03/2019

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Fat like me

Leslie Lampert
Ladies' Home Journal, May 1993

I lived one week of my life like a fat woman. This week was truly terrible. Every day of this week I suffered from the arrogant contempt of others. Thin people never experience this. If you've ever laughed at a fat person - or you're overweight yourself - then you should read this story.

In one morning I gained 70 kg in weight and my life changed radically. My husband began to look at me differently, my children were discouraged, my friends pitied me, strangers expressed their contempt. Small joys, for example, going shopping, going out somewhere with the family, going to a party - turned into great torment. The very thought of having to do something, for example, go grocery shopping, or go to the video cassette store, put me in a terrible mood. But most importantly, I had a feeling of anger. This feeling came to me because this week (while I was wearing a “fat suit” that made me look like a woman weighing about 130 kg) I realized that our society hates obese people, we have a prejudice against them that is in many ways consistent with racism and religious intolerance. In a country that prides itself on caring for the disabled and the homeless, fat people remain a target for cultural abuse.

For many, obesity symbolizes our inability to control ourselves in terms of our own health. Fat people are considered smelly, dirty, lazy losers (who use their large layer of fat as a shield to protect themselves from insults and contemptuous attacks). In addition, the issue of personal space plays a large role in the development of prejudiced attitudes towards them. Many people feel that fat people unfairly take up too much space on the bus, in the movie theater, even in store aisles. Based on my experience as an allegedly fat person, it seems to me that we are much more tolerant of slender rude people than we are of respectable but overweight fellow citizens.

We are a society that idolizes thinness and fears fat figures. I am no exception. After I gave birth to three children, said goodbye to my 30th birthday, the law of gravity affected me, and I gained about 10 kg, which I could not calmly look at. Anyone who knows me can well imagine my struggle with excess weight through various diets, when my weight either decreased or increased again. However, this did not prepare me at all for the disdainful attitude that people with clinically significant obesity (that is, being 20% ​​above ideal weight) are subjected to in our country.

When actress Goldie Hawn was added an extra hundred pounds in the movie Death Becomes Her, I thought: what does it really mean to be that big? How would I feel at that weight? This is how my experiment was born.

Every morning this week I put on a special "fat suit" that was made for me by special effects artist Richard Tautkus from New York (who works with many film studios and Broadway shows). This costume allowed me to enter a world where I was either ignored or looked upon as some kind of spectacle. So here's my diary:

Friday

10 a.m. I take a taxi from the editors of Woman's House magazine in Manhattan and go to Richard Totkus's studio on Long Island. Richard and his assistants, Jim and Stephen, are going to work on my new look. For some reason I'm nervous, especially when I read in the newspapers about formerly fat people (all of whom had lost a lot of weight after gastric bypass surgery) who said they would rather go blind, deaf, or lose a leg than become fat again. Is everything really that terrible?

Even the authors of the fat suit themselves could hardly believe that the suddenly bloated creature in front of them was me. The suit, made from air conditioning filter material, was surprisingly light, but the inside of the suit was very hot and I sweat a lot. I was led to a large full-length mirror. I'm just shocked. I look very natural. Too natural!

When I look at myself in the mirror, I feel bad. “You’re not bad for such a fat girl, pretty,” one of the assistants reassures me. I'm not laughing.

12 a.m. This is my first time taking a taxi in a fat suit. The driver seemed to chuckle at me. Or did I just imagine it? It took me longer than usual to get into the car. Is the driver in a hurry? I arrive at the photo studio and have difficulty getting out of the car. Did I say something funny? The driver openly laughs at me.

8 pm. I show my husband and children my before and after photos of the suit. My husband immediately reconsiders his desire to go out to lunch with me in my disguise. "I'm sad that you're fat," he says. “I won’t feel comfortable with people staring at you and laughing at you.” The children say in unison: “You don’t need to pick us up from school like this.”

We're talking about discrimination against fat people. My 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, says, "It's not that I don't like fat people, I just don't want to have a serious conversation about it." Nine-year-old Amanda said in an indifferent voice: “You're scaring me.” Alex, my seven-year-old son, laughs nervously and tries on a suit.

