Are You Fat Because You Don't Do Enough Housework?

Study links obesity in women to not doing enough house chores 

The obesity study examined what women were doing 50 years ago; managing their homes. 

The New York Times recently came under fire for reporting on a controversial study published in the journal PLoS One, which linked a decline in time spent doing house chores to obesity in women. Because the research focused on house work and females only, women around the country decried it as sexist, tweeting their outrage at the New York Times for publishing the article. 

“WOMEN: You’re fat because you don’t do housework anymore. (Nice double whammy.) #whywasthisevenastudy,” tweeted Sarah B, reported by Yahoo! Shine. But what critics failed to note was the research was a follow-up to a 2011 report on physical activity in the workplace.

I am BAD at housework, so this article made me worry a little bit. I think there are good fat housekeepers as well as bad ones but sadly I fit in the bad category. Some is not my fault, my body can't do some of what is mandated but as you will see cleaning never came easy to me.

The picture above is NOT of my kitchen, but how would you cook in a kitchen like the one above? That would take literally HOURS to clean! I keep my own kitchen counters as bare as possible. Those are probably the barest table-tops in the whole apartment!

My theory about this, the thin people are doing more housework, since it's easier to move at least when it comes to those who are supersized. The tyranny of housework continues for women. I can't imagine life for women with children where life is nothing but housework and cleaning up after them. I and the husband can eat dinner at 10pm at night [yeah I know not recommended] because I put it off, but if you have kids to cook for, that isn't going to fly.

Fortunately I have a husband who does my laundry for me and dishes but there is some care-taking involved in our situation. I do the cooking and to save money do cook things from scratch, like stuffed cabbage with rice and ground turkey, which I plan to make tonight. But I am so terrible at housework. I hate it!  Housework did not come easily to me even when I was smaller and could move, because of the organizational skills involved. Get up and try and clean the sink, realize you are out of sink scrubber! Get up and try to dust the furniture, oh I need a rag and what do I clean it with? Where do I put these things? That question comes up all the time to the point in frustration I have gotten a giant plastic bin, tossed things into it, but then that usually ends up sitting around for a couple weeks until I figure out what to do with everything in it.

There is always more interesting things to do or look at even when I am housebound that range from writing on these blogs to messing around with my stamp collection or reading.  Cleaning is dull, and when you are poor, and live in apartments furnished in garage sale/estate sale a la mode, you are not going to get the shiny results you see on TV, your old stuff may be less dusty, and dirty but it will be still old  when you are through. It makes motivation hard for cleaning, the results just aren't going to be the same.

My husband tells me he doesn't want me to watch Hoarders anymore but I still do. He says I get too weird about how I am going to turn into one, and too antsy about cleaning and housework. Why? I relate to those people. They are bad at cleaning and organizing too like me. I notice a lot of them are overweight, and some seem to have severe illnesses where they can barely move around and I wonder if some just got too sick to clean. Of course that worry is on the back of my mind. During my worse kidney stone week, I would drag myself out of bed to shower, and toss a few dishes in the dishwasher but I was not getting much else done, my husband had to do it all!

 While I can easily throw away and give away things and the thrift store gets to do a pick-up at least twice a year here, it seems one could become a Hoarder easily. I know Hoarders have more going on regarding severe depression and feeling like they have to keep every item due to a mental disorder, but you wonder why is this growing more common?

My saving grace against outright Hoarderdom, is a snippet of germphobia, where I have to wipe down the kitchen in watered down bleach at least every couple weeks imagining the growing germs and bacteria that could take over and an asthmatic oversensitivity to smells. The bleach isn't easy on the breathing either as last week, I cleaned out the bathtub standing above it with a scrubber I got with a rug cleaner pouring some bleach into it and overdid it and made myself cough and wheeze. Cleaning stinks for me because the only things I can handle at all are watered down bleach, dishsoap and murphy's oil soap, everything else makes me wheeze like crazy, the bleach, I have to use in small amounts. Ammonia, that stuff is so horrid, I'd be on the floor. We take out the trash everyday because I can't stand the stink, that means if I throw away some old chicken, it is removed right away.

