Is it our fault?

[Guest guest]

This is a letter and my response to it on another list I am on....does

anyone have anything I can add to this?

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From " CJ " :

Kathy, I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Ford, I am trying to learn

more about what you said. I have heard obesity is a disease and that " it is

not our fault " .

Example:

The person next to you can eat as much as they want and never gain weight.

Still, I don't quite get it.

I started gaining weight in the 5th grade. I truly was eating more than my

siblings/friends. Throughout my teens, I chose or only had available the

high

fat/high calorie foods. We did have some vegetables in the house but I

usually did not want to eat them. My family didn't have a lot of money and

we ended up eating a lot of pasta, potatoes, and bread (all with butter). I

chose excessive portions. I did not get any exercise. I didn't maintain my

weight. I was always gaining or " fad dieting " . Right up to the surgery, I

ate excessively and late into the evening. My grandparents and parents were

at times only approx. 20-30 pounds overweight which is really not a lot in

my world.

Why isn't my " super " obesity (BMI 52) my fault or responsibility?

Don't get me wrong. I am not beating myself up over this right now. I am

in the weight loss mode! Thank God, but I really do want to learn more and

would appreciate any feedback.

CJ

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My reply:

Did you want to gain all of that weight?

Probably not...or at least not consciously. There are a lot of reasons

people gain weight. I gained because I used food as a comfort to keep all of

the unmanageable parts of my life at bay; when I ate, I could really relax

and enjoy myself. I used food to comfort myself when I was upset, and used

food to reward myself when I did something good. This compulsion, which, to

some extent, I still have, is part of what made me fat (My BMI, by the way,

was at one time as high as 68). This is the first part of our illness.

There are people out there who can eat like that and not gain weight. If you

think about it, all of us on this list are (or were, before the switch)

GREAT candidates for survival in the next ice age. We can metabolize food

like nobody's business...get every speck of energy out of the food we eat

and store it against the day we have no food supply. We evolved this ability

back in the centuries of scrambling to get any food at all, when old was 30,

back in the dawn of time. We, you guys and me, are the top of the

evolutionary chain when it comes to processing food. That's the other part

of our illness.

Try this out: I heard a radio spot the other day by Mariette Hartley

promoting a " natural " alternative to Lasik eye surgery. If you go through

this program, so she said, you would have good vision without having to have

surgery.

Now....suppose glasses had never been invented, and this program, which may

work (I don't really know), but we'll stipulate that it works for, say, 5%

of all the people who try it. The rest are out of luck...they just will not

be able to see.

Then they discovered surgery that would correct your vision. However, it has

a social stigma: Why do you not have enough self-control and resolution to

take care of this WITHOUT the surgery? Many people don't have bad

eyesight...why do you? Did you read under the covers too much? Strain your

eyes? Run with scissors? Abuse yourself excessively? What's wrong with

you...have you no self control?

Dieting works for about 5% of those who seriously try to lose weight. Is

that really a viable solution?

Statistically, no. That's really obvious on the face of it.

Are you at fault because you gained weight and couldn't lose it?

I don't think so....you had the cards stacked against you, both in the

social, economic and emotional pressures that sent you to food for comfort,

and the inability of your metabolism to withstand the onslaught.

Do you want to look and feel like you did at your heaviest?

No.

If there were ANY solutions that actually worked, other than this, there

would not be any fat people. Nobody (repeat: NOBODY) wants to be fat. Give

yourself a break....you are doing a very brave thing, and taking a stand

against your own death. This is HARD to do, folks...this isn't the easy way

out. Don't let them tell you otherwise...be proud of who you are and what

you're doing. Don't be ashamed. Be proud.

Ford