11 p.m. I'm trying to sleep in my own body. The husband snores quietly. I'm scared of his reaction to me, fat. So far, he hasn't made any negative comments about my body in our 12 years of marriage. I felt terrible when I saw his face when he looked at photos of me in a fat suit.

Monday

7 a.m.

I put on a suit and take the train into the city. No one sits next to me. I feel extremely awkward. People look at me for a long time, expressing obvious disapproval, then look at the newspaper. Two women went so far as to openly look at me and whisper. I take up one and a half seats, and of course I’m embarrassed. On the other hand, I'm outraged. How dare these people judge me based solely on my size?

8 a.m. In the office everyone wants to hear my impressions and see what I look like. One editor noticed that in a fat suit my movements seemed more aggressive to him. One employee asked how I would feel if I ran into my ex-boyfriend while on assignment. Another thought I was depressed. Yes, I'm depressed, and besides that, I'm really hungry.

1 p.m. I went out for lunch with two colleagues at a restaurant in the city. I feel clearly not okay because everyone is staring and grinning at me. The helpful waiter moved the chair further away from the table so I could sit down. As I tried to squeeze into a chair with cramped armrests, my embarrassment was clearly noticed by everyone present, and now they carefully avert their gaze.

Well, okay, I may be fat, but I am a thinking creature. I'm willing to bet that among you restaurant patrons there are drug addicts, thieves, people who cheat on their spouses, and bad parents. It would be good if your shortcomings were as clearly visible to you as the non-standard size of my body (by the way, many doctors consider this a genetic problem, and not a weakness of will). We refuse dessert and leave.

17.30. I'm driving from the train station in the car. I stop at a red light. A car with two teenagers stops next to me. The guy in the passenger seat looks at me and puffs out his cheeks. Then he starts laughing.

18.30 I pick up the children from school. We are going to eat at a cafe. The children tell me to walk along the road separately from them.

I order two fried chicken, potatoes, vegetables, gravy, corn and six mini brownies. Some kids in the restaurant say "That fat woman" about me. The adults giggle along with them.

When the person at the cash register punches my order, he asks how many people I'm going to feed. I answer indignantly: “Six. What?” He says if he had known, he could have offered a cheaper family meal. I wonder if he's laughing at me or not?

Tuesday

10 a.m. On the way to Bloomingdale, I stop at Haagen-Dazs for ice cream. I order two scoops of chocolate chip ice cream. I watch as the teenager standing behind me judges my size. The desire to say something in my defense boils within me. When I was walking home and eating ice cream in a cup, I met a well-dressed man who looked at me and shook his head disapprovingly, and when he passed by, he began to laugh loudly.

Walking around Bloomingdale is not easy. First of all, I had a hard time getting through the revolving door, and when I was inside, I saw that everyone was looking at me. Interestingly, I was not ignored in the conventional sense. Two perfume sellers just pounced on me, offering me the latest perfume. One man behind the counter asked me if I wanted a complete makeover.

I squeezed into the elevator. The two women began to giggle. I asked the salesperson in the sports section to help me choose clothes. He politely sent me to the "big girl" section.

On the way home, I bought ten donuts. I ate one on the train. Why do people hate watching a fat person eat? I don't pay attention to the frowns. I want to eat.

Wednesday

10 a.m. I came for a consultation at a beauty salon near my home. I tell the stylist, who is as thin as a sliver, that I want to change my appearance. She gently explains to me that I need a fuller hairstyle to balance out the fullness of my figure. I take no offence. She was just being honest. She didn't hurt me. We talked about the difficulties of dieting. We became friends.

One o'clock. I have an appointment with friends at a restaurant in the suburbs. They are eager to see my new look and hear my story about this project. I feel depressed and don't want to go anywhere. I'm already tired of constantly defending myself. Friends joked that if you sat next to me, you would feel like a skeleton. I was glad when another plump woman entered the restaurant and sat down at the next table. She ordered a salad. Me too.

