Are Fat People "a Threat" To America's Future?

"How obesity could impact our health and economy 20 years from now"

Are you kind of squeeked out by being considered a THREAT TO AMERICA's FUTURE?

I'm sorry but when nearly HALF your population is going to be obese, they say 44% in only a few more years, something far more complex then calories in and out is going on.

There are some good suggestions in the report such as voucher for community farms and things like that, and they point out how the poor are fatter but if they think forcing people to exercise and getting more veggies out the door, means automatic weight loss, they need to think again.

Tell me what you think.... I may be writing on this more later...

The Social Stigma of Being Supersized in One's Family #2

During my life, I have faced some familial rejection. I probably could write a book and an entire blog just on that subject alone, if I am ever brave enough to air that much dirty laundry.  That can be risky online.

I wrote this blog entry some time ago:

The Social Stigma of Being Supersized in One's Family

My armchair pyschological analysis, of how certain personality disorders of others have impacted my life to it's severe detriment and how being an emotional person with introspective leanings born to unfeeling stoics and others where appearance means everything has been an interesting journey. The web is full of support, information and education that is very helpful.

This includes the usual saga of being disinvited from family weddings. You see, if you are FAT, people who care only about appearances, even if you dress well and as far as facial beauty did alright, such types want to keep you out of their wedding photos.

Last week, I had this aunt call me up, and brag about a wedding I was not invited to. It was quite strange. It was her granddaughter getting married, what is even odder, is I had already said I could not afford the travel, and health wise it would be too tough, but please send an invitation and at least I could send the wedding party a card, and some well-wishes. Well my mail remained empty. It's those kind of slights that add up.

During the phone call, and this relative knows about my lower financial and health status, she bragged about the wealth of different parties, gifts, money being spent, and others that were invited instead of me.  She made excuses for ill treatment and my being dismissed like I was nothing.  This included other comments about my weight. She weighs around 220lbs and hammers that gong endlessly.  This one issues her poison under a more sickly and fake sweet facade. The whole call was strange, inside I am thinking I would have liked to talk to my cousins again, and the whole message was "Stay Away!".

Years ago, around the age of 21, I was midsized and told I could not be in my sister's wedding party due to my weight. This brought up some really bad memories.

People who have refused to know me or include me in their lives and as I grow older, while some tolerate me and give me some brief notice, the message is to stay away as far away as possible.

I have admitted to myself, I do not have a family in the normal way, that a person has a family. There are some kind and good relatives, and others who do notice I am alive and care, but sadly most of them live far away, and the ones who have these other attitudes can at times influence even them. In fact one even told me, so and so doesn't have to visit you when I told them, I may be housebound due to weather during a would be mutual visit and I responded, "I matter too!"

I think I am growing healthier, because I now tell myself, invest only in those relationships where there is decent treatment, and stay as far away from people as much as possible who treat you like this, who do not see a person inside and who are cold and judgmental.

I will invest my time, energy and more in people who are my good friends, and who love me. I will give love, attention and kindness to those in need of it.

Hurricanes and Disasters

I'm praying for everyone who got hit by Sandy...and really worried about what is going to happen in New York City especially now that the infrastructure seems to have taken a giant hit...

Disasters like this are very scary. One week without electricity and because I sleep on a CPAP, I would be in trouble. One thing that hit me, is what will happen to the old and sick who cannot walk well since all the buses and subways are not running? I lived carless in an urban environment for 5 years so know how dependent one is in the city on these things. How will they get to work? And if they can't? How will they pay their rent?

This storm also happened during the last week of the month where most poor or lower income people have already hit bottom, we do in our household. When I read preparation lists, I think, Whose got the extra hundreds of dollars sitting around to bolster up the supplies when the day to day supplies are barely maintained?

If I could afford it, I would be a prepper but that seems a hobby for the middle class and above set,so many can barely can keep normal food in the house month to month. That said, is it just me or has the American infrastructure grown too fragile and delicate? Why do we still have 1930's technology when it comes to the electrical system, where the slightest puffs of wind bring the whole thing down? Do you all know many European nations got smart and started putting the electrical wires underground?

