<p>I third that question.</p>
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I guess I am going to be the first one to say this...I am one of those "ugly", "fat" and "disgusting" people that majority of you speak of. I am 18 years old, 5'6" and 315 pounds.
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<p>You can smile, feel proud and be happy. That is great. But please realize that those stats are very very dangerous.
You should be around 125 lbs. according to the average girl's growth chart. The fact that you are 2.5x that means your lifespan has likely shrunk by several decades.</p>
<p>A short, unhappy, and painful life. Apparently that's what our "feel good about your obesity" movement has caused you.</p>
<p>Wow, I have never heard that before. Thanks for opening my eyes to this serious epidemic. </p>
<p>And this is where I roll my eyes and chuckle. Ha Ha Ha.</p>
<p>Pride isn't an excuse for ignorance.</p>
<p>foxdiel sounds like you have been reading too many tabloids latley...at 5'6'' 125 is not the healthy weight..a healthy weight for that height is 135- 145. look it up</p>
<p>Anywhere between 125-145 lbs is a normal BMI (20-23) for a 5'6" woman of reproductive age. 125 is obviously better.</p>
<p>My best friend thinks she's fat. She's not. The kind of culture where a woman who wears a size ten is considered 'fat' is what a lot of people are facing right now, and that's not right. Almost every time i talk to her, she is telling me about how she exercised for four hours the day before, burning way more calories than she ate, just to try and lose a few pounds that she never needed to lose in the first place. I agree that people who are severly overweight ought to lose some weight for health reasons, if it is possible, but the negative connotations associated with being anything bigger than a size 6 carry over to many more than just the severly obese. It's hard watching my friend hate herself. She, and people who ARE overweight, should be able to feel confident in themselves, even if they do need to lose weight. Severe negative body image leads to things even more unhealthy than obesity, like anorexia, bulemia, and overexercising (yes, it can be dangerously unhealthy).</p>
<p>Why is 125 "obviously" better? Because it's thinner? Maybe she has a large body type, that she would look disgustingly thin at 125. People tell me that 145 is the "ideal" body weight for my height (5'9") but I've been 148 and I was THIN. Like, more so than I should've been. I think it's whatever point your body is healthy and looks good and you're happy, is the weight you should be at. There's not a set weight for everyone of the same height.</p>
<p>I'm 130 and 5'9'' and not really that thin. I think it depends on your frame.</p>
<p>we can bring it back to anorexia, bulemia, etc. But the fact is, many many many many more women are overweight/obese than anorexic.</p>
<p>There always has to be a distribution, and even one tilted heavily towards obese has to have a few anorexics. But that's no reason to justify our overweight culture.</p>
<p>I would saw overweight to anorexic in the US, is maybe 1:1,000 ?</p>
<p>uniquelythesame- </p>
<p>I'm going to be blunt. Your entire philosophy is wrong. It's not the skinny people's fault that fat people have low self esteem, they ostracize themselves by choosing not to eat right and excercise. It's like me complaining that nobody likes me because I don't shower. Theres an obvious soloution =/ </p>
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It's easy for you all to sit at your computers and judge something you know nothing about. It isn't that easy to lose weight.
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<p>Actually it is, assuming you have discipline. I have a friend who used to be overweight but he decided to make a lifestyle change and has improved drastically, just over the course of a year. All he did was implement a strict diet and started to jog and lift weights. But...if it's that easy then why doesn't everyone do it??? The same reason everyone wants a magic diet pill, because people are lazy.</p>
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Of course I wouldn't like to be as heavy as I am but I am very accepting of it. I was obviously made this way for a reason.
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<p>Lazy defeatist comments like that are the reason this epidemic exists.</p>
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Actually it is, assuming you have discipline. I have a friend who used to be overweight but he decided to make a lifestyle change and has improved drastically, just over the course of a year.
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losing weight is totally doable. i have a friend who was at least 50 lbs overweight freshmen year. he went out for XC and actually tried during the workouts and lost all the weight by sophomore year. now he is lean and muscular and is actually a very good XC runner now all thanks to hard work. </p>
<p>i think that the problem here in the United States is that people don't know when to stop eating. people need to have the discipline to control their diets (if they want to live a decent life) and quit blaming things like genetics as the cause of their disease. (there are WAY too many obese people for genetics to be main culprit in the obesity crisis. fat genes didn't all of a sudden choose to express themselves in modern generations... genetics doesn't work like that. there would have to have been a lot of fat people in previous generations to account for how many people have the "obesity gene.")</p>
<p>Patsygirl:
the problem with people like your friend isn't that they have body image issues. that is just a symptom of their problem. your friend's behavior indicates a severe lack of self esteem in general and she should probably go to therapy for it. there may be something that happened to her in her past that caused her to have such low self esteem.</p>
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[quote]
we can bring it back to anorexia, bulemia, etc. But the fact is, many many many many more women are overweight/obese than anorexic.