2.30 p.m. I'm at the grocery store. Everyone looks in my cart to see what the fat woman is buying. Two women were angry that they couldn't squeeze past me in the canned food aisle. I apologized and left. I hate the candy department, but I promised to buy something for the children. I took the package of chocolates and looked around to see if anyone was looking at me. In the cart, I covered this bag with other purchases. I feel like a criminal.

4pm. I become paranoid about how people react to me. I decided to discuss this issue with one overweight woman. It turns out she has the same emotions. "I can't stand comments about what I eat anymore," says Denise Rubin, a 32-year-old lawyer. Her weight is about 100 kg. "I'm tired of the injustice. I'm valued less than I deserve just because I'm bigger than others. When will we finally understand that the word 'fat' is an adjective, not a noun?"

I listen to her with sympathy, but I don’t know what to answer.

Thursday

Elizabeth told the school about my experiment, and the teacher asked me to come to school and tell the students about my experience. My daughter is no longer embarrassed when her friends see me. We have all changed this week. We willingly tell everyone about my experiment in order to explain to people the injustice of the existing attitude towards fat people. The kids in the class - especially those who know me - laugh at first, and then start asking questions faster than I can answer. What I feel? What is people's attitude towards me? What does it mean to be fat?

2 pm. I'm going into town by car to finish some work at the office. Yes, I’m ready to admit that driving a car with such weight is not an easy task. In order to sit comfortably, I had to move the seat as far back as possible. In this position I can barely reach the pedals.

19.30. I'm having lunch at a trendy hangout in town with Richard, the designer of my fat suit. We had a plan to meet in the hotel lobby nearby so that I wouldn’t have to go to the restaurant alone. Richard is late, I'm alone, wandering around the hall, as if in a shop window, and everyone is looking at me. Richard finally appears at 7:45 p.m. We kiss: “Hello!” We go arm in arm to the restaurant. I feel safe.

The nightmare begins. There is a sea of ​​beautiful people at the bar. There are so many people that I can barely take off my coat. From behind I hear a whisper addressed to Richard: “What a handsome man!” When our turn comes, I tell the woman manager that we have arrived. She pretends she doesn't hear me. Richard himself tells her our names, and then she escorts us to the table.

We asked for a table in the front. We are seated at a table in the back. Two women in their thirties barely hide their horror as I squeeze between two tables. Glasses of water shake when I accidentally hit tables. Richard and I order drinks and I take bread from the basket on the table. The two women stared at me. I order goat cheese salad and pasta with cream sauce. They giggle. The rest of the dinner continued in the same spirit. Richard and I look at the dessert menu, ignoring these women.

I apologize and go to the toilet. In the toilet I take off my fat suit and put on regular clothes. I know I'm crazy, but I'm sick of it all. These two women were simply stunned when they saw me again. Richard told me that when I was in the toilet, they asked him: “What are you doing here with this fat pig?” He replied: "This is my girlfriend." They were indignant: “Yes, this is simply impossible! In this case, you are probably a male prostitute.” My blood is boiling. Richard tells them about the project. They start to get angry at me. Imagine, they are angry with me! They quickly pay the bill and disappear.

Richard and I drink coffee and leave. The same men who had previously looked at me contemptuously see me off with flirting glances.

Friday

16:00 pm. The children and I are going to the store to buy clothes for a trip to the south. During the purchase process, I heard “Wow!” twice, received many disdainful looks, and once heard a nasty chuckle from a stranger. But now I don't care what people think anymore. Perhaps it’s because the project is coming to an end, or maybe I’ve just come to terms with people’s attitude towards me, a fat woman. I still feel the daily pricks from those around me, but the desire for revenge has almost disappeared. I'm just exhausted.

19.30 I go to dinner with my husband (no longer in the fat suit). I feel sad and not at all happy about my sudden weight loss. Instead, I feel a sense of shame for the culture of my society, for how much pain we cause to people who do not fit into our ideas of ideal. I think about how I can instill confidence in fat people. That they need to feel their fullness. And that I need to muster all my willpower and refuse dessert.