However while I'm desperate to keep the germs, outraged landlords and health department--[just kidding] at bay, I could see me slipping into a major housework fail. Lack of money does influence having to stick with broken down furniture and not being able to "decorate" the way I'd like to.  Right now only best friends would be allowed in this place. My housecleaning standards do not meet many people's, sometimes I ask how do they do it? Their houses look like museums! Many of these people have more money then me, but I think of the sheer exhaustion involved. One thing, cheap apartment rugs are the bane of my existence, if I could have smooth wood floors to clean instead of this stubborn dirt magnet called an old apt rug, I would be very happy. Please landlords no more crummy cheap apt rugs! People living in apartments even with expensive rents, to stay out of bad neighborhoods, don't have an extra 100 a month to clean the stupid things. My friend's Bissell, which I used over a course of a week--a normal person could have done it in acouple hours, cleaned a lot of the dirt up but the rug is still far from great-looking.

My body often does not want to do it. It tires me out. I am not good at it, even on a good day. The mountain of stuff seems to pile up. I have spent too much of my life in places where there is simply not enough room or places to put anything. Things are better then the single rooms I was forced to live in earlier in life but it's just too little. This apt has no mud room, no storage unit, and while it has a few closets, I have 20 something plastic bins full of art projects, materials, stamp collection stuff, card making supplies, papers, writing, piled up all around here. Add in 3,000 books, that is a low estimate, and you can just imagine what my apartment looks like.  I don't know what to do with it, frankly.

What my bedroom would look like if I never threw anything away since I love to read everything I can get my hands on.What is that dried up scary looking iguana thing, an old pet?

 

Due to the health reasons, I tried to get a home health aide, but being married and already having a husband that does my laundry, errands and trash carry-outs, I am not considered eligible. Yes I've checked. I also had the thought, well I have to try and do as much as I can as well, to keep mobile, but I am SO BAD at it. I find cleaning so mind-numbingly dull. Even as I sit here, I think I have to go shower, and do something about the tub again, and boil rice for dinner later, and clean up some of these dirty clothes and take my pills, and wipe down the counters. Even on my computer table which has one broken off leg which is propped up by more plastic bins of stuff, I look at 3 pill bottles, our digital camera, an Old Harper's magazine, an used up Energizer battery, my diabetes tester, a neglected bottle of glass cleaner, some postcards, a disc a friend sent me and an old jewelry box, along with the computer and it's necessary parts. When I clean I just don't know where to put anything anymore.

I grew up with a mother who kept her house like a museum, you could eat off the floor, everything was put in it's place. This is how my sister and mother live today but their houses look easy to keep clean with smooth polished floors and shelving and cabinets and SPACE for everything. My family growing up lived in 2-4,000 square foot homes, I have 800 square feet to work with and far fewer resources in terms of buying organizational helps and actual cleaning supplies. I also do have relatives who BECAME hoarders, which include two aunts. Both were very poor at the time as well. Both allowed their trailers to become filled with trash. With that kind of family history don't you think I have a reason for some of my worries? So I've seen hoarding first hand and what it does to people's lives and I am determined not have it happen to me, poor or not. I'm one of those type people where stuff sometimes feels more like a burden more then a blessing. What is scary is we sold off a lot of our possessions for years on ebay to make ends meet so I guess things could be worse.

I have read the helpful websites like Flylady, but then what happens if you go bleach and clean the kitchen down, and then end up so exhausted, that's all you get done for the day? You end up in spot clean mode where the WHOLE is never cleaned. Once I hired a housekeeper for 10 dollars an hour, to clean out my bathroom but then I couldnt afford her for more then a few and I probably needed her to work 20 hours to clean this place out the way I wanted it. Call for volunteers? Impossible, I tried. Professional organizers you have to be wealthy to afford. I make myself to do lists and bumble through the best I can, my husband helps too as much as he can inbetween his own work.

I don't want to be the stereoptypical "messy" fat woman, so this stuff drives me crazy. If I won the Lotto, I know I would get rid of everything that was old and this old rug, and would spruce up everything far more. If anyone has any advice, I am welcome to it. Are people fat because they don't do enough housework? I don't think so, all I know is that I am BAD at it!

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.

