3 Things your Critics Should Know

I’ve found myself eating without thinking. I’ve had a desire for sweets and I think it has more to do with stress and anxiety than a physical craving. I have a very hard time stopping myself when I’m like that. I can observe myself and say “stop!” but it doesn’t work. It’s like Jackal and Hyde. I know it sounds like an excuse but it’s truly how it is. I know some people don’t understand what it’s like to overweight. Some people think it’s just laziness and unwillingness to change.  Some, like someone close to me, thinks you can just “knock it off”. It doesn’t help the problem when people think you’re making it up or are just lazy. I’m not! This is very comparable to a drug addiction. I’m not in control 100% of the time. I’m not ME 100% of the time. There are three things that are most important for your support system and critics to know:

1. I have a different relationship with food than you do. They might have a happy/healthy relationship with food but mine is more comparable to an abusive one. I can’t just get up and leave, there are issues here!
2. My body is different than your body. For example, when you walk up stairs, you don’t give it a second thought but for overweight folks, it might be equivalent to you hiking a quarter mile up hill (it varies but you get the point). So the fact a heavier person poops out after a fight of stairs, doesn’t mean they are lazy, it means their body is out of shape and and had to work as hard as you would on a quarter mile hike up hill.
3. Sympathy, not blame. I know it’s almost second nature to blame a fat person for their weight. I’m not saying we are innocent victims but try to not write us off as lazy, pathetic and self absorbed. Most of us were raised on bad habits of our families long before we knew better and by the time we did, it was a hardcore habit. Also, some of us have had horrible childhood traumas and other stresses that we use food to medicate. It’s not right, it’s not healthy and, 99% of the the time, it’s not conscious. No one chooses to be fat. We can choose what we do about it but just know that fat people are battling hardwired life long habits. Would it really be easy for you to kick life long habits?