Excess weight is not only a physical problem. Its cause is often psychological problems, blocks and attitudes implanted in childhood. Without dealing with this baggage, it is very difficult to lose unnecessary pounds.

Zoya Bogdanova, psychotherapist and weight management specialist, author of the book "Eat Read Lose Weight" will help you figure out how to come to harmony with yourself and your own body.

The psychology of thinking is a subtle, individual thing and is similar to a dish that everyone prepares according to their own recipe - as they know how or want, and at the same time they hope that it will be tasty.

Excess weight here acts as an additional ingredient, and which one specifically depends on the person and the psychological problem that led to the gain of kilograms. What could it be? Let's take a closer look!

1. Fat people need “armor,” but thin people can handle it on their own.

In this case, obesity acts as a kind of protective shell, which is designed to protect against the negative impact of the surrounding world. The need for such a fat shield suggests that deep inside a person is filled with fears, he is too vulnerable and sensitive, and extra pounds are his way of coping with his own vulnerability. The reasons for the occurrence may be a lack of support, cruelty from loved ones, or a ban on expressing negative emotions.

2. Fat people don’t feel boundaries, but thin people have found them.

Overweight people often have a certain thick skin - they can show callousness and insensitivity, not only towards others, but also towards themselves. This attitude leads to the fact that a person cannot control his feeling of hunger and satiety; it is difficult for him to assess his weight and the boundaries of his body in principle.

That is why such people easily invade someone else’s space and strive to take control of it. This can be expressed in overprotection, attempts to limit the freedom of loved ones, to live the life of children, and not their own. In response to the expansion of the sphere of influence, that is, the psychological boundaries, the body also increases in size, expanding the physical boundaries.

3. Fat people feel empty, thin people enjoy it

One of the psychological reasons for completeness may be the desire to fill an internal emptiness. Feeling bored and suffering from the monotony of his life, a person eats to feel a feeling of fullness.

Usually the problem appears when there is a restriction on receiving pleasure. As a result, food becomes the only option to experience joy. The roots of this behavior usually go back to childhood, when adults, in an effort to console or please the child, give him candy.

4. Fat people deny facts, while thin people see reasons.

A characteristic way of thinking of overweight people is to deny the very fact of having a problem. In the case of drug addiction or alcoholism, those seeking recovery eventually come to admit their addiction and begin treatment. But with obesity, people miss an important point: they focus not on the cause of the disease, but on its results - the occurrence of excess weight. To shift the emphasis in the right direction, it is worth attending psychotherapy sessions.

5. Fat people are embarrassed, but thin people flirt.

Fear of relationships can trigger weight gain. We are talking about a subconscious decision to become fat in order to protect oneself from male attention. The reason for this choice may be violence, quarrels between parents, jealousy of the husband, personal negative experience of family relationships, when after a painful separation a woman does not want to go through such psychological tests again. Having extra pounds is a good explanation for yourself why you have to avoid men.

In addition, weight gain can provoke a feeling of revenge against a spouse who cheated on or left his wife. This gives a reason to shift the blame for what happened onto your body, which has lost its attractiveness in the eyes of your husband.

At the same time, serious efforts may be made to ensure that the figure complies with the canons of beauty, including constant diets and visits to fitness centers, but it will be extremely difficult to control the appetite, because it is influenced by subconscious attitudes and beliefs.

If you want not only to lose weight, but also to achieve sustainable results, do not rush to run to a nutritionist - make an appointment with a psychologist or psychotherapist. It will help you change your thinking in the right direction and figure out what exactly is preventing you from losing excess weight!

Photo: gallerydata.net, shkolabuduschego.ru, stihi.ru, spimenova.ru

Fat shaming is, in essence, bullying people who are overweight (or simply overweight): fat shamers constantly remind overweight people of their weight, publicly accuse them of not wanting to lose weight and openly insult them, calling them “fatty”, “fat pigs” and “piles of fat”. " Moreover, the objects of ridicule and insults are most often women, not men. This is a serious problem. In the modern world, fat shaming has reached such proportions that in response, the “Body Positive” movement appeared, the main goal of which is to encourage people to accept other people’s appearance as it is. But, alas, this idea has not yet found a response in our society. Let's find out why.

