Why are people more accepting of obesity than anorexia?
Both are going to kill you, involve very unhealthy eating habits, and as someone who has been obese and later dealt with anorexia, suck.
But if all bodies are good bodies, then why are anorexics forced into rehabs but the obese aren’t forced into a fat camp?
I understand anorexia is a mental illness but watch 600 pound life or any regular obese person (there is also BED, which doesn’t even get taken that seriously tbh) and tell me that there isn’t some mental disturbance. I know when I was my fattest, I was the most depressed and going through a lot of abuse. Food was my coping mechanism for my pain, and I guess some kind of switched turned in my head and I turned to restriction to cope.
But I’m sure if we added this picture to the post, there would be an “issue”.
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Hmm ok but perhaps we are in danger of getting a bit judgemental there, and forgetting that actually MOST obese people DON'T die from it.. and not ALL obese people eat unhealthy junk food, and SOME people have medical reasons why they are overweight.. e.g. while obesity increased likelihood of heart problems and diabetes.. there are zillions of thin people who have those things and not all obese people do.. only some..
Whereas, anorexia isn't generally caused by any of those - and it has a very high probability of killing or seriously damaging the body.. anorexia IS an illness, obesity isn't.
@Adaydreambeliever i would say that MOST obese people die prematurely due in some form or another to their obesity Most doctors also think that obesity causes premature death . Either directly or indirectly
BED is considered mental illness, as well as food addiction. The average Joe doesn’t become 300 pounds from a medical condition- you become 300 pounds because you have mental issues and you use food to cope. Anorexia is typically caused by trauma (and from my experience in the pro-Ana community, abuse during childhood), just like drug addiction, BED, and food addiction tends to be caused by some sort of trauma. If obesity wasn’t considered an illness, then the USA wouldn’t considered it an epidemic. Or there wouldn’t be thousands of deaths MORE linked to it than anorexia.@Adaydreambeliever
@AthrillatheHunt We assume that. but we'd need stats. and there arent any because they only take the stats of those who do die.. oh x number are obese.. but we can't see the y number that aren't obese that arent unwell.. And we have to remember that while many, quite ignorantly assume that obese people all eat unhealthily and can do something about it.. that's not necessarily true
@AthrillatheHunt To update. no one's saying it's great to be obese as such, but compared with anorexia then obesity, which tends to be a range anyway, is less dangerous, overall ' The risk of mortality increased significantly throughout the overweight range: a BMI of 25-<27.5 kg/m2 was associated with a 7% higher risk of mortality; a BMI of 27.5-<30 kg/m2 was associated with a 20% higher risk; a BMI of 30.0-<35.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 45% higher risk; a BMI of 35.0-<40.0 kg/m2 was associated with a 94% higher risk; and a BMI of 40.0-<60.0 kg/m2 was associated with a nearly three-fold risk. Every 5 units higher BMI above 25 kg/m2 was associated with about 31% higher risk of premature death. Participants who were underweight also had a higher mortality risk.' 'Looking at specific causes of death, the study found that, for each 5-unit increase in BMI above 25 kg/m2, the corresponding increases in risk were 49% for cardiovascular mortality, 38% for respiratory disease mortality, and 19% for cancer mortality. Researchers also found that the hazards of excess body weight were greater in younger than in older people and in men than in women.'
So, logically, if you take cancer for instance.. 19% increase assocated with every 5 unit increase.. If you look at the lower ranges of obesity.. .7% increase in risk of mortality.. it's important to understand exactly what we are seeing here and not make assumptions...many obese people don't get diabetes, don't get heart problems.. AND we have to remember thin people get all these things too but there aren't figures for that..
The real point being here.. that I was saying that the assumption that obesity is always going to kill someone is incorrect.. so really I was just rebalancing.. chucking some mediation at it..
My point of this post was the fact that one body type that could have been caused by mental illness or poor habits it’s completely fine and dandy and the other gets treated like a dirty little secret. One unhealthy lifestyle isn’t any better. Like I’ve said, I’ve been on both ends. My eating disorder started at BED. I was no more stable when I was binge eating than when I was restricting. Except I was fat, so no one bothered to take my mental health and disorder seriously until I got dangerously thin (and at that point with anorexics, they don’t even want to change). @Adaydreambeliever