Mobility Issues: The Other Day I Could Barely Walk

When this size, one considers mobility a precious commodity, it can make or break your life. When walking ends, normal life ceases to end. Not being able to walk to get to the toilet, or to function, means the nursing home is coming for you, and to be honest, it really scares me at times. It's not like even my stronger burly husband can pick someone up of my size or even roll me around if I needed care.

The other day, I hurt my leg, a really bad pulled muscle in the back of it, or something, it has hurt for two weeks. I think it is finally healing up, but there were times in the middle of the night, getting up after sleeping was always the worse, I could barely walk, I actually had to use two canes to get up, one my normal standard cane, and also my other newer cane with 4 small feet at the end that can stand freely. It got ludicrous hobbling my way to the bathroom with  a cane in each hand, praying for the pain to stop. Fortunately this injury was less severe though it seems to be an acute one, caused by too much motion. Another ongoing problem is a heel spur, and the doctor has told me to wear shoes with support. I did have a relative buy me some new very hard Birkenstocks that are supposed to offer support for this type of thing but it's taking me time to get used to them.

Today I can walk almost normal though there is still some pain if I do too much. I made myself walk around thrift shopping on purpose once it was possible to build back up this last weekend. My walking is such, I can only handle walking around small stores, big grocery stores forget it, that means a scooter. I do keep walking even in winter when housebound I will go up and down the apt halls to make sure not to lose stamina. That is one thing to fear too gaining weight and losing stamina when the ability to move is impeded.

This is one issue that is neglected in size acceptance as they praise how great it is to be fat. It's not, your mobility goes in the toilet and thusly your freedom.

One thing, I used to love to walk, I was the type that considered a 2 mile sojourn down town to wander around, FUN. I used to say to everyone which is ironic now, "Let's go on a walk!". Driving by somewhere just doesn't bring in the same details. If there is anything I miss most regarding being fat, is the ability to walk around. Right now, I can handle walking into small stores. I am able to go thrift shopping if the stores are small enough but remember a sense of horror, at one favorite thrift store telling me, "We are moving to a bigger place" when I can just now barely make it to the back of their store.

Fat does become a prison when you cannot walk. Sometimes I wish I could just stop eating anything, the way my metabolism is, sometimes I think there would need to be a full bore famine for me to lose anything, even months of digestive issues have only stripped off very little weight. Being able to walk for me would be a dream. I can walk [well when not injured] better then I did two years ago when I could barely make it to the apt front door, but now I'm in the race with time called aging!

Only The Positive Side of Fatness Can Be Discussed?

I knew size acceptance was bad with the censorship even years ago, but didn't know how hard and fast their ideological rules held or had grown over the ten years, I was totally detached from their world. I found this written about my blog. She had commented on that other blog in dispute with my own.

I have realized most likely I will be avoiding all size acceptance blogs, why bother if talking to these people is like talking to brick walls? I will still be on the outlook for fellow independent thinkers.

If anyone who is in my size category reads this blog, please honestly look at what I have faced, they do not want you in their movement, you disprove their false theories. Actually given I stand against discrimination against the overweight, their incredible block-headed positions that refuse to "LISTEN" have been astounding. I am ok with people who are happy to be fat, who never want to go on a diet again but explaining things from my perspective, is a perspective, they want nothing to do with. I often have said sometimes the worse hatred for the super-sized person, can come from the midsized crowd, and while I have friends of all sizes from the extremely thin to even at or near the weights I have been, you meet the types, who fear being you. You represent their deepest fears, thus the automatic loathing, anger and more. I know this is true in the hyper-radical circles of size acceptance. The claims of "you only think of yourself"--the world doesn't revolve around YOU, is just more distraction.

Let's begin addressing her points:

Every now and then, someone will make the rounds of FA blogs and basically criticize fat acceptance for being fat acceptance. They want to talk about how much they hate being fat. They want to discuss a cure for obesity that doesn’t involve dieting or surgery. They don’t BLAME fat people, of course. They just want them to stop being fat because it obviously is an unhealthy, unhappy existence. They want to talk about the “other side” of obesity.

