On a more serious note: my maternal grandfather was obese- I would say 75 pounds overweight. My mother has been obese to varying degrees her whole life, including morbidly obese at times, maybe now is 100 pounds overweight. My brother was skinny like a string bean until he needed to go on prednisone for a medical condition that also decreased his activity level and made things like shopping and cooking very difficult. I have been overweight by 20 pounds or so most of my adult life, but when then crept up to 35 pounds overweight, my doctor absolutely put his foot down in year 3 of his telling me to lose weight, for some reason I finally did about a year ago.
So I can tell you from first hand experience that it's not exactly hard- losing weight is really pretty straightforward. Less calories consumed, more calories burned, as long as you are brutally honest with yourself. Probably the only thing that's hard is coming to terms with the reality of it all- exactly how few calories it takes to really run a body is eye-opening, along with how much exercise it takes to really burn it. No one can put you on a diet, you have to figure it out yourself. You can absolutely eat lots of mini pies, you just have to figure out what to do with the associated calories.
Sure food policy in America for some reason favors unhealthy foods over healthy ones, this is a real failing of a government IMO. In part, this is because so many normal weight-people apply the value judgement to the overweight person- he/she is fat because lazy, with no self-control +/- maybe stupid- so reversing some of these food policy mistakes becomes difficult because skinny folks decide they are skinny through better virtue, they oppose changes to food policy that might be very helpful to the overall health of the American public. Personally, I think most overweight people are overweight as a result of a combination of lack of information about nutrition and diet and a sense not being powerless to make the necessary changes. If you decide to lose weight, you hear over and over messages of failure- most people can't do it, they gain more weight in the long run, they can't keep it off, etc. Also hogwash, if YOU are the one who figured out how to lose the weight, you are also the one that can figure out how to keep it off. The same principles apply ad infinitum. But the defeatist message is certainly not helpful.
So I really do have a good deal of sympathy to my obese neighbor on the plane vis a vis her obesity itself. My only issue was that she was pretty rude and clueless about her impact on others. Laying moral judgement on the obese is not helpful, but enabling them with a gazillion pre-made excuses is not helpful either. Everyone who is overweight should be given a loud and clear message, over and over, to lose the weight for the sake of their health. It would also behoove us to make changes on a societal level that would help people to get the tools they need to take the weight off.
H
