When there's more of you - you are worth less; stereotypes about overweight people

* PS: If you are here because of the positivity regarding physical appearance and a happy ending, you are in the wrong place. Through my articles, I talk about the unpleasant side, the side that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and is a part not only of me, but also of people like me. Since I am prone to pessimistic realism, there will be a lot of resentment and negative emotions here, which can potentially have a bad effect on someone. I no longer know what to advise anyone, whether to read or not; I'm just writing about a society from many years of experience, wish I have no personal experience with this topic.*

   Fat. Another in an infinite series of adjectives; for some it is nothing specific, for others it is an insult they use, and for some of us it is etched in the brain and serves to mark us as a person. Some of us weren't even people - we were just fat. We are to blame for the fact that a billion people are starving, we are the collapse of the economy, we are a burden to the health system, we are to blame for being automatically the target of ridicule and harassment. If you are harassed because of your weight and you complain about it, you are more likely to get "advice" to lose weight, so no one will harass you, than someone to protect you. Just because you are "fat", you look stronger - then why would anyone protect you? It's your own fault you came to that, isn't it? Even children are not spared, on the contrary, many of us still have problems from that age. Can't you run and work out? Are other children laughing to you? Do adults constantly comment on you and stare at you, making you feel even more uncomfortable because of your appearance? You see, how others don't have those problems, but you - then the problem is in you, that's how they will convince you ever since.

  I read an article that indirectly supports intolerance towards overweight people, which even states that most men would rather choose a woman who has a history of suicide attempts or is a drug addict than one who is overweight (hm, interestingly, they didn't think that some of us are a combination of that). Aside from the fact that all these people are humiliated by being put on the principle of "choose what's worse", but how did someone come up with a "genius" idea to make a poll of things that ruined a person's life to determine what kind of person would someone want to spend his life with?! So, according to this "genius", a person who has been cured of drug addiction is not as valuable as other people, not to mention the "loser" of the poll, ie. an overweight person who doesn't seem to be worthy of love or anything beautiful in life. That's how I grew up, believing that I would be worthy of everything (including my crush) only when I lost weight, so in the meantime I lost the desire for almost everything, especially after anorexia - I was much thinner, but everything else was the same. I had only one crush in my life, I didn't allow myself to fantasize much about it because of my physical appearance - it would be an insult to a person to find out that I like him (or her), so I'm glad I didn't put such an bad epithet on anyone. Even with my crush, I didn't want to say anything until I lost weight, but after a while I rather idealized that person in my mind and convinced myself that I must like only one person in my life than I really cared about that (it just sounds like the Disney movies we grew up with, only it's not applicable in life), I was waiting for the moment when I would look "decent" because a person once said that he "doesn't like me because I'm fat". Time passed, in the meantime he started dating girls and I was never interested in relationships, I wanted to keep him as a friend (since he didn't accept the request on Instagram a few years ago I haven't had any interaction, I won't spend either my own or someone else's time or to beg someone), although it is better for me to stay away from all people who remind me of the past. The only thing that bothers me about certain situation is that I have the feeling that I made a mistake I can't fix, and for the rest I'm sure I haven't cared about him in that sense for a long time. I guess it was a great insult that I even dared to like him - I saw him for years as the most interesting and sympathetic person in the world, while others thought mostly negative things about me. If any person had only a part of such an opinion about me as I had about him (not in love sense, in any sense), and not for a few years, not even days, but literally one positive thought - I would feel honored, only if it was said honestly. In the present, I rarely like to get a compliment (especially comments about looks), and I shudder at the thoughts of crushes and  relationships; I guess I'm not used to listening to positive things, only insults feel real in my brain, which is why I take any criticism seriously.