What is going to happen in NYC, as people grow weary, run out of the first storages of food, and figure out the subway that takes 5 million people to work daily, is damaged beyond belief by saltwater? What is going to happen with the big city criminal element or the drug addicts who can't get their fix, since their wealthy drug dealers probably hightailed it out of town.Are we looking at another Katrina situation? I sure hope not. I dread what could be happening there.

I seriously am worried for those facing flood and other problems. Even states very far away from Sandy got hit with high wind even up to 800 miles away. I know people in Ohio and Indiana who had their lights go dark. Some people never have seen anything like this.

Years ago I got caught in a blizzard in 1993, I had not had my weight gain, but was already a severe asthmatic, and probably weighed around 240lbs at that time and I traveled to North Carolina to look into teaching jobs in mid-March. Well, not listening to my intuition, cost me badly as I went there from over a 1000 miles away in someone else's car and paid heavily for not just cutting ties with this person and finding a bus or train home. This was the "1993 Storm of the Century"

If I hadn't thrown a fit and got my now EX-friend to turn off an exit into Mount Airy NC, we probably would have died. A kindly sheriff would rescue us out of 4 feet of snow drifts and take us to the fire station and then later sadly an unheated hotel with no power, which was better then nothing but trying to survive during that entire week, freezing and with very little food or water--I fortunately had brought a couple boxes of crackers and a couple of gallons of water- was very scary. I lived in extreme fear, that the cold and stress would trigger a huge asthma attack.

One big storm, and civilization itself was stripped away, at least we had gotten to a small town, where we were paid some mind. It would take a week and half, before the roads were cleared and we could leave. I would never return. And with the hurricane, I think of the disabled people, the ill, those who can't walk either from weight or other reasons, those who may be alone and have no family, and it's a scary mix. Ever feel like civilization itself is on the cusp at times? I sure do. And more and more we live in a society that seems jerry-built, and fragile beyond belief. This is a scarier world to be disabled in. Did any of my readers go through Sandy?

"We Who Are Not As Others"

A family member was watching this movie, it is not my usual fare of choice but I watched it curious, about how they showed people in the 1930's with severe disabilities. Some of the movie is sympathetic to their plight such as when one of the Little People affected with dwarfism points out how they are made fun of, and he is made a mockery of, instead of being treated like the man he is.
Boy I could relate to that and said, yes, the world sees you as just your "body", too many times. The smiling mocking grinning faces surrounding him during a few scenes, reminded me of a few times I faced especially as my weight gain came on and I became a "joke" to some wicked people around me.

For us super-fat people there can be those who do mock you and or infantilize you. One thing I always faced was the assumption by the outside world, that I was "slow" and "mentally deficient" based on my body weight. Even in the size acceptance world, those of us who have breached a line are not taken seriously, ignored and dismissed as if we know nothing even though we have lived the most severe form of the condition, that the so called experts and pundits think they know so much about. Marilyn Wann, that comment includes YOU.

The villains in the movie are also shown as hateful and dismissive of those with differences and disabilities. There are horrible things said about those with disabilities, where some of the villains call them "monsters".  This movie was very controversial even at it's time, other parts were very gross and evil, and I would not recommend this movie unless you were watching it for other reasons besides entertainment.

Obviously this being the 1930's, there was less education and people who faced severe differences and disabilities were not treated the same they are today. There was endless abuses and horrors visited upon those facing rare conditions. There was no fat characters in this particular film, the "freaks" ranged from people with no arms or legs, or missing their legs,various forms of dwarfism-Little people, a "bearded-lady",and a "thin man", thrown together for the sake of working for a "circus".

