Is it okay to tell people how to live, if the changes will make their life better?

Try this
lead by example let the results speak for themselves. Eat healthy.
Love unconditionaly.
Never give up your support. Your help and caring will make a difference. Be strong.
He’s lucky to have someone like you:):):)

He’s not stupid; if you know his weight is causing his health problems, he certainly knows it, and pestering him about it is not going to get either one of you anywhere. He’s an adult; he gets to make his own choices whether you like it or not.

Instead of telling him what to do, why don’t you try asking him what he’s going to do, and offering help and support? And that “support” includes not nagging him if he says he’s going to do nothing.

As a heavy smoker and a drunk that gets constantly nagged. Change comes from within. Bitching at me only pisses me off. Really, if they bitch about how drunk I was last night I show them how drunk I can get on the next night..

And yeah.. I know I act like a child.

I have learned that the best time to tell someone how to live his or her life is when he or she asks me. Otherwise, I know it is best to keep quiet. And enjoy the person for all the wonderful things he or she is, in spite of the great advice I could give, if only he or she would ask!

You can tell people what to do, but they wont do it, unless maybe if they have to. In this case they don’t.

Don’t focus on how to change him. If you want to help him get him involved in the decision to change. Show you love him by being there for him.

Most people know what there challenges are they just believe that they can’t change it. Ask him if there were a way that he could change would he consider it. His answer will probably indicate his belief that it’s impossible.

So the real problem is not getting him to lose weight, but to get him to believe that he can. Once you do this he will be able to receive information that will help him.

Check out this, http://www.prashantjadhav.com/2007/12/26/believe-in-yoruself/

It is an example of how a belief allowed someone to make better decisions and work towards positive results. I believe you can help your father get better.

At what point? Yesterday!

The old adage, You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, is fully applicable here. Your parent is 20+ years older than you (presumably). They’ve had that much longer to get set in their ways. Think back to when you were a teenager and fed up with your parents telling you how to live your life. Did you enjoy that?

That is exactly what you are proposing here. And it is going to go over just as badly as it did then. Leave him alone. Let him juggle the quantity versus quality question to his heart’s content. Appreciate what time you have with him now and be prepared to attend his funeral sooner rather than later. You have enough on your plate living up to your own destiny or religious or spiritual beliefs. If it is a part of your belief system, you can pray for him. If your belief system has some other form of resolution, follow it.

You might take comfort in knowing that everything that occurs to us, occurs for a reason, and that God is aware of all that occurs to us. Sometimes bad things are necessary, in order to teach us the values God wants us to learn and teach. After all, how can you truly understand compassion, if you yourself have not suffered? How can you learn forgiveness, if someone does not first do something bad to you that requires you to forgive them? Sometimes the lessons take a really serious knock on the head before we see the light, but whatever it takes, the bad things that happen to us are there for a reason, to give us obstacles to overcome, to help us find the endurance to continue in despite of them, to give us reasons to give thanks, and so on.

I have come to realize, that even if you think the person is doing the wrong thing, and that you know best. It will eventually do no good. Its their life let them live it, let them do what feels right for them. You can give your opinion and advice but that is about it, the rest is up to them. They need a chance to learn from their mistakes. Or in some cases prove that they were right, and can take care of their selves.

How old is he? At a certain age you just don’t care.

I think it also depends on whether or not that person will listen to you or whether that person will just ignore you.