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i'm not sure if that's true. eating disorders are pretty common especially among women.</p>
<p>bannana_girl:
just use a BMI calculator to get a rough estimate. normal weight for a 5'-6" female is about 115 lbs to 154 lbs. overweight is 155 lbs to 185 lbs. over that is just simply obese. anyways, these are just used to assess whether or not a person is maintaining a healthy weight. it's not intended to assess what kind of body the person has. here are the limitations of the BMI calculator i used.</p>
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The PeoplesChoice Ideal Weight Calculator uses the formulas shown above for Adults, but not for Children. For ages under 18.5 years, the calculator substitutes the 50th percentile weight, according to height, age and gender, determined from NHANES III data. Doing so provides results that have a smooth junction between Adults and Children, for persons of normal weight. This approach is not entirely satisfactory for overweight kids, unfortunately.</p>
<p>This calculator does not have a way to provide reasonable results for people who have extra muscles, such as for bodybuilders or atheletes.
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PeoplesChoice</a> Ideal Weight Body References</p>
<p>AUlostchick:
like "normal weight," "thin" covers a pretty large range.</p>
<p>"Wow, I have never heard that before. Thanks for opening my eyes to this serious epidemic.</p>
<p>And this is where I roll my eyes and chuckle. Ha Ha Ha."</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree:
"A large number of medical conditions have been associated with obesity. Health consequences are categorised as being the result of either increased fat mass (osteoarthritis, obstructive sleep apnea, social stigma) or increased number of fat cells (diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease).[13] Mortality is increased in obesity, with a BMI of over 32 being associated with a doubled risk of death.[14] There are alterations in the body's response to insulin (insulin resistance), a proinflammatory state and an increased tendency to thrombosis (prothrombotic state).[13]"</p>
<p>With a BMI of ~45, you shouldn't worry about the health effects of morbid obesity. I mean, whats a better way to go than by heart attack at 40 years old?</p>
<p></p>
<p>I don't mean to be so harsh to you specifically, but your attitude towards the health effects of obesity are alarming to say the least.</p>
<p>I'll be honest, I just don't understand it. To extend El Barto's idea, it seems like these people are saying "instead of taking a shower, I'm going to change the world and make people accept BO!!" except with more serious consequences.</p>
<p>Newjack- XC is a good example, it's damn near impossible to be overweight when your putting in 20+ miles a week.</p>
<p>Another good example is Michael Phelps, USA's olympic gold medal swimmer. The amount of miles this guy swims at the pool is staggering. As a result he has to eat an unholy amount of calories just to keep from losing weight. He will eat a stack of pancakes, a bowl of grits, an omelette, a couple egg and cheese sandwhiches, and some dessert... and thats just breakfast.</p>
<p>If you want a fast metabolism, increase the intensity of your workout. It really is that simple.</p>
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Another good example is Michael Phelps, USA's olympic gold medal swimmer.
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</p>
<p>Right. Every obese person should become a gold-medal winning athlete. That makes sense. Everyone can do that.</p>
<p>Are you guys actually serious? I understand if you're trying to have a laugh in this thread, but if what you're saying is what you actually believe, you have a 10 year old's understanding of the issues at hand.</p>
<p>It was a pretty basic analogy. The more you workout the more you can eat without gaining weight.</p>
<p>yes because everyone has the time to spend 5 hours swimming laps at the pool.</p>
<p>michael phelps's life is devoted to swimming laps and doing htat...other people have jobs that require sitting in a workstation or classroom so they obviously cant spend that much tiem excerciing</p>
<p>...nevermind</p>
<p>I understand your point, El Barto, but you have to look at it this way. I sincerely doubt that many professional athletes that have to put in as much work as Phelps does, have ever been overweight in their lives. Sure, they might not have been in as good of shape, but that's it. I can assure you that it's ALOT easier to maintain your weight than to lose weight. Yes, everyone should eat right and exercise. But what about people who just don't have the time? If you work 50 hours a week, or take a full load of classes in school (that you have to study for all the time) in addition to working and trying to maintain somewhat of a social life (friends, etc), when is there time? What has to be sacrificed just so you can go to the gym? Sleep, or studying, oftentimes. And personally, I feel like sleep and studying are a little bit more important than losing 20 pounds. Of course if someone is obese, they should at least try to make time. But the fact is, often when you get to be a certain weight, it's hard to even walk up a flight of stairs; they can't exactly just go out and run 3 miles every day and voila they're thin in 2 months. Plus, and this is especially true for women, sometimes fat just WILL NOT go away. The more you try, the more frustrating it is (I've seen my own mother go through this) and it gets to the point where you just feel like quitting.</p>