Why do I bring up "Freaks"? I was thinking about what people like this have faced in history, and how many were not taken seriously and their very humanity was denied as shown in this movie. While in the age of TLC shows, and such, there is more acceptance for those who are very different,  and more education, after all Abby and Brittany now work as math teachers,  there does remain a bit of the "side-show" with all this....



 When I had my 400lb plus weight gain within 2 and half years, I know I crossed the status from "normal" status to what could have been considered "freak" status. Today I gather the occasional glimpse and stare, but near 700lbs and since I was still able to walk out in public, the googley eyed stares stay with me to this day. Psychologically all I can tell you is the effect was overwhelming, in my case, things made far harder from the fact I was normal or near normal until my mid-20s. Even trying to explain this to counselors and in other formats, I definitely entered territory, that most normal people could not even understand.

Years ago, even 400lb people were deemed rare enough to be put on the stage, which should tell you something about how we have been fattened up for multiple reasons. The man below was a professional "circus fat man". Today we would see at least 10 near his size in your average mega-store.

[source for pic, warning anti-fat people]

These feelings of being "not physically normal" and realizing I did not fit into the normal web of society in many facets, let to an interest I developed into other people who did not fit the mainstream due to whatever medical malady. In those early years as my body went mad, the emotional hits were as hard as the physical ones, sometimes I do not know how I got through it. Perhaps knowing that others faced even worse and more severe emotional and physical challenges gave me the courage to march on.

While probably 99% of the world brought books like this to GAWK, I bought them to ask, how did these other people handle things? How did they manage to face the world and what could I learn from them? While I of course have personally known those facing everything from severe disfiguring facial maladies to dwarfism, I wanted to especially know what those who dealt with being superfat had to say and what they faced.

In fact most books detailing the lives of "freaks" [an unfortunate title] that, did speak of the lives of the severely overweight. One thing I noticed in these books for the super-fat people who predate the 1970s and 80s, glandular conditions and malfunctioning metabolisms are pointed out as a serious problem for the rare person. Seems to me there was far more wisdom back then at least on that score.

What does it mean to have become one of the world's heaviest people? It definitely does not bring a life that is easy. One common thread I noticed that helped people survive, was finding support within either family or a network of friends or a kind partner. For me I know having my husband stick by my side, helped my life immensely. This is a life where one either forms a strong will, or one doesn't make it.

In days past, many did take to the sideshow circuit, which was a very sad statement of those times.
Thank God, those days are over. There is a reason I put no pictures up on this website of myself because I do not want to be made into a "sideshow" but to have my thoughts held to the forefront.  Very super fat people who do put their pictures online outside of a controlled setting such as a social website with privacy settings are taking a chance of having those photos used for nefarious purposes and by the fat haters of the world.

I am fascinated looking at the pictures of the very fat people of the past, I have even used some of these pictures in a respectful fashion. To me their humanity is what matters, and it is interesting to find a selection of pictures where people actually look like me. I often wonder what their lives were like? Were they loved? Were they treated kindly? Did they live in towns where they were treated with respect? I would move from a place that treated fat people horribly to a very small town where I was treated well by the locals, here where I live now, people are respectful and kind as well too.

Did they have some of the same thoughts, that I have faced? About how they feel so "different", and feeling the effects of never looking like anyone else, feeling so different and out of the mainstream? Was their emotional life like my own? Add a swollen leg, bigger feet and a hearing aid, and the picture below could have been one of me.

Disability rights would bring a end to people being treated like side show "freaks", and education including more knowledge about science and medicine would help those facing a myriad of health conditions, though sadly when it comes to fat people, the old attitudes seem harder to get rid of. 

How many of us now are dismissed and our humanity denied? There definitely needs to be far more understanding out there.

See: "Your Future as a Circus Fat Lady"

Natural Thyroid?

I would like to know from my readers has anyone taken natural thyroid? What were your results with it?

