Obesity is a huge issue in America, and we are all aware of it. There is an immense problem with bullying and shaming that goes along with being an overweight child, teenager and adult in this country.
Growing up overweight myself, I have experienced the shame of being morbidly obese and the bullying that accompanies it - whether malicious or unintentional, the biting effects of feeling shamed for the way you look build endless barriers between you and your health. Many have said it before me, but I will talk about it again, having processed these feelings myself.
Every overweight person knows they are overweight. Everyday, we feel the difficulties in purchasing clothes, performing daily aerobic activities, looking at ourselves in the mirror. We go to work and feel awkward eating our lunch, we want to date, but feel like no one could ever love us for the way we are, kids stare at us across the street, and all through middle school we never passed a day without nicknames. Our relatives worry about us and bring up these issues to us, wishing to make us realize that we have a problem. These people that love us and care about us want to help, but they are not helping us solve the issue - every time we hear how obese and ugly we seem to the world, our primary instinct is to give up and to drown yourself in another pint of ice cream.
I have always believed that the route to losing weight and improving your health is through motivation and inspiration instead of shaming. It is through example and the small wins that we can reach our big goals. That is why I suggest starting with a low carbohydrate diet, it achieves quick results which inspire you to lose more weight and keep trying. After all, the goal of losing weight is not to lose weight, but to improve your life and to improve your self esteem. My constant goal in helping those around me lose weight is to improve their self esteem and self worth through inspiration and support.
Today, I read an article about a study done in 2006 and 2010, led by psychologist Angelina Sutin at the Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee, Florida. Sutin collected the bmi of 6,157 Americans - either normal weight, overweight or obese. In 2006, Sutin noted whether the subjects were experiencing bullying about their weight, and upon reassessing each participant in 2010 discovered that patients who were overweight and experienced shaming about their bodies were twice as likely to become obese by 2010 as those that were not. Patients who were already obese at the beginning of the study and experienced shaming were three times as likely to remain obese when compared to patients who were not discriminated against. Thus, Sutin concludes that shaming a person about their weight actually encourages obesity.
It is really important to realize that you have a problem and to do something about it to improve your health, but rarely does shaming a person actually help them improve. Denial is a common instinct upon being attacked. I remember listing off all of the people that were fatter than I was when someone would insult me about my weight. You have to encourage a person to build up the strength to try to lose weight, give them realistic results to work for - maybe like my parents who offered me something I wanted in exchange for losing weight. Once you get started and your self esteem improves, you become inspired and everything becomes easier.
I am not sure where I am going with this entry anymore, but I hope that somewhere out there, I can help inspire someone the way that I was inspired to become a healthier me, and perhaps some recipe ideas will help someone gain hope for being able to eat well and become healthy.
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