“Fat is ugly, I don’t want to look at it.”

Not really. Fat is not ugly in itself, fat is considered ugly now. At the same time, everyone knows that this was not always the case: few people have not seen figurines of Paleolithic Venuses or reproductions of paintings by High Renaissance masters. Our personal criteria of beautiful and ugly are not personal at all, they are based on society's ideas about beauty, and a beautiful body has been a thin body for many decades. It was either simply thin (from Twiggy to “heroin chic”), or athletic (from supermodels of the 90s to modern fit girls), but it was not fat. But times are changing: plus-size models began to appear on the catwalks, plus-size actresses began to be invited to lead roles, but society is still not ready to accept this. Why?

Because we began to confuse ideal pictures with real life. There is too much visual information around us - information that is not real, made up: pictures perfectly smoothed in photo editors, films with special effects. We see beautiful things very often, so often that some have decided that they have the right not to see what they consider ugly. “Be fat, but don’t show your photos to anyone, we hate to see it.” And some people find it unpleasant to see fat people in tight or revealing clothes: “Ugh, cover up.” But why, exactly? Why not then prohibit people with malocclusion from talking and laughing? And people with crooked or wide noses should wear medical masks - thin, straight noses are in fashion.

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But no, only excess weight is a reason to openly insult people and demand that they not “stick out their fat.” Because…

"Fat people are just lazy"

Lazy and weak-willed people, unable to “just pull yourself together and lose weight.” Having attributed the sins of laziness and gluttony to people with great weight, society went further. Fat people are considered stupid and face discrimination in education and career: if you're not stupid, why can't you figure out how to lose weight? Being overweight is also associated with poor hygiene: since a fat woman is too lazy to go to the gym, then she is probably too lazy to wash. Thus, society stigmatizes people with large weights and puts a stigma on them. And this seems to give indulgence to fat shamers: they don’t just insult and humiliate people, they expose the “terrible” vices of fat people, which means they are committing a supposedly good deed. Who, if not them, will point out to these fatheads that they are living wrong?

And this problem is not only the problem of excess weight. This is a problem of a society that creates artificial frameworks so that there is a reason to kick those who do not fit into them. And women are prime candidates for positions outside the frame. Because “a woman should.” She must be beautiful, she must take care of herself and her figure - first of all. A typical patriarchy, in which you cannot be a worthless commodity, otherwise you will become a pariah.

“Obesity is unhealthy, these people are sick!”

A frankly hypocritical statement: no one, except neophytes of a healthy lifestyle, condemns people who are not passionate about physical education. Nobody worries about how often strangers do fluorography. Nobody wants to know how smokers and alcoholics harm their health - until they invade someone else's space with their stinking smoke and drunken brawls. No one is interested in how long ago the neighbor in the stairwell took a blood test and in what condition his blood vessels and joints are. But for some reason everyone is interested in the vessels and joints of obese people. Why on earth, it would seem? Everyone takes care of their own health, who cares about other people's hemorrhoids?

The point is very simple: this is not a question of health, it is a question of power. Thin people love to tell fat people exactly how they need to eat to lose weight, how to take treatment to lose weight, how to move to lose weight. The very fact of excess weight in an overweight person seems to turn any thin person into a strict teacher Maryivanna: “Now I, fatty, will teach you to live correctly, and you will listen and obey. Come here, you pigs, I’ll tell you the truth.” Thus, any person who is unable to achieve success in his chosen field of activity has the opportunity to amuse his sense of self-importance, to assert himself at the expense of another: I am thin - that means I am more successful than a fat man, smarter and generally better. I have the role of teacher and mentor. And the more aggressive the fat shamer, the higher the likelihood that a small clothing size is his only achievement in life. It is likely that it is simply genetic.