   I sincerely don't give a damn by what public opinion prefers when it comes to relationships, since I do not want to ever be in a relationship, but on behalf of all overweight people I feel anxious about it; imagine having trouble finding someone just because you’re “not attractive enough”, no matter what kind of person you are, and even finding yourself worried about whether your partner will eventually leave you or set an ultimatum to lose weight. Even when they stay in a relationship / marriage, many start commenting on the appearance, expressing disgust or even intolerance more openly (but even that has to be endured because the thick person is afraid that they will ever find someone else). The only "mitigating circumstance" have women who have given birth; they have a few extra pounds "forgiven" because they "gave new life", and then come various celebrities who "look great only a month after giving birth" or a mother of five, who has a perfectly fit body from exercising and who laughs at all the women from the billboard, with the slogan "And what is your excuse?". I remember that many times, I just wonder if someone has to justify their body at all and if they have to constantly think about exercise and strictly take care of food intake, I don't know why society imposes such a private thing on someone. Saggy skin, fat (layers) and stretch marks are not as attractive as a toned body, but is the only task in our lives to be attractive, even when we have to focus on something more important (such as a child in this case)? I have relatively frequent discussions with my mother, but her excess weight never bothered me or that I was ashamed of her because of it. Some others may have had skinnier mothers, so what, I only wish she had a little more knowledge about food to take better care of my diet when I was growing up, otherwise I didn't mind her weight, which has been stagnant for decades. I would always rather choose a thick mother who is aware that she is not perfect than one who would use me for self-promotion, this also applies to other things besides fitness (I am glad that there were no social networks in the 1990s when I was born, now as an adult I determine what information I will publish and where).

  When you are overweight, they automatically think that it is from too many sweets, snacks, pastries, juices and stuff, so they immediately label you greedy and intemperate. As a child I used to eat more for one meal, but many times I barely had anything to eat, or I skipped meals. For example, on excursions I knew that I would be condemned for whatever I took, so I barely ate anything; on the excursion in the eighth grade we had a buffet at breakfast, I did not take anything and I skipped the meal so as not to turn out to be greedy (although I did not want to eat anyway), and at other meals during all excursions there was a lot of discomfort. Then there are birthdays, celebrations, home visits and lunches - the same feeling always appears as if someone is counting my bites because of my weight. Now they stare at me less because I don't weigh that much anymore, but my current diet is so tricky that just explaining why I don't take anything creates discomfort. Namely, I have been a vegetarian since 2013, but since 2019 I prefer a vegan regime whenever I can, plus consuming a certain type of food at a certain time (I strictly do not consume carbohydrates in the evening, although I often skip dinner anyway, and in between meals I do not consume anything, not even juices / fruit teas); I have a feeling that someone is always judging me for my diet, whether I am overweight, starving or having my own diet. This is all told to me by people who do not understand food and nutrients, they think that they can teach the FOOD TECHNOLOGIST lessons about it. I listened to lectures in class and was a pretty good student, we had four different types of chemistry (general, inorganic, organic and physical; don't know if this is accurate translation but I hope it's fine) + a dozen different technologies for processing food into finished products + more professional subjects related to nutrition all four years, I was great in all these subjects. The irony is that my weight was not directly caused by excess food, but rather that it is a matter of poor functioning of organs (primarily the liver) due to inadequate nutrition since childhood. The only official diagnosis I got while I had the health insurance was diabetes, maybe the weight was just an aggravating circumstance but not the cause - it was a time with a lot of problems and things I couldn't deal with, so I think stress was the bigger cause. I ate mostly soups, salads, sometimes they bought cheese and meat products, and the only food that could possibly influence me to gain weight was (white) bread, which I ate in larger quantities to feel full. So, there was no bunch of various food, especially as we became poorer and poorer, if something made me fat it was bread that was a substitute for other foods (and probably other people of lower social status are used to replacing other foods with bread, various nutrition is expensive for us). Unfortunately, I can't avoid it in my current diet either, although it's not really suitable for me, I'm just lucky that I've significantly reduced the amount and replace it with whole-grain bread whenever I can (ie whenever I can get it where they sell stale bread, fresh whole grain bread is expensive for my conditions). As I said, my mother is overweight no matter how much she eats (she likes a little better quality food from time to time, but does not consume large amounts), even when she was seriously ill she did not lose weight nor physical activity affects her body, both she and I have a static weight.