I Reject The Hamster Wheel

One thing I tell people is they have too many standards imposed on people, how many have low self esteem today because they are not a rich successful star of some sort? How many suffer on the hamster wheels of being told they must have the perfect job, perfect body, perfect career, and perfect life? Even Facebook can be an "achievement" contest,where people post pictures that highlight the more positive aspects of their lives as if they are trying to sell their "brand". The people I trust more are the ones who can relay hardship rather then endless bragging about vacations.

I was raised in a critical, hyper-perfectionistic atmosphere where love was in short supply and long lists of your endless shortcomings were announced. When I later became fat, some of the thin family members saw it as a personal affront like I had chosen this way of life. This is why I haven't seen a relative step over the threshold in years of my apartment. This year instead of dragging my housebound and sick self to any holiday meals, I'll issue an open invitation for them to come here and let the chips fall where they may.  Perhaps if I get more brave I will share more unusual family dynamics on this blog, but let's just say, my black sheep status remains fully intact. I plan to rewrite the Sister Fat, Sister Thin entry which was taken down.

  I have to admit even when I read self-help literature and all the focus on goals, I feel my eyes closing and wanting to nod off. The thin and fat thing definitely for women is a core component of this, where if you are fat you are deemed a failure and if you are thin, you are deemed a total winner. My life was strange, even recently going through old papers, I found an old third grade report card where I had gotten 4 As and 3Bs, and my father wrote on the back, "Five Hundred Pound Peep can do much better then this!" Yes I remember that day, where I was told, that my grades were too low and only straight As were good enough.

I was not prepared for how life really would become, early poverty, illness, resiliency wasn't on the menu in a life for where I was told I had to be perfect. Where I was not prepared for life, where I was told that what one "achieved" was far more important then just being a human being. When I was young, I did manage to get a college degree and nearly another and even a few semi-professional jobs, but as my health slide down the crevasse realized that the cries of "loser" were gathering around me. As I said love was in short supply and compassion and mercy were as well. One female relative would tell me even in recent years when I took ill at her house, that "You have nothing to show for your life!". I suppose she considered my thrift shop furnished apartment as a poor reflection on her or something.

I understand people wanting to set goals and thinking that going forward in life is a good thing, I think these are positives as well rather then just sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life. Some of my goals is to get a graphic novel done, complete a physical therapy program and stay alive. But sometimes I get worried about all the standards that human beings are expected to meet and the messages they get if they do not do meet them. I told a group I belong to which is a self help group, "I am tired of goals and all these standards, all they do is make us unhappy, a lot of it is about making us ever consuming consumers via our overlords!" By "overlords" I mean those who set the standards, corporate pundits and all. Those who profit off telling you what to care about and working you into the ground.  You know the people who write the women's magazines, and tell you that you must have everything from a perfectly flat stomach...WHY? to totally smooth feet to a house where every counter top is gleaming 24/7. Here is another point, has anyone on their deathbed ever said, "I wish I spent more time at the office?"

 I tell people jump off the hamster wheel! Even Europeans and those from other countries are saying Americans have forgotten how to be happy and I think its true. We are in a growing narcissistic society where personal achievement is everything and happiness and love are in short supply, along with this is one reason disabled people are facing some hardships.I avoid all the political nonsense on TV where they want to tell someone like me, I am the reason the budget is collapsing, while they paper over multi-billion dollar bail-outs and call for even more wars that will cost trillions of dollars. Being superfat in a society, remember I do not wear a sign that says "GLANDULAR CASE" HERE, where people see you as a sign of everything evil in society posting a picture of a 600lb hapless man on a scooter, is not easy either. Yes, I have had "Loser" ring through my head long enough. What entitled me to survive? To see God's standards and to realize our society has gone nuts, and psycho dissolved in a spasm of self-pride, where love of others is suppressed behind impossible standards. Well who determined these standards? Very few question where they come from. Even in some psychology magazines they tell people set goals and it will seemingly make your life perfect. Sometimes I think people would be happier if they were told they could go have a little bit of fun and rest instead.Note to the babyboomer generation, [sorry in advance to the good babyboomers I know] people age die and get sick, bad things happen, not everything on this earth is fixable. Life is short, I do not want to chase a carrot on a stick for the rest of my life.

