Published on 12, July, 2020
The NHS estimates that almost a third of adults in the UK are obese, and that one in five children aged 10 to 11 are obese. That's a lot of people eating way too much fast and doing little to no exercise (we're all sitting on our big fat behinds way too much). What makes people overweight? Are we more likely to be obese if we're autistic? BBC journalist Michael Buerk announced recently that fat people should be allowed to drop dead and no longer trouble the NHS with their chubby troubles. He said, "The obese will die a decade earlier than the rest of us; see it as a selfless sacrifice in the fight against demographic imbalance, overpopulation and climate change.'" (Michael Buerk)
It's more complicated than people being greedy and lazy. Most obese people have an unhealthy relationship with food due to trauma and/or emotional issues, and society's obsession with food and weight adds fuel to the fire. As someone who has lived with an eating disorder since they were 13, I know that society's relationship with food is messed up.
The worldwide prevalence of obesity nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016, Giraffe. And while there has always been a tiny minority of people with psychological problems in relation to food, trauma and/or emotional issues do not account for the absolute explosion in obesity in modern times. That's a theme popularised by the health media (and sadly used by the overweight and obese to justify overeating). Past generations had much more to contend with emotionally and physically than us, but obesity was relatively rare. It's all to do with our sedentary modern lifestyles (we are 50% less active than our ancestors) married with a diet of fast food and drinks that are high in saturated fats and trans fats—and yes, a higher rate of greed and gluttony. We're doing so much less and having more time to fill our faces with rubbish.
OK, well, you don't need to jump on me. To be honest I shouldn't have even replied to this thread - I've found it very triggering. I'm anorexic and quite seriously ill at the moment.
It could just be my opinion, but I don't think past generations necessarily did have it harder than us. I'm a so-called millennial. It's never been so hard to get a mortgage. We'll most likely be working into our seventies. There are no jobs. Social media hate is rife and we all feel the need to be Instagram-perfect all the time. The planet is dying. Oh, and there's the little extra of there being a global pandemic as well. It's the Daily Mail etc that implies we're all whiners these days and that we haven't lived through a World War (yet) and so never have a right to be unhappy or scared.
Also, implying emotional issues are no more than an excuse for overeating is just wrong. It's not a 'justification'; it's a genuine explanation for many people. Do you really think people of 30 stone have no psychological issues at all? And yes, we do all need to own our lifestyle decisions, but people who rant about overweight/obese people without any lived experience of being overweight or obese need to own their anger and stop projecting it onto a vulnerable group. Yes there is an element of control when it comes to weight - there's also an element of control when it comes to my anorexia, I torture myself with that thought every day, that I could be doing more, that I should just go into the kitchen and eat like any 'normal' adult, that I'm hurting myself and the love of my life and my family, that I'm messing up my body and my life. Yet I'm fighting to keep my head above water with it right now. For many obese people this is their life too, just in reverse.
OK. There's a lot I could say right now but I'm just going to say this. Making references to 'fat behinds' isn't subjective sharing of opinion; it's crass, disrespectful, judgemental and quite hateful. Saying things like that isn't being vulnerable; on the contrary, it's attacking the vulnerable. There's nothing courageous about that. These things are not black and white - I think as Autistic people we find this hard to remember. Sometimes it isn't as simple as greed or lack of willpower. If willpower was everything, I'd be home and dry when it came to my eating disorder. As it is, I'm broken, and a lot of what broke me is society's relationship with food. That doesn't mean to say that I don't take responsibility - I do, and am consumed with guilt every day for what I've done to those who love me. However, society's obsession with food and weight has added fuel to the fire regarding my eating disorder from when I was a little girl of 13 and had adults (including teachers) telling me to 'keep up the diet because I'd been a bit fat before', that 'a touch of anorexia never hurt anyone'.