Quote:
Originally Posted by bxlefty23
additionally sure you can go to mcdonalds and see skinny people. but those people arent eating fast food every day and not excersizing.
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This is an assumption in keeping with the kind of bias I'm talking about. "If a fat person is at a fast food joint, they probably eat it every day and don't exercise. If a skinny person is in there, there's no way they could eat it regularly and they totally exercise. That
has to be true because if we accept that it might not be, we'd have to accept that we're wrong for viewing fat people negatively without knowing anything about them..."
I've known one of my best friends for 13 years. She's never been a pound over 115 in that time though usually hovered around 113 and I've never seen someone with a worse diet in my life. She doesn't cook because she doesn't want to and doesn't care to learn how so she eats out daily. Her places of choice are whatever's nearby and cheap so it's almost always McD's with the occasional Shake Shack or Chinese Buffet.
She's obsessed with chips and cookies to the point where that's often what she'll have
as a meal if not before and after a meal. She loves soda, not a big fan of water, not really into fruit, doesn't mind veggies if they're covered in some kind of sauce.
In the 13 years I've known her, she worked out a whopping total of two to three months during a time when she was going to a school that had a nice gym she could use. She wasn't into any physical activities, didn't play any sports (though she'd go watch them).
Hates hot or humid weather so she doesn't want to do anything outdoorsy in the spring and summer and hates being cold so she wants to stay inside in the winter and fall. I told her once that if she ever had tests run, I'd be very curious to see what the results were because I'm surprised she hasn't dropped dead yet lol
People who don't know her as well as I do always ask what she does to stay so thin, what her diet is, what kind of exercises she does, and we just laugh to ourselves. She's mid-30s right now and up to this point, it appears she can eat whatever she wants and lay around without getting fat and there are
a lot of people just like her. I know, I know,
exceptions don't make the rule but when the exceptions can number in the thousands to millions, they're not exactly irrelevant either.
I knew quite a few in high school, male and female, and I've known plenty throughout my life apart from her. Some of the ones I've met were really self-conscious about always being called things like "stick figure" or "bony" and were just as depressed about it as a lot of overweight people are about being fat so they actively tried to gain weight but couldn't.
The rest would just say matter-of-factly "I don't gain weight" whenever someone asked how they stay thin. It's something I've encountered enough to the point where it's actually
more common to me than thin people who are thin
because they exercise and eat right.
Anyway, recently, my friend broke the 115lb ceiling and hit 117lbs. Now, in her mind, she's a fat pig and has to do something about her weight because she's so disgusting. Skewed body image aside, I don't object because she's finally starting to take her health seriously. Not enough small people do in terms of diet and activity. It seems the only thing that gets people to even
think about whether they're healthy or not is weight gain and it's a shame.
Like I always say to those stuck on this "thin people are automatically healthier and live better" mentality, neither the hospital nor the morgue are filled only with fat bodies so as important as it is for society to keep pushing the issue that being overweight can lead to complications, we should also push that
not being overweight doesn't mean you're in the clear.
People grossly overestimate how healthy thin people really are in their diets and lifestyle just because they're thin. We're conditioned to think that way and it's kind of obnoxious when thinking so highly of one group results in thinking so negatively and critically about another.
If you want to assume that Mr. and Mrs. Slim must be that way because they don't pig out on crud every day and are physically active, more power to you, but can we manage to do that
without looking down on Mr. and Mrs. Plump?
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