One trap fat people fall into is, the life deferred for when they will be thin. Supposedly they tell me I will become a thin person if I set enough goals or even get the diet just right. Trust me thin people are in shock at what I cannot eat.  I know people mean well and have the best intentions, but this week I am just trying to keep from throwing up and having bowel pain, pears and bland food are winning.  I woke up long ago and thought, I will never be what THEY want me to be. I have not met any of the standards. I am not thin. So what now?

I jumped off the hamster wheel. 

and I measure my "achievements" by other standards.

NOT THEIRS.

Losing a Friend

This week a close friend of mine died, and I have to admit, I've been taking it hard. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and 3 weeks later was gone. Just a month ago as she was selling her house, we thought everything was alright. So it hit me like a ton of bricks, another friend gone, an empty place where a loved one once stood. I am still crying from time to time. My grief feels intense, and her death seems intermingled with the grief I had of leaving our shared community. Two other friends have died there recently as well. Everything on this earth is so fleeting.

Such issues definitely bring up one's mortality. Three good friends of mine have died in the last three-four years. I have my pictures and memories left. Religiously I do believe in heaven and the afterlife, but one will still have the pain of missing someone, and realizing they are gone. Most people when they hit their 40s do lose people and some of my friends who died were older then me.
I suppose this is something no one ever gets used to.

For me, losing friends can hit harder as I do not have a close family that is really part of my daily life. In many ways friends like this one were my family. Even when you lose someone, such issues come up as realizing the nonsense this world has you so busy with, everything about looks, appearances  and realizing life is so short. This friend stuck by many convictions, and cared about things. She stood up bravely for a number of causes including protesting the false wars that have bankrupted our nation. while we did not agree with everything politically she cared about the future, young people and people having a better life.  She was fun to talk to, she was idealistic about life and cared about the deeper things in the world and about other people. I will miss her so very much. I am thankful to the friends who have been supportive during this time.

Shopping in the grocery store getting worse

I avoid Wal-mart like the plague but I have noticed the grocery stores are getting harder to deal with prices like $8.99 for a pound of turkey lunch meat?You got to be kidding me. Sure I want higher quality stuff rather then what they make from mechanically separated stuff, but that is insane. I have noticed this certain grocery store is stripping down all the organic brands, all the "off brands" for the mega-corporate favorites that are all full of MSG and other bad things. I am wondering if my normal weekly shopping will have to be more transferred to the health food store 15 miles away. Since husband does majority of shopping, I am not sure if he wants to go on that long of a haul but he is noticing more of my needs are met there such as being able to buy almond yogurt and health food things in bulk. It being fall I have had more access to good produce and pears from veggie and fruit stands which will take me into mid-November. A good friend also has brought me tomatoes, pears and fruit from her family's farm which has made eating a more enjoyable experience. It is strange to go to a grocery store and know that most of the food contained within will make one sick, finding the good stuff can get harder and harder, though this grocery store still has a good produce section and that is where 60% of the food is now being brought supplemented with meat and other items. I even try to get a hold of some seaweed for idoine, the health food store sells some smoked seaweed snacks which a couple people asked me "How can you eat that? but I want to get some more because I swear when I ate that stuff I felt far better. It seems to me the grocery stores are stripping down a bit, at least locally, I hope this is not a nation-wide trend but when you see preservative free independent brands being taken off the shelves everywhere you look that is not a good trend.

Always Censored

The Burning Platform I wondered why they did not post what I had to say? The website Washington's Blog did post my comment. So I will give them that. It is interesting how many simply want to silence the 500lb woman? What do they find so disturbing about what I have to say and these are websites that dive deep into political and other controversial issues so that makes me ponder. I basically attempted to post on there what I had posted on Washington's blog.

