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Showing Original Post only (View all)I used to be fat [View all]
Last edited Fri Jan 10, 2014, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)
And when I say fat, I mean super-morbidly obese.
9 1/2 years ago, I tipped the scales at 278 lbs. At 5'1" this gave me a BMI of 52.5 (a normal BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9, for people who are not solid muscle).
I cannot tell you how segregated I felt from the rest of the world. I had to shop in special stores. At Red Sox games I had to sit in the handicapped section because I couldn't fit in the regular seats. No one ever asked me out. No one wanted to sit next to me on an airplane. I took a trip to Busch Gardens/Tampa and couldn't fit into the rides. (I remember walking around the park and having a little girl point at me and say to her mother, "Look how fat she is, Mommy!"
It was awful.
I've seen a few posts to the effect that some of us just "need to get a sense of humor" about ourselves. Let me tell you--there's nothing funny about it.
I can remember how hard it was to stand at the stove and cook dinner, how hard it was to stand at the sink and do dishes; my back, knees and feet wanting to give up on me. Just bending over a few times to make the bed would put me out of breath.
I once told my doctor that I could lose weight if I were not so lazy. She yelled at me. She told me that there's nothing lazy about a person who is carrying around an extra 150 lbs. of weight every day. She told me that I was probably burning calories equal to a normal-sized person who did a workout every day.
I took steps to treat my obesity, and lost almost all of those 150 lbs. Even so, there is still a part of my mind that will always make me think I'm "fat." I have friends that call me "tiny," and you'd think that I could embrace that term, but I can't. Maybe it's because I just don't like being labeled for my size.
Obesity is not always about someone who has no self-control. More often than not there are physiological, mental, and emotional elements to the disease.
And it IS a disease.
We wouldn't crack jokes about people with arthritis, asthma, diabetes, ulcerative colitis, etc.
We shouldn't crack jokes about people with obesity.
Chris Christie has actually taken steps to treat his obesity, but even if he hadn't, his weight should never be the reason we poke fun at him.
Besides, he gives us plenty of other reasons anyway.
Thank you for letting me vent.