begin to judge who should be given compassion or not based on weight.

Even if the person is fat because of their own habits, are they less deserving of compassion than the person who develops alcoholism, or is addicted to some substance. If someone is suffering, I hope regardless of how they reached that point, I would never lose my ability to feel compassion. There but for the grace of God…

@LKidKyle1985: Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is fun to watch (and sponsored). The filmmaker/auteur becomes a maniacal juicer, which is one approach.

I felt the exactly same way as you when I got back from being in Central America for 7 months.

You ask if you’re being a jerk.

To put it bluntly, yes.

You had better cross your fingers and hope (or pray to the deity of your choosing) that you never end up wit an illness or disease requiring steroid medications for effective treatment.

One of the side effects of the medications is weight gain and the typical moon face. What a dilemma you’d be in then.

How would you feel if you couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror without that same feeling of disgust and judgement you now direct toward others? And knowing that others are now looking at you with that same judgement, how would you handle that?

And yet you need that fattening medication to survive. What a dilemma you would be in.

Why not try being grateful for your good health and thin frame now instead of focusing on everybody else.

Your life could change in a horrible nanosecond if you end up with the wrong medical condition.

What do you mean by “be more compassionate”? It’s not like you have to find them attractive or anything, but to borrow a line from Depeche Mode, people are people.

Food can be addictive just like anything else. Plenty of thin alcoholics around, thin other drug usuers, thin prescription drug abusers, thin assholes. lol
Most fat people, barring medical reasons for their obesity, have food addictions. You can just see their addiction better, so yes, have compassion.

I always just think it is sad and must feel awful to be morbidly obese. Sad.

@Coloma But then that begs the question of should we have compassion for addicts?

I’m compassionate towards addicts. My understanding is a propensity to addiction has a genetic basis. Given I found it so easy to become addicted to smoking, I find it hard to judge someone harshly for becoming addicted to other substances. If a person is addicted to food, how do they control that? They have to eat. It isn’t as if they can stop eating. They need to eat to live.

I agree with @Bellatrix , yep…a lot of people struggle with addictive behaviors, food is just one of many, and yes, we should have compassion. Fat people don’t mug innocent others for a bag of Doritos like Crack heads. lol

Re: addicts. Again: Everyone is deserving of compassion.

I feel like I’m voicing a lot of really unpopular views tonight lol
I don’t know I have a bit less compassion for someone addicted to something.(especially something that is destructive to themselves or those around them) Everyone has a vice or something they get addicted to but it takes a strong person to realize what their vices/addictions are and keep them under control. Those that can’t or won’t, IMO generally have weak sense of will power.

@uberbatman – it’s good to have differing views. It makes us think about things a bit more deeply.

I don’t know if the inability to beat an addiction is ‘weak’. Look at how many people smoke and try and try and try to give up. Similarly, look how many people battle to lose weight only to have it go back on and often more than they lost, over time. I read something recently that said after weightloss the body is primed to put it all back on again. I’ll try to find whatever it was I was reading. It takes a lot of willpower to give up smoking, to stop drinking and to lose a significant amount of weight. So I’m not sure I’d call people who struggle to give up addictions weak.

It might be related to the fact that you’re trying to lose weight. It’s an issue that you are personally trying to overcome. For you, it’s a matter of will. You’re projecting that onto other people. That’s flawed because, one, you have no idea why they’re obese. And, two, who cares why they’re obese?

You just came back from travelling to a much poorer country. You have cultural jet lag. You’re looking at your country from (what you think is) the eyes of the country you’ve just visited. You’re probably a little embarrassed. (Admittedly, there’s probably a lot to be embarrassed about.) But differentiating yourself from people by looking down at them is not the answer. It doesn’t make you better than them. It just makes you a jerk.

Says the person who also gets cultural jet lag.

I’ve learned to be silent and tolerate it when I see really obese people loading up on calories, but that’s the best I can do. I regret that I can’t be more compassionate, but there it is. I try not be critical.

Taking up two seats is illegal in NYC. Take a photo with your cellphone and just report it to a local cop.

It is fairly easy to solve this problem. Public policy should do what private does, charge more. If you take up two seats, you pay for 2 seats. If your extra weight is wearing out/disrupting/breaking down the product or service, you pay more, or you should be denied this service. Special needs require special service.

If the majority of the cities residents are fat, then they should design seats for fat people since that is the norm, but I don’t think it is and therefore fat people should pay for special service.

I just try not to look. It gets on your nerves to see someone like this take up two seats, and be unable to move out of the way when you need to get in or out. ( a plane). I feel sorry for them and just try not to think about it. I had an addiction some years ago and boy, was I judged, and continue to be by certain parties whom remember it. Just try the work around thing.

Maybe you should stop concerning yourself with how others look, as it’s really none of your business.

All people deserve compassion, especially those with severe medical conditions. And it’s all of our business when more and more people suffer from diseases. Obesity is a dangerous medical condition. It’s our business to offer good education about healthy food and a healthy lifestyle. It’s our business to elect local politicians who invest in sidewalks and schools offering healthy lunches and drinks. There are dozens of other measures to be taken.

Yep, you’ve been a jerk. Yep, you should be just as compassionate to the heavy as to the light. Yep, you’re a human, just not very humane.

But, hey so am I. I see a thin person and think, gee they must be starving themselves, or what kind of drugs are they on, or ooh gross, she’s a smoker, that’s the only way she keeps the weight off. Oh, she’s complaining about a little belly pouch. Well, sit up straighter, engage those core muscles and make it just go away. You’re a superwoman, get it done.

