Just wondering what people thought on the subject. I find myself looking down on overweight people in general. Obese people (really fat) really disgust me even though I don't outwardly project this. I also find myself looking down on people who are not obese but are still overweight. I'm not talking a few pounds but I am talking about people who are obviously unhealthily overweight. This doesn't affect me enough to not form a friendship with them but it does affect how I think of them.

everyone has their prejudices.

I guess most people look down on them because it's a sign of greed and greed is really unattractive. Plus it's annoying when they take up 2 seats on a bus.

I have no problems with a fat guy who realises he is fat and makes no excuses about it, but I hate the ones who whinge about how big they are and how the whole world hates them, then proceed to eat half a cake and skull a 2 litre bottle of coke. Take responsibility ffs

Yes I do.

I look down on obese people mainly because it shows their lack of care for their health - like smoking. If they're fat they're going to die young

I see a LOT of fat people at my workplace. I reckon at least 60% of them are easily 20kg+ over. Even my brother's wife is heavily overweight (maybe 40kg+ over) even before she had kids and I've never seen her doing any excercising. She bought a bike but used it once and gave up, she doesn't even go for daily walks/jogs

There's 1 customer that comes through every Thursday and she's not just a little overweight, I'm talking at LEAST 150-200kg, she sit down on the floor when she's not being served and she uses up a lot of strength just trying to stand upright again. Her shopping consists of 8x 2litre coke bottles (every single week), meat pies, potato chips, chocolate, nothing healthy except for a tiny tub of 'Weight watchers' yoghurt at the end - like that's going to do anything. She also purchases a 600ml bottle of coke which she requests I leave on the counter so she can drink it instantly.

No, I don't 'look down' on anyone really (well, apart from the old terrorists and what not), because that's just general ignorance. If they're overweight, well, let them deal with it and get on with your own life.

However, I will agree that obese people that whine about their own insecurity is rather insufferable. The option is always there to exercise, and general intuition is something that seems to be lacking amongst the general population these days. One of my friends is rather overweight; thankfully, he's been dieting and getting active.

Before people write off obesity as something purely motivated by 'greed', many people turn to over-eating because of trauma or even an inherent genetic fault.

lol that reminds me of all the regular fatties we used to get when I worked at McDonalds.

They order a double quarter pounder with extra bacon, large fries, sundae, but then insist on getting a diet coke. Yes just watch the kilos fall off after having that diet coke.

Being obesely overweight IMHO is no different than being a meth addict and having sores all over your body and dissolving teeth. Both show physical manifestations of the abuse you are putting your body through.

Celebrities get no sympathy from half way intelligent people. The individuals who obsess over the tabloid magazines and celebrities are showing emotional problems themselves. They are caught up in someone else's life and would rather watch theirs than live their own.

It's highly superficial of me, but simply looking at morbidly obese people often fills me with a sense of revulsion. yes, it's judgemental of me - but I'm being truthful.

Part of which I could put down to something like "Halo Effect" - no, I don't wish to fill obese people with ten thousand glowing pink needles from an alien weapon - but the fact that because of their physical appearance, I would probably eschew engaging in conversation with them.

I would sooner find myself helping a thinner person change a tyre on the side of the road than an obese person.

The people with "eating disorders" basically fall into two categories. They are eating as a crutch for emotional problems or they are just plain lazy. People that are in emotional problems category generally are craving for attention... good or bad. Overeating and gaining weight leads to negative attention and gives them something they can whine about... but if anyone ever tries to help, by offering diet help, being an excercise partner, etc. The person will almost always refuse and do everything in their power to NOT help themselves. THIS is why they are looked down upon. They whine about a problem, refuse to do anything about it, and then go out of their way to not accept help or get pissed at someone for trying to help them. It's a character flaw and there is no reason people should be accepting of that. For the ones that are just plain lazy, I think it is self-explanitory as to why they are not respected. I don't respect drug users, I don't respect alcoholics, I don't respect chain-smokers, and I don't respect fat people.

Its not that I think they don't have other redeeming qualities or that I wouldn't be friends with them... but I DO think less of them and would never consider dating anyone that falls into those categories.

I don't look down, I look left then right.

There used to be a kid like that at my primary school!
Hilarious!

And that's just a ridiculous generalisation.

The vast majority of obese people are dying to lose weight. We live in a world where the ultra-toned body is desired, and for someone weighing in over 20+ stone, they will be the most body-conscious out of everyone, except that many have no power to control their rapidly growing size. It's not easy for someone just to pack-up eating the foods they love to eat, food that quite often gives them highs. It's just like smoking, alcohol or drugs. There's a dependency that's extremely difficult to break. The brain develops a bond; as well as that, eating the portions that we would consider filling satisfies only a tiny amount of their hunger threshold because of the vast amount of fat they carry. Each cell in the body requires its food supply, and the more that's piled on and not exercised off, the bigger you get and the more you need to eat.