Another important point is the accusation of overweight people in promoting an unhealthy lifestyle: “Our children are watching this! They may think it’s okay to be fat!” Children are generally a universal shield; they can cover anything. Including our own reluctance to educate these very children in any way. Because the habit of a healthy lifestyle as a norm is brought up by personal parental example. But doing exercises in the morning with children is too hard. It’s easier to stigmatize fat people. True, some overweight people are still children, and it’s a sin to bully children. But you can persecute their parents who allowed this to happen. “Yes, that’s right, it’s their fault, not ours at all,” that’s exactly what fat shamers think.

“It’s your own fault, how could you let yourself go like that!”

In general, the feeling of guilt for weight as such is imposed on people with a lot of weight by default. The only question is the degree of this guilt. There are those who are not very guilty - these are those who have gained weight due to health problems. There has long been a fake circulating on the Internet that there are supposedly only 5% of such people. This is absolutely not true, but this is an excellent reason to stigmatize everyone who is overweight in general: you are simply overfed and it is your own fault! This is typical victim blaming. In fact, everyone understands that humiliating other people for your own pleasure is not good. But if you make these people guilty, then it seems possible. After all, they themselves chose this path for themselves, they voluntarily grew fat, which means they must be prepared for the role of outcasts. He who does not want to be humiliated does not eat in three throats. another indulgence: it was not I who was cruel, it was me who provoked them, they themselves wanted it.

The other side of this coin is hypocritical pity. At the expense of a fat person, you can always be kind: I’ll tell you how bad it is to be fat, and I’ll immediately become a good and caring kind person. Thank me! Who else will open your eyes to how you have let yourself down?!

“Fat people have no right to happiness”

And here fat-shaming turns its ugly face exclusively towards us, women. Because an overweight man has the right to happiness, but a woman does not. At the same time, both camps will attack it. And if men with their valuable opinion on the subject, “I wouldn’t fool you!” can be ignored, then women cannot be ignored. Because this is a question of hierarchy in a patriarchal society: you are fat, and I am not, which means my status is higher. It would seem, well, be happy, because the more fat women there are, the less competition for status males, who naturally prefer thin ones. Why bully losers, they are not your competitors?

Everything is very simple, let's return to point 1: beautiful is what society has agreed to consider beautiful. If you don’t poison fat people, tomorrow, God forbid, they might even be considered beautiful. And this means that all the benefits due to beauties will go to them, and not to you. Because benefits are provided by status males.

The second point is the idea that happiness must be earned, preferably through hard work and severe restrictions. Years of working in the gym and sitting on chicken breast with buckwheat - and for what? So that some fat woman who has been chewing cakes all her life gets the same piece of happiness? Why on earth? Let him achieve it first!

But the point here is not that only fat people supposedly do not have the right to happiness. The fact is that women do not have the right to happiness. Not for any happiness other than the one that society has recognized as the most correct: be thin and beautiful, attract the attention of men, grab the right one for yourself and never, never get fat or get older.

If you think about it, living in this paradigm is a great misfortune. For all of us.

It's not about being overweight. Psychology of fat people.

You obviously don't understand what your real problem is. You think you want to change your weight. Let's take a person who is addicted to smoking. He says to you: “I cough very badly, what can I do to stop coughing?” You delicately hint to him that he needs to quit smoking, he replies that he understands this perfectly well, but he needs good cough medicine. It's the same with people who drink. A heavy drinker may complain that he gets into car accidents all the time and therefore wants to take a driving course. You say that it would be good to quit drinking, but the drinker starts using public transport instead.

This way of thinking in psychology is called “denial of facts”, and in jurisprudence it is called “denial of involvement”, since people do not want to admit their problem. Drug addicts, smokers or drunks eventually recognize their addiction and begin treatment. However, what people who are overweight usually don't realize is that they are focusing on the result - the extra pounds - instead of focusing on the cause - overeating. The fat man looks at himself in the mirror and says: “I need to lose 20 kilograms. How can I do it?" They answer him that he needs to eat less, and he nods his head in agreement: “Yes, yes. I know. We need to go to the weight loss club.”