Just make sure you do it all by your self, no one is going to help you, the only thing you can expect from other people is derogatory remarks, degrading comments, snide whispers, rude teasing, the cold shoulder.

As an aside, nearly 6 feet tall and worried because you wear a size 12 dress? Maybe you have some distorted expectations about fatness. Have some compassion for yourself.

Ignoring all of the cultural and socioeconomic issues related to obesity, if you’re really looking to develop compassion for the obese among us, you could try telling yourself a story about this person that would make it easier to feel compassion for them. You’re already making stuff up about them in your head as though you know everything about them. But if you change those stories to something else, you might just be able to muster up enough compassion to make you feel better.

Note: I find that many people are able to feel some compassion about mental pain and suffering associated with real life trauma and clinical depression. But when these manifest as physical symptoms (weight gain, weight loss, cutting, suicide, etc) we suddenly start beating the “it’s all just willpower” drum.

I’m surprised that you say this about NY. When I am in NYC I feel like the majority of the people are thin to average. Maybe you aren’t in Manhattan? The other buroughs might be heavier.

I’m not sure what you exactly mean by compassionate, do you mean you are being judgemental? I say treat people as you want to be treated. There will be things you do less than perfect in other people’s eyes, and you don’t want to be treated like you are subhuman, stupid, or not get some basic respect as a human being. Their thing might be weight, but you probably have some sort of “thing” that just isn’t so obviously visible. We all have some thing. I know people who are thin and beautiful who don’t pay their bills and the rest of society winds up covering the slack. They are taking up space, not as in a space on a bus, but in my pocket book. I know seemingly very healthy people who run too much for exercise and I wind up helping to pay for their knee replacements because they are in my same insurance group plan. They might one day wind up helping to pay for my heart surgery. We need to be understanding that none of us are perfect.

I admit to getting a little disgusted when I see a very fat person eat a tremendous amount of food, but I have compassion for them, because for whatever reason that is normal for them. It doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting or smart or good people.

I read some excellent advice for cultivating compassion just yesterday. Paraphrasing a line from Pronoia by Rob Brezsny:

“Treat everyone you meet as if they only had 12 hours to live.”

Because any of us could die at any time. That means you, that means me. We just run around trying not to think about it. If you really think about this, it makes congratulating yourself for not having others’ misfortunes seem a bit pointless…

@bookish1 I like another quote I read, I think from Pliny, ‘Be kind to everyone you meet, for every person is fighting a great battle.”

@janbb : That’s a good one too!

It isn’t the appearance as much as the health issues that turn me off. It is a condition that can be changed. To me, it’s lack of consideration of yourself that one chooses not to treat a totally curable condition. I have a dear friend who no longer can stand because of his weight. It’s a pity.

@Sunny2 But once you are morbidly obese, losing weight is not that easy and it is not just a matter of will power.

@janbb You are correct. Also some people cannot afford the treatments, such as gastric bypass or stomach stapling (which also carry risks, themselves) to treat their obesity. And yes, there are conditions and hereditary situations which predispose some people towards obesity. I think it’s hard for thin or average weight people to consider what it might be like to be obese. Even people with only 10 to 15 lbs. often have a devil of a time losing that weight, and those people at least have the ability to go out walking or to the gym. A really big person, may have a difficult time even getting up, let alone walking. But yet, society expects them to just “Get off their fat ass and lose weight! Because we’re sick of looking at you!”

Makes me want to cry

I also wonder why people do that to themselves, then I stop and think that it may be a glandular issue, or depression issue, not necessarily apathy and laziness.

A lot of people won’t admit feelings that shame them about others, so as long as you’re not being mean to others and verbalizing it, you can work on your compassion. Maybe wear a fat suit and see how poorly you are treated by others, I’ve seen it before and people aren’t always able to restrain themselves from comments, it’s very sad.

@KNOWITALL Yes, The Comments

Did you watch that clip @KNOWITALL? I don’t think we know enough about our metabolism and why people put on weight or don’t to judge those who do become overweight. Look at the messages people have had over the years about they should eat. Don’t eat fat – Oh you should eat fat. Don’t eat carbs – Oh you should eat carbs. Sugar is bad for you – Sugar is in so much food we buy in a packaged format and in most things labelled ‘Lite’. I don’t think we’ve got any idea and when you watch Dr Attia’s Ted Talk – he suggests the same thing.

Would we have compassion for someone who had anorexia?

@Bellatrix I didn’t have time yet, no. I try have compassion for everyone who struggles with diseases like that. A lot of people need to increase acticvity and reduce calories, it’s not rocket science, but I think a lot of others are on meds or have medical reasons.

For me it simply doesn’t matter, because we’re not supposed to judge each other, but practice love instead. :) I couldn’t live with myself if a homeless person was just ‘stinky’ to me, I’d hope I wouldn’t be that shallow to see only the surface of a whole human being.

Hear, hear @KNOWITALL.

Try not to judge people, one day you might need insight and compassion yourself.

@LornaLove Great point!

As @augustlan said Everyone needs compassion. I don’t think that you would like it if someone is not compassionate with you and your problems whatever it may be, even though you could do better. Imagine you go to work and someone who is remarkably fit is giving you a very hard time with your paunch. You might think its a good thing, but would you honestly feel good about yourself?