Eat a bar of white-chocolate. You'll feel good after it. That's melatonin, the same stuff in dairy products, and also secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain to allow for deep-sleep. Just like nictotine, just like alcohol, just like heroin: once a strong dependency is there, well, good luck breaking it.

So no, people with eating disorders don't 'basically' fall into two categories. Of course there are some who eat out of pure gluttony, but there are those who are clinically addicted to eating, those with inherent genetic faults that affect their future weight, those who have developed tumours (I know a girl who was born with stomach cancer, which was cured not soon after, but has now irrevocably altered her size) and those that eat out of trauma.

You saying an obese person who overeats due to emotional problems is attention seeking is like saying a guy who starts drinking bottles of vodka every evening because his family's been wiped-out in a car-crash is doing the same. Some people can't handle the stress, and turn to other things to release anxiety, embarrassment etc..

Seems to me like you've got a serious chip on your shoulder, RH.

I guess what other people do to themselves doesn't phase me. I don't let it. I am sure every obese person is very aware of their weight and I doubt they need anyone else to remind them of it and I know they feel bad about themselves, so what right is it of mine to judge them or make fun, etc.?

Not all obese people are lazy or slobs or don't care about themselves. But they've gotten to the point where they are in denial or simply don't care about their health/appearance anymore or to the point where they aren't physically competent to decrease their weight.

I'm a fatty and I'll take you all on bitches. :lol:

Anyway I walk to work every morning('bout20 mins) and most other places due to the sans carness and has had no effect on my weight(was much lighter when I was younger and did no exercise). But I just don't care enough to exercise just for the hell of it is is so shit boring and takes up too much time. My fittness isn;t so bad 'casue a have a pretty physical job aqnd the walking everywhere part.

I have a BMI of 31 for infomationy type dealy on my excat fattness.

Some people have it easy.
they're born with high metabolism and such.
Some aren't so lucky. They can have genetically low metabolisms and as such will not have the same amount of energy to get up and go.

I have been blessed with the metabolism of a superhero. I eat so unhealthily and I'm still slender.

See, I don't look down on obese people, UNLESS they start doing the whole "I wish someone would do something about how fat I am" kind of thing. If they bitch and moan but don't take action it bothers me, but then again it does with everybody.

Mostly because I know the second my metabolism slows down I will need to be lifted out of bed in the morning with a forklift just so I can eat a box of donuts.

I don't look down on overweight/obese people generally, partly because I used to be one (when I was 12 I weighed about 90kg...). A lot of people certainly are overweight simply because they're too lazy to exercise/change their eating habits, and that's not particularly good, but it's only bad for them if that's the case.

It's the people who complain about being overweight and then go and buy a bucket of chicken from KFC followed by a Kit Kat Chunky and a packet of chips who I might be inclined to look down on a bit... If it's your own fault and you can't be bothered doing anything about it and then you complain about it, that's not very good...

However, on a different note, I think it's not always strictly laziness that makes people eat more/not exercise. Some people have emotional problems and they eat to make themselves feel better, sometimes without thinking about what they're eating and stuff like that. So sometimes there are underlying reasons for people being overweight.

Additionally, if a kid is overweight, a lot of the time it's the parent's fault for buying them Macdonald's and other assorted rubbish more often than they should be because they can't be bothered cooking and so forth. I think that's terrible when parents do that, because they should be able to recognise that their kid's putting on weight and think "oh, I should probably stop feeding this child Macdonald's every day".

Also, sometimes when a parent has low self-esteem and a child sees the parent putting themself down or something like that, that low self-esteem rubs off on a child and then the kid might become like an emotional eater or something and be like "oh I hate myself!1" and so forth.

Anyway, people who complain about being fat and then go and don't do anything about it = bad. Otherwise, it's not as bad...

I probably do look down on them, but only really the ones I don't know. The obese people I do know, I don't really think any differently about than anybody else. It's irrational, but I can't really help it, because I don't really comprehend how people let themselves get into that shape, and why they don't do more. I've never been overweight and whenever there are things about my life I don't like, I change them, so I find it hard to really understand what it's like to be in that mind set (of an obese person). Of course some people are obese for reasons outside of their control, but I'm not sure which.

So yeah, I generally look down on obese people, but I try my best not to.

Thank you for making my day.

We used to have a customer in a Coles I worked in who was obese to the point of being confined to a mobility scooter. This ran out of juice on him one day and given that he was on the wrong side of a quarter ton it took 5 staff members to wheel him into the back dock where he stayed for five hours while his scooter recharged.

That's about the point where you stop eating.

As far as I am concerned, I don't look down, but I try to look as it was a "normal" person. Sure, they don't have the problem as us, but I think we should force ourselves to see them as people, not as obeses.

However, I don't think being obese is very healthy, how can we tell them they should eat less ? Is we look down on them, do they will be attracted to eat less ?

This topic is so true, it's hard to look at them without thinking of two or three jokes. :(