It is interesting she mentions this as a recurring theme. I suppose they have driven off fat people like myself they wish to silence or well refuse to listen to. I guess I live an odd life, in that I can have interesting conversations with people on the liberal to the conservative spectrum, I guess I do not get this new American tendency to shut out those who do not fit your specific demographic but these women, seem even unable to engage. Their immediate reaction is to say, GO AWAY!, hands slapped over both ears. Now why is that? Where have I EVER said I want anyone to stop being fat as if I dream of a dystopian world of thin-only people? That is hyperbole to the max. As I wrote on another blog entry what is wrong with a cure? None of them ever answered that. Strange how they never have an answer to such questions.

No I do not blame fat people but obviously this person BLAMES me, for not being the super-healthy, extremely happy fat icons she only accepts in her inner circle. That is yet another level of extreme hypocrisy. As I have said on this blog, if you are dealing with severe obesity, your very existence threatens their whole fat acceptance house of sticks.

Our culture is full of opportunities of discuss the “other side” of obesity.

Where? Is she telling me I have to slink back to the diet mongers and fat haters, because I will not drink the fat acceptance Kool-Aid, slap a smile on my face and hide the truth? Is that what she desires of anyone who speaks the truth about fat? I have to pick one side of the other? Where on the web matches this blog?

That “other side” of obesity is all that really gets discussed.

Where? There are things I discuss on this blog that have been discussed nowhere else.

It is fat acceptance that is the “other side” of obesity. Because of the near total opposition to our ideas, we have created safe spaces to discuss the positive side of being fat, how to live a satisfying life while fat, and advocating for fat rights as we are.

Ironic how she brings up safe spaces, safe spaces with bars on the windows, maybe... I can address that, pretty bluntly. I am a very large woman, I agree with them about being against the discrimination and functioning at your best while fat, but WHAM, down comes the boom for my other viewpoints regarding obesity or even sharing factual aspects of my life. By the way, she can try to portray me as a woeful victim that should be shoved over the shining fat happy people boat but I am not. This is why I can confront these people in these lies. I am not the type to slink off, and say, "Oh I am sorry." No, I am not sorry for sharing my experiences, or for questioning the status quo.

We discuss what it is like to be fat as well as [insert intersectional identity here]. Yet even this is too much for people opposed to FA. We do not do enough to talk about the “other side” of obesity.

What is "intersectional identity"? Sometimes this liberal new academic speak escapes me. I discuss what it is like to be fat at the higher weights, and she does not like it. She wants it hidden? Why? One thing about this blog, being this weight and stepping out to admit what it is really like is not easy. The world screams at you to go back in your hole and shut up! Well these fat acceptance denizens are the leaders of that.

Well, guess what. That’s not what we do. That’s not what we’re about.

So what are you about? Certainly not being welcoming to people of all sizes of fat.

From what I can tell you are about imposing censorship, control of free speech, thought control, dumbed down thinking, and more disrespect towards those who are in the higher weights.

If you want to do that, go someplace else. FA is not for you, apparently,

Well she is right, FA is not a movement for me, it has become a movement of hyper-liberal elitist radicals from what I can tell who care nothing about the opinions, lives, feelings or realities of those they pretend to represent. If she thinks her arrogant support in the sending me off from that other blog, speaks well for her FA movement, it does not. In fact, it only helps my theory, that FA remains a small exclusive, rejected movement because of these traits.

and there is nothing I can do about that. But I am not oppressing you by not allowing you to hijack my blog for a purpose to which I am opposed.

She can't handle one disagreement? What purpose is that? Does she even know what my purpose is? She seems to miss that by a mile. I want real help and support for fat people, not a bunch of "Up with Fat" nonsense brokers.

For the record, you do not HAVE to like being fat, disabled, or anything else you happen to be.

Who on the planet would like being over 500lbs? Who on the planet would like being disabled? thin or fat? I would like to ask that of her friend too over on Fat Heffalump? Isn't she angry over the fact that I am questioning the whole be happy about being fat paradigm? It just doesn't fit for all of us.

You don’t have to agree with me or any other FA blogger. You don’t have to do anything, and it’s not my job to live your life for you. I provide options and alternative views. It’s not about “oppressing” you.

Hey she can say and do what she wants. I have the right to ban anyone I do not want from this blog too, and yes it is my life. I have the freedom to say she and those like her are WRONG.

But at least I live my life free not letting others tell me what to say, do and be. Their censorship of fat people speaks for itself.