This is a blog that has some good information so I would like to ask you PLEASE PLEASE study the issue of obesity in America far beyond the hyper-personal responsibility, "you lazy fat Americans". You are right that something MORE is going on. We are being fattened up by plan, beyond those like myself who watch their endocrine systems collapse bombarded by a toxic, dysfunctional system. I found out that rats are fattened up PURPOSEFULLY and KNOWINGLY by lab technicians and researchers using MSG, so ask yourself why is it being poured into just about all our food?

http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2011/10/msg-is-used-to-make-lab-rats-fat-how.html http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/search/label/Obesity%20Conspiracy

Add to that the GMOs--a recent study proved that they cause obesity, and the fact that ANIMALS and BABIES [who are 6 months old and unable to go buy hamburgers by the sack] are getting FATTER too. [see articles above] Americans are being fattened up by plan. The megacorporations profit off this suffering. The pharmaceutical companies will as well. People will not live as long--population control. They profit off the adulterated food and the chemicals poured into it to make it addictive. No one, absolutely NO ONE who is severely obese, CHOOSES IT, it is one of the most stigmatized positions to be in. The suffering of the results of severe obesity are beyond the pale. I have suffered them all. [by the way the size acceptance movement is no help either while they are right about treating fat people with respect as human beings, they just say accept the fat, as it piles on and is the outcome of disturbed metabolisms] 

The fat people on the scooters are the canaries in the coal mine, for the garbage food, endless acute stress, and environmental toxins of a destructive culture. 

  You wrote this: "But when you consider that 160 million out of 232 million adults in this country are either overweight or obese, along with 11 million adolescents, there must be something more sinister behind the phenomenon. " 

YES THERE IS SOMETHING SINISTER. I am fat and something is going on......

FOOD BRAND CHART that says it all!

Hmmm, I know that 5 major corporations run just about all the news, which is why there is so many lies in the news. How much of our food traces back to a small number of megacorporations? Click to make picture larger. 

Adiposopathy

Adiposopathy 

That's a new word to me...

"metabolic syndrome is something I've heard doctors toss out, it goes with insulin resistance and PCOS.

Adiposopathy {"sick fat"} and it's relationship to metabolic disease.



Is adiposopathy (sick fat) an endocrine disease?

Pressure Sores and Kidney Stones?

It seems everyday, there is a new health problem. I found it interesting kidney stones can go along with Chrohn's so wondering about the source of the digestive disorders.  My diet has been VERY LOW fat and free of MSG, and other foods to keep a handle on things. Having the worse short term what feel like the UTIs in the world and then seeing these little yellow balls, is really weird. I had the back pain too. Fears of my kidneys failing are with me. I have been a controlled diabetic, except for two months, in the last 10 years with an A1cs under 7.0 the majority of the time but sadly perhaps damage is done anyhow. These still need to be diagnosed but it's something and recurring often. I do not think it is normal either to pee orange "sand" that is far larger then average sand crystals.  I am seeing a nurse now, and guess I will be explaining more when she comes. One new hideous development has been developing pressure sores, I always was limited in time in sitting up on the computer an hour or so at a time due to bloating but now I have to watch out for these. I asked the doctors why this is a problem now, but they told me being this overweight and aging it can come on.  One thing that worries me is I am not sitting for hours and hours, the longest is maybe a movie, I have to get up enough to do things intermittently, even your average movie time, I need the bathroom at least once.  I am sitting on a Lazy Boy that gives me more time, but having to type from the side with the keyboard on a chair. Good ergnomics are long gone!

Pressure Ulcers, CMS Changes, and Patients of Size: What Are the Issues?

My sugars have been better, and I have found I can walk better, and faster and further on the walker not having to worry so much about tottering from my bad balance, but I am still staying so obese with now much lower interest in food.  I do feel UNWELL, it is like feeling of malaise, exhaustion and have for some time this has gone in tandem with the digestive disorder of abominal pain, and roller coasters of diarrhea and constipation. I am even wondering if something more is going on with thyroid or parathyroid. I have prayed to God for healing and comfort. What is odd is just the other day I was on a size acceptance related board, and it was a discussion regarding HAES and I wrote "Fat causes suffering" and a lady who admitted she was 300lbs said "No it does not!" This is my reality whatever hers for today.