   Overweight people find it much harder to have successful careers almost everywhere; I watched a kind of documentary that many Japanese companies generally do not even hire people who are of normal weight by our standards (I read about harassment of people in that country because of "excess" weight, I guess it is promoted because of the large number of people - again we return to the stereotype that everyone gets overweight from too much food), but this is silently happening in other countries and in different positions. Specifically for occupations related to art and public appearance (singing, acting, running shows, etc.) there is an unwritten rule of how one should look; if they find a flaw in you, it's your fault if the tabloids humiliate you for it, just because you're on TV you're (obviously) obliged to look perfect. There are occupations such as modeling and dance where people of both genders have to take care of weight and appearance, but for most other occupations, weight is not a measure of talent and does not affect what they do. Here women are more discriminated against; a man is "forgiven" a few kilos, female public figures immediately get the epithets "cows who have to go on a diet urgently" for every single fat layer that is made on their body, for every time they have cellulite, even during illness / difficult period. Literally every singer who started with excess weight was urged to "fix it" if she wants to be successful, the topic of her appearance is always more important than her talent. If she loses weight in the meantime - the tabloids will greet it with a standing ovation, thus making it known that now that person is worth more because she weighs less. I have nothing against praising what those people worked on (that is a difficult process), the only problem is that such articles emphasize that "it wasn't good before, but now it's better". Only a person who lives in that body has the right to decide what is "better" for her, if she wants to lose weight on her own, then that's fine (so, without pressure and harassment from the environment), every time others interfere in that story she can come up with so much desire to prove herself to others that she loses control. Before you think that I am an enviable lunatic who speaks nonsense, since many people have lost weight of spite of someone who hurt them, I want to mention that some of these people have developed eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and orthorexia. because they either became obsessed with losing weight and that number on the scale goes even lower, or they wanted to show everyone who bullied them that they were wrong, thinking they would be sorry for everything they ever said or did - even at the cost of their health (or even life if they get too out of control). I know from personal experience, I went through that a years ago and it would happen again if I didn't try to keep my diet normal, so it's smarter to stay away from those who would make fun of me again because of the weight (I'm not as obese as I used to be, but you never know which fool you can run into in life), my body is so exhausted that I can not afford the luxury of eliminating something else from the diet, anyway due to poor financial situation I have a limited supply of food and I need strength and to work.

    It is emphasized that an obese person is unhealthy and that he/she automatically becomes healthier if he/she loses weight, which is great nonsense. Since I had the opportunity to see what the differences are I will try to describe, but keep in mind that I reached "thinness" by starvation, and I will not describe such changes because it in itself led me to a terrible state, the consequences of eating disorders will not be included in comparison. So, I noticed that the pain under the right rib while walking disappeared, the pain in the chest area  and fatigue decreased (I'm talking about weight fatigue, I'm still tired due to anemia), the pimples on my back disappeared, the skin iritation decreased because the fact that there were fewer layers on the skin, it seems that the sugar decreased at that time because I drank much less water - I can't say for sure, I didn't go for check-ups. What hasn't changed are other health problems such as respiratory infections and psychiatric problems, and even my self-esteem hasn't improved permanently - it was apparent, although again I note that I had an eating disorder associated with suicidal thoughts, so in my case I cannot claim that others would have had such an experience. What has definitely gotten worse is the loss of skin elasticity, which is confirmed by many other people who have lost a lot of weight, I'm not sure if the skin tightens better with a slight loss combined with exercise and the use of some products, I only know my skin is in awful state. I did exercises to repair it at least a little, put on skin tightening products, waited to see if the skin would adjust at least a little over time - nothing, it's even worse over time and I'm only in my twenties, who knows what I would look like if I lived until the age of 50, when aging in the meantime takes away elasticity. In one domestic show, I watched an article about a woman with the same problem, in the show they gave her an operation which is the only way to fix it (I heard about this procedure before, so I wanted to see what it looks like). The doctor said that it was not just about the excess skin, but also about the permanently stretched muscle tissue, so that during the operation it is completely removed and returned to normal. The procedure leaves a scar (allegedly less noticeable after a while), and the operation itself is quite expensive for a person of average financial status, so I certainly do not plan to ever undergo it, for that money we can buy a good used truck. That is the only reason why I would advise someone to lose weight as slowly as possible and to do light exercises, loose skin is difficult and expensive to repair.

