I was reading on Kyra's blog today about this survey....
NEW HAVEN, Conn., May 16 (UPI) -- Nearly half of the people responding to an online survey about obesity said they would rather give up a year of their life than be fat, says a U.S. study.
The study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University found the some 4,000 respondents also said they would rather walk away from their marriage, give up the possibility of having children, be depressed or become alcoholic rather than be obese.
Five percent said they'd rather lose a limb than get fat, while 4 percent said they'd rather be blind than be overweight.
"We were surprised by the sheer number of people who reported they would be willing to make major sacrifices to avoid being obese," said lead author Marlene Schwartz, associate director of the Rudd Center. "It drives home the message that weight bias is powerful and pervasive."
The study is published in the journal Obesity.
My one thought to this was ....yeah..but would they be willing to give up their favorite unhealty foods if they knew it would absolutely make them fat???? Or would they be like cigarette smokers and think that it didn't couldn't happen to them...
If someone had told me when I was 18 yrs old that I would be obese within 2 years would I have listened to them? Sure, it's easy to say...you would rather lose a limb than be obese...but it's not like you go to bed one day skinny and wake up in the morning fat...at least for me..it just kind of snuck up on me...I can't even blame it on being pregnant...I got fat before that...I actually ate myself fat...and as I got fatter, I got lazier.....and the more I ate...etc..etc...
I didn't work in those early days of my first marriage..up to that time I had been very active..had paper routes, shoveled walks, was a waitress...all active things but then I got married...Big Mistake..the only good thing that came out of that experience was The Kid...although I did find the "Love of My Life" that would stay with me no matter what and it was FOOD!!! especially sweets!!!!Oh, I knew I was getting Fat...but I always had an excuse...and it was Never that I ate too much of the wrong foods...NO..it was always something else...If I had taken that Survey then I probably would have been one of those that said that I would be willing to make a "major sacrifice" rather than be fat...but then what did I consider Fat/Obese? It certainly wasn't being in a size 12 or 16...and size 18 wasn't all that big when you considered there are people out there that are so big they have to be carried out of their house by a team of firefighters... So my other question is HOW BIG IS OBESE? Well, on the site I belong to they have a chart that says for my height (5'4"/5'5") that 175 pounds is still obese...I'm now at 169 and that's just overweight..not obese...The heaviest I've been was somewhere around 270/275..(I quit weighing myself at 265)and I still would watch those TV shows where they had the 600# man or woman and tell myself that at least I wasn't as bad as they were...that I would do anything not to get that size...and I would try a new diet for a little while, lose a few pounds and then go right back to my old lifestyle...and gain some/if not all the weight back...
Oh how we fool ourselves....
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2 comments:
It is an intriquing study, isn't it? I feel like it's a half-asked question though. They should have been a bit more specific! :) how much would they give up. What would be the limit? How far would they go? And where are they at now?
I ate myself fat too. While I'm not proud of that fact, maybe we're lucky. When we have no one to blame but ourselves it becomes easier to face the music, and make the changes.
Funny how we both gave up on our scale at a certain point ;)
Hey - I'm back from California - still smoke free and only gained one pound - not bad for the stress filled week plus I just had. The pound is mostly water and will be gone in no time. I've missed checking in - Take care.
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