I am glad I left the fat acceptance movement. This is total evidence of what it has become. Where is the acceptance in fat acceptance? Only perky younger midsized women who have good health need apply who can sing the praises of fat to each other and live in delusion land. Now what is interesting is how closed they are to any other opinions.

I have realized engagement with these folks, is a waste of time, so dear reader, you probably will not hear of any more personal battles with them, but I will still write against the two sided set of lies when it comes to obesity. By the way I am not the first one who has encountered this, they do ban anyone [fat or thin] who questions their theories.


Even on the Dead of Winter blog, looks like I am not the first she has pushed off...as for the delusions they remain entrenched:

I have said it before and I will say it again. Fat does not cause health or mobility problems, so curing fat would do no good. We could make all fat people thin, or at least less fat, and the health issues would remain. Even if it did, we cannot make people permanently thin in a safe way.

I have realized some today are just unable to think.

The Bus is No Fun

Some months ago I saw some extreme liberal types saying that cities should do away with all cars, there have been initiatives actually taken in Europe. All I can think is to be sick, or old in such places means your life is now going to be very limited. Remember even scooting around on one of those Segway's means you need a bit of balance and a more average body weight of under 250lbs. I find such suggestions elitist too, until you are hiding behind a brick wall at a city bus stop from the armed robber with a sawed off shotgun too, all suggestions for people to give up their cars everywhere is nuts and seems to be idealistic nonsense from the young and very healthy.

Such types never think about how does one grocery shop for the week, and carry all the bags home? You simply can't, you are left to two bags at a time and at least grocery shopping every 2 days and if you are weak and sick that means being able to carry less, and dealing with angry people on the bus, where along with your fat body they resent enough, they squish your groceries as they squeeze by you. I lived life without a car for five years, and let's just say today, I would seriously consider giving up paying rent before living without a car again.

I had to ride the bus for five years in a huge metro city and didn't own a car, which was a nightmare for a woman especially towards the end who could barely walk, just even going 5 miles down the road cost me so much money, I quite going out as much. Just going to the library in a neighboring suburb, it cost 4 dollars for the cab, 1.50 for the subway to get up there, and another 2.00 on the bus to get down the street to the waiting trains. 8 bucks just to leave the house and go to a library that was about 5-6 miles away! Life there became a nightmare.

Another example was getting to the discount grocery store, two bus routes, with a 30 minute bus stop wait in between time. I couldn't even stand long enough to make that happen. That is thing that scares me about the weight gain, I had to walk everywhere, and still grew fat, even with this "increased exercise". Often they would turn off the escalators and in this huge city, elevators or any accomodations for the disabled were horrible, there was one time when I was over 600lbs and returning home from out of town, found myself in front of a "turned off" handicapped elevator three flights under ground after getting off a subway. I had no choice but to crawl up the stairs, coughing, wheezing and holding on to the railing for dear life.

As I got sicker and relented, I signed up with the disability driver service, where they pick you up in a van, you called in your times three days ahead of time. They abandoned me so much, and so badly, it really was no option at all. This included being left for 5 hours at one library before I decided to hitchhike to get to a bus stop to get me home. Endless calls, and begging to be picked up did not work--[I had not made a mistake, both times were on their list, but got constant excuses] I do not recommend hitchhiking, it is dangerous, I used to try to ask women to give me rides, and offering at least 5 dollars to do so having no other choice to get home. Due to the combination of not being able to walk well [at some of the highest weight stratospheres], and low on funds, I was forced to do this at least a few times.

One thing about public transporation that is not talked about, especially if one has to use it in let's say less genteel areas, is that open harrassment of the fat, can happen. It happened to me. It got so bad, I had to learn to fight verbally and also ward off physical attacks, which ranged from having a woman grab me around my stomach and screaming: "You are so fat!!!, you'd be pretty without this" to having a teen gang literally threaten me while I minded my own business to the point, I talked the bus driver into dropping me off in front of a police station where I called a cab to get to where I needed to go.

Even the cab drivers could be fat adversive, while some were friendly other's would try to refuse me a ride when I was at the highest weights. I did fit in the cabs but still remember the day one cabbie, told me "You can't get in my cab, you are too fat and will break the springs!". Exhausted and having waited for a cab for an hour already with no place to sit, I sat down in his cab, and refused to move and told him he could call the cops or take me home. He chose to take me home.