   However, the main reason for writing this article is that I wanted to point out from personal experience that insulting fat people can have huge consequences for those people. There are those who pay less attention to such remarks (even if they are the strongest people, I still don't see why anyone should humiliate them), but there are also many of us whose lives have been ruined in some way. It has led me to so many mental problems that I have tried to kill myself on several occasions solely because of it, plus other consequences such as wearing more and more clothes to hide my body (so now I wear long-sleeved jackets and blouses all the time, even during summer), feeling unworthy of everything and everyone, loss of will to hang out with people and to love (maybe I would start a family under some other circumstances, but this topic is already creepy enough to me, so I will not go in that direction), various eating disorders, insecurity, worsening self-harm, panic when I go among people ... There are other things, and someone would dismiss it all under the pretext of "taking everything seriously" or whatever public opinion can invent (yeah, let's not forget another important consequence you may have noticed so far - the constant fear of ridicule or underestimation, fear of the opinion of "society" which I perceive as a group of people who know how to criticize and which I based on my negative experiences, but also on its observation in different situations), I must remind myself that such an attitude of society is the reason why am I writing this. I don't know if it is human nature to ridicule others, including fat people, but sometimes one should refrain from comments and laughter; to the one who says that it means nothing, but to the one who listens it can be very harmful. During the seventh grade, a woman on the street came to me out of nowhere and started telling me that I should take more walks to the nearby hill, not knowing anything about my habits (at first she didn't even know if I was a female or a male, so she called me boy), and my house was on the other side of town from the school, so I walked a few kilometers every day. It is wiser not to comment on someone's appearance (at least not if it is a negative comment), in some cases not everything is as obvious as it looks. There is one part of the movie "ABC of Death" called "X is for XXL" where everyone humiliates a woman until she starts cutting off part by part of her body - she finally comes out of the bathtub without a single piece of skin, skinny as a model from a commercial that appears all around her, but she dies immediately afterwards due to great blood loss and severe injuries. The graphic scenes of cutting off body parts are preceded by the scene of overeating, which is actually a perfect depiction of the real situation - the more you are harassed, the worse you feel, you have less control over your diet and you gain more weight. This can later turn into an binge eating disorder (BED), a vicious circle that is difficult to stop. I doubt anyone would want to be in the category of morbid obesity with a BMI (body mass index) over 35, but I understand how it is possible to get there, you become unaware of everything. You find yourself in a vicious circle where you know you have to lose weight and try a lot of things, but rarely does it work, even when you lose some weight it can come back or even to add more (so-called yo-yo effect, I returned half of the lost pounds, if I was not strict about the diet the rest would return).
People with a naturally fast metabolism and those who are not prone to weight gain cannot understand it at all - some need mild to moderate physical activity and a normal diet to have a weight in the "healthy" range of 20-25 BMI; some of us would need to do hard exercises, have drastic diets like the keto diet and who knows what else to achieve that. Not every organism is the same, we don't all think of excuses to justify our obesity (it's not as if any of you should be interested in our body, it's disgusting to invade someone's privacy so much); in the first place we should put the fact that all people have feelings and that we are all individuals, individual organisms, who are equally valuable in this ecosystem.