Attention, excess weight is not a problem, but its consequences. You are consuming more food than your body needs! This is the result of extra pounds!

The more you focus on losing weight, the more difficult it is to control your excess food intake. Scientists have concluded that the more a person is dissatisfied with his appearance, the less likely he is to achieve his desired weight. Why is this so?

Focusing only on losing pounds can lead to the following:

Eating in fits and starts, alternating fasting and overeating with weight gain. You can lose weight on short-term diets, but this will not solve the underlying problem. If you only think about losing pounds, then once you lose a few pounds, you will lose all motivation to maintain that weight, and then you will start gaining it again. It will resemble walking in a circle;

Poor quality food. If you're only focused on losing those extra pounds, you'll forget to consider the nutritional value of foods. Instead of eating healthy beans (because beans make you fat), you can eat a piece of cake for dinner (it seems like it’s small, or you didn’t eat anything for lunch, or worked out at a fitness club, etc.);

Feeling of guilt from any piece eaten;

Bad consequences for the body. When losing weight, people often lose more muscle mass than pounds. You can lose three sizes, and the scale will reflect that you have lost only one and a half kilograms, and when you concentrate only on weight, you cannot adequately evaluate the results achieved. If you lose too much weight, it will undoubtedly harm your health;

Bad motive. Even if you have managed to lose weight, there will come a day when you will have some problems or you will get off on the wrong foot, and you will feel like you are like a hippopotamus, since there are no limits to perfection in losing weight. And if you're focused on losing pounds, no matter how much you've already lost, you may forget that you're harming your mental and physical health.

Food intake control

Some people, desperate to lose weight, stop thinking about how to lose weight and remain fat. You need to realize the benefits you will get if you start to control yourself and not overeat. You need to change your thinking, change your priorities and values, and think not about how much you weigh, but about how you eat.

Such control over overeating can save us from psychological dependence on food. But we must remember that anorexia is also a loss of control over food.

It is necessary to understand that health is more important than appearance, and there is no need to strive for slimness at any cost.

What you need to do to avoid overeating when you experience psychological rather than physical hunger:

“I allow myself to eat” (when you accept psychological hunger, when you do not forbid yourself to eat, then you have a feeling of freedom of choice, the effect of the forbidden fruit disappears, and you will no longer overeat)

OR

“I am free to satisfy psychological hunger”, or “I am free to eat”

You need to allow yourself to eat, because when there is an internal prohibition, a feeling of guilt appears, and you eat more than your body needs, and, therefore, you cannot lose weight.

Overweight problems Fat people - psychology and life of fat people

Fat people

Psychology and life of obese people

VES.ru – website – 2007

Factors that cause obesity

Personal factors of obese people

Studies of the personality structure of obese people have not provided much clarity (Pudel, 1991), nor have they identified a psychological cause of obesity.

Regarding the personality of such a person, there is some agreement on the following: such people have addictions, fears, and increased levels of depression (Frost et al. 1981, Ross 1994). On the other hand, there are works that directly contradict this. Thus, according to Hafner, 1987, people with obesity have low levels of depression.

Aspects of the psychology of development of obese people

Psychoanalysis blames the earlier childhood of such patients when they become "extremely depraved" with regard to "oral disturbances."

With regard to intra-family relationships, we can reveal one striking detail, namely that obesity develops significantly more often if the child was raised by a single mother. This is confirmed by another study where such people often did not have a father in the family (Wolf, 1993).

Herman & Polivy (1987) showed that such a child is often made a scapegoat in the family. Compared with the control group, family relationships in such children can rarely be called open, warm and cordial (Pachinger 1997). In contrast, Erzigkeit (1978) found that such a child is often spoiled and spoiled in the family. But in general, such a child in the family too often faces extremes, receiving both “too little love” and “too much.”