Today even though I weigh less, the sheer physical demands of depending on public transportation would be far more then I could do. But there was more, the worse part was dealing with the PUBLIC.

There was other bad stuff I saw too, let's just say criminal behavior which I believe if I hadn't had the career I had, being trained to deal with violent youth, with some of the inherent street smarts that came from that, I'd be just a statistic now. In other words, self defense was an important asset of life to me. I saw a woman referring to fat women as "limping gazelles" when it comes to predatory men and well, if you are superfat, and in a public area that is not a kind one, you are more vulnerable. They know you can't run very well.

I was not surprised to see this...Where this woman talks about being verbally attacked on a bus. The article is good, though I would not explain myself so much to a person who lacks basic civility. I had that happen too, hoots and insults, and sometimes just getting on a big city bus was a nightmare. I did befriend one bus driver and sat up next to him, for my main bus route, which lowered trouble quite a bit, but of course he was not there for all shifts or routes.


Thankfully today, I no longer have to deal with the "public" on public transporation and my household has a car. I know it does serve an important interest, poor people without any bus or local based busing system, need something for transportation, so I am not against public transportation, Dial-A-Ride buses, county transport serve very important uses, but for super-fat people there can be added difficulties.

Fat Man Dies After Being Stuck in Chair

Obese Man Fused To Recliner for Two Years I saw this article recently, noticing the horror on different websites as they reported about this man that actually got fused to the chair needing to be cut out of it.

"The morbidly obese man died in the hospital after he was cut out of his home as he has been fused to his recliner he sat in for two years Wheeling Hospital in West Virginia confirms the death of 43-year-old Richard Hughes of Bellaire, Ohio. The man’s girlfriend called the paramedics on Sunday after she found him unconscious. The man was wedged in his recliner where his skin was fused into the chair from prolonged sitting."

What is scary is I remember there is another time this happened! One from couple years ago: "800-Pound South Carolina Man Dies After Getting Stuck in Recliner for 8 Months"

"Webb's body was physically stuck to the power recliner and firefighters had to cut him from the chair to take him to the hospital. He died a few hours later, his body covered with sores and a "very bad odor," according to a police report."

The wife in this case claims she tried to get him help at least in the beginning..

"For his first few weeks home, Daniel Webb was open to the idea of seeing someone. Getting to them was the problem. "Everybody kept telling us, if you get here, we'll help you. We didn't have no way of getting him up, and nobody was willing to come help us," Ada Webb said. "He just kind of said, 'it's in God's hands' at that point."

I've almost been stuck in a chair before, there is one chair too low here for me to sit on, I can still get up from but barely. I stopped sitting in it, and plan to get rid of it soon. I have fallen down on the floor before, not for a few years, and once had to be helped up [was able to get up partially on my own] and other time, used the bed alone to haul myself up. I have a online friend who was my weight before, she is now deceased, who was stuck on a floor for two days til someone found her. [she was too weak from other health problems to crawl to the phone] These cases frighten me because I can see a fat person of super size getting stuck and being left somewhere. I trust those around me to help me {I'd be calling paramedics to come help me}, but it is the super fat's person nightmare when it comes to losing mobility, I've done crazy things like walk on a broken foot even, this body has trained me to take pain, but sometimes pain is too high to tolerate. The people around these folks should have gotten some home health aides, paramedics in or something even if they had to scream and rant and rave on the nightly news for someone to do something! However I bet you dollars to donuts they were poor people who feared the medical bills or being left in a nursing home to die alone. Something in these two men also just gave up. The other day, a medical professional told me there are many fat people my size they treat who are totally bed bound. I think it is a blessing I can still walk, I do not take it for granted. But people do not realize the amount of pain I push through to get through a day or how I have to force myself to do so much. As the years pass by, people wear out, and old age itself is hard enough on the thin. I'm housebound from breathing during cold and hot weather, then things get pushed too far, I can only deal with so much at a time. For a person my size, one broken leg, a badly sprained ankle, a weakened condition can mean losing all mobility and that is where the really bad stuff begins. Knowing this impacts many of my medical decisions. The cusp of immobility is close to me. It is horrific that two people suffered this way, no one should have had to die that way. The people around them FAILED them to an incredible degree. Our country is still running at a level where there was help for them even though one could question the degree of access and ruined assets via medical bills. I saw the comments on the boards where the people blamed the men. NO ONE chooses that type of life whether they had medical conditions behind their weight or a food addiction problem. To me there is abuse and neglect in watching someone die that way and live that way. That is unconscionable.