   I wondered what others thought about discrimination against obese people; there are people who have similar opinions in the comments on articles on this topic, one comment made me roll my eyes: the person came up with a revolutionary method of weight loss - all to go to recreation, to stop eating chips, ketchup and meat (because they are seems to be the main cause of obesity, and I personally rarely eat any snacks, while not eating meat at all), as well as urging us not to sit in front of the TV (I watched TV when I was younger, now even if I want to watch there is nothing interesting, and I rarely use a computer because there is a problem with not loading the program). There were also comments that discrimination and insulting obese people cannot be compared to insulting on the basis of race, gender, orientation, nationality, etc., because obesity can be influenced and changed. So, in the opinion of that person, it is okay for someone to humiliate us in various ways because "we can change it" and "we are to blame for it", although some have distanced themselves with "I will not speak of cases when there is some disease". I don't remember anyone in my life asking me if I was sick of something before they started insulting me or making fun of me for no reason, and from the attitude of society towards overweight people, from various writings, movies, jokes, songs and similarly, one can see how much this relation turns into sadism, while forgetting that we are just people, even more sensitive after all those difficult words for which there is mostly no reason. Although I can probably still write on this topic, I will end it by mentioning the most pathetic "jokes" which are not only not funny, but very offensive considering how many overweight people who have experienced all sorts of inconveniences think about suicide or even commit it. There are so-called memes with people of different looks, so it's no wonder that there are also people with excess weight, but someone thought it was very funny to put the inscription "trying to hang herself / the whole house falls down" on the picture of an overweight girl. For such a "joke" one can roll eyes and not pay attention, especially because it is obvious that such an "ingenious" thought was reached by an immature person at the time (that's why memes should not be taken too seriously, provided that there are topics where there is no room for jokes), but what to think when you see a picture of (real) suicide, where a morbidly obese person ended her life by jumping from a building, and someone shared the picture because it looked funny to him?! The woman killed herself, and they shared her picture with the caption "pancake" as if it were not someone who potentially killed herself because of that (I searched for the picture on the Internet, I saw it a long time ago so it may have been removed due to stricter rules for Google images, I sincerely hope so, hope it was not a picture of a real person but it certainly looked authentic). However, while searching for that picture, I saw that BBC television also broadcast the autopsy of an obese woman, showing her completely naked body on television (she gave permission for the body to be used for scientific research after her death, but no one mentioned filming), so I guess that for some overweight people there is no peace even after death. The thought of an autopsy scares me, I even think for years about what needs to be done to avoid it, but that is another topic now.

   I no longer have the strength to talk in vain, nothing will ever change, at least not with my writing. Maybe I'm just writing about topics I have something to say about (like last time about school), but maybe there's no point because it won't help me get rid of my traumas, nor will it influence someone else to change anything at least in their behavior. And as long as the situation is as it is, we who are / have been overweight will suffer trauma due to someone else's lack of education, ignorance and stigmatization, and that will be a normal process because, as they say - we are to blame. Recently, on one news portal in our country was posted  that someone beat up a guy out for no reason (they emphasized in the headline that he was Tik Toker, but that is irrelevant to the story, a person is a person), most comments supported that they beat him because "it's because of the way he looks like". So, it's okay to beat, insult or humiliate a person if you don't like his appearance, it's okay to kill a man if you don't like his ethical background (eg when our actor was killed because someone was bothered by his Gypsy origin), even saw people shouting at stray animals for no reason. We live in a society that not only does not suppress violence and considers it morally wrong, but also propagates attacks, shamelessly using the freedom of speech given to them to "express their opinion" which is actually an clear insult to a certain person or group. In the end, there is the answer to the question of that woman from the billboard: "And what is your excuse?" - there is no excuse, there is just a feeling that I am not worth enough to live on this "ideal" planet of yours (well, it's obviously not my planet too), I don't see the point of trying the hell out to look good enough so that people around me don't get disgusted every time they look at me - I don't care how I look like and they don't even have to stare at me, I don't force them, let them look at something else. Anyway, after all these years, I can't even look at myself anymore. I'm so glad they are disgusted - after everything I've been through and all things seen on this planet, I'm disgusted with society and what it's capable of doing, hypocritically teaching us about "moral values" since childhood and yet doing quite the opposite. Human civilization is not a club where some "you" will give us conditions that we must meet in order to be worthy to be miserable members of your imaginary hierarchy, and even if it is - I am not interested in membership in such a club, I never wanted that. That same society that insults you labels you that you are the one "who has complexes" and that something is wrong with you. Well, yes - I based my value too much in the opinion of some unimportant hypocrites who change the rules as they please - yes, it's my fault, but now it's too late to change that, they have affected my psyche too much. And in the end, I do not apologize for anything, which is the opposite of my constant apology; I have no one to apologize to - everyone likes to have someone apologize to show them how superior they are, but they are stingy on words when they have to apologize to someone. I think I was more than clear in the article, so let the society, before insulting and calling for violence, think about whether it wants more cynical people like me. One me is too much, but at least I can fix it because I have nothing else left, and those who lead to such things should use their brain and soul first (if they have it), before opening their mouths. I believe that the world will be a better place that way.