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[sirdentofdoom]

Thought of the day one: I've been really chewing over body image, weight, society, other people, media, expectations, etc, etc etc. And I realize that I kind of have a hypocritical view sometimes. I'll honestly say that the concept of obese people frustrates me. Hearing very large people complaining about their weight frustrates me. I have a

Comments

[whetherwoman]

I think of health and weight as two different things. They're certainly correlated, but not exactly. For instance, extremes of weight are clearly unhealthy, but that doesn't mean any given weight IS healthy

[sirdentofdoom]

Thats a good question. I don't know how healthy is healthy enough - and you're right, weight isn't always a direct correlation to health. Everyone could probably be healthier, and even people who believe they are at their healthiest according to the doctrine they follow, those of other doctrinces probably consider them extremely unhealthy (Atkins diet anyone? :P). I know that I'm not as healthy as I could be. And there are people (like my sister) who eat microwave pizza twice a day and get no exercise and yet maintain a low weight. But for the majority of people, not those few exceptions, being extremely overweight or underweight is indicative of a poor diet and lifestyle that leads to physical problems. Thats how I link them in my mind

[whetherwoman]

I can't really imagine gaining 100 pounds myself without changing my lifestyle, honestly. I mean, I did gain 20 pounds one winter, due to various lifestyle changes, and it made me feel wonky and I changed my lifestyle and educated myself a little more and lost the 20 pounds over the next 2 years. But... I mean, I've always been on the skinny side, so gaining weight made me feel wonky. What if I'd been on the chubby side as a kid and a teenager, based not on my own choices but on my parent's choices? It wouldn't feel wonky, it'd just feel like how I was. LOSING weight would probably feel wonky, at least at first. In fact, probably someone who's been overweight their whole life would find it at least as hard to make lifestyle changes to lose weight as you'd find it difficult to gain weight

[sirdentofdoom]

Nah dude, I love having a good yak about these sorts of things! And I really like it when people challenge me, or call me out on things that I said - it makes me think harder and reevaluate things, and sometimes makes me realize that I've articulated what I meant realllllly badly. :P And you always have intelligent interesting things to say, so I'm all for it! :D