Housebound Fat People

Fat people do become housebound. I am considered housebound [really apartment-bound] though in my case, on good weather days, where breathing is not compromised, I can make it out.

Good weather days, are the narrow weather window of when it is between 45 degrees to around 78 degrees. There are fat people right now who haven't left home in days. This happens to me during winter, once I was inside for three months, the temperature not breaking the 30 degree mark. Summer can be tough too if it's a hot one. I have known fat people who gained weight and one living on a second floor apartment, literally got trapped up there for three years, as the stairs became too hard to do. There are fat people who are totally bed bound, and right now a friend in nursing home care, has informed me of the fat people my age, who cannot walk at all, or walk very minimally who have lost the ability to live independently.

One huge factor affecting being housebound is mobility factors. Over 250lbs, normal walking ceases, you can't do 5 mile walks downtown so easily, at around 350lbs, say goodbye to even traversing your local shopping mall, at around 400lbs say goodbye to shopping without a scooter at Wal-mart or store of like size. 450lbs: say goodbye to staircases, with more then a few stairs, and walks over a short distance and so forth and so on. Due to my height, near 6 feet, I can carry 500lbs and still walk, most people cannot. Normal walking and mobility is obliterated for those who cross the 500lb mark. The 700lb mark you are looking at never leaving your bed: I was young when I was near 700lbs so could still walk though looking at pictures do not know how I did it.

Normal things that people take for granted a stroll down the street, going shopping on their feet, where its more then one store {I can amble through half of a Dollar Store}, all disappears under the unwanted tons of adipose tissue. I know my mobility given one knee twist, one fall, or broken or injured limb, and it could be the nursing home for me. I needed physical therapy and walking a little bit for couple months, to even be able to take a small bag of trash out, which is about 1000 feet down from my apt door. This is a walk I take daily, to make sure I still can.

Even in my old town, I found out about two hidden away 600lb people [one I saw a few times in a wheelchair] and heard about a 900lb man, one friend helped to take care of. There are probably thousands of obese hidden away people. They are the invisibles of American culture.

There is nothing more low status then being a housebound fat person. In some ways it is really hitting bottom, and don't think endocrine sufferers receive more good will and mercy then those who suffer eating addictions. Read this discussion regarding housebound fat people on the Straight Dope Message Board, and you'll see what I mean.

One thing that happens to fat people beyond the physical pain, swelling, fatigue and breathing problems that preclude making it outdoors, is the social stuff. I was very spoiled enjoying a small rural town, [I still want to go back!] that was 30 years behind the time, under 7,000 in population, so with time people got used to me, fat or not, and being able to go around freely knowing except for the rare inerrant teen, who would make jokes on occasion. I did volunteer work, had a good small church and friendly people who worked around my health problems. Going back to stares and people who don't even say Hi back, has really gotten to me after years of the complete opposite. Fat people in other words, have disappointment, ridicule, overt discrimination, rejection and ostracization, all send them back home. In other words no place is made for them. Dealing with the outside world becomes a source of pain not of joy.

Social distress becomes more the norm, rather then feeling part of things. Others living in more urban areas and I have experienced this too, know that being super-obese and less able to run, in high-crime communities or ghetto communities, it's like walking with a target painted on your back. Add in poverty and having to deal with the indignities of public transportation and rude people, and one sees how fat people become motivated never to leave the house.

But for most, it is the physical factors, the sheer fatigue of hauling a very fat body around coupled with the lack of support. This country too, while it has endless clinics, drop-in centers, groups, for drug addicts and alcoholics, has absolutely very few helps for the obese, they are either shoved in nursing homes with the Alzheimer patients and extreme elderly or have the choice of 3-4 centers [why so few?] that do anything for the ultra-obese. The numbers of housebound fat people are growing.