They have told me too I am having MULTIPLE vitamin defiencies, I take B12, have needed B3 and take Vit D. I am very low on vit D. Some of this stuff is getting complicated even for me. I wondered about gallstones of course, but all pain is LOWER abdominal and of course having back pain and seeing where the stones have come out, it's more obvious it's kidney related but then I do not know how gall stones are all passed.

South Park and Super Fat People on Scooters

I saw part of this show the other day when channel surfing but did not watch the whole thing. I consider South Park a raunchy show but catching a glance of this show mocking fat people on scooters was troubling. I often have thought about how superfat people are viewed in our culture and the blame and more is always there, as if someone would chose to be in a scooter and fat.

Who would choose not being able to walk? I found this article too commenting on the superfat in scooters:

 DECLINE, DECAY, DENIAL, DELUSION & DESPAIR

"If I wanted to be politically correct, I’d call the fat asses cruising on their “free” rascal scooters, the weight challenged disabled on their powered mobility enhancement vehicles. You know a trend has become a massive scam, when South Park dedicates an entire show to the shame of obesity and the scooter brigade. The majority of the scooter squad jamming up the boardwalk was less than 50 years old. They weren’t disabled. They were just too obese and lazy to wobble down the boardwalk to the next junk food joint. They were certainly in the right place. The Wildwood boardwalk is home to pizza topped with cheese fries, chocolate covered bacon, fried Oreos, funnel cake topped with powdered sugar, and 64 ounce sugar laced lemonade. The place would make Nanny Bloomberg’s head explode." 

This author is right about many aspects of our declining society, but sadly he goes along with the "lazy" fat people meme eating everything in sight. You know the one the diet industrial complex shoves down our throats every minute? Aren't the thin people too eating while on vacation at the board walk? At least he admits given America's obesity rates that something SINISTER is going on, and I left a comment and agreed I know using a scooter myself, only in large grocery stores in my case which provide them since both husband and I are too weak to lift a over 100lb scooter into the back of our van now and cannot afford a lift, that having shows like this only make my life more difficult where judgments abound. If only that "lazy" fat person would walk, people think. When I was even heavier and used my scooter, the scooter meant MORE ACTIVITY then sitting at home but such a thing is lost on most. I also got off my scooter using it to go from POINT A and B, to walk around shorter distances. If I tried to walk in a store the size of Wal-mart, I'd collapse, I could not buy things. At least now I know I could walk slowly from the back and not die, if the scooter broke down which has happened before. I use a walker, in my case making up for vertigo and balance issues that are Meniere's related. It looks like this but wider.  

The sad thing even with this mobility device, one where I still have to walk and burn up all the calories these people think I should be burning, I can see some of these guardians of what is proper snarkily wondering why someone my age is using a device usually used by the advanced geriactric set.

The world already makes fun of those who have to use scooters. Check this site out "Fat People Riding Scooters" Here they especially focus on fat people getting fast food in drive-throughs. Don't they realize most of these people aren't driving and the scooter is serving as their "car"? I would say stay as far as possible from the poison called fast food but why is it a crime for fat person to eat lunch? What about all the thin people eating there?

What do these shows say about fat people? Fat people are presented as lazy blobs who eat everything in sight. To be frank with my readership, there is nothing more frightening then losing the ability to walk. One's heavy body then is source of untold suffering. When I hurt my leg some months ago, my immobility frightened me, after being fat this long, I've learned to take pain dragging myself along. Who would choose being chained to a scooter just to make it across a store? Most places too, are NOT scooter accessible either. The fat people stuck on the scooters, most wish they could walk like the thin people. I walked for fun for miles before my weight gain. I miss it.

Anyhow sad to say TV land just added to the burden of us all.