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Originally Posted by innerSpaceman
He's also right about fat people being primarily responsible for being overweight. Frankly, I think that's why this is a touchy subject ... and why a thread about height or sexual orientation or hair color wouldn't get people nearly as upset, even though people may be unhappy with their height or hair color or sexual orientation.
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I'm not so sure here at least with sexual orientation. Some of the arguments remind me of the Christian "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" arguments I've seen on other boards. That is they have no problem with gay people it's just gay behavior they have issue with - and certainly if one can refrain from sex much easier than refrain from eating? (BTW I think those arguments have gotten much more heated than this one)
I'm not sure how much "responsibility" plays in the reactions as personal body image. People who are confident about themselves are just plain sexier than those who aren't regardless of actual beauty metrics or standards.
Being an obese person myself, I've always thought myself "large" even during my college days when I lost a lot of weight I thought that of myself, and saw it in pictures taken of me at the time. Today when I look at those pics, I wonder how I could have possibly thought that about myself when the photographic evidence is so contrary to my percieved reality of the time. There is some odd psychology at play so that I think people often do feel helpless in their attempts to loose weight.
When we talked about this offline last night you mentioned "guilt" as a factor, but I wonder if it's really shame. Not so much guilt that you can't loose the weight, but shame that you gained it in the first place. I'd say for me anyway, that's closer to my personal experience - when I think about those things anyway.