A study by Hammar (1977) found that during childhood these children are often rewarded by giving them sweets. Pudel & Maus (1990) found that during childhood, adults often develop certain behavioral stereotypes in such children, for example: “Everything that is put on the table must be eaten,” or put hidden pressure on them: “If you eat, mommy will eat.” happy,” or they try to induce imitative behavior in them: “Look, your brother has already eaten everything.” It is suggested that such imposed eating behavior may ultimately suppress an adequate physiological response to satiety in a person.

External factors are also important (Pudel, 1988). Life events such as marriage, pregnancy (Bradley 1992) or leaving a job may reduce the remaining levels of eating self-control.

Aspects of social psychology of obese people

Insecurity, hypersensitivity and isolation are prevalent among obese people. Sometimes among them there is feigned self-confidence, supported by internal fantasies that he is “the greatest” (the best, the smartest), has “the strongest control over his emotions,” and so on. These fantasies are inevitably, again and again, broken by life, and appear again, creating a vicious circle (Klotter, 1990).

Monello and Mayer (1968) found that there are similarities between being overweight and discrimination on other grounds. The picture has changed, the image of the “happy fat man”, which still remained in public opinion in the 70s of the last century, for example, in Germany ( Ernährungsbericht 1971), has now been replaced by negative images of fat people as “weak”, “dumb” and “nasty” (Bodenstedt et al. 1980, Wadden & Stunkard 1985, Machacek 1987, de Jong 1993). Women suffer more from such prejudices. On the other hand, men, even after successfully losing weight after surgery, behave more passively. Obese people show less interest in sex both before and after surgery; this applies to both men and women (Pudel & Maus 1990).

It is important to distinguish between obesity in adults and obesity in children and adolescents. In children and adolescents, psychological factors play a much more important role. To simplify the problem, children suffer much more and are discriminated against much more (Gortmaker 1993, Hill & Silver 1995). For example, a study by Klotter (1990) showed that when normal children were shown photographs of disabled children and fat children, they rated the fat children as less attractive than the disabled children.

A study of the social contacts of obese people has shown that such contacts are much more limited compared to people of normal weight. Such people can name very few people who love them, who give them practical support or who can lend them money. Obese women report having far less contact with men than with women.

Psychological outcomes after surgical weight loss

Among scientists who have studied the results of weight loss, there is no complete convergence of opinions. There are significant positive personality changes towards stabilization and greater openness (Stunkard et al. 1986, Larsen & Torgerson 1989). There are also positive changes in emotional background, a decrease in feelings of helplessness, etc. (Castelnuovo & Schiebel 1976, Loewig 1993).

On the other hand, there are reports of negative personality changes after surgery if the patient underwent surgery for psychosocial reasons rather than for medical reasons. Bull & Legorreta (1991) report negative long-term psychological effects of weight loss surgery. According to their data, the psychological problems that patients had before surgery remained in half of the patients 30 months later. Several other studies also confirm this phenomenon. Based on these studies, a psychological “list of indications” was compiled (Misovich, 1983). In other words, if a person did not have any specific psychological problems before surgery, such patients are more suitable for weight loss surgery.

Such contradictions are not surprising. For half of his life, such a patient lived with a disturbed sense of self-confidence, or there was none at all. He constantly dreamed of a body that would be admired, highly valued, or, in extreme cases, just ordinary. And then suddenly a person realizes that there is a real way to fulfill his dream. And then the question suddenly arises: WHO, exactly, and for what, will be adored and highly valued? At best, external changes will help a person change their behavior, or understand that while appearance is important, “inner values” are equally important. In the worst case, developing a healthy sense of self-confidence fails at all, in which case a new vicious circle is formed.

Information about weight loss surgery

Statistics say that only 10% of patients learn about the operation from their doctor, the rest learn about this opportunity from friends or from the media. Our data confirms these statistics. Decision theory tells us about the existence of the so-called primary effect, which means that the primary information about something is retained the longest, and, as a rule, a decision is made taking into account this primary information.

Elisabeth Ardelt

Psychological Institute, University of Salzburg, Austria

There is only one reliable way to combat obesity, excess or overweight - bariatric surgery. Modern surgeries for weight loss: